To win domination / conquest game at Emperor+ level, you need to war often and war hard.

Do not start by building wonders, but rather get a worker or two ASAP with Bronze working and chop like crazy to get the next 1-2 settlers. 2-3 cities is enough to start.

Make sure to secure bronze mine ASAP - bronze for now is your most important resource.

Don't bother with wonders, just chop to get barracks ASAP and start churning out Axemen with city raider promotions.

Once you have 6-8 Axemen (believe me, its enough), declare war on the nearest civ. Usually on Immortal or Deity that civ will be twice your size by then and have a lot more military units. The key is the civ will be gunning to your nearest city and that city should be adequately fortified and contain your entire army. If the city is not adequate for defence, pick one or two choke points at the enemy territory and fortify in their forests. AI never fails to attack you and lose disproportionate amount of units. Keep building Axemen in the meantime, after a while AI defence will be reduced to 3-4 archers per city (except capital), so you will be able to take those cities relatively easily.

After you get to 6-7 cities, your economy will force you to stop the war. Sign a peace treaty and look for the next victim. At this point you should be researching iron working, looking for iron, and also gunning towards construction (catapults).

The leading civs on deity will be twice or more your size, but do not worry, your weak economy will be more than compensated by high production and large number of cities.

If you play Romans and have praetorians, you don't need to wait for catapults to conquer the next victim - you will be able to defeat a civ with a relatively moderate army of praetorians, just make sure to attack before they get longbowmen. Otherwise, get catapults ASAP.

One of the most important aspects of war strategy that is often overlooked is AI civs declaring war on each other. Watch your neighbour's wars very carefully, those wars tend to wear down a weaker civ down to a few defenders per city. Don't hesitate, strike that civ while its down and mop up their cities before the stronger AI will. This situation happens every game, and that's why its important to have a few units scouting all the time.

After two major wars you will have 10+ cities and will be barely able to sustain your army. Do not worry, just maximize each cities' commerce and you will be able to sustain ~30% research rate. Even at a negative income, you will have enough money from captured cities to sustain your losses for a while.

Build tons of cottages and improve your economy. Now you have two choices: research towards knights and cavalry or research towards riflemen and grenadeurs. Knights and Cavalry are great when attacking, but make weak defenders when already powerful AI's start to counter-attack your cities.

A combined grenadeur / riflemen army is very flexible for both attacking and defending when promoted properly (city raider / strength / medic / gunpowder bonus). Once you have 8-10 units per border city, you can declare a war on one of the leader civs. Let them come to your fortified cities and waste enormous amounts of units attacking. Catapult their weakened stacks and destroy their armies with minimal losses. Then drive your city raider units deep into enemy territory and take their cities.

Modern warfare after this is very complex, but this general strategy will help you be one of the top civs late in the game even on Deity level.

Hi,

Just wondering if you had won any immortal or diety games. If so, could you post some save games, so that we can learn from your experiences?

No screenshot, didn't happen. ;)

What do you do if you have Caesar to your west, Ghengis to your east, floodplains to your northeast and not a lot of hills?

I tried a military approach on emperor. This is what I did, along with my logic.

The first thing to build was a work boat (there was a fishy nearby), then a worker to mine the gold tile), then barracks and four archers. My theory was that if I cripple an enemy early, I'll be able to capture all his cities later with a fairly small army, thus being able to build only cottages now, leaving them sufficient time to grow.

My archers fought 1 barb each along the way to the Romans, giving them 5 xp. Then fortified on those sweet +75% def. tiles and started the destruction of Roman suicide archers. During the breaks in attacks (their attacks on my archers), I pillaged all the mines, all cottages, and all resource-specific improvements. While expanding, I added two axemen, and kept reinforcing the archer harrassers when they died (despite good odds). Any outgoing Roman settlers got killed by my antiarcher axemen. The result was that I didn't need much production, because my small army was sufficient to cripple the Romans. I focused on expansion, and went all out cottages. Built libraries, temples, etc. When my economy stabilized (those early archers and axes cost me), I built 10 or so swords, who also practiced on Roman archers until some of them got 3 city raider promotions. Then I went and captured the three Roman cities with virtually no losses. Since the Romans were building only archers and settlers, which i kept killing, and had no productive tiles, which I pillaged (the AI will not use the workers even if you are three tiles away from them), so controlling one tile near a city is enough to make them hide the workers inside forever), I captured everything they had fairly easily. Since I also prevented their expansion, I got more land to settle myself. At this point my economy (I built cottages wherever I could, leaving +2 food to growth), which I nurtured from the beginning since I didn't need much production, was so crippled with having to maintain all those cities that I was researching at 20%. The Incas had macemen by this time, and have already completed Versailles. I had just finished researching calendar.

After finishing the Romans, I did attack the Inca too, even captured one city, and would have gone on if I wasn't so far behind in tech.

So my question is, how exactly do you research to knight or rifles before the AI gets friggin SAM, assuming you use a war strategy?


I've done it before peacefully, I've been a tech leader on emperor, having fought one war similar to the one I described above, but refrained from actually capturing anything until knights. At that point I was researching at 100%, catching up very quickly (trading one tech few civs had for 4-5 other ones), and knew my economy could sustain a few extra cities. The crippled Greeks (who also had three cities thanks to my archers+chariot harrasment) fell to three knights.

So my question is, how do you use war to your advantage on emperor? I deliberately refrained from building more than 4 new ciites in my latest game; it seems to me that the only way to keep up in tech is to start out small and eat up an opponent who I was softening up the entire game when I am ready for the costs of it. Founding an early religion helps immensely, since you DON'T want too many cities early (but the harrassment guarantees you will get them when you can afford it), you have to spend your shields on something. In my case, it was missionaries. But war? How?

Your thoughts?

I'm curious how he gets Rifles as well. Upgrading city raider swords to Grenadiers sounds reasonable, but Rifling takes a lot of beakers.

I've had some success on Emperor with early war, on my own continent, but I never catch up to the other continent before someone there wins via space race.

Another thing is, with 10+ cities early on, your slider will wind up at 0% and your units on strike. Also, I'm not buying the ability to conquer a second civ before Longbows. I need screenshots!

I thought the point about looking for a weak Civ recently done with a war was a good point. It is something I sometimes forget to do... I tend to get my war machine moving either east or west and wiping things out as I go. Picking on the weaker civs would probably make Ye Olde Killing Machine run more smoothly.

I've been replaying an emperor start (randomly became Tokugawa, continents, everything standard) several times. I started in between the Romans and Genghis, both quite close. Napoleon is on the far side of Genghis, but they are buddies from the start. Mansa is up north on the other side of some jungle.

Since the Romans founded their second city on a hill close to my capital, my first few iterations concentrated on getting archers quickly and parking them right outside his new city on a forested hill. One start found that archer get promoted a lot. On another two starts, a chariot parked in my capital kept getting promoted as he sent single archers (eventually two archers at a time, but by then I had another chariot too) to try to raid some of my cows. In retrospect, I think the only thing I could have done was to put another archer out near his capital too to keep that from sending out worker/settlers.

My best start was when I concentrated on chopping out two settlers with some warrior/chariot support and got a couple cities going on a long river with lots of flood plains, one near bronze. I then started a war with Rome to take a city where he'd mined some gold. I was waiting for currency to get peace with Rome, and in the meantime razed two more Roman cities that were too tundra-intensive to keep. As I moved on his remaining (and initial two) cities, Genghis attacked me, and I couldn't keep up. I think I'd've been a lot better off if I'd just settled for taking one Roman city, razing another, denying Rome bronze and iron, and preparing for the Mongols.

I stopped playing the scenario because I started knowing too much about the lay of the land before starting. Relevant to this thread, the lessons seemed to be: 1)Get two more cities settled quickly. 2) Make one of those cities emphasize production, the other emphasize production. 3) Choose an aggressive neighbor and deny him metal while cherrypicking his colonies and harassing his initial cities. 4) Expect war on your other front (either because your neighbor will declare or because he will likely run away in tech if you don't intervene) within about 10 turns of starting your first war.

Of course, on a start with 3 aggressive neighbors, I'd really like to know how to incite wars, but I don't see how I can do that in the bronze/iron age.

I tend to build stonehenge for expanding culture, do you guys usually build that?

I tend to build stonehenge for expanding culture, do you guys usually build that?

I've been working with using just obelisks for the pre-calendar border expansion. My reasoning was that I want to wean myself of wonders and of (at least) religions since getting an early religion seems so difficult in emperor+.

That said, I was experimenting with one start and noticed that Stonehenge was only a 6 turn build, so I did it. On that map, though, I really needed to get cultural expansion on my first three non-capital cities in order to get resources.

My best Emperor/military starts are to ignore wonders completely and go for Pottery before Bronze. Get some early cottages going and focus the capital exclusively on commerce (for the whole game). Chop out two settlers and a second and third worker, for two military production cities, while researching metals and an appropriate worker tech or two.

In Placement for the two cities, I look for a bonus food and some hills. Usually one of the two locations winds up with some kind of metal, and I don't have to change plans when I discover bronze/iron. If those cities have forests, I chop out an army of axes (also swords if possible), then invade.

Then I watch my economy completely tank and hope my capital was set up well enough to afford the new cities. While building the army, I'm able to do enough research from my commerce capital so that I'll at least have Code of Laws. Then my new cities can be irragated and I'll whip them slaves for courthouses.

After I conquer my continent, I watch for the message "so-and-so from the other continent wins space race 1822"

I tend to build stonehenge for expanding culture, do you guys usually build that?

Once, on monarch with stone in capital radius, the problem even though I chopped Stonhenge after building quarry was that I lost too much time and fuond my self cornered with four cities only, so whats the point. Perhaps I should have chopped for an additional settler or two before building the quarry with my only worker and chopping for Stonehenge. But I am not entitrely sure Stonehenge is the path for me, if I was speedy enough with all pre req techs for theology and managed to use the great prophet the Stonehenge is almost certain to generate to found chrititianity I guess so.

So my question is, how do you use war to your advantage on emperor? I deliberately refrained from building more than 4 new ciites in my latest game; it seems to me that the only way to keep up in tech is to start out small and eat up an opponent who I was softening up the entire game when I am ready for the costs of it. Founding an early religion helps immensely, since you DON'T want too many cities early (but the harrassment guarantees you will get them when you can afford it), you have to spend your shields on something. In my case, it was missionaries. But war? How?
I've been doing fairly well so far in my current Emporer game.

I started off simply by getting 3 quick cities out -- one designated for production, one balanced, and my capital for finance. (It took a lot of thinking to figure out good places for my cities this game) A little bit later, I placed a fourth city that was also dedicated to commerce.

Once they built up, I founded two more cities. (I had a bit of luck -- my borders sealed off two lovely tundra fishing villages -- one has 3 food resources, and the other has one food and a silver!)

These 6 cities put my score ahead of the other 3 civs on my continent, and into the tech leader position.


Then, my production and balanced cities have started making catapaults and swords, and then macemen, knights, and now musketmen. Tokugawa has a few nice cities next to me, and he doesn't have guilds yet. I've taken two of the good ones, and have signed peace. I plan to take the third one in about 20 turns. Two of these cities should become terrific commercial cities, and the capital has a few wonders and should be a good production city. I expect once this war is over, my empire will start pulling ahead. (I'm only barely ahead of the pack at the moment)

This could have been done earlier and swifter (before he got his longbowmen), but I'm working a lot of seafood tiles, so I had to make sure I had the galleys to defend myself first.


Up until I started this war, I've been entirely peaceful. (Though I did once bribe Alexander into attacking Victoria. Nothing much came of it though)

After I conquer my continent, I watch for the message "so-and-so from the other continent wins space race 1822"

How about making very good friends with one of the other powers on that other continent? I mean with changing religion, bribes,etc. Then move towards a defensive alliance. Get the leading power on that continent to declare war, then let them fight it out. Send reinforcements on ships, send pillaging units, as many as you can. Send spies. Disrupt them as much as possible so you can take the lead. Also, don't take a military break after beating your continent to "build and admire", just keep pushing military production in some cities, commerce/science in others. Beeline to military techs.

Alternatively, turn off space race ;) I am beginning to think deity on continents standard map is just freakin impossible to win due to early space race win; however it will be a lot tougher for AI to win other ways.

Definitely make sure to have a couple allies to war with you on the higher difficulties. You can never compete with the AI's military power on immortal or deity after the expansion phase is over. They produce units way too quickly and upgrade as soon as they learn new techs. Meanwhile you still have your rifles and catapults when they've instantly upgraded everything to infantry and cannons. Good luck getting enough money to do that yourself. So you need to get another superpower to fight alongside you so it's 2 on 1.

Once, on monarch with stone in capital radius, the problem even though I chopped Stonhenge after building quarry was that I lost too much time and fuond my self cornered with four cities only, so whats the point. Perhaps I should have chopped for an additional settler or two before building the quarry with my only worker and chopping for Stonehenge. But I am not entitrely sure Stonehenge is the path for me, if I was speedy enough with all pre req techs for theology and managed to use the great prophet the Stonehenge is almost certain to generate to found chrititianity I guess so.

That's your problem. :)

Alternatively, turn off space race ;) I am beginning to think deity on continents standard map is just freakin impossible to win due to early space race win; however it will be a lot tougher for AI to win other ways.

I'm pretty sure I'd win with space race off. That's a lot of extra turns to catch up in techs, and I don't see how you can lose once you're on equal footing with tanks and bombers.

I have won 3 games on Emperor playing the strat (default settings) and 1 on Deity (small map).

My current game I am playing as Romans (Custom game, Deity, 8 civs, Raging Barbs, No Tech trading, Terra).

I managed to conquer 70% of the main continent, by destroying Americans, French, Persians, Egyptians and Aztecs.

In the meantime, China destroyed Spain and colonized Americas.

I have about 20% more pop and 5% more territory, production is equal and my economy is about 50% behind.

I have a lot of Veteran Riflemen and Grenadeurs from last war vs Aztecs, but China has Infantry and Tanks.... I am about 20 turns away from getting Infantry.

I stopped playing last night after they declared war on me, I have a numerical advantage in units on the main continent, but I can't do anything to stop tanks and destroyers. My war strategy is to fall back to my so called Maginot Line (3 cities in the east with 60% defense bonus each). I will lose 2 Aztec cities I captured and one Persian city. However, everyone knows what happened in real world after German tanks went through Ardennes into France...

My only hope is the numerical advantage in units on the main continent. I have to somehow hold out for 20 turns till I get infantry. I switched all my cities to producing Riflemen, and once I get infantry, I will be able to do some upgrades in significant spots. I will probably launch a significant counterattack (30+ infantry), since his defence in cities is relatively weak (3-8 tanks / infantry each).

I will post some screenshots with the scores and the progress on this war.

Did you have "no tech trading" with your Emperor wins? I know you said default settings, but that's the only way I can see how you'd get rifles relatively sooner (as in before your enemy instantly upgrades everything to infantry).

My emperor wins came with default settings on Play Now. I love terra maps and play them usually. Riflemen and Grenadeurs together make a great army, but I agree on the point that it takes a lot of time to get Rifles. I most often just shoot for Grenadeurs and attack with Grenadeur / Catapults while researching towards Riflemen.

An important point when developing your terrain - cottage everything but the hills, unless your city really needs food or production. Cottaging your land is the key if you wanna be competitive on higher levels.

Strategical position of the units is important - during wars you can get away with 1-2 obsolete units in cities far away, you'll see when AI is going deep into your territory and will be able to intercept.

Keep 2 good units in your ports though! AI can unload 1-2 galleys / transports near your biggest ports during wars. Nothing major, just something to watch for!

Catapults are effective for counterattacking enemy stacks - keep approximately 5 of them in your fortified cities, when AI armies arrive let them attack your city initially, then catapult them and take out the weakened units. You can destroy their entire stack at the cost of a few catapults.

Protect your fish resources - or if you can't and AI destroys your boats - switch to Slavery and sacrifice pop to rush things - you gonna lose that pop anyways.

Try to save your units with city raider promotions. This is a minor, but a very effective trick. You cannot promote grenadeur to city raider- but you can upgrade and get city raider grenadeurs - they are VERY effective (+50% vs rifles, AI usually gets rifles to guard their cities) during the mid-to-late game.

Did you have "no tech trading" with your Emperor wins? I know you said default settings, but that's the only way I can see how you'd get rifles relatively sooner (as in before your enemy instantly upgrades everything to infantry).

You can get tech leads on Emperor. They are just harder to maintain for any amount of time.

Yes, but I don't think it's likely that you'd be able to get a tech lead when you immediately started off with war.

I don't see how "no tech trading" would help you. I never ever see AIs trading techs, not on Noble, not on Monarch, not on Emperor. But to the human player, it is a huge advantage. I don't think it is even possible to win a standard map (not just standard settings, but also a "normal" map, nothing like getting extremely lucky with resources or being able to seal off a huge area to expand in later) on emperor without trading techs. Unless of course someone here did it and cares to share?

Yes, but I don't think it's likely that you'd be able to get a tech lead when you immediately started off with war.

Depends on how successful you were in your war, and what type of war it was.

Remember pointy-stick research from Civ3? Take/raze a couple cities and sue for peace every 20 turns? Same type of thing here. Short wars with limited goals, not wars of attrition.

i think this strategy is very possible if you have a very strong early UU like praetorians. i did this with caesar last night and was able to do with, but without a powerful early UU, getting to construction is a long ways to hold off the 2nd war and once they get longbows, it makes it hard. you have to attack at the right time because once u wait few turns, your window of opportunity will vanish.

I think it's both Caesar's Organized trait and the Praets that make it work.