For some background.. I started playing Civ about 5~ months ago, and since I started reading the boards I've jumped from Warlord -> Monarch rather quickly.
Now I'm trying to make a jump that has given me fits, Monarch -> Emperor.
My main problems, as I see it (don't hesitate to add many more :lol:)

1) I don't focus enough on specialization, especially when I don't have excellent land to work with. I'm attaching a save at the end of this post where I started in isolation as Shaka (random leader) on a Fractal map, standard sea level, normal speed and I drew a medium sized island to myself, problem is, there's a fair amount of desert and tundra tiles there, and I missed at least 2 seafood resources with my cities (Only 6, which is why my tech rate is not too good..) My problem here was that I played early without a great plan. I had both stone and marble on my island, so I went with some early wonders, in a couple of early cities. I went with an Oracle -> CoL slingshot and got Confucianism (bad idea normally.. But I am :) starved here). That city has become a wealth city with my Prophets and Merchants settling in there. As far as my other cities.. I have a couple that might have decent production, but I'm interested to hear what I should've done with the land I have.

2) I fall WAY back in power/tech until the late Medieval era at the earliest, sometimes through Assembly Line even.. I'm up to 1420 AD in this game, and my early tech rate was very slow (it still is, but it's becoming better now with Astronomy and overseas trade). I'm not so worried about falling back in power, because if I play a solid diplomatic game I don't need to worry about war, and I know that it's very normal. Tech-wise, however, I fall way too far back.

3) I consider myself terrible at planning cities, my initial dotmaps always seem okay, but once I've settled as I plan, I realize that I didn't plan well. There's a small island to my south that I'll need to settle because 6 cities is not enough for me to win a game.

Any general advice on tackling Emperor would be greatly appreciated. I've won a couple of games (mostly AP diplo cheese), but lost many more.
I'll add some screenshots if anyone would like them. The rest of the AIs are on one large continent, and I accidentally accepted Willem's OB offer (He's in mercantilism)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=271411

This helped me immensely with Emperor. Sounds like alot of it would apply to you also, as I was also getting killed in early research and didn't have enough cities.

Most of my games have been diplo wins on emperor (however in most of these I didn't build the AP, I TOOK it!), but there's been a Domination or two also ;).

I can't help much with city planning. I usually wind up placing them decently, but I'm still not good giving advice with it. My problem was FOCUS, in other words I'd place a city saying "commerce!" because the land was good for it. 50 turns later it's building a barracks and military :lol:. I do less of that now though. Game experience and practice keeps my focus/decisions better.

One thing if you haven't done so, is to learn/master both the SE and CE. I'm not going to pretend to say one is better, and honestly I've found a hybrid to work absolutely best, but it's hard to just suddenly run a hybrid economy without understanding the tenets of both individually (for me, SE was a longer learning process). Optimal use in-practice is very map and leader dependent. I've run rep specialists and bulbed such a lead that the AI was defending against my cannons/grenadiers with longbows on emperor, but I've had games (including one of my domination ones), where I had the tech lead in the game for exactly 0 turns, using caste/guilds/troop spam and intelligent siege to get a massive land advantage.

Good thread TMIT, I remember reading it as it was being posted, learned a lot in there.

A solid hybrid is a must when learning, IMHO. Straight CEs can be slow to develop, and straight SEs can be a nightmare to maintain economically (which is why many SE purists adopt an "always war" type attitude, and finance their empire with pillaging and razing).

I have played (and won) a few game on Emperor, but it really is the "biggest jump" on the ladder, IMHO. So many things need to be streamlined to be successful. One thing that was killing me was units. I wasnt using a strong specialized production city to crank out my units, even garrisons. Each city was trying to build its own, and thats just kind of slow. Having a city that can produce Archers in 3 turns or less can go a long way to speeding up the development of your new cities.

That thread mentions the biggest common mistake of moving to Emperor, and my biggest blind-spot, the "I can build it, so why not?" line of thinking with such things as Markets, Stables, Grocers, etc, even Libraries and Barracks, to some degee. If you look at a city, and cant decide immediately what to build there, then build a unit and come back to it later. Chances are it doesnt NEED anything more right that minute. But if it doesnt have the food for a specialist or 2 and your running 10% slider, a Library can wait. If it cant pump out units at a decent rate, then why build that Barracks right now? Looking at the available tiles, and picturing which tiles you will want to be working as the city grows vertically, can help you decide the timing. Specialization isnt really completely about what you build, its also about WHEN you build it.

I feel as if I've finally mastered emperor, I've won my last 5 games with random leaders easily with relative ease, and have been tops in score for a lot of the game in them as well. Sadly, it's because I've gone back to my warmongerer ways. It appears that winning on emperor without taking out at least 1 opponent early, and then using that massive army youve built to keep steamrolling the next AIs it can be very difficult to win. I used to rex like hell and plan for a rifling war, now by the time rifling rolls around im securing my entire continent which on fractal usually contains at least 3 AIs and as many as 7.

In 2 of my last 3 games Ive taken out the first person to liberalism with maceman and a ton of siege weapons. These macemen are all upgraded axemen, swordsman from my first AI rush and at a minimum of CR2 and most are CR3 by this point. Beelinging construction is now a no brainer for me, catapults really make a huge difference. Give the catapults CR1 and the skill that reduces defenses faster and you can take cities much faster and not lose any of your army (besides the siege weapons), and if you have enough catapults some will probably withdraw from combat. Once you have enough land you will close any technological lead that the AI might have, Ive gone from my huge macemen stack to Infantry stacks in around 50 turns (epic speed) once my continent was secure and I was using all there juicy cottages.

The other thing that has been helping me a lot more lately is the inclusion of cottages, I was a fairly strict SE player with little to no use for cottages, but now it seems that If I lay cottages down for a few cities early I can not only keep up in tech but sometimes be the tech leader from the start. The reason why it helps is because in my warmongering I run my economy to the ground, It isn't uncommon for me to micromanage to the point of using tiles with just 1 extra commerce on them. If that's the difference between a strike and more conquest than its a good thing. Capturing cities also gets you a fair amount of gold, this gold has saved me quite a few times in my recent games. The other benefit of cottages is that your cities don't get excessively large, this may not seem like a big deal at first but being at war a lot and big cities dont mix especially before you have drama and other ways to deal with war weariness.

The difference between the axe rush on emperor and the levels below is that you probably wont be able to eliminate the AI in one war, but keeping them backwards while you tech to construction will make the later conquest easier.

Now, it's not impossible to win emperor without an early war, I have won probably 5 or so games where I don't war until rifles but these games always come down to the last few turns and having to raze someons capital after they launch or something like that. If you want to win on emperor, consistently, than you should have the mindset that you are going to be at war constantly. When you dispatch an AI, move your army towards your border, build more siege, and invade. If all goes well you should really only lose your siege, and by the time rifles roll around you will have CR3 rifles which cant be stopped.

^^^This post should be stickied somewhere. :goodjob:

TheMeInTeam:
Thanks, I had completely forgotten about that thread. I should have searched for it.

Bleys:
I tend to run mainly SE (Not in the save above, more of a SE-slanted hybrid), but I'm learning to use cottages more effectively as I go.

brades:
Thanks for the advice, what you're saying makes a whole lot of sense and I can't wait to get to a game and really focus on listening to what you've told me.
I like being aggressive but I tend to try to wipe out the AI in one war, but it seems that it's not a good idea.

Hey schwartz,

I'm the same way. I like to try to wipe the AI out in one go as well. I would recommend searching for some of Pete2006's games on these forums. He plays mainly at emperor and he has a really, really good style of conquering the AI in multiple waves. He wins mainly via domination and seems to be able to win consistently at emperor. I learned a lot reading through his games.

I agree that the way of playing brades describes is the surest path to victory. I've won every possible victory on Emperor, though, including completely peaceful culture and diplomatic victories. It's quite possible in many or most Emperor games, but warmongering always works.

yay, i helped :)

your description was excellent imo

I'm also struggling on Emperor, and I have one question regarding warring.

I often run into the problem, when I try to conquer an AI in multiple waves, that they vassal to somebody before I'm done with them, making further conquest a lot harder (or infeasible, even).

This problem of them "vassaling away" has annoyed me on Monarch also. You just can't plan your conquers anymore in the same way you could playing Vanilla.

What is your strategy to solve this problem?

yay, i helped :)
Very solid insight to the jump Brades, keep posting that kind of advice. 91 posts arent enough!

Well I just managed my first win where I actually felt in control of the game the whole time!
Lincoln on a pangaea-like fractal, won a late domination that would've been conquest except Brennus and Isabella wouldn't capitulate because "You've become too powerful for us." :lol:
Thanks for the help, I hope I can continue to win :)

The best way IMO to avoid enemy vassalise to other, is to make him

your own vassal.

Best regards,

Schwartz,

On Emperor without an early rush, see the thread by Snaaty. I don't have a URL but if you search "Snaaty," "BtS," and "Emperor." Concentrates on CE and beelining first to the GL, then to Liberalism, although there is much more to it.

I won the first 3 attempts following Snaaty's general outline. My current game, the 2nd on a Terra map, went very badly. So far I have lost it three times, now on my 4th attempt and doing OK in 990 AD.

Observation unrelated to Snaaty: # of cities early must be limited more than on Monarch. >4 is probably too many. >5 can be suicide.

You can get away with more cities on emperor than 4-5 by 1 AD (invisiblestalke says he has like 8 by then oftentimes), but to do so you must have gotten writing as a priority. Your tech will fall so you'll use libraries to run scientists, teching things you can trade to stay at parity typically (unless you're isolated, in which case I recommend a key wonder or two and early astronomy for the trade routes). That said, if you're teching carefully you can get away with 4 or so by then as long as you've set up the ability to get more soon. If you're running rep off the mids, 4 can leave you in a dominating tech position and poised to grab more land (I actually had trebs vs archers once on emperor, and that was just ugly for the AI because my trebs were obviously going to be covered by xbows and a pike or two...the classical age has no answer for that).

Snaaty's guide was very helpful for my jumps to monarch and then emperor also. It's a bit counterintuitive compared to other strats but pretty effective. The basic gist is to use archers to fogbust while the capitol grows, REX out cities to block the AI, and (as pretty much you always need to) pick up potter/writing. His strategy calls for great library (aesthetics being a strong trading tech) and a beeline towards liberalism after that (keeping power up enough to stay alive). He also suggests making CR maces, and trying to use a merchant trade mission to upgrade a good sized stack of CR maces to CR rifles. This typically can allow you to grab a lot of land as nothing really counters rifles until grenadiers and his strategy gets them quickly.

It's certainly not the only viable strategy but it IS a very good opening/strategy to practice and should give you insight/add a viable play style to your skill set. IMO archers are shunned too much early on as timewise they fogbust extremely well and pretty much dominate barbs when fortified (95% of the barbs you'll see in the early game will be warriors or archers, which will die to archers fortified in trees or on a hill very easily.)

If you want something a little different from what Snaaty does, try to pick up engineering early, enough that rival AI's don't have guilds. You can then pretty much go on a rampage with trebs/xbows which is comical. I've also seen the cuirassers used on high levels to jump an AI before they get to rifling, which can be pretty powerful with spies (they're the vanilla version of cavalry in that era...weaker on paper but you didn't have spies to easily drop defenses then. Pikes counter them about as well as spears counter elephants...not great especially if you promote a few to shock. Basically, they can dominate just like cavalry did in vanilla but the window is often small so move fast).

The common denominator in all of these is teching well, or at least trading techs the AI's don't research. My best games on emperor I got the mids (usually off stone or industrious) but I've won without them too...you need the library specialists early in the game either way to compensate for the expenses you incur while expanding.

Use the force, luke.

This is warmonger club, right? ;) With so much " rush, rebuild, rush" in here ... :p

I think I'm stable in Emperor now ( sometimes the diplo out there bemoces unmanagable ( I had a emperor game a few days ago where i was merciless dogpiled by the whole world ( without AP action ) because 2 civs had vassalized each one his continent, one of them was pissed at me and DOWed and bribed the other...not even rifling on all saved me on that one ;) ) and all peaceful victories are still possible ( I've done some so far and others with some token wars )... even peaceful SS races. Inteligent tech trading, well conducted diplo and good MM normally are enough to beat the Emperor bonuses without the need of hack and slash

But I must reckon than some warring makes the game easier.... but that is mainly because it is the only area that the AI is not boosted as the levels go up ;)

you need the library specialists early in the game either way to compensate for the expenses you incur while expanding.
It is not really necessary if you are Financial. I've just moved into Emperor difficulty and got an isolated start the other day on a random map (it turned out to be big/small or fractal, and I was on the small continent).

The only thing I could rely on was cottages and domestic trade. This got me to Optics reasonably early. I don't think I played it really well, I should have used Great People a lot more.

I'm not convinced that early specialists are the only way to cope with Emperor+ in early game. If I'm not Financial and don't have any gold resources (gold/silver/gems/fur etc.) and no good trade opportunities (as in playing on an Archi map), then I seriously consider heavy specialist use. Unless I'm trying such a game anyway.

One should not feel coerced into one specific strategy, but I agree that Snaaty's guide is really good.

It is not really necessary if you are Financial. I've just moved into Emperor difficulty and got an isolated start the other day on a random map (it turned out to be big/small or fractal, and I was on the small continent).

The only thing I could rely on was cottages and domestic trade. This got me to Optics reasonably early. I don't think I played it really well, I should have used Great People a lot more.

I'm not convinced that early specialists are the only way to cope with Emperor+ in early game. If I'm not Financial and don't have any gold resources (gold/silver/gems/fur etc.) and no good trade opportunities (as in playing on an Archi map), then I seriously consider heavy specialist use. Unless I'm trying such a game anyway.

One should not feel coerced into one specific strategy, but I agree that Snaaty's guide is really good.

Specialists aren't the only way if you don't expand heavily. If you're really getting 8 cities by the early AD's/late BC's, you will need them though because otherwise science drops to 0 % and stays there far too long. If those cities run scientists you can still pull over 50 BPT at 1 AD with that many cities.

If you have good commerce/less cities you don't NEED the libraries, although of course you should still make them in any non-production cities for the multiplier regardless, since libraries are the cheapest multiplier in the game and are available very early.

My best games always seem to be ones where I can get rep early though. It's so hard to use cottages when non-financial then, because each scientist (with a library) winds up handing you 7.5 BPT. Even on emperor this is faster than the AI can manage. The caveat is that whether the mids are cost effective depends on the map and your leader.

I'm also struggling on Emperor, and I have one question regarding warring.

I often run into the problem, when I try to conquer an AI in multiple waves, that they vassal to somebody before I'm done with them, making further conquest a lot harder (or infeasible, even).

This problem of them "vassaling away" has annoyed me on Monarch also. You just can't plan your conquers anymore in the same way you could playing Vanilla.

What is your strategy to solve this problem?

Know who their friends are - are any of them big enough to take you on? If so then its pretty likely that they will vassalize to them midway through the war and draw you into a war you may not want.

To avoid:
- Pick on unpopular victims.
- Check each turn to see if they will capitulate to you.
- Ask a friend a long way away to join in the war. Eg I start a war with Suri - on my continent. I worry about Shaka, HC and De Gaulle on the other continent. I bribe Shaka to fight with me. HC and DeGaulle won't vassalize Suri because that would put them at war with Shaka. And since I am doing all the fighting, Suri will vassalize to me - not Shaka. Or I can destroy him completely (as I did).

It is not really necessary if you are Financial. I've just moved into Emperor difficulty and got an isolated start the other day on a random map (it turned out to be big/small or fractal, and I was on the small continent).

The only thing I could rely on was cottages and domestic trade. This got me to Optics reasonably early. I don't think I played it really well, I should have used Great People a lot more.

I'm not convinced that early specialists are the only way to cope with Emperor+ in early game. If I'm not Financial and don't have any gold resources (gold/silver/gems/fur etc.) and no good trade opportunities (as in playing on an Archi map), then I seriously consider heavy specialist use. Unless I'm trying such a game anyway.

One should not feel coerced into one specific strategy, but I agree that Snaaty's guide is really good.

Even with financial I will still run specialist cities in the early game. That doesn't mean I am running an SE - just that I have cottages to pay for my expansion and specialists to perform my research. A couple of specialist cities running two scientists each gives you 15 beakers which can sustain your early research and propel you towards currency / COL / literature, all of which can expand your economy.

They will also get you a couple of early great scientists. That lets you build an academy to jump your research to 18 beakers and lightbulb Philosophy for lots of trade opportunities (or settle to jump research to 28.5 beakers - all off zero science).

The advantage of scientists at this point in the game is that they put 100% of their science into a city with a library and possibly an academy. Which is pretty efficient.

It means that even if science drops to 0% - which it may often do for me - in fact it may go negative - you can recover. And then leverage the financial trait off a lot more land and therefore a lot more cottages. As your slider comes up you research will too.

^^some very valuable advice there :)