View Full Version : One dimensional me


Mack_Jagger
Oct 26, 2008, 03:10 AM
Hello Mack Jagger here. Sitting and being quite content with my self, managing to win a handfull of Emperor games. But then it strikes me – or maybe that is to say to much – I finally admit to my self that I can only win in one fashion – The early rush. All the way from Noble to Prince, to Monarch and finally Emperor I had relied on the BC-rusch. After that consolidating, before upgrading my attack-force to maces and attack another civ, backed up by trebs och cats. After that I usually can pick my victory condition.

So recently I started challenge my self. I shall win an Emperor game WITHOUT the early rush. But I’m struggling, to say the least.

One example.

A Buddhist lovefest breaks out on my continent and I’m part of it. Me (Zara Yaqob) and Justinian share the southern part of the continent, Sury and De Gaulle is in the north. Justinian is the founder of Buddhism and he has built the shrine. I consider Justinian to be one of those civs that are rather easy to deal with in the early parts of the game, but can run away with the game if left alone. I pick him as my target, beeline to machinery and whip and chop out an army as big as my economy allows (six city CE-empire with one good cottagecity). I declare and get declared upon by Sury and De Gaulle but that’s no biggie. My northern citys are all built on hills and some Guerrilla II crossbows and some spears would be enough to deal with their stacks.

I capture one of Justinans border city, taking down culture defences with a spy. Then marching on his capitol, bypassing one city. Me experience is that the best way to brake the moral backbone of another civ is to capture their capitol. There after they usually just turtle up.

De Gaulle sent som stray axes, so did Sury. But Sury wouldn’t be Sury if he didn’t send one colossal stack with elephants and when that one showed up I swallowed hard a couple of times. Lets get on thing clear, I knew I would be declared upon by my Buddhist brothers but I counted on it not to be to hard to get peace with them. So was the case, for 280 gold I got peace with Sury and bounced his elephant stack outside my borders. De Gaulle accepted peace hand down, great guy. They emiddiatly went to pleased again.

Problems then. When I started the war my power rating was well above Justinians. That was not to last. When the war broke out he must have traded Ivory from Sury and gotten feudalismen from some one. Elephants ans Longbows showed up The elephants wasn’t a major concern, since Justinans best unit before the war was horse archers, so I had quite a lot of spears. The shere number of elephants that somehow materialized from now where was a big concern though. I captured Justinians capital and got yet another one of his major citys before my stack was so grinded down that i couldn't continue the war. All that effort and build up for three citys. Three major citys but in no way gamebreaking. And the tech hole I was in, it was deep I tell you, deep.

I like Zara and I shall try this again but in another manner. Rex like mad and beeline to gunpowder and oromo warriors. So, any of you enlighted ones, which is the fastest and most effective way to get to gun powder?

fed1943
Oct 26, 2008, 03:37 AM
Sorry, but how can you decide about a strategy
before the map?
IMHO, terrain,even more than leader, is master.
Best regards,

Mack_Jagger
Oct 26, 2008, 05:06 AM
Well in this case, if the map doesn't fit the strategy, I'll reload. If I get Monty as next door neighbour, reload, since Since I'm not allowed to do an early rush. If isolated, reload and so on. I'm trying a strategy to lose my dependence of the early rush so I will see to that the map will fit. Note to my self, no more fractal. Play pangea or continents.

oyzar
Oct 26, 2008, 07:14 AM
Fastest way to gunpowder is a really though dilemma. There are 5 different ways to get there or so. The one i by far prefer is to use zara's traits in the early game to get a decent amount of cities then just tech like you normaly would towards liberalism(if you don't know how to get liberalism in the first half millenia AD you should improve your teching game). However you skip philosophy(and hence liberalism) until after you have gunpowder. Then afterwards you go for liberalism for nationalism and use draft to enchant your oromo army... Hopefully you'll be able to backtrade for construction, as long as the enemy don't get knights you should be fine for a while. 500 AD should be the target date for gunpowder(teching the slow way through CS(this should enchant your economy quite alot) -> paper(bulbable) -> education(double bulbable) -> gunpowder) and you should attack before the first millenia is over. Why don't you roll up a start and play 50 turns and we can comment on what you did or didn't do...

ParadigmShifter
Oct 26, 2008, 04:31 PM
I managed an Emperor win without an early rush. I REXed with Pericles on a continent with Roosevelt and Huayna. Chummied up to Roose, HC decalred war inevitably. I fought him off and bribed Roose into the war. Later on, I finished off HC. Then I got involved with phoney wars on the other continent until astronomy when I finished off HC's former colony Jaoa. Then a bit of beating up on Germany and Japan ending up in a legit (i.e., I didn't self vote) diplo win.

Early REX is a lot easier on BtS compared to Warlords.

FriendoftheDork
Oct 26, 2008, 05:25 PM
If you're tired of having to reload, why not play a map of earth? To avoid early rushing you can eitther play a civ with ample space (Russia, Egypt) or someone so isolated that early war will be impractical or in name only (Inca as the recent king of the world game showed).

Ouch gunpowder in 500ad on Emperor? Maybe I should shut up and go back to the Monarch "club" ;)

TheMeInTeam
Oct 26, 2008, 05:45 PM
If you're tired of having to reload, why not play a map of earth? To avoid early rushing you can eitther play a civ with ample space (Russia, Egypt) or someone so isolated that early war will be impractical or in name only (Inca as the recent king of the world game showed).

Ouch gunpowder in 500ad on Emperor? Maybe I should shut up and go back to the Monarch "club" ;)

It takes some bulbing. It's harder on noble-monarch than below or above...because you don't get a bonus at noble or above, but at the same time the ais tech too slowly to trade for important techs below emperor or possibly even below immortal.

Not saying those middle difficulties are hard to win, but they're the slowest in terms of player tech potential...

ParadigmShifter
Oct 26, 2008, 05:46 PM
It's also a difficult bulb involving merchants and engineers IIRC.

Magma_Dragoon
Oct 26, 2008, 05:47 PM
Fastest way to gunpowder is to tech to monotheism and take theology off the Oracle. Be sure to get two GS as soon as possible to bulb paper and education. A third GS can bulb philosophy. Then try to get steel from liberalism to make cannons.

ParadigmShifter
Oct 26, 2008, 05:49 PM
Bulbing paper always seems a waste to me, it's so cheap anyway.

FriendoftheDork
Oct 26, 2008, 05:49 PM
It takes some bulbing. It's harder on noble-monarch than below or above...because you don't get a bonus at noble or above, but at the same time the ais tech too slowly to trade for important techs below emperor or possibly even below immortal.

Not saying those middle difficulties are hard to win, but they're the slowest in terms of player tech potential...

AH that explains why tech seems to progress slower in my games, I seldom play anything but noble-monarch, I maybe played warlord once ever in civ 4.


BTW, I'm inexperienced with bubling as I mostly play marathon, have relatively few GPs, and bulbing only seem to put me half-way to the desired tech or worse (at one point I found out that bulbing only gave me 3 rounds of science while I needed 7 to tech one normally! Does bulbing scale properly with game speed or is it just usful in the early times (classical age and some medieval techs)

TheMeInTeam
Oct 26, 2008, 07:11 PM
It scales better than most things. However, as you noticed it's best early game. Most people bulb philosophy, education, and possibly liberalism. There are also other strats such as using a very early prophet to bulb theology and grab the AP early or bulbing machinery with an engineer etc. As the game drags on and you have more cities, bulbing becomes less attractive and golden ages more.

Settling isn't a bad choice either, especially depending on which GP you actually get.

Mack_Jagger
Oct 27, 2008, 02:23 AM
Why don't you roll up a start and play 50 turns and we can comment on what you did or didn't do...

Yes, that's a good idea. I'll try to do that when I get som time over. And I will try to bulb according to the other posters suggstions. Let's see how that works out. I alllways seem to mess up my bulbs, reseaeching somethning that closes the door in the desired tech path. Ah well it'll be intressting.:)