Lessons learned beating Emperor

[CivCorpse]

Pretty accurate list but a few points I disagree with or would modify just a little bit.
1. Food: Bananas do not require Calender to become a food resource. Farmed bananas are 4 which is the same as deer, unirrigated corn, and unirrigated rice. Farmed Sugar is also 4. Post Biology any sugar resources i do not need for trade I farm. They are the same food as clams/crabs at that point. Do not be afraid to farm your calender resources before you have plantations.
If you are considering 4 deer as major food sources then any 4 resource is major. The same is true with cows, you class them as minor but grassland cows are 4 plus they add 2

2. remember that your capital will pop a second time fairly early in the game. That can be used to farm a tile in the 2nd ring od the BFC os your 2nd 3rd or 4th city. It is not always a MUST to have the food resource in the 1st 8 tiles of a city.

3. If playing a CE you do not have to have 3 cottages in your capital by 1500BC. You just need cottages. @1500b.c. I rarely have Civil Service so the capital does not get any bonuses for cottages compared to other cities. My capital is freuently my early game unit/settler/worker pump because of the high food and production. I have found a spot to cottage to infinity and may or may not be moving the capital there pre Beauracracy.

4. Coastal cities are not all that bad. The trade routes can be very lucrative with harbors and customs houses. Plus building naval units can be pretty handy if you ask me.

5. You mention a science city, a finacial city and a military city. A GP farm is also a good investment. Paired with either the national park or the Globe to become a drafting city under nationhood.

6. I would not pair the Ironworks with West point. West point really isn't as expensive as you make it out to be. With stone it costs less than Wall Street and it is being built in a hammer rich city to begin with as opposed to wall street in a typically hammer poor commerce city. My main issue with Iron works in my west point city is that late game wonders will be built there and that means my highest quality troops must be put on hold for a while. Though I will try and place a military instructor in Ironworks if I miss the Pentagon and usually even if I don't.

7. You said the Great Wall is only usefull if you are planning on running an EE. I play Marathon speed on huge maps at Emp/Imm. The barbarians are worse than raging on a smaller map at regular speed. The RNG does not scale the barb checks for slower speeds so you get triple the barbs from an enormous area. Fog busting becomes economy busting. I beeline Masonry unless I am playing Sitting Bull. Otherwise I end up building an endless supply or anti barb units instead of settlers and workers. I still build units if I get the Great Wall to keep my power numbers up. But since they don't die fighting barbs i spend fewer hammers.
The Oracle is better than Lib IMHO because I can grab an expensive tech when beakers are more scarce. CoL and Monarchy are the biggies for me. Either one can salvage my rexxed out economy.

8. Slavery is a powerful civic but it is definately not the only labor civic you will need until Emancipation. Once you have guilds, and definately when you have Chemistry, workshops under Caste System can provide just as many hammers as slavery. This also enables you to run a pile of Scientists or Merchants in your GP farm. And in an early SE with or without the Mids you want as many scientists running as possible. The real clincher for me is the slave revolt in my beauracracy capital that goes on for 10 turns. Even if i take the lost population and whip anger option, my capital has grown to a point where it takes a bit longer to regrow population points. Do the math for missing a single town in a Bureaucracy capital with an academy for 10 turns. then multiply that by the number of towns there.

And lastly, try to avoid using the terms always and never when giving tips.

 

[Bleys]

Corpse, bro, I love you, but man, my eyes are shooting out blood looking at that. How about a carriage return after each point. I will quote it and show you, for future reference.

1. Food: Bananas do not require Calender to become a food resource. Farmed bananas are 4 which is the same as deer, unirrigated corn, and unirrigated rice. Farmed Sugar is also 4. Post Biology any sugar resources i do not need for trade I farm. They are the same food as clams/crabs at that point. Do not be afraid to farm your calender resources before you have plantations.

If you are considering 4 deer as major food sources then any 4 resource is major. The same is true with cows, you class them as minor but grassland cows are 4 plus they add 2

2. remember that your capital will pop a second time fairly early in the game. That can be used to farm a tile in the 2nd ring od the BFC os your 2nd 3rd or 4th city. It is not always a MUST to have the food resource in the 1st 8 tiles of a city.

3. If playing a CE you do not have to have 3 cottages in your capital by 1500BC. You just need cottages. @1500b.c. I rarely have Civil Service so the capital does not get any bonuses for cottages compared to other cities. My capital is freuently my early game unit/settler/worker pump because of the high food and production. I have found a spot to cottage to infinity and may or may not be moving the capital there pre Beauracracy.

4. Coastal cities are not all that bad. The trade routes can be very lucrative with harbors and customs houses. Plus building naval units can be pretty handy if you ask me.

5. You mention a science city, a finacial city and a military city. A GP farm is also a good investment. Paired with either the national park or the Globe to become a drafting city under nationhood.

6. I would not pair the Ironworks with West point. West point really isn't as expensive as you make it out to be. With stone it costs less than Wall Street and it is being built in a hammer rich city to begin with as opposed to wall street in a typically hammer poor commerce city. My main issue with Iron works in my west point city is that late game wonders will be built there and that means my highest quality troops must be put on hold for a while. Though I will try and place a military instructor in Ironworks if I miss the Pentagon and usually even if I don't.

7. You said the Great Wall is only usefull if you are planning on running an EE. I play Marathon speed on huge maps at Emp/Imm. The barbarians are worse than raging on a smaller map at regular speed. The RNG does not scale the barb checks for slower speeds so you get triple the barbs from an enormous area. Fog busting becomes economy busting. I beeline Masonry unless I am playing Sitting Bull. Otherwise I end up building an endless supply or anti barb units instead of settlers and workers. I still build units if I get the Great Wall to keep my power numbers up. But since they don't die fighting barbs i spend fewer hammers.

The Oracle is better than Lib IMHO because I can grab an expensive tech when beakers are more scarce. CoL and Monarchy are the biggies for me. Either one can salvage my rexxed out economy.

8. Slavery is a powerful civic but it is definately not the only labor civic you will need until Emancipation. Once you have guilds, and definately when you have Chemistry, workshops under Caste System can provide just as many hammers as slavery. This also enables you to run a pile of Scientists or Merchants in your GP farm. And in an early SE with or without the Mids you want as many scientists running as possible. The real clincher for me is the slave revolt in my beauracracy capital that goes on for 10 turns. Even if i take the lost population and whip anger option, my capital has grown to a point where it takes a bit longer to regrow population points. Do the math for missing a single town in a Bureaucracy capital with an academy for 10 turns. then multiply that by the number of towns there.

And lastly, try to avoid using the terms always and never when giving tips.

Not doing that to be mean, mate, I am sure you will agree it needs spacing, you make great points but so hard to read.

 

[Bleys]

Hey, I just thought of another, but I will admit I havent read the entire thread, so forgive me if its been mentioned.

-I explore my area better. I always expose as deep across the coast as I can first pass, so I dont have to go back and "check for seafood".

-I also dont risk my scouting units as much. I try to end on forested hills, or in a forest across a river from the Barbs. Hugging the coast helps to guard your back, so to speak.

I think those are a couple Emp things, mostly because I remember making those kinds of mistakes on Monarch.

 

[gcm4738]

JammerUno brings up a good point - some of these tips are strategic in nature, but most are tactics. Tactics, as he points out are more universally applicable. Things like Bleys's "always end your movement turns in a forest [or forested hill!] when outside your borders" - for sure when scouting, but other times as well. Except when you can't... But these tactics can usually meet the 80/20 criteria.

So perhaps the strategic things like building wonders, which civics to run and so on should come with a header of their own and some extra warning about how no strategy can probably ever meet the 80/20 rule.

Keep going, because I think this is a great discussion and I still believe fills a much needed gap. It's probably starting to feel like 'no good deed goes unpunished' though.

 

[oyzar]

I just have to say i disagree with the windmill part. At replacable parts windmills get better than mines because +1 food -1 hammer is way better since it allow you to work more workshops(instead of farms which gives way less yeilds). The resource is so minor it should hardly be taken into consideration. For some very high food cities mines might still be better once you get railroads, though it depends on what your empire needs once you get electricty(commerce or hammers). With enviromentalism nothing can beat windmills(on hills anyways), however that obviously require you to want to run that civic over other civics(free market is better if you have loads of trading partners and strong corps, state property is better if you have a very large empire spread over several continents or you have a lot of workshops and watermills unless you have very heavy health issues).

 

[oyzar]

If you are playing a CE you NEED to have at least three cottages up in your capital (or have gold/gems) by 1500BC or else your economy is about to tank hard and long.

Certainly not... You don't need to have your capital devoted to cottages to run a CE(though i find such classification a bit silly, even with a philo leader with mids building cottages might not be too bad in some situations). Having a few cottages in your second city or having some sort of commerce resource can go a long way, heck just relying on traderoutes until monarchy can work fine(however i guess that should hit around 1500 BC anyways).

 

[oyzar]

The critical infrastructure for a city are Monument (non CRE), Granary, Forge, and Courthouse (only optional under communism, but still valuable). Border cities should probably build Libraries early and Theatres late as well. For nearly every city Whip out that monument ASAP (if not CRE), then Granary, then Forge, then Courthouse. Until those are in place your city isn't really a city, it's an economic sinkhole.

There are so many exeptions to this it is not funny. A city with food and some good cottagable land is in no hurry to get up either forge or courthouse. With org you don't really want to delay courthouse until after the forge. With exp you often want the granary first thing. With a seaside city getting workboats and lighthouses is certainly more important than forge and courthouse and sometimes more important than granary and/or monument. Org changes the order of where ligthouse is useful. Getting up a granary before forge or courthouse is often the right call, or getting it instead of the monument can be right at times. It all depends on the traits and the specific land of the city.

 

[feralminded]

I will try and integrate as many of these as I can when I get a chance later today. This is all some awesome feedback and special thanks to CivCorpse for the very specific feedback. I think people are right with the general sentiment that these tips should focus more on tactics as opposed to strategy ... I had no such clarity when I started writing them up. I also most certainly overused "always" and "never" throughout even though I was trying to be careful about such things.

 

[feralminded]

I just have to say i disagree with the windmill part. At replacable parts windmills get better than mines because +1 food -1 hammer is way better since it allow you to work more workshops(instead of farms which gives way less yeilds). The resource is so minor it should hardly be taken into consideration. For some very high food cities mines might still be better once you get railroads, though it depends on what your empire needs once you get electricty(commerce or hammers). With enviromentalism nothing can beat windmills(on hills anyways), however that obviously require you to want to run that civic over other civics(free market is better if you have loads of trading partners and strong corps, state property is better if you have a very large empire spread over several continents or you have a lot of workshops and watermills unless you have very heavy health issues).

I don't know about you but I probably average a pop of 1-2 resources a game from my mines. Some games its 0, some games its more ... its really a matter of what kind of game I'm playing I suppose (domination's get more pops). The thing about windmills is at replaceable parts they are ever so slightly better than the mine ... but then come railroads (which isn't usually that much longer) the mine takes it back and then at electricity it becomes a tossup again and obviously if you ever go Env windmills are the clear winner. The truth is after electricity all of my non-production cities will eventually get paved over with windmills on non-resource tiles but its never a nail-biting priority. Until then I feel its more or less a wash.

How would you have me edit the tip?

 

[oyzar]

Railroads is often quite a lot later than replacable parts in my game(i get it before gunpowder quite often which means that you need to get gunpowder / chemistry(maybe even engineering) / steam power / steel / railroads to get it, and that is quite a trek(and you'll probably tech rifling in there between). I don't go out of my way to winmill over all the mines, but i seldom build much mines when i can build windmills(since replacable parts comes quite soon after machinery if i don't do a medival war).

The chance to pop a resource is very small(0.05% per turn per mine roughly after IW, 0.06% after steam power and 0.07 after physics and 0.08 after industrialism). At slower speeds you pop more though. My point is that this is not something that will matter much if you work 10 more or less mines. The food instead of production is better anyways, but with the addition of one commerce windmills are quite a bit better than mines...

I would just remove the tip pretty much, mines are better early, but windmills are better late.. Of course if you are playing on an easy difficulty what you do late might not matter, but if it did matter then saying to ignore windmills is clearly wrong...

 

[feralminded]

Pretty accurate list but a few points I disagree with or would modify just a little bit.
1. Food: Bananas do not require Calender to become a food resource. Farmed bananas are 4 which is the same as deer, unirrigated corn, and unirrigated rice. Farmed Sugar is also 4. Post Biology any sugar resources i do not need for trade I farm. They are the same food as clams/crabs at that point. Do not be afraid to farm your calender resources before you have plantations.
If you are considering 4 deer as major food sources then any 4 resource is major. The same is true with cows, you class them as minor but grassland cows are 4 plus they add 2

I'm just going to demote deer since I consider 5 food (3 surplus) the cut off for "major" food resource. I realize its splitting hairs but I don't want to get into too many details because the specifics are overwhelming. I'll change the note about bananas though. I'm also just going to call floodplains minor food resources rather than trying to make them some kind of exception. Less is more.

2. remember that your capital will pop a second time fairly early in the game. That can be used to farm a tile in the 2nd ring od the BFC os your 2nd 3rd or 4th city. It is not always a MUST to have the food resource in the 1st 8 tiles of a city.

I'll see if I can make a quick note about this ... its just a hard one to describe without a picture.

3. If playing a CE you do not have to have 3 cottages in your capital by 1500BC. You just need cottages. @1500b.c. I rarely have Civil Service so the capital does not get any bonuses for cottages compared to other cities. My capital is freuently my early game unit/settler/worker pump because of the high food and production. I have found a spot to cottage to infinity and may or may not be moving the capital there pre Beauracracy.

Yeah I need to reword that one. I took it straight from a poster earlier in the thread but it needs more general wording. I'm also thinking it might be a candidate for removal since its fairly strategy specific and less tactical.

4. Coastal cities are not all that bad. The trade routes can be very lucrative with harbors and customs houses. Plus building naval units can be pretty handy if you ask me.

I think I need to soften the wording about coastal cities. Basically I was just trying to caution people but I think I went too far. I just know that early on a lot of players overvalue coastal cities and this can get you into trouble, specially if you're not FIN.

5. You mention a science city, a finacial city and a military city. A GP farm is also a good investment. Paired with either the national park or the Globe to become a drafting city under nationhood.

The only reason why I didn't make a stronger statement about a GP farm is because at least in many of my games my financial city or science city get drafted as GP farms as well. The only time I go out of the way to make a specific GP farm is if I'm playing PHI and I can't say I've been overly hurt by this. I mean the truth is GP farms can't really produce engineers and the only other GPs I typically want after 0AD are scientists or merchants. Regardless I'll see about putting something up about it.

6. I would not pair the Ironworks with West point. West point really isn't as expensive as you make it out to be. With stone it costs less than Wall Street and it is being built in a hammer rich city to begin with as opposed to wall street in a typically hammer poor commerce city. My main issue with Iron works in my west point city is that late game wonders will be built there and that means my highest quality troops must be put on hold for a while. Though I will try and place a military instructor in Ironworks if I miss the Pentagon and usually even if I don't.

I'm just going to remove this tip because its really a personal call.

7. You said the Great Wall is only usefull if you are planning on running an EE. I play Marathon speed on huge maps at Emp/Imm. The barbarians are worse than raging on a smaller map at regular speed. The RNG does not scale the barb checks for slower speeds so you get triple the barbs from an enormous area. Fog busting becomes economy busting. I beeline Masonry unless I am playing Sitting Bull. Otherwise I end up building an endless supply or anti barb units instead of settlers and workers. I still build units if I get the Great Wall to keep my power numbers up. But since they don't die fighting barbs i spend fewer hammers.

I will definitely edit the Great Wall tip for this. I never play marathon so I missed this.

The Oracle is better than Lib IMHO because I can grab an expensive tech when beakers are more scarce. CoL and Monarchy are the biggies for me. Either one can salvage my rexxed out economy.

I think the oracle is a personal choice but I do know early players rely on it A LOT and end up hurting themselves trying to cling to it as they go up in difficulty. While I won't deny a possible use for the Oracle at Emp and higher levels I do consider it an Advanced tactic at these difficulties (because it usually steers you away from critical infrastructure techs). On Emp the oracle is a gambit imho ... and I don't want to be steering beginners that way. I'd rather they learn how to tech up the infrastructure techline to Aesthetics or Alphabet which is a more solid line for a weak Emp player.

8. Slavery is a powerful civic but it is definately not the only labor civic you will need until Emancipation. Once you have guilds, and definately when you have Chemistry, workshops under Caste System can provide just as many hammers as slavery. This also enables you to run a pile of Scientists or Merchants in your GP farm. And in an early SE with or without the Mids you want as many scientists running as possible. The real clincher for me is the slave revolt in my beauracracy capital that goes on for 10 turns. Even if i take the lost population and whip anger option, my capital has grown to a point where it takes a bit longer to regrow population points. Do the math for missing a single town in a Bureaucracy capital with an academy for 10 turns. then multiply that by the number of towns there.

Oh I concur that its sometimes appropriate to go caste and I didn't want to make the impression that one should never leave slavery. I guess I was overstating how strong slavery really is for the purposes of getting people to use it more. The nuance of when to go caste is fairly advanced and I'd prefer not to cover it but I will change the wording about slavery.

And lastly, try to avoid using the terms always and never when giving tips.

Absolutely.

 

[feralminded]

Hey, I just thought of another, but I will admit I havent read the entire thread, so forgive me if its been mentioned.

-I explore my area better. I always expose as deep across the coast as I can first pass, so I dont have to go back and "check for seafood".

-I also dont risk my scouting units as much. I try to end on forested hills, or in a forest across a river from the Barbs. Hugging the coast helps to guard your back, so to speak.

I think those are a couple Emp things, mostly because I remember making those kinds of mistakes on Monarch.

Yeah I need a tip on exploration. I noticed a HUGE change at EMP in scouting technique because otherwise they're pretty much dead. I believe at lower levels your units get a bonus against animals?

 

[CivCorpse]

Feral most of your tips are dead solid but some of them are geared towards one certain style of play. Don't edit them at all. In many of the guides from some of the most respected players on this forum, I find the best information in the discussion that follows the write up.

 

[feralminded]

Feral most of your tips are dead solid but some of them are geared towards one certain style of play. Don't edit them at all. In many of the guides from some of the most respected players on this forum, I find the best information in the discussion that follows the write up.

Well I did intend this to be somewhat iterative since I knew going into I wasn't going to cover everything and knew my experience was fairly limited compared to the breadth of experience on the board. Ultimately I think it serves my goal of a better list if I keep editing and refining it with the goal of a solid list in mind. No doubt the discussion is more important than the list but I would like people to read the list and come away with useful information.

 

[gcm4738]

I believe at lower levels your units get a bonus against animals?

I didn't know this went away at higher levels - but yes you max out at 5 on aminals and 10 on human barbs (certainly on Prince - I think Monarch too?) And yes, I'll rotate scout units if applicable once they've "maxed" on XP for barbs. This seems to be less relevant on Monarch though I've noticed - animals switch to humans too quickly for me most of the time.

Perhaps appropos of nothing... I like to get that first warrior Woodsman I and II - then he's got double movement in the forest/jungle where is where you want him anyway - like a superscout (except for the hut bonus). Plus then you can use him for Woody III, Medic I, II and III with a great general for supermedic.

 

[CivCorpse]

I didn't know this went away at higher levels - but yes you max out at 5 on aminals and 10 on human barbs (certainly on Prince - I think Monarch too?) And yes, I'll rotate scout units if applicable once they've "maxed" on XP for barbs. This seems to be less relevant on Monarch though I've noticed - animals switch to humans too quickly for me most of the time.

Perhaps appropos of nothing... I like to get that first warrior Woodsman I and II - then he's got double movement in the forest/jungle where is where you want him anyway - like a superscout (except for the hut bonus). Plus then you can use him for Woody III, Medic I, II and III with a great general for supermedic.

This isn't an experience bonus but rather at lower levels you get a certain number of automatic wins vs animals at the beginning

 

[Skallagrimson]

On the chopping vs. whipping discussion I would only comment one doesn't exclude the other. Forests are for chopping, unhappy people for whipping. There's no reason to have either within the borders of your empire.

You like having size 9 cities instead of size 13 in the mid-game then, before the health buildings can come online. And when they do the best they can get for you is 15, 16.

All because you wanted 10 to 20 hammers in a pre-mathematics chop, to take a city you could have taken later anyway.

 

[JammerUno]

You like having size 9 cities instead of size 13 in the mid-game then, before the health buildings can come online. And when they do the best they can get for you is 15, 16.

All because you wanted 10 to 20 hammers in a pre-mathematics chop, to take a city you could have taken later anyway.

Yes, I would rather have that city earlier rather than later, and no, I wouldn't rather have size 9 cities. But not only does more territory mean more health, it means more happiness. Getting your health to outperform your happiness is easy in any case. Sure, HR helps early on, but that's a big investment in hammers you're talking about, which could be put to better use.

If you are running HR and have a far higher happy- than healthcap, forests only give marginal improvement, they are clearly outperformed by farming. Two forests only give one food extra, if you chop them and irrigate, they give 2, so yeah, grassland forests has got to. Plains is something else, I chop those after MC. Tudra forests only add to the use of the tile, so I never chop those.

 

[feralminded]

You like having size 9 cities instead of size 13 in the mid-game then, before the health buildings can come online. And when they do the best they can get for you is 15, 16.

All because you wanted 10 to 20 hammers in a pre-mathematics chop, to take a city you could have taken later anyway.

Hyperbole no? You're talking 8 forests here which if they've been cut at all likely have been cut and replaced by cottages or mines or something extremely productive. Chopping early is obviously very good. Later chopping generally only happens when an improvement is needed (replacing a grassland forest with a cottage is a no brainer). Once replaceable parts comes around you can stop chopping your hills if you like but windmills start coming online as well. By electricity windmills are good enough to consider chopping your hills but its not about hammers anymore but commerce.

 

[Skallagrimson]

If you are running HR and have a far higher happy- than healthcap, forests only give marginal improvement, they are clearly outperformed by farming. Two forests only give one food extra, if you chop them and irrigate, they give 2, so yeah, grassland forests has got to. Plains is something else, I chop those after MC. Tudra forests only add to the use of the tile, so I never chop those.

Why is it you people always assume I'll be WORKING my forests? At size 14 with 6 forests I don't necessarily have to work any of them. Maybe one on a plains hill, but preferably none of them until RP opens up lumbermills. And then lumbermills with RRs, those forests become basically like a workshop that adds health.

Yes, "chop everything" gets you a better axe rush. Yippee skippee. Pray to the civ gods you're on Pangea for the built-in insta-win, otherwise you shot your wad by the time you can sail anywhere.