An Emperor start - how would you play it?

I played this game last night. It's standard-size continents, with all standard settings, 7 civs, random opponents, normal speed, temperate etc., with all victory conditions enabled. I'm a monarch player but have been wanting to give emperor a shot for a while now and chose Catherine because I've had a lot of success with her at monarch. I didn't have a specific victory in mind - I would've been happy to get any victory.

Starting position looked somewhat fair, less than stellar:


I don't want to give too much away atm because I'd like to know how some of you would play out this start...but I will say I found myself with some irritating terrain and was dead last in score all the way throughout the middle ages and beyond. Didn't even attempt any early wonders as I kept getting messages upon messages of other civs getting them and pumping out GP's.

I'd appreciate it if some of you experienced in higher levels could play out this start for a bit (as long or short as you want) and kind of explain your strategy/progress, maybe post a savegame to compare and discuss. I think it'll be an educational experience. Thanks and good luck
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Always like a challenge , but for the sake of comparing savegames later it's nice to have a few dates to compare:

2000 BC (50 turns)
375 BC (100 turns)
for starters?

I also look forward to seeing other player's games/strategies...

This looks like it could be a good production city. Found the city on the plains hill where you started and leave the plains forest and the one not next to the river for the health bonus. Farm everywhere else. Starting city locations pretty much always have at least two resources, so some should show up when the borders expand or you get the techs to make them visible, so you'll have even more help out of this city.

Send your scout out and find a place that would make a good commerce city, since your beginning one is focusing on production, so that's going to slow your research down and you need to get that settler out quickly to have that city up and running.

For research (I forget what Catherine starts with), you have corn, so you'll want Agriculture early. Also get Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working to see if you have horses or copper in the area. If you have horses and no copper, it's worth it to get Horseback Riding for the Horse Archers, which are a deadly early unit and upgradable to your Cossacks later. Pop/chop rush a few units for protection. I find that 5 Horse Archers are generally enough to attack a neighbour and kill one of his small cities and pillage his resources to keep him in the backwater and this lets you have a weak guy guarding one of your flanks.

Make a beeline to Literature and get the Great Library - I find that's the only way to not get too far behind the AI in tech on the higher levels. Ignore all the other early Wonders, since you won't get them anyways (except maybe Stonehenge). Don't try and get a religion, either. Get 4 or 5 cities of your own and then focus on military and expand through the AI.

I'll try your save game this weekend and see how my strategy there works.

Oh, I guess anything before and up to 1AD is good for starters..personally I didn't start saving the game until much later than that but have a rough memory of how my early games went (not good). Look forward to your and others' trials..

I've played out the first 100 turns of this game (roughly, I forgot to save so I'm up to 325BC), and I doubt I'm in a winning position, but here's what I did:

I tried this start position, and I think it is particulary bad
I managed to get 3 cities + 1 settler on the way, stonehenge (which isn't very useful for cathy, since she is creative, but I like it for the early great prohet, which makes a very good citizen), 3 workers and almost every resource hung up and the jungle mostly cut, and the great libray starting in a few turns (which i doubt I will finish) until 375 BC.
And I think I am loosing.
But, it's a small island (continent?), covered mostly by jungle, some wood in the captial for rushing, only 2 food and 1 luxury resource. This is not enough to last til astronomy, so you will have to conquer cyrus nearby, which will be not easy, since you lack iron and horses. And even if you manage that, you will be far behind in tech, when you met the others, which will have been trading a lot, no doubt. I'm not saying, it is impossible to win, but surely it's impossible for me

You seem to be playing on the same level as I do, I usually manage to win in monarch, but get beaten on emperor. For me, there seems to be a huge step between those 2 difficulties. I suspect, the starting positions for your capitals get worse as the difficulty increases, and this is a good example.

Yeah I heard somewhere that the starting positions tend to get worse as the difficulty level increases and wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

Thanks to those who tried (and plan to try) it out. I was underwhelmed by the starting position, and it didn't get that much better as I explored onward.

I found myself researching fishing pretty early on to explore my surroundings with a workboat and also made iron working somewhat of a priority..I built a few settlers, neglected all early wonders, and tried to settle, clear fogs, and clear the myriad of jungle from the ground up. A lot of turns were spent just to be able to develop workable resources because most of them were entrenched within the jungles, so not only did I have to research the resource-specific techs, but also iron working, and build an army of workers to both do the clearing...and developing...and connecting...and it's not as if there were plenty of different resources to begin with. And every other turn some civ was building wonders or pumping out GP's.

I did meet a couple civs via workboat towards the west but could not get to the eastern portion of the world (ocean distance was too great) and I felt that early war was out of the question. Let me know, though, if someone disagrees and pulls it off

Here's my attempt. Played up to 1100AD without thinking too much; initial scouting says I am isolated so I think building a core empire is crucial, then going to war a little later with maybe the lesser powers to expand. Doing OK up to this point; any criticism or pointers welcome. Probably going to lose in the long run to space race (Cyrus) but it's that kind of map. Maybe I should warmonger with Cyrus hmmm.

Just played up to 700AD

drhirsch said:

You seem to be playing on the same level as I do, I usually manage to win in monarch, but get beaten on emperor. For me, there seems to be a huge step between those 2 difficulties. I suspect, the starting positions for your capitals get worse as the difficulty increases, and this is a good example.

Click to expand...

I'm stuck between the two levels as well, Monarch is generally too easy (unless I start on an isolated island), and Emperor is very tough to win on. To me the gap between Monarch and Emperor seems to be massive compared to the same jump in C3C (It seems more like moving to Demi-God from Emperor to me personally).

I'll try this out when I get home from work tonight.

I can tell you already that I'll settle in place, and if one of those two unrevealed river tiles to the south is open grasslands without jungle/forest, I'll research Pottery first through Agriculture (for that wheat, rather than through Fishing which is the faster route I think?) and then Bronze. Build warrior, worker and chop/cottage those river tiles right off the bat (probably even the riverside hill). If both of those river tiles aren't already bare, it'll be Bronze first to clear that river.

Err unless there's a coastal resource, then fishing instead of agriculture.

We should start a club I figure,
for players stuck in limbo between monarch and emperor.
Ever trying to paddle upstream we go,
yet only maintaining the status quo. ^^

--> The Stuck In Limbo Between Royalty Club

mutax2003 said:

We should start a club I figure, for players stuck in limbo between monarch and emperor. Ever trying to paddle upstream we go, yet only maintaining the status quo. ^^

--> The Stuck In Limbo Between Royalty Club

Click to expand...

Probably be a surprisingly popular club as well. 3 members of it already

Actually I think the increase in difficulty I have is mainly caused by only being able to get to size 4 in your capital before you get unhappy citizens. Maybe I need to start using the whip more.

I whip whenever I am over the happiness cap in my early game, quite useful for getting that barrack, granary, forge up fast, and pumping out extra soldiers. Of course, I also wait until the unhappiness goes away first before I whip again. Listen to the whip, you lazy bum slaves, get to work.

Stuck in limbo between Prince and Monarch here, but I will give this start a try.

I should be able to give this a try on saterday / sunday.
From the looks of it , the capitol looks very nice for a emperor start , with 3 hills and fresh water it will be a great production + commerce city in the early game.

colony said:

Probably be a surprisingly popular club as well. 3 members of it already

Click to expand...

Make that four.

Actually I think the increase in difficulty I have is mainly caused by only being able to get to size 4 in your capital before you get unhappy citizens.

Click to expand...

I agree completely. With that population cap, you just can't work enough cottages to keep up in the Classical Era. My games seem to go OK in Ancient Times - it's somewhere around turn 100 where I start to seriously fall behind. By far my best games have been those where I build the Pyramids to overcome that, but I don't think that's always possible. And even if it is, I'd like to not be totally bound to a single strategy. Early Monarchy or Drama seem to be the next best way to go, but I'm still experimenting there.

As for this particular start, it does look pretty ugly. At least there are a few breaks in the jungle - I was playing a map last night where the jungle made this map look open and breezy. But even so, that jungle is a big pain. I think coastal strategies are going to be the way to go here. Build the Great Lighthouse, get early Sailing, and save on workers and worker moves by not needing too many early roads. Cover the edges of the island and backfill the jungle-y center later.

But at the moment I'm focusing my energies on playing "traditional" continents maps where I have neighbors on my continent, so I'll sit this one out. Looks plenty challenging, though...

Actually, the map is not bad, rather playable. I have played it so far to 25AD and am at tech parity more or less, may be slightly behind. Philosophy had just been discovered and I'm a few turns away from music. Terrain is rather good and there are extra resources and AI is rather cooperative, willing to trade both some techs and resources. I've made a few wrong moves but overall, it looks very nice. There is no chance for a military win because of lack of iron and no available trades (horses can be traded though) but otherwise, very playable map for Emperor. For details see attached save at the bottom.

I have mostly built cottages and did not found religions. No wonders as well. Only viable plan for military win might be in the industrial age. Trade now for horses, build chariots, catapults and warriors/axemen in numbers, discover gunpowder/chemistry and military tradition and then upgrade a few units to cavalry/grenadiers. Probably would be battling against riflemen but still quite possible to win. Cultural victory seems like the most reasonable one despite the lack of religions if there would be possibility to grab Eiffel tower.

up to 2000 BC


375 BC

Hey this map gets good just before 1AD.

I'll discuss the Middle Ages, and what I tried to do to stay in the game later