don't get discouraged by a well armed neigbor

See attached graph of military power.

I was white. I had one powerhouse neighbor (yellow) with another powerful civ on another continent (purple).

Yes, purple won the game, but you can see that lowly white brought down mighty yellow before that happened and without having to build up a huge army. Yellow and Purple were not at war. Composition of the forces is, of course, very important. Yellow had no air force until I was in control. But my point is don't throw in the towel just because you have a heavily armed neighbor. Make your plans and be sure you are the one to start the fight.

Oops! The graph is attached

Make your plans and be sure you are the one to start the fight.

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King and below (others would probably even say Emperor and below) I have found you don't even need to start it. Defend and counter is much easier with a smaller military on lower levels.

Poor Willy. He got Ozy-ed. Dido gave you the famous Carthaginian Ozymandias statue, yet you managed to bring down Auggy.

Remember, the higher the difficulty, the higher the chance of Ozymandias coming if you do not have a large enough army and especially if you do not plan right.

whyidie said:

King and below (others would probably even say Emperor and below) I have found you don't even need to start it. Defend and counter is much easier with a smaller military on lower levels.

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Yeah...this is what I find as well...we, of course, all have our own playing styles... I play at the King level and usually go "tall".... But I find good city placement...I try my darndest to start on a hill...and I like some rough country around to slow down their rush.... is important with these early "rush attacks".

It seems that if you systematically pick away at them and try to weaken them they seem to "run out of steam" so to speak and just stand there waiting to be finished off...and sometimes...I guess the algorithm in the game does a calculation...they will inexplicably break off the assault and run off back to their empire... .I do focus, though, on trying to eliminate Archer units...they seem to keep on firing even when they are almost dead...

Not fighting at all is sometimes an option.

Just completed a lower level (Emporer) game, large maps, vanilla, in which I maintained the peace throughout the entire game. I was playing Nappy, half looking for the Muskateer achievement, but I never got into any conflicts.

Early exploration showed me I pretty much had the run of a continent, with only a couple city states, one on either end. Rather than saturate the continent with cities I build only 7 and let the other guys build where ever they could (I took all the good sites, 2 AIs built later, mostly crappy cities on the periphery).

It was the Iroquios who led on the might chart that had most of the other cities on my continent. I stayed neutral with everyone and never even got sucked into a war or even denounced. The only battles I fought were against barbarians. I ranged from near the bottom 9 or 10 (most of the game) up to so-so 4 (late game) on military might, way behind the two other Civs on my continent.

Right up until the end (I didn't launch until the 1880s) the Iroquois dude was showing up as friendly and 45ing me in trades.

Emperor isn't low level, Warlord and below is. Emperor is considered a high-level game. Period.
Just because you can beat Emperor doesn't make it a low level.

SouljahAtWar said:

Emperor isn't low level, Warlord and below is. Emperor is considered a high-level game. Period.
Just because you can beat Emperor doesn't make it a low level.

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Ahh, interesting...I'm thinking of switching to emp. soon. At least I can't be considered low level!


About the topic though, I had this one game, it was actually quite interesting, where France got a whole continent to itself (after quickly conquering the Netherlands), although Dido did have a few cities near the top. The French had maybe, what 20 cities? They were far above everyone else in everything.

So, Sejong (my good friend and trading buddy) comes to me and tells me that France, is planning an attack on me, with his navy as well. I had bullied France a little bit when I met him (this was my first GK game and I just wanted to look at everything and figure out how everything works, in this case diplomacy), so he obviously went after me first.

In result, his navy got killed, just because I was prepared, he didn't think to bring many units, and I was Ethiopia, giving me the combat bonus (which is remarkable).

This lasted 3-4 turns. Other than that, my game was entirely peaceful. Nothing. I was waiting for something, I wanted to test GK combat, but nothing. France won though...

Is it hard to avoid war in Emperor?

StrategyMaster4 said:

Is it hard to avoid war in Emperor?

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Not particularly. But you must realize in some cases war is unavoidable, so you have to deal with it. After a while you will know when war is coming and when it is not.

Sometimes to win, you yourself have to make the war or you will sit there in a miseable position all game long.

RedFred said:

Not fighting at all is sometimes an option.

Just completed a lower level (Emporer) game, large maps, vanilla, in which I maintained the peace throughout the entire game. I was playing Nappy, half looking for the Muskateer achievement, but I never got into any conflicts.

Early exploration showed me I pretty much had the run of a continent, with only a couple city states, one on either end. Rather than saturate the continent with cities I build only 7 and let the other guys build where ever they could (I took all the good sites, 2 AIs built later, mostly crappy cities on the periphery).

It was the Iroquios who led on the might chart that had most of the other cities on my continent. I stayed neutral with everyone and never even got sucked into a war or even denounced. The only battles I fought were against barbarians. I ranged from near the bottom 9 or 10 (most of the game) up to so-so 4 (late game) on military might, way behind the two other Civs on my continent.

Right up until the end (I didn't launch until the 1880s) the Iroquois dude was showing up as friendly and 45ing me in trades.

Click to expand...

Having a continent to yourself does make it pretty easy.

Well, not quite. France had to get rid of the Netherlands first, and he was almost at war with Dido all the time. I forgot, but I think he was actually connected to some other civs with a 3-4 tile isthmus. It was a confusing map, but he had A LOT of space to himself.

budweiser said:

Not particularly. But you must realize in some cases war is unavoidable, so you have to deal with it. After a while you will know when war is coming and when it is not.

Sometimes to win, you yourself have to make the war or you will sit there in a miseable position all game long.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I guess its kinda like prince but on a higher degree...?

Sometimes, I like war....gives more excitement.

SouljahAtWar said:

Emperor isn't low level, Warlord and below is. Emperor is considered a high-level game. Period.
Just because you can beat Emperor doesn't make it a low level.

Click to expand...

Hah, as a player that beats diety pretty easily... when I play emperor it feels like the AI isnt even playing at all. The difference between emperor and immortal is pretty huge... the difference between immortal and deity is even greater. Thus, for a lot of players emperor seems like a joke

Its not really going to be a challenging war unless youre outnumbered at least 3 to 1 and outteched significantly. IE, fight off 10 pikemen at turn 70 with 5 cb's. Also, no defensive war has ever really been challenging if you're in the same age as the AI and remotely have some sort of defense. Getting rushed by 2 catapults, 4 warriors and 2 archers at turn 29 can however, make your mood pretty sad

I've done an OCC in Immortal with just 5 Archers for Defense. Those 5 managed to stay alive to be turned into supermachineguns. I don't play Immortal too often. I find that you need to have very precise execution in order to have a shot at winning, and I find that too unfun. Not touching Deity for the same reason. Emperor all the way!

As for defensive wars, kill the melee units. IN ALL CASES. NO EXCEPTIONS. The AI can't take a city if there's no unit to capture it.

I prefer to defend, strategically place a citadel, and grind up the aggressor into hamburger. Then counterattack, or simply force a surrender. I'm generally not worried by being outnumbered unless i'm also out-teched, or caught completely flat footed.

Mmm, hamburger.

Note: I play on King and by the sounds of it... i'm not too relevant, am I?

Raz said:

I prefer to defend, strategically place a citadel, and grind up the aggressor into hamburger. Then counterattack, or simply force a surrender. I'm generally not worried by being outnumbered unless i'm also out-teched, or caught completely flat footed.

Mmm, hamburger.

Note: I play on King and by the sounds of it... i'm not too relevant, am I?

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Mmmm... an all-beef patty, lettuce, tomato, special sauce in a sesame seed bun...