Monarch to Emperor: the Great Leap

First time poster, started to play this game last december, which messed up my christmas plans tremendously.

The reason the AI is stupid is that it cannot learn.

We are all good at learning, and adapting. Creating a truly adaptive, learning AI would be a remarkable feat and one that I don't know is even theoretically possible yet.

The makers of Civ are a limited group of people - I am sure that they didn't have the concept of a settler factory, for instance. There are far more users and they share information. And, frankly, the game has been played longer than I am sure it took to create.
 
I am playing my first emperor game after about 10 or 15 games on lower levels. The poster that said there is no difference between monarch and emperor is crazy! I am being severely out-researched right now. Every other civ I know so far has at least a 2 tech lead on me, and I never got out-researched in lower levels, except maybe my first ever game.

But anyway, here is my question:

I have developed a sort of flexible warmongering strategy. Right now I've got about a dozen cities with republic as my government.

In terms of using an efficient military, how trim can I expect to keep my forces and still be able wage war effectively? I used to often build huge armed forces and pay 100-200 gpt in unit costs (later in games, at least), but it was never a problem. Now I see that is clearly not going to work because I can't throw that type of cash away and still keep up in techs.
 
This is coming from an early Medieval war point-of-view (the typical time to kick off your first major campaigns). So assume you'll be fighting with at worst Longbows, Spears, and Trebuchets.

1. No defenders in your core cities. Maybe build a few for border cities and to protect stacks, but no more. That is often the first and easiest way to drastically cut military spending.
2. At Emperor, figure 2 defenders per AI city in the fringes, 3-4 in the core, and maybe 4-6 in the capital. Work out what your objectives for the war are, and go when you have the right number of units for your initial wave, and reserves soon on hand.
3. Artillery (by which I mean any land-based bombard units such as Catapults, Trebuchets, etc.) is invaluable. If you can, get around 50% artillery in your stacks.
4. You'll probably want either one or two stacks depending on available resources:
i. A single, slow-moving stack of foot soldiers, defenders, & artillery (if no resources, or no horses, are available). (Say a 4:1:5 ratio, respectively.)
ii. Two stacks - one fast-moving (Horses/Knights/etc.), one slow-moving (defenders+artillery).

Alternatively, pack everything into one stack and use the fast movers' extra turn(s) to pillage; regardless, it's a good idea to include a couple of fast units in the artillery stack so they can leave the stack to pick off enemy units, then retreat back under cover.
 
Hi Kool Keith!
I don't know how many people are still following this thread, since this discussion started and more or less ended ages ago. I'm still playing this game, but most people probably went over to Civ4.

Now on to the strategy for a warmonger in civ3, I usually play both expansions, but this doesn't really change the strategy much, although in Conquest the computer has been known to do good waterinvasions.

1. Paying for that huge army is always a problem. I'd rather not have a huge army if I can get away with it, rather I try for an effective army. I fight war based on Sun Tzus rules: First I find an enemy that I can handle. Then I start building up my forces to a level, where I can easily overwhelm one or three of his cities, the classical border buildup. During this time, it is important to do a lot of diplomacy and defenses to stop anyone from attacking you, while you iniate your attack on your intended prey.

2. You will need a couple of engineers for your army, builders that is. These are to build the road, to your newly conguered cities and to colonize cities you want to keep, but are too far into enemy culture to keep, or to increase the size of the city you build when you have turned to old one to rubble.

3.To get a huge army, a good economy is a key to sucess, even though this is selfevident. See to that you have plenty of mines, better technology and possibly a little higher tax then usual, when the war breaks out. When war arises be prepared to let it cost. War costs. Get as many units as possible onto the field and take as many cities as possible from your enemy. Often you should aim for cities, which are in close proximity to easy defended land and resources. Cut all enemy resource supplys, but mostly tactical resources, such as Iron or horses, this is a very high priority. Take out the enemies most productive cities and then you win.

The main idea is that the enemy will have the advantage in numbers on this level, no matter what you do. Therefore you have to go for quality. Cutting the enemy off from the cities you want to take is then a priority and likewise is getting your troops close to his cities as fast as possible. Enemy reinforcements is a bad thing, so killing of all roads to these cities are a good thing, ofcourse you'll have to rebuild them to conguer the rest of the enemys land, but that's another story. The only time, I ever build forts, is on the road towards the enemy, that I'm building myself.

Winning on emperor means that you'll have to settle for haveing less troops, but makeing some cities into early production factories, makes it possible for them to get quite a lot of extra units. Also don't waste troops against a target you are not planning to take, or on a mission where they aren't needed, don't send five knights to kill two phalanxes, unless they have nothing better to do. Ofcourse sometimes funny things happens, but that's no reason to play like they would happen.

Don't attack a city unless you can take it. It's never worth the losses, if you only kill off a few defenders. Instead siege the city, until enough troops has arrived to destroy it. If the enemy somehow manages to outproduce your army with one city, you are doing something wrong, either:
1. You let the computer reinforce the city, through enemy roads or worse railroads.
2. You aren't occupying his main mines with troops.
3. You are concentrating on two many cities at the same time.
I'm not saying the computer won't outproduce you, because he will, I am saying that in the special local area, were you are conguering, the enemy should have the slightest chance to outproduce you, even if he gets triple your production.
 
Seems there's still some sign of life in this thread... Maybe someone can help... but it really seems doubtful!

Background: played the original Civilization more than a decade ago more than any human being ought to. Lost touch with the game, then picked up SMAC and completed that on the highest difficulty level with each faction in every win scenario. Picked up Civ3, slept through my first Warlord game; by 1000 BC, was three-quarters of an era ahead of all but one Civ and had as much culture as the other 5 (there were six...) combined. Then played a couple of times through on Regent, in which there was a moment or two that I actually had to think, but still utter domination. Over the past few weeks, I finished the game a few times on Monarch, and finding a moderate challenge doing so. Played 1.) Celts - Domination by 1500 AD 2.) Romans - Conquest by 1315 AD, and tried peacefully w/ 3.) Carthage - one-city culture by 1715 AD. Having more fun w/ Monarch difficulty, but really seems to lose flavor after mid- to late- middle ages. After that, the rest are so far behind and it's just going through the motions. Feeling particularly courageous, so I tried Emperor after reading most of this thread and then...

1st attempt: Iroquois/standard map - couldn't build a settler! I knew that I would quickly lose access to resources (tiles) if I didn't expand, but when the city reached size 2 (first discontent citizen) had to use entertainment and there was no way to grow! Thought out options - a) connect a luxury, but none were close enough, b)cultivate land, but that despotism less-than-three rule made it impossible, or finally c) as absurd as it seemed, build a *gulp* temple before building a settler! How horrendous. About this time, my wandering warriors stumble onto Japan, but the cheapskate wouldn't budge. Through trial-and-error (all errors) found that he wouldn't give me burial for Alphabet and 50 gold (everything I had!) After researching burial, I finally got a few settlers out, but by the time my fourth city was in place, I'm getting notices that the Pyramids, Zeus, Artemis and, only a half dozen turns later, GARDENS are all up! At this point, Japan is 3 techs ahead of me... Not just three techs, they had EVERYTHING that I had plus three more... Nothing to trade. I soon acquire mysticism, think I finally have something to trade w/ Japan, but he demands it! I reject and in come eight to ten horseman to eliminate my warriors. Threw two of 'em on a mountain but the CPU's fixed die-rolling took care of that. About this time, my homefront gets a visitor: four Roman legionaries. Didn't talk, just declared war. Restarted the game.

2nd attempt: Sumeria - startand map but DRY: the extra deserts didn't seem to phase those non-agricultural Civs; to keep this story shorter than the first, we'll just get to the events: wandering warriors show that I'm sandwiched between Zulu, Vikings, and China (not exactly a tea party). they all have acquired my starter techs before our introduction, and each have at least two more cities than me. Get Iron-working to discover that the three iron resources are located 1.) in the Zulu capitol city square, 2.) behind the Scandinavians, and 3) underneath Scandinavia's second city. Their territorial encroachment grows and I find myself pinned to a corner with 5 cities. Zulu makes a demand, I concede, then, about 12 turns later, Chinese horseman are positioning around my cities...

Seems like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. Monarch difficulty gets so lame after middle ages, but emperor is just plain an exercise in futility. Almost need monarch-point-five. Think I'll try monarch w/o research leaders, that might be OK.

Sorry for the lengthy post - wanted to share the story but it turned into venting!

Cheers,
Bassist
 
bassist2119 said:
1st attempt: Iroquois/standard map - couldn't build a settler! I knew that I would quickly lose access to resources (tiles) if I didn't expand, but when the city reached size 2 (first discontent citizen) had to use entertainment and there was no way to grow! Thought out options - a) connect a luxury, but none were close enough, b)cultivate land, but that despotism less-than-three rule made it impossible, or finally c) as absurd as it seemed, build a *gulp* temple before building a settler! How horrendous.
Use the lux slider to keep your population happy until you can find and hook up lux so you can put your clown(s) back to work. :)
 
or build a warrior and put him on guard duty in the capitol. That will actually deter some of the guys who come calling to attack, as well.

It's not uncommon on an emp/deity game to run 20-30% lux for quite a long time in the expansion phase.

and it's quite common for the human to not get any early wonders on emperor. Certainly not all of them, the way they are used to on lower levels ;)

Cheer up - emperor is significantly harder than the lower levels, and deity and sid are worse yet (you think the AI expands fast on emp, just wait until they start getting extra settlers to start ;))

but they are beatable. Well, at least I have heard that Sid is beatable ;)
 
Thanks gma and automated teller,
These were both good tactics that completely slipped my mind. I guess after reading all this stuff about the transition I had psyched myself out. I think the real problem here, though, is more with my playing; I don't think I'm ready to not dominate. the concept of being behind, particularly in tech, is pretty unbearable at this point. The way that I had been playing was always at 70-90% research slider, just enough to not lose units due to negative treasury. In the unlikely instances when a tech was reached before me, I always had a choice of which civ to give it to and a variety of options to give him/her. And most importantly, the fixed die-rolling was evident and frustrating even at the lower levels: too frequently would my elite cavalry (6) lose to unfortified pikes (3.3 or so) out in the open. Later, my tanks are losing half their HPs attacking pikemen. And, frankly, I think those two infantry fortified in a big city (defense 20) should be able to hold off the rush of 6 medeival infantry and longbows (attack 4). Seems the only way to overcome this CPU-extreme-luckiness factor was to develop huge tech leads w/ good infrastructure.

Think, for now, I'll stick to monarchy with a few different settings. Maybe I'll get back to ya's later if I take another crack at it, but will probably just pick up civ4 and join the rest of the group here.

Thanks again,
Bassist
 
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