Prince to emperor..

I am looking for general advice. I can stomp them on prince though my science victories are sloppy. I have played a round or three of king and that seems easy enough but i can see it requires more focus than prince. I am looking for a fight but the blatant advantages the ai needs kind of annoys me. So emperor is what im gonna try. Im going quick standard pangea with mongolia which i dont normally use. For practice. Is quick gonna get me spammed horribly? Starting it now. Im feel a beating coming so feel free to advise. I cant upload games.

I would not play on quick since you want the keshik window of dominance to last as long as possible. Also, I would jump right to Immortal since you already know the basics. You may lose, but you will be forced to learn better strategy.

BTW Mongol strategy is really simple. Settle 2-3 cities to grab as many horses as possible. Build chariot archers that can be upgraded to keshiks. Build a few un-upgraded horsemen to cap cities. Start conquering with about 5 or 6 chariot archers/keshiks and keep building them until you have about 15-16 keshiks. Eventually split them into 2 armies and take them conquering in opposite directions. Raze all cities you don't need (just keep capitals or other strategic cities). If you do it right you don't even need much Science since you won't have to tech past Chivalry. Since it's kind of a unique situation you probably would be better off learning with a more conventional civ. Try Poland (always powerful on any map) or China (CKN are great for trying a comp bow to crossbow rush domination strategy).

Gonna do that then. I am fairly sure i will be out of my depth on that level. I really hate huge mobs rolling across my borders on turn ten.

I think when I jumped to King I stayed to much time in it, I was convinced that it had to be much difficult than it was really, every game by turn 200 I had more than the double of the points of my nearest contender, so if you actually are playing on price and you find you can reach the top without bother to much, I think you are pretty much prepare for facing Empeoror, also before you do that I will recommend you to take a quick view on the Civilopedia so you know at what you'l be facing.

I went to Immortal. Barbs are being an issue. I saw those bonuses and didnt like it. Ethiopia is my closest neighbor if i dont get absolutely mauled im gonna try to learn that level.

Turn 129 and im almost done with nc. My demographics tell me im the worst in nearly everything. 4 cities = 27 pop and someone has 7 times my population. Food seems a little scarce, lots of plains and elephants and my cap is not coastal so the growth has been slow keeping my happiness around 2. Im a third world civ but im not dead yet. I would be happy for any links to playing immortal or the mongols as i dont play either of these normally.

This is a good general starting strategy:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371

Another is this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503931

I've learned most from watching videos. These seem good to me:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=533320

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvDosx_OQs0

Third world civ, , you only need to remember that the only factor that make the difference between the difficulty levels in Civ V is pretty much all the bonuses that the AI receives, but not a more refined, intelligent or challenging AI.

So you will find yourself pretty much behind in the scoreboard at the beginning for that reason because you are starting on turn 0 and them on turn 30 or so, so don't be bother for that fact.

I watched some Deity play once, and I think in the high difficulty games, you have to play the roll of kinda the evil minded villain, so for example, let's say, if you find that a civ that is catching up quickly, so you pay a warmonger for slowing them down, and then, when they gained the hate of every civ in game, make yourself friends of the passive and neutral civs and lead a coalition against them, taking a lot of his former cities and then liberating some ones from the ex-OP civ, and you will look like a hero for the other civs.

And don't forget establishing lots of trade routes because the will give you more science the more behind you are on tech.

@war said:

....I can stomp them on prince though my science victories are sloppy...

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Although you wanted general advice I'm going to give advice on science, which in this game is the key to everything, except diplomatic victories.
Growth and specialists(Secularism and/or Korea) are the key. Settle in locations that has a river so each riverside farm will yield +1 food at Civil Service. Try and settle next to the river so you can build the watermill, garden, and hydro plant(s). Your capital is the main source of science so consider sending all internal routes to it(initially). Also allying or befriending maritime CS is never a bad idea.

War
Although war can be very beneficial it is usually costly in terms of science as each city you found/capture adds %5 to your tech costs. Puppets always focus on gold production and not science, unless you annex(which will ad to your policy costs) or send an internal trade route to them.

Wonders
The only early wonder you want is the Oracle, you can get this in an expo on Emperor if Pacal and/or Maria isn't in the game(there's a few other but I forget who). Early wonder-whoring means you are focusing on production and not growth. In saying that Temple of Artemis is a nice wonder to snag but it will usually go early.

Wander your Settler
Turn off barbarians in the meantime and wander your starting settler. Usually you get an OK start but there might be an excellent location a few tiles away.

Civs to Try
Aside from the obvious science civs like Korea/Babylon
Spain: you don't need to settle a NW, only find it first. That's a free settler or 2.
The Huns: it may seem Attila is about early war but he's about insane production. I once built my SS parts in 4 turns in an excellent Attila's court(would have been less(probably) if I went Order).
Poland: the only civ to guarantee opening Rationalism the turn you enter the Renaissance era.
Polynesia: on a watery map they have the advantage up until someone reaches Astronomy.

If you want ideas on what excellent locations look like have a look at the finishing screenshots of the games in The Deity Challenge Line-up #20 - Spain - Valentine day Resurrected

I dropped the first try because Iroquois were running away. I was sloppy and the start was lowish on food. I started two king games and was bored. So i played a round on emperor as spain. Got no nat wonder but i was first into the Renaissance and i took egypts capital when i realized i was losing the wonder contest but i had more troops. Got space race in 1976 or so and never was attacked. Had xcom fighting alexanders gw inf. I think i will see if i can bang out on immortal. That emperor game had me looking to make sure i had actually set the difficulty up right. Should i ever plant a scientist? When should i stop if so..

@war said:

...Should i ever plant a scientist? When should i stop if so..

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That is the great debate that will rage on forever.
For me I want to plant on cattle(when not the Huns), wheat, or a non riverside grassland tile within ring 3 of my capital. Further GS are used for bulbing. If none of these tiles are available then I don't plant. If I'm playing Babylon(which I do rarely) I might plant a second GS.

Another question what about GE/GProphet/GM, do you plant those?
Me I only plant GProphets.

@war said:

Should i ever plant a scientist? When should i stop if so..

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The general consensus is to plant until you have your Public Schools, and then save GS for late game bulbing. (You want to be science-focused for 8 turns before bulbing, and then only bulb one per turn.) I tend to plant one or more less, depending if I have (or lack) ideal (flat grassland) tiles.

I usually use GPr for CS quests, but planting is nice too.

phillipwyllie said:

That is the great debate that will rage on forever.
For me I want to plant on cattle(when not the Huns), wheat, or a non riverside grassland tile within ring 3 of my capital. Further GS are used for bulbing. If none of these tiles are available then I don't plant. If I'm playing Babylon(which I do rarely) I might plant a second GS.

Another question what about GE/GProphet/GM, do you plant those?
Me I only plant GProphets.

Click to expand...

Why would you plant on cattle? That's a potential 2 hammers that you lose out on. I definitely agree with planting academies and manufactories on wheat though as long as it's not riverside. Some times I'll plant on a lux if I already have a bunch of it and no one wants any. This frees up a farm tile.

Assuming you have built or otherwise can build a stable in that city, settling a GP on cows just loses you one hammer (stable provides the other, without the need for a pasture on that tile -- only exception is Poland, where Ducal Stable only applies to pastures).

Settling a GP on cows will lose you one additional food, however, when you research Fertilizer, but that is no different from a non-riverside wheat or grassland tile, where the inability to farm that tile loses you only one food now but one more food when you research Fertilizer.

Browd said:

...Settling a GP on cows will lose you one additional food, however, when you research Fertilizer...

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I never considered that. I always forget Fertilizer provides +1 food to pastures.

The best in my opinion is to settle GP on camping resources, with the exception of forested tundra. Forested plains with truffles or furs are best. You lose 1 gold early on, but you instantly chop a forest. You will lose 2 gold after Economics but if by then a 2 GPT loss is so big you probably have other problems.

claudiupb said:

The best in my opinion is to settle GP on camping resources, with the exception of forested tundra. Forested plains with truffles or furs are best. You lose 1 gold early on, but you instantly chop a forest. You will lose 2 gold after Economics but if by then a 2 GPT loss is so big you probably have other problems.

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I agree with you that chop at cost of mere loss 1-2 gpt makes deer/bison attractive for GP. I disagree about planting GP on a lux though. Giving up a truffle or fur that can be traded most the game is a very high cost.

The problem with settling on truffles or furs is that the GP tile improvement does not connect the luxury (it will connect strategic resources). That's OK if it is your 8th or 9th instance of that luxury, but if you want or need that luxury for happiness or for trading, don't plant on the luxury.

EDIT: Ninja'd

Browd said:

The problem with settling on truffles or furs is that the GP tile improvement does not connect the luxury (it will connect strategic resources). That's OK if it is your 8th or 9th instance of that luxury, but if you want or need that luxury for happiness or for trading, don't plant on the luxury.

EDIT: Ninja'd

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Yea, planting a gp improvement on any resource will waste the gp if an automated worker irresponsibly improves the resource that the gp improvement is on.

Reason number 497 not to automate workers ... ever.

Also, one Game Option is "Automated Workers Don't Replace Improvements". If you are at all inclined to automate workers, you should check this box.