Is it possible to win every random map on emperor difficulty?

Hallo, I’m usually successful on various kinds of random maps (tera, Pangaea, continents, archipelago) on monarch difficulty, and I can win monarch games with various leaders without massive reloading, unless I make some serious mistake.
On emperor, I won only several times, and it always required some luck with map generation, like playing as Caesar with source of iron close to my capital.
Is it always possible to win on this difficulty (except some really horrible starts in tundra), if you choose correct strategy and adapt it well according to the circumstances?
I think games with certain combinations of randomly selected AI opponents are almost impossible to win, If I have bad luck with position.
For example, sharing border with Monty, Alex, and Suryavarman is really problem, especially if there are other three civilizations on opposite side of my territory, which are peacefully researching and trading. I eliminated Monty, but Alex and Khmers didn’t give me enough time to recover my economy after war. Few turns later, I was attacked by Khmers, I lost one of my cities and bribed Alex to attack Khmers. I conquered the city back and made peace several turns later. Alex continued his war with Khmers and I tried to recover from previous wars. After some time Alex made peace with Khmers, and attacked me several turns later, although he was pleased to me and annoyed to Khmers. I defeated his first wave, but several turns later, I was attacked by Khmers again and I wasn’t able to defend against both rivals.
I don’t know, what was my biggest mistake in this game, but I think, If I had chosen different strategy, It would lead to similar end. I think, taking down Monty was necessity In this situation, because Monty and Alex around me are really dangerous combination on emperor difficulty.

If you really think you've found an unwinnable map that was generated by the game's map script, feel free to post it and host a game. Put up a screenshot of the start, post the save and put a spoiler about why you think it's unwinnable. Then invite people to give it a try.

I would venture that, yes, every game is winnable on Emperor. Probably something like 98%-100% of them are winnable on Immortal.

You'd be suprised what has been won here actually

Theres only ever been one likely impossible game posted here to my knowledge, and that was only because the settler had settled already. The case landed up where a city sat in the middle of an island approximately 5*5 tiles in size.......
No ocean access and no possibility of building another city meant the player would be stuck without the possibility of more than one city for almost the entirity of the game, and without OCC rules on national wonders it was doomed.

I suggest posting up the save as an open challenge, you will likely see several solutions .
If your going to try again by the way, have you been using dilo tricks such as gifting a junk city? (early, instant and large diplo bonus!) and war bribes? (to slow them down and keep them busy)

If the AI (Augustus Caesar) can vassalize Montezuma and Shaka + building wonders(Pyramids) too,
a human player, playing as Rome, should be able, without building wonders, to handle multiple wars at Emperor.

Maybe every map is winable at Emperor, but playing the wrong leader and/or having the wrong opponents, it's probably not.

Based on years of reading the Strategy & Tips subforum and reading a lot from Deity players, I agree with Skipity and Ghpstage - if you really know how to do it, the win feasibility on Emperor is probably 99% or more. Perhaps with certain game settings excluded, and I'm not even sure what those might be, but maybe something like One City Challenge, Always War, Always War or Peace, Huge size, Quick speed, and the maximum number of AIs with every AI set to Shaka.

I also agree with them that posting games that you considered difficult (I suggest, to the Strategy & Tips subforum) is a great way to learn, although the advice you get might not always have as much detail as you'd like (my signature is a joke about that.)

Thank you for the answers. I agree that it would probably be possible to find solution for most of the posted saves, and I know there are many players much better than me. But I think, some maps are really hard to win at the first attempt, If you don’t know available resources, opponents, etc. If you know these factors, It is much easier to select better technology path, city locations and production.
I usually don’t replay random maps, but I know this for example from Earth scenario, where I tried several different leaders and I already know location of strategic resources.

A specially set-up map, on Immortal, which was isolated with some hills removed and no resources on the starting continent was won by two people. One was AP, which doesn't really count, and one was cultural.

I think so. On emperor you can still pull well-ahead of AI economies through smart, aggressive management. It seems like a good difficulty on which to practice this. The tick that narrows your set of possible strategies the most (probably starting at prince and above) seems to be raging barbs. Doing anything but beelining archery on Emp strikes me as a gambit under this setting. Costly, but I guess it gives protective some economic edge. Drill IV Archers aren't bloody likely to die.

TheSunIsDark said:

One was AP, which doesn't really count, and one was cultural.

Click to expand...

That shouldn't count either.

Any map is winnable with a standard spawn (even a really bad one) and even at deity. Of course on a really hard map, it may come down to luck (mostly diplo luck), but that doesn't mean it's impossible, you'd just have to avoid bad luck.

Similarly even if it takes 100 reloads, the game is still possible, you just have to avoid all the mistakes you made / bad luck that happened.

Deity isolated and your start being near Tundra + Ice with almost no food or green land around = not winnable. If you have nothing and are alone, you cannot win Deity.

^ I wouldn't fancy that even on emperor, unless there was a fairly soft neighbour.

Variation to the question: What's the minimum starting requirement to be able to say it's always winnable after that? Room for 3 cities each with enough food to reach happy cap?