(G&K) Advice please

Walter R

Great Engineer
Joined
Mar 8, 2013
Messages
713
Location
England
Re-playing my first attempt at Emperor and could do with some general advice please. I apologise for not posting a save game or screenshot but I play off-line. I made some notes before shutting down. Game is England, Standard, Large Islands 6/12.

T200
happiness 4, beakers 158, culture 38

policies: full Tradition, Patronage Aesthetics and 2 turns to open Rationalism

Cities: 3
London pop 17 (14t), uni with both slots filled, mainly flatland, good food
York pop 7 (5t), uni with one slot filled, observatory, all hills, food tiles locked but food an issue and no fish (and it stagnated for about 20 turns before I wised up).
- both these on a large island

Nottingham pop 11 (3t), uni with both slots filled, 1-tile island with 3 atolls, good food

Demo:
pop 4
crops 6
goods 6
GNP 3
land 6
soldiers 6
approval 5
Lit 1

Tech: 1 turn from Sci Theory

General:
No obvious places for expansion
Didn't found religion, converted early by William.
friends with 6 CS, the 2 nearby are allies sometimes
Hiawatha and Darius are the big boys, just started fighting (not sure where)
Friends with all but Darius
I'm at the North of the map, Hiawatha founded 1 crappy city on some tundra at the edge of my island, fairly close neighbour. William immediately South, separated by a 3-tile channel. Monty a long way west. Darius and Dido along the South of the map, although Darius has at least 2 puppets in the central region.
I've only built great wall, the AI has been building all the world wonders. I did start building leaning tower but Hiawatha beat me.
My military is 3 SOTL, 4 longbows, a longswordsman and a couple of gifted pikes.
Money has been a bit tight. I've got one spare lux which I have been repeat trading for 7 gpt with William since early game.
2 planted GS.
I have had a few RAs, currently in one with H.
Obviously I'm bottom of the league table!
In a golden age.

So I realise that you will be unable to give me specific advice, but it all feels like I'm in slo-mo compared to what I'm used to. And I've normally taken some cities at this stage and have a bigger navy. Are my stats something like or does anything jump out at you? I have to say it's not the best start location I've ever had but its not awful - and I could sure do with some fish!
 
A few general thoughts (not that experienced on emperor):

1. You need food. Since you have patronage, give priority to Maritime CS alliances. Once you have enough surplus food in your cities, you will be able to fill those specialist slots and start spawning GEs and GSs. Don't use the GSs to bulb until you have 4 or 5 academies in your city that generates more beakers. Make as many alliances as possible (science bonuses are great). If money is short, use your spies to rig elections and stage coups.

2. York needs to grow, an internal trade route for food would help. An observatory is very useful in a highly populated city, don't neglect that.

3. Since you don't have your own religion, see if there are anything that you can profit from William's religion (buy buildings with faith for example). If not, go to the religion window and see if any other player has a religion that works better for you. If necessary, declare war to capture missionaries and convert your cities to the religion that suits you better.

4. Promote your units. If necessary, declare war on a CS just for target practice. Promoted longbowmen and SOTL can shoot twice and you will have awesome GGs when you promote the bowmen.

5. I didn't read anything about ideology, but if you want a specialist economy, go for freedom. This would also improve your happiness a lot.

6. Don't cry too much over the lost wonders, it is almost impossible to beat the AI with them at this level, but once you are ahead in science, things may change.

Good luck!

PS: Forget tips 2 & 5, just read it is G&K, sorry :) OR maybe you are actually playing BNW... I'm confused, there is no Aesthetics in G&K!!!
 
A few general thoughts (not that experienced on emperor):

... I'm confused, there is no Aesthetics in G&K!!!

I'm on G&K: It's the patronage tree policy that gives you the influence of +20 with CS.

I agree with your comments S, just not sure how to get there. I'm used to playing Prince and King and by this time in the game I've banged out some ships and aquired some puppets. I don't feel strong enough to go to war yet (offensively) and the nearby CS are more useful as friends/allies than target practice. I'm particularly bothered that my gpt is a bit meagre, but that's probably lack of puppets. Maybe I just need to practice on King more instead of swanning around owning the globe - i.e. get the win times down before going back to Emperor? I'd like to understand whether my social policy route was best (e.g. I could have opened rationalism last pick but chose aesthetics for the CS influence), and I think my 1st 100t strategy was OK but not sure if I made the optimal choices after that (e.g. post about T100 I always beeline Education and then usually follow the route to banking then navigation - but then whatever seems a good idea and that's not strategy!) Also I need to get better at espionage because I've gotten too used to being the runaway tech leader so I'm ineffective when I'm not.
 
Playing a few more times on king sounds like a good idea... I played my entire CiV career on Prince, then played 2 games on king and won both easy, so I decided to move up to emperor... huge mistake!!! My capital was captured around turn 100. I need to win at least once with each civ on king before trying to move up to emperor :)

I'm currently playing a MP as king and it's not easy either. Third in points, on the verge of a civil war because of ideologies, not enough gold and two eras behind the leader. At least I sent the assyrian troll to the bottom of the score table, LOL!
 
Yes I read your post on Assyria! I don't have them, I assume they're BNW? I also don't have Shaka and that feels like a real blessing.

It sounds like we are at broadly similar levels in our CiV games, although you definitely have the edge as I have no MP experience. Well I think I'm going to play this game out and then go back to King for a few games as I say. I hope a few of the Forum experts will comment on the policies etc. in the meantime - if they're not too busy playing BNW that is!

Cheers
 
Yup, Assyria is in BNW.... they steal a tech for every city they conquer :) The troll DoW'd me in the early game, and I presume he never attacked because I didn't have any tech he didn't. So I prepared myself and when I was ready, I showed him that when you declare war, you better attack. Took all his coastal cities in my continent with 3 frigates and 1 privateer and the non-coastal with 1 cavalry and 2 artilleries. Piece of cake. But as I said before, I have no real chance of winning this game, so I will use it to improve my combat tactics. Shaka is funny, he declares war on anyone you ask him to for a little GPT or an extra luxury, I actually love having him in the game, as long as he is not in my continent.

MPs are fun, you should try and definitely, get BNW as soon as you can. Cultural victory in BNW is almost a game inside the game and with the new piety tree, you finally see a use for faith in the late game.

Anyway, good luck in your current game, I just hope mine ends soon so I can try another civ... I guess I'm finally tired of playing as Poland.
 
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