What To Expect From Emperor Difficulty

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rondiggity

Chieftain
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Jul 22, 2013
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I can reliably win King with pretty much any civ and victory condition, so it's time for me to bump up to Emperor. What can I expect?

I've already started doing scout-first (I had been doing monument-first) and I'm avoiding the Great Library. Any other general approaches on this increased difficulty?
 
Getting tech going is a bit more important, and being prepared for war is a bit more important. You will start to see some large armies surrounding your cap at emperor, but do not panic! the AI still sucks at waging war and you still only need a few range units to win. I just stamped out Napoleon's first carpet of death with just 1 CB and 1 pike, and his second carpet of death with 2 x-bows and the same pike on immortal difficulty.

Pangaea is easier if you scout well because of the known tech bonus, RA's are easier to come by, and you don't need to figure out how to get both marine techs and military techs at the same time while keeping your science going, so its a good choice.

The step from King to Emperor is large, but easy enough to handle once you give up on most wonders.
 
joshua43214 said:
The step from King to Emperor is large, but easy enough to handle once you give up on most wonders.
Click to expand...

Its the smallest step in difficulty in the game. Yes, don't be a wonder-hog at this level. On King level, there probably is an order of wonders that you could build that you could build all wonders (excluding those with terrain or opening policy requirements); but that would be extremely poor preparation for Emperor.

Emperor to Immortal is huge where the AI gets a starting worker. Don't even think about building an early game world wonder at this level unless you like to time machine back to before you started to construct the wonder. (Fail gold is not worth it)

Immortal to Deity is even bigger; the AI gets an extra starting settler.
 
joncnunn said:
Its the smallest step in difficulty in the game. Yes, don't be a wonder-hog at this level. On King level, there probably is an order of wonders that you could build that you could build all wonders (excluding those with terrain or opening policy requirements); but that would be extremely poor preparation for Emperor.

Emperor to Immortal is huge where the AI gets a starting worker. Don't even think about building an early game world wonder at this level unless you like to time machine back to before you started to construct the wonder. (Fail gold is not worth it)

Immortal to Deity is even bigger; the AI gets an extra starting settler.
Click to expand...

First Emperor game I spawned next to King Solomons Mines as Spain.....needless to say I quit that game early. It was ridiculous how easy wonders were to grab. Great Library to get a jump towards Philosophy and National College. It just blew up from there.
 
joncnunn said:
Immortal to Deity is even bigger; the AI gets an extra starting settler.
Click to expand...

Haha! I will never forget my first Deity game. On T3 I move my warrior to see a Roman settler headed right toward my cap...

Its the barbs on Deity that I hate, I hate building an extra unit to deal with them early. Its the main reason I play immortal because they are much easier to deal with there. Though I do have to say its really fun to have your cap besieged in Deity and have a barb sword wander up and start killing the enemy lol. I actually had a besieging army disengage once to go kill the local barb camp, AI hates barbs...
 
I'm playing as Poland and well on my way to a science victory. My map has me on my own mid-sized continent next to marble so I chopped a few trees for Great Library. I know, I know, poor form but I managed to get such an early jump on science that I was able to get the Porcelain Tower and a finished Rationalism tree. I'm not generating as much tourism/culture as other civs in this game, but it's enough that I won't succumb to anyone else's culture victory (being the first to Radio helps).

I also opted out of the religion race, and so I'm not generating that much faith per turn either, but I do have about 4000 faith saved up so far that I'll use to buy a scientists.

Because of the increased propensity for conflict, I found myself starving for cash more than I was on King (my trade routes are getting hit). Other than that, so far so good.

I think for my next game I'll try Arabia and see if Desert Folklore -> Petra is still a viable strategy on Emperor for me.
 
joncnunn said:
Emperor to Immortal is huge where the AI gets a starting worker. Don't even think about building an early game world wonder at this level unless you like to time machine back to before you started to construct the wonder. (Fail gold is not worth it)

Immortal to Deity is even bigger; the AI gets an extra starting settler.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have trouble playing past Emperor because the cheat starts to be noticeable. It would not be so bad if there was not one easy way to overcome the cheat: warfare. I don't mind struggling the whole game but knowing that I only have one practical way to win makes it much less fun.
 
joshua43214 said:
Its the barbs on Deity that I hate, I hate building an extra unit to deal with them early. Its the main reason I play immortal because they are much easier to deal with there. Though I do have to say its really fun to have your cap besieged in Deity and have a barb sword wander up and start killing the enemy lol. I actually had a besieging army disengage once to go kill the local barb camp, AI hates barbs...
Click to expand...

I usually play with raging barbs as I find it more fun early on and makes for more randomness but I do sometimes wonder if it is actual an advantage for the player since I get a few leveled up units out of it. But at least when the AI and player have units nearby the barbs often ignore the AI completely.
 
I recently played a game on Emperor and I don't think there is any reason not to go for most if not all wonders, as it's very easy to get them. I'm fairly sure there is no noticable difference between Prince and Emperor.
 
Vohbo said:
I recently played a game on Emperor and I don't think there is any reason not to go for most if not all wonders, as it's very easy to get them. I'm fairly sure there is no noticable difference between Prince and Emperor.
Click to expand...

I played a whole series of games trying to find a strategy in G&K to take an OCC cultural victory on immortal (turns out to be about impossible).

This is a screen shot from an emperor game I played to experiment with policy and the tree paths

Pretty sure I only missed 1 wonder that I actually tried for :)
It is also a great example of why coastal starts fully suck for OCC pre BNW
 

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You don't need to be intimidated away from the Great Library on emperor. I usually play on emperor, and I beeline for Great Library on emperor as long as my start has reasonable food and production. It can obtained very reliably. I do not try for it on if I have a low production start (e.g. jungle) or if playing above emperor.
 
I remember my love affair with the great library. Once I let her go, I realized how much she was holding me back. I think it's something we all go through as we climb the difficulty ladder.
 
Magma_Dragoon said:
I remember my love affair with the great library. Once I let her go, I realized how much she was holding me back. I think it's something we all go through as we climb the difficulty ladder.
Click to expand...

Could you elaborate? Don't get me wrong; I 100% agree with you on immortal and Deity, but why wouldn't you build it at the lower difficulty levels? It's only about twice as expensive as an ordinary library, and those are also pretty important.
 
CountAccountant said:
Could you elaborate? Don't get me wrong; I 100% agree with you on immortal and Deity, but why wouldn't you build it at the lower difficulty levels? It's only about twice as expensive as an ordinary library, and those are also pretty important.
Click to expand...

Mainly because building the Great Library on Emperor is extremely poor preparation for moving up to Immortal.
 
GL is a terrible investment. Of all the ancient/classical wonders this is the one I'd be least likely to build in an Emperor game, unless I'm playing as France. For France it is probably the best one.

Edit: Totally forgot about the Great Wall when I wrote this. It's way worse.
 
I jumped from prince to emperor, but it still feels like big snooze-fest. I was surrounded - as Ethiopia - by America, Songhai and Russia. Washington even plotted against me, but building few units and placing them on borders cooled his head. I've heard things get little bit more nasty around the time when ideologies roll in, but I couldn't be arsed to spam next turn for another hour or so. I'm feeling like trying to bump it up to immortal or even deity just to feel any early pressure.

This, or manually putting each warmongering civ in game.
 
vorero said:
I jumped from prince to emperor, but it still feels like big snooze-fest. I was surrounded - as Ethiopia - by America, Songhai and Russia. Washington even plotted against me, but building few units and placing them on borders cooled his head. I've heard things get little bit more nasty around the time when ideologies roll in, but I couldn't be arsed to spam next turn for another hour or so. I'm feeling like trying to bump it up to immortal or even deity just to feel any early pressure.

This, or manually putting each warmongering civ in game.
Click to expand...

Ideology does make things a bit more nasty. Had a game where I was buddy buddy with 2 neighbor AI the entire game first turn after they picked a different ideology I was denounced. I was completely dominating them in tech and military so they got hit with a back stabbed diplo and turned to afraid.
 
On emperor or below, I ALWAYS build the GL, since it basically doubles your bpt and gives you a free tech for the production cost of only 2 libraries. In fact, free philosophy and an automatic +100% bpt (assuming you have 6 pop) is often enough to make me tech leader for the rest of the game.

I know it's about as crutchy as pre-nerf Liberty launcher in TF2, but I don't plan to move up difficulties anytime soon, so I'm :cool:
 
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