The great leap - from monarchy to emperor - still not making it.

Tappara

Tappara

Coffee? Yes please.
Joined
Oct 14, 2003
Messages
54
Location
Finland
I'm really frustrated. This big step seems to be too big for me. I'm a good player at monach, but when I switch to emperor I get my butt kicked. I just can't figure out what's wrong. I've read all the strategy articles, but still no success. My best game at emperor was where I reached the late industrial age with Zulus (me as Scandinavia), but Spain was already at the beginning of the modern age :eek: .

So could please someone give me some advice. I'm not a complete newbie to civ as you may see, but this situation is really frustrating. And YES, I concentrate on expansion in the beginning and I DO NOT build any wonders.
 
Learn how to trade techs. aslo a good war can bring you back up in techs with the correct peace tready.
 
A couple of suggestions that you might not be doing.

1. At any level above monarch, you won't be able to out research the other AI, so you have to be an active trader.

2. You'll probably trail in tech in the middle ages, unless you have the Great Library (then stockpile cash for military or trades). So try to stay close to the tech leader via trading. Try to pick the techs the AI normally rates low (Printing Press, Medicine...) and use those techs to swing 2 & 3 fers (example trading Printing Press + $ for Banking, then PP + Banking for Physics, then Physics back to your original trading partner for $), you can pick up 2-3 techs and end up with more money in the bank.

3. I'm not sure which government you prefer, but for non-war games, you'll need to be in either Democracy or Republic to keep up a solid cash flow.

4. Add money & tech producing improvements (banks & universities) to your larger cities.

5. Improve all tiles being worked. Each road in more $$ and rails add more food/shields to each city.

6. Try to build a pair of productive cores. One around your capital and another around your forbidden palace. If playing Vanilla or PTW try RCP.

7. If you find yourself behind a couple of techs in the Industrial Age and can't get TOE, go for Espionage and try to steal your way to parity. This can start wars, so be careful when and where you steal.

8. Watch the size of your army. If you own your entire landmass and don't have any ROP's going then you don't need garrisons on interior cities. Each unit costs gold. Once rails are in place you really only need coastal defenders and 4-5 good attackers to eliminate invaders. The AI is very poor at across ocean invasions.

9. If you find yourself at war with an AI with better units, build artillery. A stack of 20-30 cannons, supported by rifles for defense and cavalry for attacking can take a size 12 city with 3 infantry with few losses.

10. When all else fails, try to steal a UN victory by saving a GL or setting up a pre-build and tech stealing your way to fission and build the UN. Setup MPP's with everyone and get #1 AI to goto war with you and let them attack you first. The other AI will dogpile on #1 and you'll get their votes when the UN is built.

Just a little 10-pack of things I've learned watching the Guru's & Master's play the last couple of years.

One other thing, check out the SG thread for a training game by Ghengis Khan & Sir Bugsy. It's got 50+ pages of discussions on how to improve your gameplay.
 
Randy said:
Learn how to trade techs. aslo a good war can bring you back up in techs with the correct peace tready.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. But I think I can trade techs, and certainly I can wage war in the ancient age. I have made a few archer rushes and swordsman rush, but the outcome has been poor even with militaristic trait. Couldn't get a great leader (playing PTW) to rush FP :sad: .
 
denyd said:
A couple of suggestions that you might not be doing.

1. At any level above monarch, you won't be able to out research the other AI, so you have to be an active trader.

2. You'll probably trail in tech in the middle ages, unless you have the Great Library (then stockpile cash for military or trades). So try to stay close to the tech leader via trading. Try to pick the techs the AI normally rates low (Printing Press, Medicine...) and use those techs to swing 2 & 3 fers (example trading Printing Press + $ for Banking, then PP + Banking for Physics, then Physics back to your original trading partner for $), you can pick up 2-3 techs and end up with more money in the bank.

3. I'm not sure which government you prefer, but for non-war games, you'll need to be in either Democracy or Republic to keep up a solid cash flow.

4. Add money & tech producing improvements (banks & universities) to your larger cities.

5. Improve all tiles being worked. Each road in more $$ and rails add more food/shields to each city.

6. Try to build a pair of productive cores. One around your capital and another around your forbidden palace. If playing Vanilla or PTW try RCP.

7. If you find yourself behind a couple of techs in the Industrial Age and can't get TOE, go for Espionage and try to steal your way to parity. This can start wars, so be careful when and where you steal.

8. Watch the size of your army. If you own your entire landmass and don't have any ROP's going then you don't need garrisons on interior cities. Each unit costs gold. Once rails are in place you really only need coastal defenders and 4-5 good attackers to eliminate invaders. The AI is very poor at across ocean invasions.

9. If you find yourself at war with an AI with better units, build artillery. A stack of 20-30 cannons, supported by rifles for defense and cavalry for attacking can take a size 12 city with 3 infantry with few losses.

10. When all else fails, try to steal a UN victory by saving a GL or setting up a pre-build and tech stealing your way to fission and build the UN. Setup MPP's with everyone and get #1 AI to goto war with you and let them attack you first. The other AI will dogpile on #1 and you'll get their votes when the UN is built.

Just a little 10-pack of things I've learned watching the Guru's & Master's play the last couple of years.

One other thing, check out the SG thread for a training game by Ghengis Khan & Sir Bugsy. It's got 50+ pages of discussions on how to improve your gameplay.
Click to expand...

Thank you denyd

But all the things seem familiar to me. I can do those things you said, but maybe I just have to try harder. But THANKS :) . I will check out that SG thread, I bet it's going to tell me something new.
 
Everyone has their own errors why they can't advance to higher levels. General tips help, but not on a personal base. If you post a few saves (of around 1500BC or 10BC latest) experienced players can point out where you go wrong and what you can improve in order to advance. So: post those saves in this thread !
 
Check your research rate. Some do even 0% in the beginning, I do only 10% research. The money is good for trading and you will not be able to research much faster with 70-90% rate, really.

Agricultural trait and Expansionist can also be very helpful for developement and trading. On Emperor + you pop too many barbarians and less helpful stuff than before, and this is where Expansionist begins to shine.

I suggest you save at the beginning, check the environment and then start over and start again and change what you have done wrong or so.

You might also consider an archipelago start as the Dutch or Byzantines perhaps! You get a great chance to be the middleman and trader, and tech progress will be slower and this might be more to your liking as the trader and middleman.

Do not forget about your military - the AI will bully you if it is too weak, check F3 regularly. For an archipelago start, republic is perhaps a better form of government, you will probably not be at war early on if you are alone on one island e.g.
 
I've recently been having a bit of success with a war-mongering strategy I read about. Play as the Persians (on a map where you're likely to have another civ on the same landmass) and try to get iron working as quick as you can. Build up your capital so that it's ready to produce loads of Immortals (baracks obviously), then maybe build some extra spearmen to help you defend the cities you are going to capture. You might consider building a second city if you run out of things to build or you think you're not going to be next to iron (remember iron is found on hills and mountains). Then when you get iron working build immortals and lots of them. Once you have 4 or 5 invade the most appropriate target and take as much as you can. When it gets too tough (you'll be fighting a much larger nation!) get peace and wait 20 turns or attack someone else. I've used that strategy on deity and I managed to take quite a lot of land very early on (although I still haven't won a deity game yet)! Be warned though, if you don't have iron the strategy will fail and you will have to start again.
 
Thanks to everyone for the answers. I'll try learn from those advices. Maybe some day I''ll beat emperor :) .
 
T, you might want to give the Celts or Iroquois a try as both can be very
effective early and give you a good start. Start for Iron Wking as the Celts
and turn loose the Gallic Swords- Expand like mad with the Iroquois then
:spank: with the Mounted Warriors :D . I have found that on E or even
M the only way to keep up in techs is :hammer: from others and trade like
a madman ;) . Although I :love: to play as Scandanavia also, I have
trouble with them at higher levels expanding enough early and protecting
myself enough while trying to build up :confused: . You seem to be a good
player so keep banging away.
 
Tappara said:
So could please someone give me some advice. I'm not a complete newbie to civ as you may see, but this situation is really frustrating. And YES, I concentrate on expansion in the beginning and I DO NOT build any wonders.
Click to expand...

You are almost there! Try not to focus on research! Unless you are way ahead of the AIs (which won't happen until the Industrial Age), try not to research anything. If you really need to research for something, search for Pottery at maximum speed and the rest with 1 scientist. Even at Sid level, it's possible to have a tech lead from trading without researching anything ourselves.
 
Oooh! The one scientist idea is excellent. I frequently do minimal research, but spend "10%" to do it. Using one citizen as a scientist will get the same result at lower cost. Why didn't I think of that?! Thanks!
 
I'm just trying my 1st emperor C3C game as the Inca. So far all i seem to do is remind myself why i don't like playing above monarch. I *like* to be involved in the tech race and doing my own research!

I'm thinking about restrictions to place on myself to make monarch more of a challenge just so i can DO RESEARCH.
 
Here's my $0.02.

Try stacking the deck in your favor. For instance, try a small pangaea with only 2 or 3 other civs. Or perhaps use a seafaring civ and set a archipelago with 80% water and select all non-seafaring civs. It may seem like cheating at first, but it will build your confidence and ease you into it a bit slower.

As someone else mentioned, post saves, or join a SG. Reading the SG's is helpful, but its more helpful to have someone actually critique your moves.

Last thing, be careful with early rushes. Although they can net you good gains, a poorly planned or executed one will hurt you much more.
 
I analyzed my playing and tried to think what errors I have done before. I started a new game as Iroquois, and I'm doing somewhat better now. I didn't concentrate on research and waged a couple succesful wars with mounted warriors. So once again, thanks for the good advices and information, now I have new enthusiasm to play Civ again :) .
 
Tappara, two weeks ago i found myself in the exact same situation you are now. 2 months ago I played regent, i read some nice articles that gave me tips and moved to monarch. After i won 3 domination victories in monarch, i said what the hell, ill give emperor a try. I was Japan on a standard pangea map. Long story short, Russia became the superpower owning 64% of the pop and 59% of the land, she had modern armor and i had cavlary so i gave up the game. The second time I played, I used a diffrent approach.

First, I chose Perisa becuase of the 4/2 immortals, industrious ability and cheaper libraries and universities. I chose standard again but this time continents. I went straight for ironworking, built a 4 turn setteler factory and switched to Republic ASAP. From then on, i built only immortals and ancient cav. (Statue of Zeus). By the year 1200 A.D. the whole continent was mine, i had 55% of pop and 52% of land. The only problem was that my map had 2 large continents one was solely mine and one was owned enterily by the Iroquoi. I invaded his continent with 6 armies (4 cav 2 rifle) 30 cannons, 33 cav and 14 addtional rifle. Unfortunately, the Iroquoi had 163 infantry, 62 cav, 22 art and 25 crusaders,etc. (Thanks to Spy). My army got destroyed and Imanaged to hold 2 cities,however i had 65,000 culture so i went for a cultural win.

The only thing i learned form the leap from Monarch to Emperor is:1) to always build military units ( your gonna need twice as many units as in monarch).2) capture a couple of AI cities and sue for peace plus technologies or gold. Never research and never let a civ grow to be a super power. Hope this helps. And please excuse the spelling.
 
Three words: Play Succession Games.

My game has improved dramatically since I started playing them.
 
scoutsout said:
Three words: Play Succession Games.

My game has improved dramatically since I started playing them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've read some postings there. I just feel a little nervous to sign up to a game started by a 2,000 post veteran, although I'm not a newbie. I just play "normal" civ games (PTW), not any variants. There seems to be a lot of strange things to me.
 
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