The Emperor Masters' Challenge

I'm in favor of a city site A. It increases the number of forests available and only sacrifices a single floodplain that wouldn't be worked for quite a while anyway.

Also, it looks like we may need a little bit of farming early to benefit from both gold mines. I don't normally condone it, but since we're lacking a large food resource, I'd say farm a floodplain or two. Maybe a research path that looks like Agriculture, Bronze, then Pottery (mostly for the granary). This would be followed up by either Animal Husbandry or Hunting and Archery. I'd lead with a worker first (to build a farm then start on the gold mines), followed by a couple warriors while growing the population, then (when available) a granary. If we could steal a second worker that'd be great. Otherwise, we should probably chop/pop rush one after the granary. Then, get started on expansion (military or non-military).

Short term goals are to get both gold mines up and running and have a large (~4) food surplus available for whipping. I envision something involving a farm and a couple cottages on the floodplains. You work those tiles (and maybe a grassland cottage) when growing your population quickly after whipping. Then, when you've capped out your population, switch over to the gold mines. You'd probably only be whipping 1 pop at a time in the early game, as you'd like to spend as much time as possible working the gold mines.

2 Gold in city radius?
Decision is simple - Oracle slingshot to civil service.

Easy done even on emperor with one city working 2 gold.
Do not research masonry, go with first worker, you know mining and would not need anything else.
You migth even get early religion, this happened.

I would settle on one squear east, on Grassland, to keep forest.
Do not undeestimate health and posible hummers.

Research wise I would go
Musticism-Meditation-Farming-Animal hasbentry-Priesthood-Writing-Col-Civil service from oracle.

Task is to grow fast enoght to work bouth golds as soon as posible when grow to max size.
Use warriors for fog busting.

Some tech are subjust when founding of city will reveal and posible neybors.

I might stick archery somewhere, if barbarian could be a problem (Not enoght forested hill to fortify) and Alex near by. You even probably will be able to stick Stonehedge in, subjust of hummers needed for army.
If you have some one like Alex I would consider

Modifications - if dangerous opposition near by stick bronse working and second city in quie and go for Mettalocasting from oracle why researching col manially, to early to tell which plan better. Civil service will be near by from GP anyway.

Emperor/epic is definitely a lot easier than Emperor/normal. Whether it's easier or harder than Monarch/normal is impossible to objectively evaluate, imho.

getting oracle is interesting option. I bet you could probly make it work.
However, i would rather get Great Lib.
so something like this BW -> Agric. -> Animal H. -> Writing -> Alphabet -> Lit.
Throw mysticism and poly in there, and, if no bronze go IW
I just dont see point of techs like hunting and archery. If you dont have bronze around you will most definately have iron around, and since you have two golds you could blaze trough bw -> iw directly.
Oracle is good, but i like G.Lib better and it's hard to get both without being ind/ having resources. That could all change however.

Build a worker right from the start? I don't normally do that as I like my city to grow to size 2 so that I can build my worker in fewer turns. So my first build is usually warrior. However, I think it might be good to farm the flood plains and take advantage of the gold hills early so I'm going to go with the worker as 1st build. This necessitates Agriculture as 1st research as the worker would need something to do once it is built. So the research order shall be Agriculture -> BW -> Pottery (for granary) -> Hunting -> AH -> Archery.

Archery can be before AH if we don't have copper nearby, which makes Skirmishers more important. And if that's the case IW should come pretty soon. I have a feeling we'll have to mix settling cities with early conquest to grab a sizeable territory early. The gold and Financial should be able to finance the empire.

I also thought of a CS slingshot when I saw the two gold mines. However, The fact that we don't start with Mysticism and we are not Industrious makes me question the feasibility of it. I am not keen on researching Mysticism when there are important worker techs that allow us to take advantage of our starting position. Being not Industrious, I feel, would also mean an effort at Oracle would seriously ****** our expansion.

Great Library is a possibility. However, I think we have to see how things develop before we decide on that.

On the subject of game speed, I wouldn't be losing on Emperor Epic so many times early on if it is not more difficult than Monarch Normal. I've won on the latter settings almost 100% of the time (Pangea, Continents and Archipelago) before deciding to move up to Emperor. But yes, I agree Emperor Normal would be harder, and I look forward to tackling the game on that setting in the near future.

Now I am going to play my first round, which might be more than 10 turns if there's no significant development this early in the game.

Interesting start. 2 gold hills, flood plains and financial. Yum, it could have been a lot worse I think city A is the better start and then place city C 1SW to have the fish, some flood plain tiles and maybe some more on the west and most importantly no overlap with A. Almost perfect dotmapping.

I really need to learn how to plan teching I always tend to take what comes best for me at that moment. Do not underestimate skirmishers btw. 1-2 first strikes and power 4. If you can't find copper this will be your most powerfull unit. Give it a drill promotion and it will give most archers a run for their money and you will be able to take cities with him.

site A is better (though lots of darkened tiles!) because :
- less health problems
- one more forest to chop
- better possibilities for a fishing city (far away since you don't know fishing yet, but good food there!)

you need to grow to size 2 to be able to work 1 gold, don't you?
i would go for warrior first then worker, then?? (too early to tell)
while researching agri, then hunting, then archery (it's your UU! respect it!), then BW (slavery! chopping!), then pottery (granaries!), then writing (with both prereq, it will be cheap, libraries!). It's somehow a long shot, but i think the REX you spoke about in the beginning should be possible = building settlers while getting high science ouput through gold mine!

In fact, you've got the best possible start for REXing, just remember to go for CoL soon enough

Emperor Civman123 reporting
2 points 1.
Warrior first and steal some workers
2. BW first for slavery and copper

Round 1: 4000BC - 2740BC

A long time ago, on the grasslands of the Gold River, our nomadic ancestors first established their tribal villages; and thus began the civilization of Mali.

There are legends concerning the beginning of our nation, which spoke of a noble chief called Mansur, who slew a great lion and watered the barren land with its blood before establishing the city of Timbuktu there. But we are not concerned with myth at this moment. I will tell you the story of Mali, in words plain and simple, to the best of my knowledge as a scholar and chronicler.

We settled Timbuktu on Site A on turn 2, and look what it revealed.



An additional Sheep resource in the fat cross! I am beginning to disbelieve this luck. Maybe this isn't a fair demonstration of a standard Emperor game, but since this is what the game gave us, it is only right we accept it

I started on the worker and moved our warrior SW to explore. After a few turns moving, he popped a hut which gave us a map.



A lot of jungle to the south. Looks like IW might be needed quite early even if we have copper nearby. Anyway, I am sending our warrior SE to grab that hut revealed by the map. It's too tempting. It gave us 33 gold. Then I moved my warrior back towards Timbuktu, clearing more shroud to the south in the process, so that we could explore more of the lands immediately surrounding the capital. Here's a glance of the area immediately south.



Spices, silk and corn but a few peaks. Looks like we will need two cities to claim all of those. But I won't go to the spices and silk at least until IW is around the corner. Until now no sight of the AI. The warrior popped another hut along the way, which gave us 40+ gold. I am moving it north towards the hut immediately north of our border. Meanwhile, the first worker is completed and I moved it to the floodplain NW to farm it for quick early growth. I started on a warrior for future protection and to allow the city to grow.



Finally, someone came knocking on our doors.



Not the friendliest person... Maybe he will be the first target. However, the fact that his scout had the chance to be promoted to CombatI implies that it had to travel enough distance to be attacked by animals at least twice. I don't think he's that near us and that would certainly discourage a super early axe rush.

The north hut gave the warrior experience and I promoted it with Woodsman I and II for exploration purposes. I sent him NE in a greedy search for more huts. He got cornered by a lion and a wolf after a few steps, though, and was forced to defend on a hill. Fortunately, he survived. Three cheers for our ranger!



He shall be called Strider, for that is a good name for a ranger (now would someone tell me how to rename a unit? ). I sent him to the forest NE to fortify and heal. Don't want to lose a promoted warrior so soon.

The worker completed the farm about now and I sent him to farm another flood plain. After that he will move to the forest tile west to chop for a settler. The city grew to size 2 on the same turn. BW is 1 turn away now.

Guess what?



Copper right beside our western border! This certainly calls for a city to grab that copper. Once completed the warrior from Timbuktu will explore that area so that we could determine where to place our 2nd city. I set the research to Pottery (for granary to whip rush) and started a setter in Timbuktu once the warrior was completed.

The warrior revealed this:



Two good copper city sites come to mind: Site A and Site B. Site A has the advantage of being at the coast and on a hill with no really bad tiles in the fat cross. The disadvantage is a two-tile overlap with the capital. Site B has the advantage of no overlap with the capital, but features one peak and 4 ocean tiles. I am for Site A since two overlapping plains tiles don't really strike me as devastating and I don't like the peak and ocean tiles.

Both sites, however, need a border pop before we can access the copper, so they would call for an early obelisk, making Mysticism all of a sudden a good option for research next. We may delay Archery now since with copper we can start pumping out axemen (if Kublai or somebody is not too far away). As an alternative, we could delay Mysticism and build some Skirmishers first. We can start with axemen once we get round to building a culture building in the 2nd city, a good choice if it turns out no AI is near enough.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: Whoops, forgot the save file.

The copper city looks to have really low food If you had settled in place with your first city you probably could've had the sheep and copper together in a city. Hindsight is 20/20 but I usually prefer settling in place unless 2 tiles from the coast.

Dealing with what you have though...I think that A is definitely better. If you're going to lose some tiles anyways (to overlap or mountains), better to include the extra forest and starting on the plains hill will give you better production. With the low food, you're not going to be working that plains hill anyways...

Also, what do you think about zombie's recommendation to only have the settler being worked for 1 turn to receive the hammers from a chop and then switching back to something that lets the city grow? I've played around with that and found it works quite well. The rationale is that while the settler is working, your city isn't growing and the more it grows the more you can pop-rush, which he argues is bugged in that it gives more hammers than it's supposed to (or something to that effect). Even if it wasn't bugged, I would consider that a good idea. Especially when you've got amazing food to grow with...

Edit: Oh yeah, and I guess this eliminates the need for skirmishers...

A and B are both lowend city sites : no fresh water, no food bonus (you can't eat silk!), no remote river to give you tiles to farm...
This city is bound to be either a fishing village or to be capped at size 4
+ needed expansion will take forever and a chop.

If you want the copper soon, build 1N of A = 1 W of B. It's still a coastal crappy city, but at least it won't cost you so much.
You could even build on top of the copper, then you'll have only crappy tiles to work outside your capital's fat cross, but you would get minimal maintenace, and the occasion to use (without expansion!) the sheep and one gold, while timbuktu still grows.

Whaaa, your capital fat cross is just WOOHOOOOOOOO!!! Sheep and cow for extra food, 2 gold is research galore, enough flood plains, almost all river tiles god, I am drooling over here

Copper via city A is the best if you ask me. 2 tiles overlap but 2 plains hill and a plain beats 3 ocean tiles every day of the year if you ask me. Food will be pretty tough however. You are going to need CS to get those tiles irrigated. Better hope that some of the forest will give you 2 food/1 hammer otherwise it will be very slow growing.

Getting the copper makes the skirmisher less important indeed but it still one (if not) of the best defensive units in the early days. Axe rush won't be very likely since Kublai is apparantly very far away. I encountered the same problem in my game where the conquest started really late because the damn enemy was far away.

the more i think about it the more i find founding on the copper is the best option...

About tech, just think of REXing a bit.
You'll need CoL soon, and skirmishers are cheaper/better defenders than axes.
And i would be really disappointed if you didn't build anby of your UU's

Can't help with the capital's position now. At least it's in a very good position and stands to gain a lot from Bureaucracy in the future.

Site A seems to be the best we have for a copper city. This city will be quite crappy at the beginning, and the main purpose of it will be to grab the copper early. Maybe we could settle the fish city first, if most of you think it's better than rushing for copper with not so good a city. We could wait until Sailing so that the city can at least build a lighthouse to help with early growth. Maybe if we wait for a while, the capital's further border expansion would give us the copper without the need of a copper city. Sounds like a viable option.

About relying on chops to build the settler and switching to something else in between to allow growth, I am not so sure of that right now as we don't have that many forests to chop in the capital's fat cross. Plus I already started laying down some farms for high food yield so the settler won't take that long to complete.

for settler build, mine both gold, and work those.
You should be stagnant (so no growth lost) with a fast build, and high commerce.

Maybe if we wait for a while, the capital's further border expansion would give us the copper without the need of a copper city.

Click to expand...

this sounds like an amazing idea to me. as others have suggested, go for skirmishers and REx and settle elsewhere. Once you plop a library in your capital you should hopefully push the culture out to get the copper. having such a low-food city is just sooo unappealing esp. early in the game.

i would agree with the fish city and scout some more and settle some other spots. i think IW will be important to settle in the jungle areas sooner rather than later.

EDIT: BAH!!! after looking at the pic again, you should get the copper on your next border expansion. *definitely* forego the copper city and build elsewhere

EDIT2: I would settle 2 tiles south of the fish (assuming no other water resources in the black there) and then continue to expand westward toward the grasslands that are there. North looks kinda crappy and south requires iron working and also doesn't look great food-wise (from what we can see thusfar [no rivers food resources by mountains])

EDIT 3: I would settle on that plains hill (spot A) once you get sailing and civil service. It will be an ok spot then.

cabert said:

for settler build, mine both gold, and work those.
You should be stagnant (so no growth lost) with a fast build, and high commerce.

Click to expand...

Actually, working two farms will give us more hammers for the settler as the gold mines will only give us 3 hammers each while the flood plain farms give 5 food each.

futurehermit, I think I'll do just that.

Don't settle near Copper. You'll grab the resource at the 2nd border expansion anyway. Build the city NW on the coast to grab the remaining floodplains and the fish. Additional health + nice Settler-Worker factory for more settlers-workers, while the Capital is busy with the Oracle or things like that.

i would like to discuss the merits of the oracle. i'm not convinced that it's all that valuable given the circumstances (unless we're talking about a cs sling, which i doubt). no organized means courthouses are too expensive early. no industrious means forges are too expensive early. financial and emperor means we ain't gonna be runnin' a specialist econ (caste system). small amount of forests and health concerns due to floodplains means chopping oracle will prove difficult and then it ties up the capital for a long time.

i would side in favour of avoiding it and going REx instead. i think having another city or two would outweigh the benefits of oracle in this situation. thoughts?