Emperor woes

[Winged Monkey]

Since it seems to be in vogue these days to post saves and screenshots to get constructive feedback, I thought I'd give it a go too. They usually seem to revolve around starting positions and early game scenarios though. This one is a little different. We're close to modern times, and we're at a crossroads. The wrong move will most likely cost us the victory, and we're faced with a number of serious challenges that need to be addressed.

(Save is at the bottom of the post.)

The game: We're playing as Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro), glorious emperor of the Chinese empire. Map type is Big/Small - standard size, and as the title of this post indicates, the difficulty level is Emperor.

Spoiler:

The background: The RNG gods were pleased with the fledgling Chinese civilization and gave us a very good starting position. Thanks to a couple of gold mines, and bountiful food resources, we were able to REX without compromising our research rate. To the east we found Brennus of the Celts, and quickly decided to make him our attack dog. The decision was made easier by the fact that he founded buddhism, and it was the first religion to spread to our empire. To the south, we found Frederick of the Germans, whom I had little experience with. This was soon to change. To the west was Ramesses II, wonder hogger and good techer - my biggest worry at the time. The rest of the AI's are largely inconsequential.

At 1200 AD we were at the top of the world, with 6 good cities and a pretty clear tech lead. Things were looking good. With barracks and the correct civic combination, we started pumping out Drill III promoted Cho-Ku-Nu's en masse with an eye to taking out Egypt, which seemed like the biggest threat at the time. With a good mix of Cho-Ku-Nu's, Knights and Trebs, we declared. His two first cities fell quickly, and things were progressing smoothly. But then the . .. .. .. . hit the fan!

Frederick declares on us! The insolence!

This we weren't prepared for. In our arrogance, we'd continued to run caste system for the benefit of our GP farm (no whipping quick defense for border cities), and most of our forces were on the Egyptian front.

We immediately revolted into slavery (Nationhood was some 5-6 turns away from being researched), and sent our knights back home for defense. All new units being built were sent down south to withstand Frederick's assualt, and the war with Egypt froze to a grinding halt. Frederick did manage to take one of our cities, not only once, but twice, but luckily we managed to take it back both times since he was gracious enough to leave it defended by only one or two units each time. After some serious whipping we finally managed to consolidate the southern front, but constant pillaging and raids from Frederick remained a problem for the duration of the war. At some point, Ramesses actually voluntarily became a vassal of Frederick, and since Frederick wasn't too keen on peace, we had no choice but to continue the war.

Long story short, after about 400 years of war, we managed to wipe out the Egyptians from the main continent, and we finally made our peace.

For the most critical part of the conflict, Brennus, my good pal, had too much on his hands and couldn't be bought into the war.

Which leads to the difficult reconciliation period...

The current setting: We're in the year 1794 AD and things are looking bleak. Although we've managed to secure a lot of land, the demographics aren't looking too good:

Spoiler:

And perhaps most troublesome:

Spoiler:

Oh dear!

The war with Egypt gave us some nice cities and a few wonders to boot, and after a few quick courthouses and the forbidden palace, the economy was in decent shape.

Spoiler:

But...

The heavy lashing left us with reduced cities, and for the duration of the war, most of the other civs managed to outpace our teching, and we're currently lagging behind.

Spoiler:

Note 1: Frederick also has rocketry
Note 2: Combustion from Brennus should be easy to get

But that's not the worst part of it. The real problem as of right now, is that Frederick controls the Apostolic palace, and he and his lapdog Ramesses is continuously trying to return Ramesses' cities back to him. Since we don't have monasteries for the controlling religion (should have thought about that before d'oh..) we can't counteract it by spreading the religion to our own cities. And simply voting no won't do, since we don't have enough votes. So we have to defy and leave ourselves with lasting happiness problems. Which again means that our culture slider is at 30% and our tech slider at 30% (we also need 10% espionage to keep tabs of Frederick.)

So unless we somehow manage to remedy the situation, the game will most certainly be lost.

Another serious problem is that we're losing the culture battle in our border cities. My once glorious GP farm, have been reduced to a two-bit town, thanks to surprisingly high culture pressure from Brennus, and surprisingly clever sabotaging of infrastructure and tile improvements by Frederick:

Spoiler:

Culture situation empire-wide:

Spoiler:

Quick look of the Chinese empire w/ resources toggled:

Spoiler:

Beijing:

Spoiler:

The diplomacy situation:

Spoiler:

Oh, I forgot to mention. We're currently at war with the French! Sneaky bastard Louis decided to sneak attack a poorly defended border city of mine from the sea. His outdated units only managed to suicide magnificently though, and he's not much of a problem. He's way behind in tech and on another continent.

What's next? That's the big question. Due to a series of unfortunate events and carelessness from my side, we are in a pickle. This is where you guys come in! What would you do to gain the upper hand again?

My current research path is Artillery (a tech noone else has). It can either be a good tech for trading, or... we could try to take on Frederick via an infantry/artillery rush. His 3 best cities (by far) are located relatively close to my borders. If we manage to take all three and withstand his counterassault, we would be in a very good position. Problem is, he isn't too far away from tanks (needs electricity and industrialism, and electricity he will probably be able to trade for) so we might have to start unit-spaming RIGHT now, and neglect further infrastructure updates. Also, he's way ahead of us on the power ranking, so it might just be too difficult.

Another option is to continue on peacefully, and hope we'll be able to convert our good land into a spacerace win. If that turns out to be the recommended path, I have a question. Does the Apostolic palace become obsolete if I tech to Mass Media, or does Frederick have to research it? If it's enough that I research it, I might be able to get there reasonably fast by doing some sacrificies.

Suggestions?

Oh, and feedback about all the stuff I've most certainly done wrong would also be nice. Be brutal and honest!

I will try to get as much feedback as possible and then try to use the advice to get into a better position. I still consider myself a noob, so there's probably a ton of things I could have done differently, and ways out of this tough spot that I'm not able to see...

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/upload...eyondSwordSave

[qwertz]

I am still having a lot of trouble with emperor so my advice might not be the best, but I think the sitution isn't really that bad. Frederick seems quite busy with the others. If you menage to keep him so, you can tech peacefully towards the space victory, which is maybe the only victory you can still achieve. The tech situation doesn't look that bad and after some quick rebuilding you can catch up easily. Fred isn't that far away from Mass Media which will also remove the AP threat.
I would also consider getting to computers and building the internet, it might be very usefull as the most AIs are quite close in the techs.

[Winged Monkey]

Originally Posted by qwertz

I am still having a lot of trouble with emperor so my advice might not be the best, but I think the sitution isn't really that bad. Frederick seems quite busy with the others. If you menage to keep him so, you can tech peacefully towards the space victory, which is maybe the only victory you can still achieve.

I have managed to get him involved in some involuntary warring.

Problem is it doesn't seem to slow down his tech pace, and I'm not sure if he needs to go for Mass Media for quite some time (or at all!) Especially if the AI is intelligent enough to consider that certain techs make wonders obsolete. Haven't really bothered to pay much attention to that before. Maybe I should just tech it as fast as possible myself and gift it to him, heh.

The tech situation doesn't look that bad and after some quick rebuilding you can catch up easily. Fred isn't that far away from Mass Media which will also remove the AP threat.
I would also consider getting to computers and building the internet, it might be very usefull as the most AIs are quite close in the techs.

It isn't too bad right now, but at 30% it might get worse real quick. The real struggle is to balance happiness and tech until mass media frees me from those damned papal decrees...

[DrJambo]

I'm a fellow Emperor player and so can appreciate the problems you're experiencing. Your number one issue is definitely Frederick and the Apostolic Palace. Until you can reduce the unhappiness and improve your science rate you'll continue to fall behind in tech. I presume you're running a mostly CE rather than a SE and so the tech slider being at 30% will be an issue?

Firstly, I would try to get out of the war with France to remove any potential unhappiness that war is causing. Unless you can profit from it in some way, say by actually taking a french city or two, then it's only going to add to the grief in the long term.

Second is dealing with the AP. Is it located in an easily reached German city, i.e. could it be taken and razed before the counter-attack arrives? Even if it is, it may be ill-advised to attack Germany at the moment. Their power rating is more than 3x yours and with the close borders that's only going to mean lots of pain. What religion is the AP attached to? I presume it's Confucianism since that's what Germany currently is. You have a couple of confucian cities - none with a monastery? If not, that's bad news and as far as I can tell that's the only real mistake you've made. The AP can wreak havoc if you're unprepared and on the wrong side of it, as I myself have also found out!

My guess is no, and if that's the case, then I believe your best option is to either tech straight to Mass Media and present that to Frederick getting as much as you can for it, or, to vote in to one of the AP resolutions (hopefully one that only costs you a minor border city). The advantage of giving Frederick a good deal with MM is that it will also appease relations with him for a while. With him at furious and the power disparity so large, war is probably imminent I'm afraid. If that does occur, is Brennus or anyone else for that matter, able to be bribed?

Other than those two, I'd suggest getting your power rating up pronto.

[Winged Monkey]

Thanks for the reply!

Originally Posted by DrJambo

I'm a fellow Emperor player and so can appreciate the problems you're experiencing. Your number one issue is definitely Frederick and the Apostolic Palace. Until you can reduce the unhappiness and improve your science rate you'll continue to fall behind in tech. I presume you're running a mostly CE rather than a SE and so the tech slider being at 30% will be an issue?

Cottages all the way. Especially since my GP-farm got border-swamped...

Firstly, I would try to get out of the war with France to remove any potential unhappiness that war is causing. Unless you can profit from it in some way, say by actually taking a french city or two, then it's only going to add to the grief in the long term.

As of right now, it isn't causing any unhappiness. It's actually more of an amusement than an annoyance. Poor old Louie! But since I'm practically without a navy, he did manage to pillage some seafood though, so it's not totally without consequence. A cheap tech should send him back home I think...

Second is dealing with the AP. Is it located in an easily reached German city, i.e. could it be taken and razed before the counter-attack arrives?

This is where my noobness comes into the picture. How exactly would I go about finding out that? I haven't got enough spy points on Frederick to view his cities, and I don't know how the graphic for the palace looks, so it's not much help zooming in around his cities to spot it. I'm guessing there is an easier way though!

Even if it is, it may be ill-advised to attack Germany at the moment. Their power rating is more than 3x yours and with the close borders that's only going to mean lots of pain. What religion is the AP attached to? I presume it's Confucianism since that's what Germany currently is. You have a couple of confucian cities - none with a monastery? If not, that's bad news and as far as I can tell that's the only real mistake you've made. The AP can wreak havoc if you're unprepared and on the wrong side of it, as I myself have also found out!

It's Confucianism yes, and even though I have a few Confucian cities, I was too busy waring with Ramesses to think about building any monastaries. Big mistake it turns out!

My guess is no, and if that's the case, then I believe your best option is to either tech straight to Mass Media and present that to Frederick getting as much as you can for it, or, to vote in to one of the AP resolutions (hopefully one that only costs you a minor border city). The advantage of giving Frederick a good deal with MM is that it will also appease relations with him for a while. With him at furious and the power disparity so large, war is probably imminent I'm afraid. If that does occur, is Brennus or anyone else for that matter, able to be bribed?

The tech to Mass Media and get as much as I can for it path seems like the most attractive right now. Even though I have gotten Frederick involved in a couple of wars, it hardly bothers him. In fact, I think I made a mistake when I bribed Brennus into war against him earlier, since Brennus promptly managed to lose one of his best cities to Frederick, heh. But hopefully Frederick will be busy in his current wars until I reach mass media. And hopefully I'll also get my power ranking up a bit in the same time period.

[Il Corvo Bianco]

Originally Posted by Winged Monkey

This is where my noobness comes into the picture. How exactly would I go about finding out that? I haven't got enough spy points on Frederick to view his cities, and I don't know how the graphic for the palace looks, so it's not much help zooming in around his cities to spot it. I'm guessing there is an easier way though!

AP is Saint Peter's Cathedral, in Rome, so...



...search this. The model is really accurate, so you can find it really fast.

[Winged Monkey]

Excellent! Thanks a lot...

[Norvin_Green]

i think if you go to f8 or f9 and check the "top 5 cities" on the right hand side it would tell you. i had the same problem in a recent game so i beelined mass media and built the un which negated the apostolic palace. of course i stll lost the game but it stopped all the unhappiness. good luck and please let us know how you fare.

[cheffster]

I'm just curious, what mod or addon is it that gives you the yellow great person bar under the research bar, info about #worked tiles/trade routes/buildings and total commerce in the city screen, and how do you get a grid showing the culture situation ?

Or is it just some settings you can tweak that I'm missing because I don't have those.

[Zanttu]

Originally Posted by cheffster

I'm just curious, what mod or addon is it that gives you the yellow great person bar under the research bar, info about #worked tiles/trade routes/buildings and total commerce in the city screen, and how do you get a grid showing the culture situation ?

Or is it just some settings you can tweak that I'm missing because I don't have those.

It's the BUG mod. And the culture situation you see by zooming out enough and then clicking the button in the down right corner just above the minimap.

[DrJambo]

Yeah the BUG mod is excellent. I use it myself and would recommend it to anyone.

[Winged Monkey]

Originally Posted by Norvin_Green

i think if you go to f8 or f9 and check the "top 5 cities" on the right hand side it would tell you. i had the same problem in a recent game so i beelined mass media and built the un which negated the apostolic palace. of course i stll lost the game but it stopped all the unhappiness.

I forgot to mention that the AP city isn't among the top 5 cities. But know that you mention it, I think you're right that there is a list of wonders on the right hand side yes. Forgot to check there, d'oh.

good luck and please let us know how you fare.

Will probably post an update tomorrow. Been a bit busy and hoped to get a few replies first. Seems like the plan is to get to Mass Media asap, so will probably try to do that while trying to build my power up, and then post an update.

Originally Posted by cheffster

I'm just curious, what mod or addon is it that gives you the yellow great person bar under the research bar, info about #worked tiles/trade routes/buildings and total commerce in the city screen, and how do you get a grid showing the culture situation ?

Or is it just some settings you can tweak that I'm missing because I don't have those.

As others have said, it's the BUG (BTS Unaltered Game) mod. Among other very useful advantages is that you'll get warnings at the start of each round about cities that are about to grow, become unhealthy/unhappy, rushing information, and info when new tech trades become available. Very timesaving.

You can check out the BUG forum subsection here on civfanatics for more info on the mod and download info: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=268