Help me beat this game

Hello everyone!

I'm playing this Fractal/Standard size/Marathon/Emperor game and I would appreciate it if you could help me find the best strategy to win it.

I randomly got Kublai, Napoleon, Cyrus, Sitting Bull, Montezuma and Ragnar as the opponents. The last two were in another continent only reachable after optics. In my hemisphere KK conquered Napoleon, SB was the only Confucian among us Hindu and was everyone's worst enemy.

I made a lib-steel slingshot and whipped a lot of cannons and backstabbed KK, conquering his land. I'm currently the #1 in land and production and have combustion (for a while) on everybody. I want to win Conquest or Domination, I could win Space but it's a bit tedious and Cyrus is pursuing Dom so we'd have to fight eventually. He has already vassalized Ragnar and SB and is WHEOOHRN. I think he's going after Montgomery because he was pleased when he went WHEOOHRN and I guess he doesn't declare at pleased. There's no way he would win Dom without my land, I'm a little bit above 35% of the world land so he wouldn't reach 64%. But he will certainly win diplo after vassalizing Monty.

Now I don't know what to do. Should I attack Montezuma, who's huge and has Arties? Or should I prepare an invasion force of Scandinavia and Native America while holding Cyrus to get a beachhead on his continent and Monty's? I'm currently researching Flight for the carriers.

These are the lands:


The relations, techs and Victory Conditions:


The best players say Marathon is easier so I'm in a good place because I'll have enough time to use my fighters. I don't know what techs I should get. I'm thinking that Artillery is an obvious one, but what about Industrialism? I'm also new to Emperor so I don't know what to expect of their stacks in this era. Thanks in advance to everyone.

Hi

I am NOT a emp diff player so take this with TONS of salt but:

Cy seems closer and is biggest rival so I would hit him next especially if you can bribe monty to dogpile.

I wouldnt go for arties on this map it not necessary. MOST of cities are coastal and you have destroyers and NOONE else does so use them to control the seas and bombard down defenses. And since youre teching flight and noone is seems to be close to any kind of AA units use fighters to handle those few inland cities.

Instead of aries I would go for indy for marines and tanks but by time you start teching it out game should pretty much be over before you finish indy just cuz even tho Paratroopers are not marines they pretty tuff in their own right and between them and destroyers and fighters you should be able to kill off/cap cy and once he all done his vassals MIGHT even be willing to cap at that point without you even needing to take a city and even if not it shouldnt take TOO much effort to cap em and then dom win is set

As for enemy stacks send out a caraval or any ship if you have open borders and scout out cys land find out where his SOD and attack that city first ESPECIALLY if it also a city where you can catch a big chunk of his navy in port.

Kaytie

As Kaytie just said. You have combustion. The AI does not. Just raze the bejesus out of Cyrus's coastal cities. Of the cities he controls almost all of them appear to be coastal. Do the same to Monty after that.

Cyrus has enough on his hands right now, and you can wait for him to declare on Monty (he is cautious with him), let him ship away his stack and only than attack. You do not have enough destroyers just yet. As for flight- dunno but if you build lots of loaded carriers it decreases the need for land troops. I would try to hold the developed land instead of razing, especially if you attack when his stack is away.

I do not know the amount of culture you need on Marathon, but Monty is going for a cultural victory, and he aint to far away from it.
Attacking anyone else then monty might result in having your army destroyed and ending up with tomuch time lost to fight monty afterwards AND be on time to prevent his cultural win

Hi

Nah you need 150K on marathon to go legendary so Monty still 100's of turns away.

Kaytie

Thanks Katye, Lanski and Muxec, I did just as you suggested. Fluxx, I only saw your post now after finishing the game.

I waited for Cyrus to declare on Montezuma and then declared on him. I was still teching Electricity for Industrialism (had given up Arty) so Infantries would have to do. I razed ALL Persian coastal cities, but he still wouldn't cap. Monty was taking forever to vassal Ragnar, so much that I decided to kill him myself. When I was one turn away he finally surrendered and so did Cyrus. I razed one or two NA cities and SB became my vassal.

After that I finished teching Industrialism and made two stacks to attack Montezuma, each with 30 destroyers, 30 fighters and 40 Navy Seals (better safe than sorry ). (BTW, Fluxx was right - while I was arming myself to the teeth the Aztecs turned off research and upped the culture slider. ) Had to raze all of his coastal cities but one and wait for Cyrus to destroy the party Monty sent to his island until he capped. It was my first Conquest victory ever!! Now I only have to win time!

Thank you for helping me. If you hadn't I would have ended teching Artillery and doing a stupid slow war. As I know we all like pounding Monty, I attached the save of the turn I declared war.