Izmir Stinger
Deity
I wrote more than I expected while describing my problem. Feel free to skip to last paragraph for a short version.
I'm getting a fairly consistent win rate on Emperor, but I'm starting to fall into a definite pattern. Patters are - in my experience with other difficultly level jumps - a bad thing. I've started playing random leaders after easing myself into Emperor with my favorites. However the game starts and whatever my leader traits may be, I wind up playing them all the same from late-classical to the end - be it Domination, Diplomation (haven't go the hang of peaceful diplo wins), Space Race or Cultural.
If I have a close neighbor and an appropriate strategic resource I rush, if feasible. I usually prefer chariots to axes but can do either, and did a cool Jaguar rush in a recent game, which I eventually won by Diplomation. If it is not feasible or I think I can block effectively I rex. Either way I wind up with a lot of cities and a crashed economy. No biggee, I've learned to play from behind while I recover and priority techs for doing so, and how to backfill with trades. I never found a religion deliberately unless I happen to get Confucianism from an Oracle->CoL slingshot (which I am really doing for the courthouses) or if I happen to get Philo first from a GS bulb on my way to Lib. I prefer to let diplomatic concerns choose my religion for me.
As far as my cities, I've got a GP farm - usually in a captured rival capital because of all the food - though I've used my own capital a few times (and moved the palace in some of those games). Two times out of three I manage to get the Great Library in there; I am consistently prioritizing that wonder, perhaps above all others. If it is a shrine city it also becomes my Wall Street and winds up running lots of Merchants. Otherwise, any suitable shrine city, (or absent shrines, commerce city) becomes wall street and I try to found Mining Inc and/or Sids sushi there with GPs saved from the farm. My capital, if not the GP farm, gets super-cottaged early, maybe with some overlapping cities working them to help them mature, and I get Bureaucracy and Universities on my way to liberalism for a Super-Bureau Oxford+Academy science city. A couple of production cities in suitable sites, usually inland where I can irrigate. They get farms and mines/workshops and eventually watermills, though they are often without rivers.
Everywhere else, and I mean EVERYWHERE, gets cottaged. I dot-map for these cities to get a food resource, a few hills for mines, and lots of green open spaces for cottages. I try to settle my cities so the plains are evenly spread and each city only has a few, and those cottages get worked last. Their infrastructure is built with a combination of the hammers from the one or two mines I gave, chopping and heavy whip use. They only get the econ buildings, forges and maybe barracks if I need to go into emergency WHEOOHRN "everybody whip units NOW" mode.
I can usually win the Lib race, and grab nationalism, though sometimes if I can trade for guilds and have time I will divert to banking with one turn left in Lib if I can grab Economy first for the free GM. From there I beeline Democracy unless I need rifles sooner rathar than latter due to aggressive neighbors. I try to get as much mileage as I can out of the whip before I go US, Eman. I switch to FS when there are enough towns to make up for not having Bureau, or if I need the culture in border towns. I get free religion once I have reached the point of most cities having most of the infrastructure they need so the science becomes more valuable than the hammers from OR. I like free market for economy until I desperately need the health from environment, though some games (usually quick wins) I can avoid Environmentalism altogether. If I get both the corps I try to avoid it, selling my soul for every health resource there is, and even stooping so low as to build hospitals. Obviously when Spiritual I play more fast and loose with this.
I try to time my civic shifts for golden ages, fueled by non-scientist GP I get from my GP farm. Others bulb or are sometimes saved for Mining Inc/Sids, with a Culture bomb when appropriate. I rarely settle unless all they want to bulb is something useless like Divine Right.
So following this formula I get a tech lead, or at least a monopoly on key military techs, and then race to whichever victory condition seems most practical. The victory condition decision point is usually around democracy, though if my early rushing nets me three religious shrines or everyone on my continent hates me the decision is made for me sooner. I can, and frequently have, fought full scale Mideaval wars without deviating from this pattern much except to grab important military techs like machinery that I could otherwise have skipped. Unless I am just finishing off someone I crippled in a rush, I am not the aggressor until the industrial era, but if they attack me I will conquer to the point of vassalizing them if feasible. If the cities I take have mature cottages, cool. If not, most get their mines and workshops and mills paved over with cities, unless I find a juicy production city site and think I need another. I avoid razing this late unless the site is utter crap, and sometimes then I'll keep it and re-gift later it if it will work as a buffer city.
Wow, wall of text! Well, that is a fairly thorough description of the pattern I've fallen in. Short version is: I almost never run Representation, Caste System, State Property, Mercantilism (unless everyone else is), Pacifism (except temporarily during golden ages) or the types of economies they suggest. I am a cottage whore. Are there any high-level games posted on these forums that show winning games where cottages were not extensively used. How do you win when you don't use many cottages? For those who can win either way, what game conditions lead you to either cottage whore like me, or do something else? I know I am going to get flamed for using the term, but how the hell do you make a "Specialist Economy" work on high levels without the Mids, and why would you want to try? I can barely get them now, and now it will be hopeless to depend on them on Immortal.
I'm getting a fairly consistent win rate on Emperor, but I'm starting to fall into a definite pattern. Patters are - in my experience with other difficultly level jumps - a bad thing. I've started playing random leaders after easing myself into Emperor with my favorites. However the game starts and whatever my leader traits may be, I wind up playing them all the same from late-classical to the end - be it Domination, Diplomation (haven't go the hang of peaceful diplo wins), Space Race or Cultural.
If I have a close neighbor and an appropriate strategic resource I rush, if feasible. I usually prefer chariots to axes but can do either, and did a cool Jaguar rush in a recent game, which I eventually won by Diplomation. If it is not feasible or I think I can block effectively I rex. Either way I wind up with a lot of cities and a crashed economy. No biggee, I've learned to play from behind while I recover and priority techs for doing so, and how to backfill with trades. I never found a religion deliberately unless I happen to get Confucianism from an Oracle->CoL slingshot (which I am really doing for the courthouses) or if I happen to get Philo first from a GS bulb on my way to Lib. I prefer to let diplomatic concerns choose my religion for me.
As far as my cities, I've got a GP farm - usually in a captured rival capital because of all the food - though I've used my own capital a few times (and moved the palace in some of those games). Two times out of three I manage to get the Great Library in there; I am consistently prioritizing that wonder, perhaps above all others. If it is a shrine city it also becomes my Wall Street and winds up running lots of Merchants. Otherwise, any suitable shrine city, (or absent shrines, commerce city) becomes wall street and I try to found Mining Inc and/or Sids sushi there with GPs saved from the farm. My capital, if not the GP farm, gets super-cottaged early, maybe with some overlapping cities working them to help them mature, and I get Bureaucracy and Universities on my way to liberalism for a Super-Bureau Oxford+Academy science city. A couple of production cities in suitable sites, usually inland where I can irrigate. They get farms and mines/workshops and eventually watermills, though they are often without rivers.
Everywhere else, and I mean EVERYWHERE, gets cottaged. I dot-map for these cities to get a food resource, a few hills for mines, and lots of green open spaces for cottages. I try to settle my cities so the plains are evenly spread and each city only has a few, and those cottages get worked last. Their infrastructure is built with a combination of the hammers from the one or two mines I gave, chopping and heavy whip use. They only get the econ buildings, forges and maybe barracks if I need to go into emergency WHEOOHRN "everybody whip units NOW" mode.
I can usually win the Lib race, and grab nationalism, though sometimes if I can trade for guilds and have time I will divert to banking with one turn left in Lib if I can grab Economy first for the free GM. From there I beeline Democracy unless I need rifles sooner rathar than latter due to aggressive neighbors. I try to get as much mileage as I can out of the whip before I go US, Eman. I switch to FS when there are enough towns to make up for not having Bureau, or if I need the culture in border towns. I get free religion once I have reached the point of most cities having most of the infrastructure they need so the science becomes more valuable than the hammers from OR. I like free market for economy until I desperately need the health from environment, though some games (usually quick wins) I can avoid Environmentalism altogether. If I get both the corps I try to avoid it, selling my soul for every health resource there is, and even stooping so low as to build hospitals. Obviously when Spiritual I play more fast and loose with this.
I try to time my civic shifts for golden ages, fueled by non-scientist GP I get from my GP farm. Others bulb or are sometimes saved for Mining Inc/Sids, with a Culture bomb when appropriate. I rarely settle unless all they want to bulb is something useless like Divine Right.
So following this formula I get a tech lead, or at least a monopoly on key military techs, and then race to whichever victory condition seems most practical. The victory condition decision point is usually around democracy, though if my early rushing nets me three religious shrines or everyone on my continent hates me the decision is made for me sooner. I can, and frequently have, fought full scale Mideaval wars without deviating from this pattern much except to grab important military techs like machinery that I could otherwise have skipped. Unless I am just finishing off someone I crippled in a rush, I am not the aggressor until the industrial era, but if they attack me I will conquer to the point of vassalizing them if feasible. If the cities I take have mature cottages, cool. If not, most get their mines and workshops and mills paved over with cities, unless I find a juicy production city site and think I need another. I avoid razing this late unless the site is utter crap, and sometimes then I'll keep it and re-gift later it if it will work as a buffer city.
Wow, wall of text! Well, that is a fairly thorough description of the pattern I've fallen in. Short version is: I almost never run Representation, Caste System, State Property, Mercantilism (unless everyone else is), Pacifism (except temporarily during golden ages) or the types of economies they suggest. I am a cottage whore. Are there any high-level games posted on these forums that show winning games where cottages were not extensively used. How do you win when you don't use many cottages? For those who can win either way, what game conditions lead you to either cottage whore like me, or do something else? I know I am going to get flamed for using the term, but how the hell do you make a "Specialist Economy" work on high levels without the Mids, and why would you want to try? I can barely get them now, and now it will be hopeless to depend on them on Immortal.
