Need tips for Emperor?

Hey guys, this is my first post on the forums.
I'm looking for some help/tips on Emperor difficulty, I just hit 270 hours and up until about 150 hours I just played the game for the game, not really caring about winning and continuing regardless of whether I won or lost the game but, now I've started to get really into the game and my main focus is a serious game that I want to try and win. King difficulty was almost trivial and I'm not sure why I can't beat Emperor

The game I just finished on a standard Pangaea map I lost by a few techs to Science victory to Germany and they managed to finish the spaceship about two turns before I managed to get the last tech for my part. I was playing Babylon, so a bit embarrassing on my part considering I pretty much bee-lined Education into Scientific Theory with a few other techs for resources and military along the way, I was right next to The Huns and Japan so I knew that I would need a decent military, especially when Japan back-stabbed me, taking one of my cities that I got later, but this forced me to create an army and tech for military which seemed to have put me far behind. Attila wasn't a huge issue because he was busy conquering India and by the time he DoW'd me I had totally eclipsed him in technology. When I thought that Bismark would win the game, I tried to get America to declare war on him to success (they had largest army by far on demographics) because I was too far away to get to him while leaving my lands undefended but he managed to finish the spaceship despite America taking his Capitol and a few other cities.

Could anyone give me helpful tips for playing on Emperor difficulty and how to effectively win? I'm not that great at knowing when to be aggressive either, and prefer to play kind of passively until I know I have the advantage, I don't force the advantage in other words which from observation, doesn't cut it on higher difficulty levels. Thanks for reading, I haven't stopped playing Civ since I got into this winning mindset haha

The #1 tip I'd give is GROW!!! In the screenshot its 1922, it looks like your dirt is decently fertile, and it looks like you have the Hanging Gardens...so WHY is Babylon only at 28 pop?? Akkad at only 15? You're only using half your available trade routes!!! More population = moar science! FEED your cities, and stay happy so you grow as fast and as much as possible!

Also, why is your culture per turn so low? Are you not working guild specialists? I count 8(!) academies around Babylon producing 2 cpt each and there is a landmark worth 10cpt just south of it, plus Akkad is pulling 1 cpt for each plantation, and each city should have at least a monument...so why are you only getting 58 cpt?

Crus8r

Crus8r said:

The #1 tip I'd give is GROW!!! In the screenshot its 1922, it looks like your dirt is decently fertile, and it looks like you have the Hanging Gardens...so WHY is Babylon only at 28 pop?? Akkad at only 15? You're only using half your available trade routes!!! More population = moar science! FEED your cities, and stay happy so you grow as fast and as much as possible!

Also, why is your culture per turn so low? Are you not working guild specialists? I count 8(!) academies around Babylon producing 2 cpt each and there is a landmark worth 10cpt just south of it, plus Akkad is pulling 1 cpt for each plantation, and each city should have at least a monument...so why are you only getting 58 cpt?

Crus8r

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Thank you a lot, that was actually a huge amount of helpful information in short term. I gave Babylon science victory another go but only read your post near the end of the game but it made a huge difference, 150 cpt, 36 population in Capitol and 25/26 in both my other cities. Can just imagine the growth if I had read your post before I started a new game and used your advice from the beginning. Thanks a lot Anything else I should know?

Oh there's plenty, so I'll start off with a few things that are important but may not seem so obvious at first notice:

• Internal trade routes are extremely useful, especially if you're tall. If you consider each trade unit as a source of a free +6 food for your capitol, having 3 of your cities send internal food trade routes to your capitol is a whopping +18 food. Things become ludicrous if you manage to get your 3 cities and your capitol to be coastal, with a +27 food from internal water trade routes.
• Try settling cities on hills. Even though you cannot build windmills, you instead get a free production in your city tile, which can mean a huge difference during your cities' early days. The hills' +25% defense bonus also applies to city strength, so your cities will have +25% strength when built on hills, making them noticeably more difficult to capture.
• Sometimes it's better to wait with your Great Scientists than to plant them for academies or use them up for science immediately. The science you get from your Great Scientists' ability is based on your science income, so even if you spawn one at the beginning of Industrial, it might be worth it to keep him on standby until you get Research Labs up in all cities in early Modern, then use him up for an extra amount of science that you would never have gotten if you had planted him for an academy tile (12 science per turn from an academy vs. 3500+ science from a bulb).
• It is sometimes worth it to settle a city on a luxury, especially if the luxury is a gold luxury and the tile is also hills. You may not get the extra yield from the improvement, but instead, you get instant access to that luxury without having to wait for your workers to get to the city and build the improvement first.
• When a city grows, the new citizen is automatically assigned to a tile before any other yields are tallied up. This means that if your new citizen gets allocated to a tile with 2 production, you will get 2 more hammers for that turn than you would have otherwise. This applies to every single yield in the game (great people, culture, science, gold) except for Golden Age happiness points, so make sure you have your cities set to the relevant focus on the turns before they grow. Those extra +2 hammers might only be a tiny difference, but they add up over time and can be especially vital early on, when hammer costs are low.
• Effects labelled as "+% Growth" only apply to excess food you earn, not the total food. For example, if you're producing 20 food in a 9 population city, Fertility Rites' +10% Growth will give you +0.2 food, not +2 food. The only entities that give % bonuses to base food production are Temple of Artemis and Aztecs' Hanging Gardens.
• Great People Point limits are "pooled" in two categories: one for GWAMs and one for Great Merchants, Great Scientists, and Great Engineers. This means that if you generate a Great Merchant, it will not only make future Great Merchant generation take longer, but also future Great Engineer and Great Scientist generation. Since Great Scientists are so useful, it is often necessary to unwork specialist slots just so you generate your next Great Scientist before your next Great Engineer. Since Great Merchants are just so weak compared to Great Engineers and Great Scientists, Wonders and policies that increase Great Merchant generation through points or % modifiers are actually a detriment to your empire.
• You do not have enough workers. There should not be a single unimproved tile that you will want to work in your empire by the time you reach Modern Era at least. It doesn't matter if you steal them, build them, or tribute them out of a CS, you need workers. Besides improving resources, the primary focus of those workers should be to build farms on all riverside tiles so that you can maximize the benefits from Civil Service's food boost.

One of the best things that helped me is don't fall into the trap of going for early wonders like many do on lower difficulties unless you can actually manage it with a wonder that's less likely to be gone

A lot has already been covered already, gratz on winning

I focus on food:- early workers to improve food, early cargo ships to feed my cities- granaries, watermills etc. You can safely steal an extra worker from city states, although some feel its an exploit as you can instantly make peace.

I would say 1 worker per city is about right.

If going for science then yes i go for an early NC, early Education, early Scientific Theory, but getting huge cities is the most important thing for me.

So in short food, food, food

Oh and forget great library etc, that was a habit i had to get out of when moving up from king, aside from the fact you probably will miss it- its better to settle your cities early and build infrastructure than shoot for early wonders in my opinon

Oh rationalism is your go to policy for science too - and dont trust the automatic system for specialists or which tiles to work, it often makes absurd decisions.

I normally go for "number of cities + 1" workers. So for 4 cities, 5 workers. The extra worker can stay in a tall capital, help with roads or flit between cities as required. Jungle/marsh starts often need one more worker again, so 6 for 4 cities, but building the pyramids or even just going for liberty worker speed can negate this need.

For domination, the more workers the better for a ton of roads, worker baiting, redoing captured city tiles etc.

Agree with everything that has been said.

Would like to add...prioritise NC, it should be built till turn 100 on normal speed. Also prioritise science buildings in all of your cities(libraries, universities, public schools, research labs and observatories if your cities are next to a mountain) and growth buildings(granaries, watermills, aqueducts, hospitals). Also if you happen to have a jungle tiles, use that to make trading posts, after you`ve built university in that city these tiles provide 2 and 2 and with trading posts combined with free thought policy(from rationalism) it makes it 2 2 3 I personally also leave banana resources unimproved so that`s 4 2

Avoid unhappiness at all costs, esepcially when you unlock rationalism and you should really pursue and complete this policy tree. Happiness can be generated via resources, buildings, faith, policies...

You need to use all of your caravans, some internals for food to your capitol and maybe couple other cities if they lack food, rest to civs for gold and science.

Make research agreements with your friends. Even if they lack less than 100 gold to be able to make it, just give em that and sign the papers because AI usually spends that and next turn they will lack even more gold. However, avoid signing papers with leading in tech Civ.

Generate more culture for policies. Get those gulds up and running. Make em on river cities because they have watermills and gardens to cover for food and make GP generate faster.

Use spies to steal techs early on, then after you`ve taken a lead, put one in your Capitol and build Constabulary and Police station there to prevent tech theft.

Thanks for everyone who had some input, keen to start up a game.

I'd like to add that going for a 4 city Tradition empire with a 3 city NC then founding the 4th city the easiest way to go. Acken has done a ~100 turn LP on this.
Consider moving your starting settler. You're not in contention for the GL since you shouldn't be building it so using a few turns deciding on the best spot for Babylon will pay in the end.
Lock those tiles. This will represent the biggest jump your game-play can take as your cities will more balanced between growth and production. Every turn check each city to see if you can shave a turn off growth/production without sacrificing production/growth
This will spark a barney but imo you should put your first(and only) academy on cattle then non riverside grassland. This tile will be worked for the rest of the game.

Want to win a SV on Deity? Try DCL#20.

Are you trading enough? You have a lot of cocoa around Akaad, but your empire is unhappy. Are you trading your surplus cocoa to the other civs for their luxury resources? 3 lots of cocoa for their spices, gems or whatever will net you +12H.

Also city states. I find at emperor its easy to maintain alliances/friendships with 3 - 5 city states without spending any gold by destroying barb camps, building roads, making trade routes etc. If you were allied to a cultural city state, you would get a boost of over 25% to your culture per turn.

linaker said:

Are you trading enough? You have a lot of cocoa around Akaad, but your empire is unhappy. Are you trading your surplus cocoa to the other civs for their luxury resources? 3 lots of cocoa for their spices, gems or whatever will net you +12H.

Also city states. I find at emperor its easy to maintain alliances/friendships with 3 - 5 city states without spending any gold by destroying barb camps, building roads, making trade routes etc. If you were allied to a cultural city state, you would get a boost of over 25% to your culture per turn.

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Yeah I had plenty of trading, trading all that I could for other luxuries and if not that a fair deal. I was the only adopter of the freedom ideology and I decided changing wasn't in my best interests so my happiness suffered for it, but it stabilized nicely once I managed to get a few stadiums and the happiness tenets from my ideology

Right, knew I forgot to mention something important in my points, and that's ideologies.

Basically, ideologies in Civ5 are quite often a bit counterintuitive: what you might think is the best ideology for a certain playstyle might not actually be correct. This is especially true once you consider each ideology's wonder. For example, while Order definitely gives quite a few bonuses to a wide empire, it actually contains less total happiness than Autocracy with Prora, so if you're going high population and wide, Autocracy might help you more than Order. Autocracy's double rate of spy steals is an incredibly powerful science policy without having to actually invest in science: if you don't have a lot of Academies and are not the tech leader, going Autocracy may give you more science than Freedom's specialist and great person tile improvement boosts. Freedom's Statue of Liberty is absolutely ridiculous, to the point where it can easily make you generate more hammers than Order, even if you're wide; it's a huge problem if you choose Freedom and don't end up getting Statue of Liberty. Freedom is also one of the best ideologies for timing cannon/artillery pushes to take out an opponent in early Industrial thanks to the tenet that gives 6 free Foreign Legions, so sometimes it's better to pick Freedom for war than Autocracy. Order can be incredible for tall empires if you cannot pick Freedom for some reason (diplomacy, less free starter tenets, etc.) thanks to two things: the science boost from factories is a % modifier, so it is better for empires that science production concentrated in cities with special science buildings (NC, Observatory, misc. science wonders), and Space Pioneer's ability to rush out space parts with engineers synergizes nicely with Tradition's ability to faith purchase Great Engineers, especially because those engineers don't slow down your Great Scientist production. If you're a wide empire attempting a lategame domination victory, picking up Autocracy's Mobilization and Total War tenets and combining it with Mercantilism's purchasing discount can get you a lot farther than trying to pump out military units with Order's hammers alone, especially once you consider that Total War lets you get 3 promotions on all newly built units in your empire (with Barracks, Armories, and Military Academies as well, of course), and only Brandenburg or Zulu's UA let you do this without Autocracy (Alhambra sort of lets you do this for non-ranged, land units).

Basically, consider your options when choosing ideologies instead of blindly going for the one that looks the best on paper: sometimes Order tenets would do you better than Freedom tenets even if you're going 4-city Tradition, especially once you consider its tourism and diplomacy benefits from the AI preferring Order. Things have come a long way since vanilla Civ5's three endgame policy trees.

I think you settled too many GS for Academy. If i were you, I would settle only the first one (after researching Writing) and maybe 1-2 more at most.
It is generally better to save those GS for lightbulbing techs later when you have +1000 BPT.

Given the screenshot, i would settle Babylon on coast (2 tiles left from your location), so i could grab the fish and horse. Akkad on coastal tile between the 2 cocoa above the fish, and Nippur next to the lake/Aluminium. i would consider to add 1 more city if the location has 2 or more luxuries. You should also ALWAYS use all available trade routes.

Babylon is pretty straight foward, even on deity, because you would want a SV anyway.
Beeline writing-philosophy-then national college before settling for the 2nd city, then aiming towards education

Important wonder: Porcelain tower
Nice to have (but not necessary): Hanging garden, Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Leaning tower of Pisa, Colossus

Social Policy:
Open tradition-Open Liberty-Complete Liberty. Alternatively, one can also complete tradition without opening Liberty at all
Patronage/Commerce/Exploration
Rationalism

Ideology: Order and get +25% science bonus from factory ASAP

Hope this helps!

Delnar_Ersike said:

For example, while Order definitely gives quite a few bonuses to a wide empire, it actually contains less total happiness than Autocracy with Prora, so if you're going high population and wide, Autocracy might help you more than Order.

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Except...you have to build buildings you otherwise wouldn't in that wide empire (Barracks, Armory, Military Academy, Castle, Arsenal, Military Base). Order's benefit is that you get happiness from basic buildings you want anyway (monuments, workshops, factories, hydroplants, solar plants, nuclear plants, public schools, research labs, observatories) -- which also includes a lot more buildings that puppets will actually building.

Delnar_Ersike said:

Autocracy's double rate of spy steals is an incredibly powerful science policy without having to actually invest in science: if you don't have a lot of Academies and are not the tech leader, going Autocracy may give you more science than Freedom's specialist and great person tile improvement boosts.

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Until...you catch up on tech and then you have no bonuses to boost you ahead or speed up Spaceship parts. And Order has the ability to get 80% success at killing enemy spies -- aka, it prevents tech stealing at *three* times the rate (20% of attempts are successful versus 60%).

That said, Autocracy's spy bonus is definitely nuts in the sense you can basically ignore science and still stay close on tech in most cases.

Delnar_Ersike said:

the science boost from factories is a % modifier, so it is better for empires that science production concentrated in cities with special science buildings (NC, Observatory, misc. science wonders)

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Except...that's not true either. Because it (and the other bonuses) are additive. If your fully pumped up capital is producing 600 science per turn with all science buildings...the Order factory tenet will only add 50 more science for a net gain of 8.3% more science.

This is due to 200 base science with a 200% modifier (University, Research Lab, National College, and Observatory).

Now let's say your capital doesn't have the observatory and thus you're only getting 500 science. Adding the factory will still give 50 science but that's now a 10% science boost which is better than 8.3% (the raw amount is the same in both cases but not the percent increase).

So the factories matter MORE in cities that have smaller bonuses (meaning no national college or observatories). It helps make UP for having more cities with potentially less bonuses. That's not to say Order isn't actually fairly good even for smaller empires...but your comment about the factories specifically was wrong.

Delnar_Ersike said:

If you're a wide empire attempting a lategame domination victory, picking up Autocracy's Mobilization and Total War tenets and combining it with Mercantilism's purchasing discount can get you a lot farther than trying to pump out military units with Order's hammers alone, especially once you consider that Total War lets you get 3 promotions on all newly built units in your empire (with Barracks, Armories, and Military Academies as well, of course), and only Brandenburg or Zulu's UA let you do this without Autocracy (Alhambra sort of lets you do this for non-ranged, land units).

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Depends on your situation. Autocracy makes it easier to *conquer* the wide empire. Order makes it easier to *maintain* the wide empire once you have it (through more accessible happiness bonuses, more bonuses to boost cities in general, free courthouses, etc). And the wider the empire the less Prora matters (since that's a static bonus that doesn't scale with empire size).

Delnar_Ersike said:

especially once you consider its tourism and diplomacy benefits from the AI preferring Order.

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This part is definitely huge -- and the other AIs going Order means you're shielded from the unhappiness you'd get from taking Autocracy so Order winds up having far more happiness.

I recently finished a Deity game where I went full out Honor/Commerce/Autocracy domination and at parts I was suffering from over 100 unhappiness from ideological pressure (as in I'd have been 100 points happier as Order). It would actually have been much easier for me to switch to Order once I had stolen the key techs I needed (wouldn't have had cities revolt a few times or have to raze most cities due to happiness problems)...but I wanted to win it as a true Autocratic ruler.

That said, there were several (many) things I could have/should have done to make that pressure less terrible, but that's the situation I got myself into.

I do have one question I would like to bring up regarding river tiles. In the current game I'm playing I have a Capitol with a lot of river tiles, 2 which have forests on them. 6 of them are food plains, all turned into farms and producing 4 because of Civil Service, but there are 3 forest plains and I am unsure whether to build lumber mills on top of them or to clear them to construct more farms. I am just unsure because I already have a lot of from other sources, or is growth the most important thing to go for?

Here's an image of my current Capitol, I am playing The Inca.

Could you please give me some advice on what is best to do right now in my situation considering I am getting a lot of and from my terrace farms, and it would also be great to explain general strategy and reasons why. Thanks everyone for posting helpful advice

Forgot to add the image to the post above.

Sebulous said:

I do have one question I would like to bring up regarding river tiles. In the current game I'm playing I have a Capitol with a lot of river tiles, 2 which have forests on them. 6 of them are food plains, all turned into farms and producing 4 because of Civil Service, but there are 3 forest plains and I am unsure whether to build lumber mills on top of them or to clear them to construct more farms. I am just unsure because I already have a lot of from other sources, or is growth the most important thing to go for?

Here's an image of my current Capitol, I am playing The Inca.

Could you please give me some advice on what is best to do right now in my situation considering I am getting a lot of and from my terrace farms, and it would also be great to explain general strategy and reasons why. Thanks everyone for posting helpful advice

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From what I can tell from the image is(at least what I would do):

1. After NC is done, training a settler and settle where the red spot is because of a gold and silver pantheon and this would generate more faith and culture, beside claiming a good piece of land and once having enough gold I`d buy the other silver resource there.

2. When settler is done, mint would be next to boost improve income from both silver resources.

3. Improving that stone resource in blue spot and building stone works in captiol afterwards. It`s not much but 1+ and 1+ from the building + 1+ from the resource always comes handy. This is optional and would only do, if there is enough time...

4. Improving horses. You may need them to either train a horseman or trading with AI.

5. Get roads done afterwards.

6. Trade silver for another resource to raise happiness. Even if it`s the last copy because of planning to settle next to another silver anyway. Should this be an option, make sure to send a worker along settler so it can start improving silver right away.

For now I think you have enough food but later on you could make farms there. So you could chop down forest when training settler to speed up the process and reduce growth freeze in the meanwhile.

For the rest...there is too little info...maybe someone else sees sth more.

That game was a success, another science victory. Trying to get out of the habit of building Great Library because I've heard it's pretty impossible to obtain on higher difficulties so I went that game without it, still picked up Hanging Gardens though.

With all your help I put into play (obviously not perfected yet) I felt that game was far too easy, I had no problems in the game whatsoever except a few turns of but never going bellow -2 and never going longer for 10 turns. I'm considering moving up and playing my next game on Immortal but I've heard people say that the jump from these levels is quite big e.g, Emperor-Immortal and Immortal-Deity. Is this true? Any other advanced tips for going even higher? I like the game being a challenge and the past two games were almost a bore they felt so easy.

I'd say keep at least 1 forest as a lumbermill, maybe 2 if you're afraid of an early attack, and definitely chop a 3rd for a settler or a world wonder. By the looks of it, all of those forests are on plains: plains civil service farms give 31, while plains lumbermills provide 12 increasing to 13 in Industrial. Even if you've got already got a lot of growth tiles, 2 is better than 1, and the extra 1 from lumbermills comes too late. The reason I recommend you keep one as a lumbermill isn't because you have too many growth tiles, but because you don't have enough production tiles, and if someone attacks you before you get your specialists going and start really seeing the returns on the science from such a high population city, you don't want to be caught without hammers. Once you get Electricity though (and you should, seeing as you'll want to get an ideology by Oxfording into Radio), you definitely won't be lacking hammers, thanks to Hydro Plants.