Help with an Emperor game with Darius on a Fractal map at normal speed

[DanielTorrence]

Dear civ fanatics,

I learned a lot while reading here, now I am trying to move up to emperor, feeling secure on prince and reasonable at monarch. Now I would like to ask for your advises on a game I recently played (and lost btw) to handle these kinds of situations (initial save I attached). Thanks for the help and keep on civing.

Spoiler :

This is the start. I already moved the scout, the settler is still in place.

More about the game, the opponents and my strategy in the next spoiler.

Spoiler :

I moved the settler one west and build after the initial worker (with stone) stonehenge and the great wall as fast as possible. After that I build a strong production city north of the capital which spammed workers and settlers while the capital was successfully building the pyramids. With representation my research was really great and I easily outteched my northern opponent (Friedrich, Germany) and build colossus (crazy with financial and some coastal cities) and sankore. I got military tradition from lib around 1120 and startet on curassiers, but by the time I had like 13 of them, beelined rifling came into the game, so I upgraded some of the curassiers and hit Friedrich. That went reasonably well since he had only longbows to defend. While I was taking his cities, the other civs met me and there was the downfall:
The other continent was technologically almost as advanced as I was and since there were four four civs, three having a defensive pact, I was falling back more and more during my (resonably quick) war from 1580 to 1640 or so and could not catch up. I was quite big in land and had like 1200 bpt after the german cities came out of revolt and build some infrastructure, but soon after that, the first AIs had finished Apollo program. I tried to catch up by researching computers and building the internet, but Hammurabi finished it at the turn were I finished the research. After that I gave up. So I had my own continent and did okay in research, but still, the others were in a hindu lovefest and sharing there techs, so I just couldnt keep up.The UN came up and forbid nukes before I could research and build them and I guess by the time I had enough to hit they would have had SDI in place anyway.
I did not persue optics or astronomy but focussed on conquering my neighbor, maybe that was a mistake?

My questions (since the start was relativly isolated, only one backward AI to trade with) is, how would you handle such a scenario, having only one (friendly) AI as your neighbor and all the tech whores together on another continent? Attack the neighbor earlier? Or not at all? Try to meet the others earlier? Questions questions.

It would be great if somebody were in the mood to shadowplay the game and give some advice. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[michmbk]

I may have time tonight to shadow, but if I do, I'm definitely settling 1N - that's an awesome capital.

 

[vranasm]

I may have time tonight to shadow, but if I do, I'm definitely settling 1N - that's an awesome capital.

hmm dunno i can see where you're going, but for me too much food in capital and you block pretty good city 2 (probably 1w of pigs), but with financial leader it's pretty tough to avoid cottages...isn't it?

 

[sensual benny]

hmm dunno i can see where you're going, but for me too much food in capital and you block pretty good city 2 (probably 1w of pigs), but with financial leader it's pretty tough to avoid cottages...isn't it?

1N sure looks tempting to me.. I've never heard of too much food, I'd just prioritise Monarchy perhaps. Even more than the pig, all that riverside grass just looks beautiful for a Financial leader, and I'll take a stronger capital if I can get it since Beauracracy will be huge for that site and won't help a second pig city at all. Dunno WHY the OP settled 1W, that's a headscratcher to me.

 

[michmbk]

1N, Monarchy and Civil Service - that capital can either be cottaged like crazy, or an insane production site in caste with workshops...

I'm assuming there will be other locations to share some of the food once the capital has gotten big enough too. I never think a capital can have too much food.

 

[lymond]

but for me too much food in capital

V - there is no such thing

 

[michmbk]

I shadowed a few turns. It didn't take long to realize I needed to do...

Spoiler :

this:





We have one of the best early UUs, I got boxed into a small area by a fast settler he sent south, and we have the perfect leader to recover from an early crash. This game screamed rush rush rush. It sounds like we now have the whole continent to ourselves, so isolated with tons of land. That means use the immortals to protect against barbs, mass settle and cottage up the capital. From there, HR would be a huge priority, and it looks like calendar will be important too. With stone in the capital, I'd even consider building mids for HR so I don't have to bother with monarchy for awhile.

I won't bother to finish, but from the looks of the land, with this much land this early, even in isolation, this game would quickly get to a dominant position. Without rushing, I bet this one gets pretty tough, because Freddy is the one who gets all the land to the north.

 

[DanielTorrence]

I shadowed a few turns. It didn't take long to realize I needed to do...


Michmbk, you were absolutly right about

Spoiler :

this:





We have one of the best early UUs, I got boxed into a small area by a fast settler he sent south, and we have the perfect leader to recover from an early crash. This game screamed rush rush rush. It sounds like we now have the whole continent to ourselves, so isolated with tons of land. That means use the immortals to protect against barbs, mass settle and cottage up the capital. From there, HR would be a huge priority, and it looks like calendar will be important too. With stone in the capital, I'd even consider building mids for HR so I don't have to bother with monarchy for awhile.

I won't bother to finish, but from the looks of the land, with this much land this early, even in isolation, this game would quickly get to a dominant position. Without rushing, I bet this one gets pretty tough, because Freddy is the one who gets all the land to the north.

so I guess as an advice in situations like this...

Spoiler :

...with not enough good land its better to rush your opponent and play a game in isolation rather then petting him for trades?