How can I win a Civ BNW Sci/Domintation vic at emperor level?

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AJL.

Chieftain
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Mar 27, 2014
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At King level I won by building a Zulu Impi army early on and crushing neighbours. But, I think I was lucky because Russia was doing the same and when we had to face off, I won. However, normally there are other civs that are very close or even more advanced than you, so how do I win at Emperor level? Which techs & social policies should I go for first? I'm asking because I've tried a few different strats and failed :(
 
The AI only has a small tech lead in the beginning that you make up in the first 100 turns. The biggest threat the AI poses on emperor is that it will build petra someplace stupid and make you feel sad :(
 
build a few cities before starting your warpath. 3-4 cities is good so you can generate a lot more science. if you neglect science as the Zulu you can probably still conquer a lot of the world, but eventually impis will get killed by rifles. So you want to get to rifles yourself (impis upgrade to rifles which is awesome).
 
The steps are:

Go full tradition or full liberty, don't start any other policy tree until you've finished one or the other
Build three or four cities fairly quickly, have workers in those cities
Build the National College early, have it done by turn 100
Choose a victory type and play the rest of the game focusing on techs and buildings (and/or an army) to achieve it


If you take those steps, beeline science techs, and you don't try to build wonders then you're probably ready to play on immortal
Do all those things, ignore religion, use smart diplomacy, micro-manage tiles, and take at least one neighbor's capitol then you're probably ready to play on deity
 
If you play on a pangea map just don't bother with the NC. Build 2-3 cities, research construction and kill everyone with Composite Bowmen and some horses. At immortal you should build the NC and finish last civs with Machinery in most cases.

If you play continent you can still finish with CBs but you need to build an early NC and burn a gs or Oxford for Astronomy to have time to use them until the end.
 
You always have to play according to your circumstances. I have found that to be the biggest factor in winning the game on higher difficulties. This may seem self-explanatory, but I only learned to do it after hundreds of gameplay hours. One tip rises above all the rest though: always make sure you have plenty of extra happiness, at least the potential to have it -> you will need all the happiness you can get to be able to 1. conquer cities; 2. rapidly grow your population for more tech; 3. choose the ideology you want and not the one your opponents force you to choose.
 
Thanks you guys. I will take into account everything you've said and try again. Wish me luck!
Two questions: why do you need to building the Liberty or Tradition tree before doing anything else? and, how important are CS for a win? I've always thought they made all the difference.
 
Rule of thumb: always take tradition because it is best
 
Bigger rule of thumb: ignore people that insist on tradition.

Larger empires always benefit more from liberty. Just make sure that your building roads behind that army and try and snag the pyramid. It's easy because most ai's think like the robot tradition players on these forums.
 
Magma_Dragoon said:
The AI only has a small tech lead in the beginning that you make up in the first 100 turns.
Click to expand...

On Emperor level, you make it up between 20 & 50 turns; it's Immortal that takes between 50 & 100 turns to make up.

On the rest of this:

Easyist first tree to win as is standard 4 city tall tradition. Lots of threads for this.

Second easyist is full liberty with wide empire. Also threads on this.

Don't mix and match trees until a full tree is finished.

And don't pick Liberty if intending to self found 4 or fewer cities (that would be an empire that's neither wide nor tall) ; don't pick tradition if planning on self founding 6+ cities. (Global happiness prevents having an empire that's both tall and wide at the same time until you hit ideologies which give major happiness boosts)

Don't select Piety unless you are either playing Poland or are playing a full level difficulty lower than normal.

Don't select Honor as your first tree unless you are playing 2 full difficulty levels lower than normal.
 
Usually I prefer Liberty over Tradition, but when it comes to Science-Military Victory I always pick Tradition. I only build my first settler, then the rest I just buy. I never go for more than 6 cities and always end up generating 1110+ Science Per Turn upon Info era. Your first buildings in a new city should always be scientific ones (School, University, Research Lab) and after, grab some that increase Production. I always am the first one to choose and Ideology so I see that I have either too much faith or too much money and get Order or Freedom respectively so I can buy the parts with Gold or buy a Great Engineer with faith and complete them. I never build an army but when I need to, I focus all my cities on army units and usually by 12 turns time I have a big army. If however, I want to play Aggressively, I get MP and build 3-4 nukes. Then I smash the opponent's capital and get it.
 
I'm afraid at Emperor, and for Domination, liberty is better than tradition sadly... (AIs are completely pushovers at this difficulty level and accuracy + logistics xbows will usually end the game... best if England or China... or Mongolia/Arabia... Zulu's impi aren't as good compared to those units)

But for peaceful science tradition wins hands down.
 
What do you mean you never build an army? I have civs potentially (or actually) attacking all the time. How is it possible you don't need an army?
 
Thanks guys. But... Why shouldn't you mix policies? Honor seems awesome early on to gain culture and policies and so easy to do if you have a couple of units... I have to say, I'm pretty depressed about not winning a game in such a long time at emperor level. I'm getting bored with losing :(
You can't win all the time but to lose every time... well, that sucks.
 
JohnnyKing, how are you generating so much money early on to buy what you need - like settlers?
 
kb27787 said:
(AIs are completely pushovers at this difficulty level and accuracy + logistics xbows will usually end the game... best if England or China... or Mongolia/Arabia... Zulu's impi aren't as good compared to those units)
Click to expand...

emperor level AI might be a pushover for you...not for players who would post threads asking how to beat emperor. no need to be so condescending.

@OP, the reason most people say not to mix & match policy trees, is because the finishers are quite powerful, and mixing trees delays the finisher policies. There are some exceptions to this of course like Poland.
 
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