TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,989
Or so I wish . Having tried a few emperor games, it indeed seems the biggest difficulty jump I've come across to date (though noble ---> prince taught me quite a bit too!).
As I feel my diplomacy choices and war knowledge are more than sufficient to beat AI's at this level (backstabs are rare occasions for me, even at this new difficulty, and I've won many a war with a fraction of the AI power rating), it seems that my economy is NOT. I'll focus on the early game once again in this thread, which looks the most different at emperor difficulty and is almost surely where I'm flopping:
1. I tend to fall quite behind in tech at emperor. Having seen a few high level games, this appears normal. However, not to the extent I fall behind. I've gotten some useful advice from silverbullet, suggesting that I focus on researching something I can trade the AI (this makes fundamental sense, since doing so effectively doubles up your beakers). HOWEVER, I get to the point where I can't research anything like that because I'm too backwards! OK, that's a problem. Let's see why then -------->
2. Opening build/settling decisions: I admit I could specialize my cities a lot better than I do as the game draws on. However, it looks to me like I'm failing prior to seeing the negative effects of weak specialization regardless. Specifically, I'm finding my economy tanking on me considerably after settling 4 cities! (capitol included). Prior to now, my usual opening usually involved 3-4 cities, well improved, then picking up code of laws or currency (depending on short-term intentions, as IMO currency seems a stronger play in desperation, such as overexpansion). After having 3-4 cities, I'd choose either war or further peaceful expansion depending on the map. This works great on Monarch, so well it's easy even.
Of course, that's assuming someone isn't in my face preventing expansion. That calls for a rush, but rushing before economy techs isn't usually my priority unless I'm walled in.
On Emperor, I can still settle 4 cities by 1 AD and have them all reasonably improved, but I run into a somewhat difficult problem: I'm at 30% research or so, and far below the typical BPT I see from players who know what they're doing. I'm often told that what matters is your position relative to AI's, and I know it's true, but I'm routinely too far behind other AI's, which only supports the idea that my BPT are too low ^_^. This opening may not be optimal (I may be settling cities 2,3, or 4, or some combination too slowly or quickly, for example). I know I have enough workers, as it's rare that I work unimproved tiles. Usually have slightly more than 1/city.
3. On wonders: This isn't advice I need, as I never favored wonders (unless, or course, I'm capturing them!). It's not that I don't build the oracle, pyramids, stonehenge, GL or the GW in my games, it's just that I almost never bother making more than one (and I usually build that one with a strategy in mind), and about half the time I don't even do that. I like my units, be they military or workers/settlers. Is this a mistake? I can't imagine getting more than one of these without killing my expansion at emperor anyway (actually, i've long practiced not getting tons of wonders for just this jump ). I love Obsolete's writeups, don't get me wrong, but I like warring early .
4. On emperor warfare: This might be the single hardest adjustment for me. Is warring and still keeping up reasonably in tech impossible at emperor? It doesn't seem to me like it should be. However, as my economy already seems bad to me, massing units seems like it would get me so backwards that I couldn't war effectively after a short while (even at epic speed!). My intuition tells me that this is moreso derived from a lack of economy management, rather than the inability to war in late classical/early medieval/basically any time someone's vulnerable. However, if I'm mistaken, I'd of course like to know .
So basically, from the late BC's through about 1000 AD, how do you guys bet your BPT higher than, say, 20-30 and still expand? While I'm teching at that rate, I won't be hitting beelines for techs fast enough to trade and keep up, so apparently I need to get this up (and ideally still field a military!).
As I feel my diplomacy choices and war knowledge are more than sufficient to beat AI's at this level (backstabs are rare occasions for me, even at this new difficulty, and I've won many a war with a fraction of the AI power rating), it seems that my economy is NOT. I'll focus on the early game once again in this thread, which looks the most different at emperor difficulty and is almost surely where I'm flopping:
1. I tend to fall quite behind in tech at emperor. Having seen a few high level games, this appears normal. However, not to the extent I fall behind. I've gotten some useful advice from silverbullet, suggesting that I focus on researching something I can trade the AI (this makes fundamental sense, since doing so effectively doubles up your beakers). HOWEVER, I get to the point where I can't research anything like that because I'm too backwards! OK, that's a problem. Let's see why then -------->
2. Opening build/settling decisions: I admit I could specialize my cities a lot better than I do as the game draws on. However, it looks to me like I'm failing prior to seeing the negative effects of weak specialization regardless. Specifically, I'm finding my economy tanking on me considerably after settling 4 cities! (capitol included). Prior to now, my usual opening usually involved 3-4 cities, well improved, then picking up code of laws or currency (depending on short-term intentions, as IMO currency seems a stronger play in desperation, such as overexpansion). After having 3-4 cities, I'd choose either war or further peaceful expansion depending on the map. This works great on Monarch, so well it's easy even.
Of course, that's assuming someone isn't in my face preventing expansion. That calls for a rush, but rushing before economy techs isn't usually my priority unless I'm walled in.
On Emperor, I can still settle 4 cities by 1 AD and have them all reasonably improved, but I run into a somewhat difficult problem: I'm at 30% research or so, and far below the typical BPT I see from players who know what they're doing. I'm often told that what matters is your position relative to AI's, and I know it's true, but I'm routinely too far behind other AI's, which only supports the idea that my BPT are too low ^_^. This opening may not be optimal (I may be settling cities 2,3, or 4, or some combination too slowly or quickly, for example). I know I have enough workers, as it's rare that I work unimproved tiles. Usually have slightly more than 1/city.
3. On wonders: This isn't advice I need, as I never favored wonders (unless, or course, I'm capturing them!). It's not that I don't build the oracle, pyramids, stonehenge, GL or the GW in my games, it's just that I almost never bother making more than one (and I usually build that one with a strategy in mind), and about half the time I don't even do that. I like my units, be they military or workers/settlers. Is this a mistake? I can't imagine getting more than one of these without killing my expansion at emperor anyway (actually, i've long practiced not getting tons of wonders for just this jump ). I love Obsolete's writeups, don't get me wrong, but I like warring early .
4. On emperor warfare: This might be the single hardest adjustment for me. Is warring and still keeping up reasonably in tech impossible at emperor? It doesn't seem to me like it should be. However, as my economy already seems bad to me, massing units seems like it would get me so backwards that I couldn't war effectively after a short while (even at epic speed!). My intuition tells me that this is moreso derived from a lack of economy management, rather than the inability to war in late classical/early medieval/basically any time someone's vulnerable. However, if I'm mistaken, I'd of course like to know .
So basically, from the late BC's through about 1000 AD, how do you guys bet your BPT higher than, say, 20-30 and still expand? While I'm teching at that rate, I won't be hitting beelines for techs fast enough to trade and keep up, so apparently I need to get this up (and ideally still field a military!).