Where to go from here?

[Nonevah]

Where do I go from here? I just got Frigates/Privateers, and am teaching for artillery; I do not who to conquer first. William hates me, as he found me right before I finished Arabia off, but he's 15 turns away. Persia and Mongols like me, and I even made a DoF with Persia, but they seem like they'd be much easier to attack...

Who should I go for?

I'm on emperor, by the way. I know my achievement times are terrible, but I dropped the ball early game, being used to the pattern of tradition/science early game on immortal/diety.

I have full honor, and mercantilism in commerce.

 

[consentient]

I know you may not want to hear this, but rather than tell you how to progress from this point, I'd much rather help you improve your game in general so next time you do better.

There are so many ways in which your current position are pretty terrible, and I'd be more than happy to give you pointers, if you're interested.

 

[Nonevah]

Yes, I'd be happy to do so.
Part of the thing I did here was setting a no reset rule on myself, so that the late game would actually be a challenge. However, of course, this slowed things down, as I made up slip ups that really shot myself in the foot. The big ones I noticed were:
1.Having trouble with workers, as they come out later in Emperor, and thus I had to build one of my own, but I built it later than it should have gone up.
2. A massive money crunch in the T80-T100 range, owing to getting my trade routes out late, which forced me to actually delete a few units to prevent random selection from taking out the highly promoted ones I'd raised on a city state... just as Monty attacked, of course.
3. After the Aztecs attacked me, starting to advance into Aztec territory and take his second city (which I eventually razed after taking the Aztec Capital) at CBs instead of crossbows, which really messed up my happiness.
4. Losing half my army taking the Aztec capital (I'd gotten XBs by then, but I just did bad tactics, picked the wrong approach from Monty's second city, instead of continuing to chain citadels).

What other errors can you spot from just these screenshots?

I kept Monty's 3rd city because it had two luxuries that I had in no other city at the time, and had some really great tiles; I would have had less short term happiness without it.

Is this position totally unsalvageable? Half the fun of the game is coming from behind, certainly that'd work in late game as well as in early game.

 

[consentient]

I can't remember Emperor well enough to know whether it's salvageable, but your science is incredibly bad. I suspect you've not micromanaged your cities at all.

In addition to the screenshots, what I'm seeing from your last post is worrying, too. You should never lose half your army. I'm sloppy by comparison to the best players, and I only lose a few units here and there. I suspect you're losing the units because they lack the edge, and also maybe because you are not manoeuvring them well.

I invite you to read my Domination guide and watch some LPs by the best players. I am sure there are excellent Emperor LPs out there.

I'm kinda rusty on Emperor, but the same principles of city management, economy, etc, are quite similar across all difficulty levels.

If you like, send me the map and I'll play it through, taking some screenshots to demonstrate key decisions, etc.

 

[Nonevah]

Yeah, I've read a lot of the guides, I just kinda played my hand really bad on the map, as it was my first time trying no-restart, and also I haven't played much in the last year and a half or so.

A lot of the advice on warmongering on these forums seems to be pangaea focused, i.e. finishing with artillery. Do you have any advice on timing pushes on continents?

 

[consentient]

Well, it's tricky because until you hit Astronomy (or you meet someone else who has gotten there before you (not so likely on Emperor) you can't know how many capitals on the other continent are coastal.

Assuming a standard sized map with 4 civs on each continent, if 2/4 on the other continent are coastal, I'd say go Frigate rush and then use those coastal capitals as war cities to buy and produce land units, prob Canons and Cavalry.

When only 1 out of 4 is coastal, I usually can't be bothered with continuing the Domination sweep and swimming loads of units across the ocean. (Sometimes I do, but not often) So instead, I switch to Culture and use the empire I've conquered to house my artifacts and paintings.

 

[Nonevah]

Went for another Honor America game, this time on Pangaea, and returned to my Abundant Resources comfort zone.

Managed a t100 3-city NC.

My initial build order was scout-scout-worker-monument-granary-archer-archer-settler-settler-library-archer-archer...

First worker came out around t 23, managed a worker steal from nearby city-state at the same time(which I would later go on to exp farm, after I finished some barb quests for other CSes). Bought a 3rd worker after my 3rd city came out.

In 1st expo, build was monument/granary/library
In 2nd, monument-library-granary

Populations are 7, 5, and 4.

Chopped capital forests for settlers and NC.

 

[consentient]

Science is way too low because cities are too small.

 

[Nonevah]

How can I boost food income?

I guess I should have sent more inwards trade routes? Most of the dom guides I find encourage external trade routes more, but I suppose it isn't as important to conserve happiness that way when you're building tall until XBs from Education.

I'm used to all the free food in tradition, I suppose; but my city growth is slow even there with a ton of inwards-sent TRs.

 

[consentient]

You don't need to send internal caravans, you just need to make sure your cities grow. Farm the tiles, build the food buildings, and make sure that each city grows as fast as possible (always less than 10 turns, and better yet, less than 5)

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I think the biggest mistake you made in the second game is buildings Settlers way too late.

I personally think the only mandatory buildings before going straight for Settlers are the Monument and the Shrine if you want a Pantheon.

BO in the capital will often look like this in my games: Scout / Scout or Mon / Mon or Scout / Shrine (Buy Scout) / Settler / Settler / Settler.

Archers are usually bought or built in my expos as second or third order, depending on whether I went lib, trad or honor.

I rarely build Monuments in Tradition games. Also I never go for less than three Scouts. Four are ideal if you have viable early gold tiles like Oasis, Cocoa on Jungle, Citrus on Jungle, Gems on Jungle or Whales, Crabs.

I dislike unimproved Calendar ressources and almost never work trapping ressources until way later in the game.