A Few Notes on My First Emperor Victory

[Lennier]

Spoiler :

So I just won my first Emperor-level game (Huge, Marathon, Pangea, huts, no events) as Pericles of Greece and have a few thoughts:

1. Maintenance, especially early, is a much bigger issue on Emperor than on Monarch. Athens only had three riverside grasslands. I cottaged two of them, but probably shouldn't have bothered. What saved my bacon was the two cities with large amounts of floodplains and a gold each. The gold kept my economy afloat as I digested the HRE until I could found the Buddhist shrine.

2. The Greek's starting techs suck. They start with hunting which gives them a scout rather than a warrior to start, meaning that they can't choke someone while waiting for copper to come on line. And since Phalanxes aren't effectively countered by chariots, the easy access to spearmen is sort of redundant.

3. Pangea maps are relatively easy. I posted my personal fastest BTS win (1424 AD) on this game. Not only did I get it finished before railroad; I got it finished before replaceable parts.

 

[dohh]

Congrads, if Your first win at thit level is so early. If it wasnt with massive reloading, You could probably try immortal.

 

[pigswill]

I've been playing a shadow of this. Marathon sure takes a long time, I've only got to 600bc so far.

 

[pomthom]

Congrats!

I wouldn't say Pangaea is easier, just much more straight forward. Fractal is the new black.

 

[Lennier]

I've been playing a shadow of this. Marathon sure takes a long time, I've only got to 600bc so far.

Well, it took me over a month to complete the game. So thanks, and good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

A couple of other thoughts:

4. Aesthetics can save one's butt. In my previous couple of Monarch games an AI beat me to it so the trade value wasn't so large. But in this game getting it first saved me. Not only was I able to catch up in tech by trading it around, but I got piles of failgold from building the SoZ 2-1/2 times (I thought I was going to have to finish it myself; I posted a pic of the failgold in the Funny Pictures thread) and the SP almost twice (I actually wanted to finish it to run early FR, but obviously I didn't really need to).

5. Toku's an idiot. Burger King brought him in against me in our second war. I happened to have a C-2 chariot exploring in the area at the time; it ended up pillaging every non-road improvement in the Japanese Empire (and the gold from that kept my economy afloat) before he finally sent his C-1 chariot out to attack mine. He got lucky and won, but if he tried earlier he could have followed up his chariot attack with an archer to kill my chariot and save a bunch of improvements. He eventually forgave me when we shared a war.

 

[cseanny]

I wouldn't say Pangaea is easier, just much more straight forward. Fractal is the new black.

Well, I'll say that Marathon is easier ^^, especially with Huts on!! . I've played a few turns (1000 BC)......although w/out my Mods because HUGE really eats up my machine (don't know how much more it can take!).

Um........

 

[pomthom]

That looks like a good start cseanny

 

[Lennier]

You got luckier with huts than I did. I generally have huts on when I play civs that start with hunting and off otherwise. I think the only tech I got out of the huts was Mysticism.

 

[pigswill]

@cseanny: that sure is a lot of cities, looks like you oracled CoL, you've obviously got writing for creative libraries. How long will it take to build your economy?
Like the location of Athens:

Spoiler :

Copper in BFC!

 

[cseanny]

@ pigswill:

Spoiler :

My initial tech path was Agr > Whl > Pot > Wrt (Immediately ran 2scientist) > Alpha in the 1900s. I oracled Construction for super early WE/Cata/UB. I stole 3 early workers from BK for a quick start and got 3 more while killing him off. Didn't know I had copper till 1900s heh.

I immediately traded Alpha, Math, Priesthood to bait AIs into running for CoL. Willem founded Conf in late 1200s and Monty/Giggles (share same religion) ended up with it a bit later at which point Willem was finally willing to trade me CoL (200 years on Marathon seems like forever). As you can tell from my edit (4th screen shot) I had already begun researching CoL myself (for like 200 years). So either way, trade or not trade I was gonna have it pretty soon.

I had whipped/chopped 7 additional settlers and just had them waiting in place till Currency came in.......but, My economy is mostly built. After a trade for some cash here's what I got (wish I had ORG right now!).

You got luckier with huts than I did. I generally have huts on when I play civs that start with hunting and off otherwise. I think the only tech I got out of the huts was Mysticism.

Huts and Marathon definitely open up quite a few possibilities! I'm personally not a fan because it makes it next to impossible to take 2 games, side by side and then compare them. The FUN factor remains either way though. Just not consistency.

Edit: Added 4th ss of Currency/CoL timeline.

 

[Lennier]

Well, I've gotten my second emperor victory. Kublai Khan, Fractal, Huge, Marathon, Huts, No Events. Took me a bit longer than my first victory, but I had a much higher score (my highest Civ IV score to date).

Spoiler :

I had to regenerate a bunch of times; this map had plenty of commerce for me, but not a lot of production. I don't think I'm ready for Immortal yet.

The Keshiks were nice, but no one was close enough for a Keshik rush to be effective.

 

[Kallikrates]

I'd say pangea and marathon combined makes the game at least one level easier to play (than fractal + normal/standard speed and size settings), especially for domination. I think one learns more when playing maybe a lower level on other settings and trying different victories. (Of course on will also learn a lot of things on your preferred settings).

 

[Lennier]

Yes, this fractal was a near-pangea (no civ started on the small island.) My navy was minimal. I didn't even try to get the circumnavigation bonus. I built 5 privateers, of which 3 managed to run away from AI frigates once they appeared, and all go to 10 xp. When I got to combustion, I upgraded them to destroyers. And they saw no action.

My next game is a hemispheres game, so Astronomy and navies will actually be important.