Advice for Emperor attempt

[Rurik]

Well it is manly because most of the people that did that back in vanilla do not play vanilla or emperor any longer.

Much of what is said is really aimed at C3C, not vanilla. The lack of upgrade paths in vanilla does alter things some as well as the over all easier game it was.

Industrious not being nuke, FP not being nuked and so much more. Still one consideration on the spears is that warriors are even cheaper MP's and horses are more useful with their upgrades and speed.

As to the distance it is well known, but remember in C3C rank is not a function for corruption.

I've been suspecting there is C3C (maybe PTW...if it makes a diff.) talk. I feel it's unfortunate v.1.29 Vanilla doesn't have a distinctive area in the forums but I understand many, if not most, people have moved on to the other versions. If my EB or GameStop had C3C I'd probably move on, too. But until I've mastered v.1.29 Vanilla there's not much motivation.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion that some may not be noticing my sig.line; that I'm playing v.1.29.

 

[Rurik]

Fast moving offensive units *horseman* are better at defending. (Horseman also upgrade all the way to cavs.).

A *horseman* is a 30 shield construct that's 2.1.2. It seems to "occassionally" retreat out of the protective stack it's in... to it's lonesome self... if it's redlining from an attack where, more often than not, it gets attacked again and dies. I don't have a very high opinion of watching a 2mp unit retreat to a vulnerable position and die any more than watching a 2mp unit *not* retreat when it could to survive. With PIKEMEN and SWORDSMEN there are no movement (non-movement) surprises or expectations. I guess it's a personal preference.

"If you kill the invading units before they reach your cities, then what are the defensive units stacked inside of the cities doing? Picking their nose!."

I see your point. What happens, though, if you don't kill the invading units before they reach your cities because, rather than going after the invading units, you're going after the cities which produced those invading units?

My thought is: "The Emperor level AI can outproduce me. It can replace it's losses faster than I can replace mine. It has more cities, more starting units, and a faster production schedule. I need to sabotage it's production capacity if I'm to go head-to-head with it. Also, combat favors the defender. There are no terrain bonuses for the attacker (except, maybe, the absence of a terrain bonus for an unfortified defender on a plain/grassland). Therefore, it's not those 25 regular archers I worry most about...it's the cities which produced them that are my primary problem.

"A 10 shield warrior that is never upgraded, even though he could, does just fine too. MP is all that you need them inside your city for. And I usually just use the lux slider so I don't even need units for that."

I'm sure this makes perfect sense under the right conditions...I do it myself, to some extent, when I have a defensive ring of cities around a core empire. But this thread is all about that time period when one has 1-6 cities, the map is largely unknown, and one doesn't know from which direction rival AI units or barbarians may come. Under this thread's focus I can't see using my luxury slider to defend my cities. Therefore, one must have nose-picking units to defend one's cities until later in the game.

"If you send horseman (or swordsman) you can do even more damege, you can take the AI cities, then you reduce their abillety to replace the workers you took. And you free up land for your settlers, and reduce cultural pressure."

This is absolutely true...later in the game or if one is going for total destruction and there aren't any other AI civs near by.

But early in the game (when everyone is still REX-ing....which is the sole focus of this thread) AI cities are most often destroyed (not taken), the AI's ability to REX is greater than mine (at least on the Emperor level because it's new to me) so it will resettle those sites before I can or -worse- I just made room for another AI civ to settle those sites.

Therefore, I'm not in a position (that I can see since I'm new to the Emperor level) to produce so many 30 shield military units for a major offensive while, at the same time, producing a bunch of 30 shield, population-reducing settlers (along with their requisite defensive garrisons... which I'm told I shouldn't have/don't need). It's just too much to do with too little capacity to do it. I mean, we are talking about what I should be doing with a very small number of cities situated next to Emperor level AI's in the Ancient Era.

I wholly expect I will come to understand everything being said... and, "ghast", agree with it. But to get there this thread's German Emperor game is the place for me to get that perspective.

 

[Obormot]

A good human with 2 cows expands faster then a deity AI and outproduces it.

 

[Rurik]

"If the worker move doesn't reveal anything importand, then move the settler one tile in the direction of the upperleft corner of your screen, and settle on the forrest there."

I didn't think the worker revealed anything important. But then maybe I don't know what's important.

I've playtested settling a new city on a forests on the Monarch level. The 10 shields I'd get from harvesting it with a worker are lost...they don't immediately appear in my new city's production box. Therefore, why would I throw away 10 shields which would be better used for quickly producing a barracks, granary, etc?

Also, I didn't quite understand what was meant by, "I wouln't worry about the palace untill more is known about the land." I do not explore with settlers, thank you just the same.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

A *horseman* is a 30 shield construct that's 2.1.2. It seems to "occassionally" retreat out of the protective stack it's in... to it's lonesome self... if it's redlining from an attack where, more often than not, it gets attacked again and dies. I don't have a very high opinion of watching a 2mp unit retreat to a vulnerable position and die any more than watching a 2mp unit *not* retreat when it could to survive. With PIKEMEN and SWORDSMEN there are no movement (non-movement) surprises or expectations. I guess it's a personal preference.

Between swords and horses, it may seem like a personal preference. I also used to like swords, but i have learned. Horses really are better. They do not occasionally retreat, they retreat 50% of the time.
I have done quite some calculating, and this 50% retreat makes them just as effective in attacking as swordsmen.
The expected losses are about equal. However, you need a few more horses than swords because you will get more woundeds.
The double attack should be pretty rare if you keep your eyes open.
You shouldn't be attacked too much anyway, you should be the one doing the attacks. Keep in mind the infrastructure and where your opponent can get in the next turn. Lure your opponent to where you want to fight them. Don't kill single units if you don't have movement after the kill and will be stranded on a place where the AI can attack your horse next turn. Instead, let the AI units approach and attack them when there you can take multiple units, so that you at least take down multiple units before leaving a horse open to being counter attacks.
Of course, this is much easier to do with horses than with swords who can never retreat after an attack.

The movement speed of horses is an important advantage, but you need to learn how to use it. It is important both for the short distance tactics (attack and retreating to safety) and for the long distance travel time (big difference between traviling 6 turns or 12 turns to reach your enemy)

I see your point. What happens, though, if you don't kill the invading units before they reach your cities because, rather than going after the invading units, you're going after the cities which produced those invading units?

My thought is: "The Emperor level AI can outproduce me. It can replace it's losses faster than I can replace mine. It has more cities, more starting units, and a faster production schedule. I need to sabotage it's production capacity if I'm to go head-to-head with it. Also, combat favors the defender. There are no terrain bonuses for the attacker (except, maybe, the absence of a terrain bonus for an unfortified defender on a plain/grassland). Therefore, it's not those 25 regular archers I worry most about...it's the cities which produced them that are my primary problem.

Using horses movement properly, you should be killing multiple units for every horse you lose.
terain favors the defender indeed, but if you defend 10 cities with 2 spears each, they are all lightly defended and you can lose a city to a small group of attackers. If instead you have 15 horses running around, you can take down a large group of attackers before they can touch your cities. You can also take them down before they pillage anything or before they choose favorable positions.

You can have 20 spears to defend and 20 horses to attack their cities, but after their attackers are down, your spears can't do much. 35 horses can take down the attackers in the blink of an eye and make a much healthier attack on his cities.

I'm sure this makes perfect sense under the right conditions...I do it myself, to some extent, when I have a defensive ring of cities around a core empire. But this thread is all about that time period when one has 1-6 cities, the map is largely unknown, and one doesn't know from which direction rival AI units or barbarians may come. Under this thread's focus I can't see using my luxury slider to defend my cities. Therefore, one must have nose-picking units to defend one's cities until later in the game.

Barbarians are a joke, they don't take cities. Just let them attack your cities and don't worry about them as long as they can't touch your workers and settlers.
Enemy AI won't attack you that early. Just pay when they demand something.
Early on in the game, growth is so incredibly important that you cannot waste time building militairy units. Spend everything you have on increasing your total fpt surplus during this period.

But early in the game (when everyone is still REX-ing....which is the sole focus of this thread) AI cities are most often destroyed (not taken), the AI's ability to REX is greater than mine (at least on the Emperor level because it's new to me) so it will resettle those sites before I can or -worse- I just made room for another AI civ to settle those sites.

Extremely early in the game, when everyone is rex-ing, you should be rexing yourself. Start attacking when space is running out. Emperor AI's shouldn't rex faster than you. If they do, it is because you are building spearmen.
At emperor, you should outexpand the AI almost from the beginning.
At deity, you they will be ahead of you for a while, but you can be bigger than them by the time you have 10 cities. Just don't waste any time in the rex period. dont build spearmen.

 

[MAS]

If you just cave in to the AI demands and not settle agressively (leave 4 tiles between your city and AI cities) the AI is quite unlikely to declare war, up to the point where it is running out of free land to settle. But when that time arrives you should have already switched to full time offensive yourself.

And if you trade a lot there will be few things the AI could wand from you anyway.

The total AI forces may outnumber your total, but that doesn't matter if your local forces outnumber the local AI forces. The AI units can move 1 or 2 tiles per turn in your land, your horseman can move 6 tiles over your roadnetwork, so you can easily outnumber the AI forces localy.
Also, if bad luck happens on your turn, you can still adjust your strategy accordingly, but if a stroke bad luck for you happens on the AI turn, you'll lose the city.

But again, that is at later stages of the game.
At the eary stages, growth is all importand.

Deal with barbarans at the open places where they spawn, await them there with warriors, they cost only 10 shields, so you could build 2 for each one spear. If you do it well, they will not harrass your settlers and workers.

I also advice against AI style settler/defender pairs, run several tiles ahead of your settler, becouse then you see the barbs comming, and if a bad stroke of luck happens, you lose the unit, but you still have the settler.
Of cource, if you start close to an AI, and there is very little land, you will go to war a lot earlier. This is also the case whe nyou play at a very high diffeculty and the AI out expands you a lot. But not monarch, and unlikely at Empire

 

[Rurik]

"Why didn't you move the settler to get the second cow? One lost turn pays off very quickly by having more food. And you would have also had a better RCP."

1) my starting location didn't totally suck,
2) I didn't want to waste the forest,
3) I saw the coastline, the tundra, and where I was on the mini-map and anticipated I'd be expanding up and to the right, therefore moving my capital to the left felt totally wrong...moving it up and to the right seemed best but then I wouldn't have first turn access to the cow nor would I be borderline to the tundra...there'd be no room to settle another city along the grassland-tundra border.
"Now you should propably use the extreme RCP2 spacing since those mountains mess up RCP3 ans 4 and it is the only way for you to setup proper cow sharing.

With both cows worked by one city I would have started with a granary."

Why not settle a second city before producing a granary? Wouldn't it be better to have the greater immediate impact of two growing cities, capable of two differing production capabilities, rather than a single city committed to a single project?

"But after making that mistake settlers first is not that bad. Your new city should be settled near the second cow, 2NW from Berlin and it should begin a granary. Berlin won't have enough production to benefit from a granary since the good tiles should be taken by the second city, so it should build settlers and workers."

So, you're saying my two warriors is sufficient?

 

[Rurik]

Okay, Wacken, your post #45 scares me a bit but I'll do as you say....God help me.

You were convincing in your argument.

I think I haven't, in the past, used horsemen particularly effectively and that may be why I shied away from them. Unfortunately, solo play isn't conducive to learning combat.

 

[Rurik]

If you just cave in to the AI demands and not settle agressively (leave 4 tiles between your city and AI cities) the AI is quite unlikely to declare war, up to the point where it is running out of free land to settle. But when that time arrives you should have already switched to full time offensive yourself.

And if you trade a lot there will be few things the AI could wand from you anyway.

The total AI forces may outnumber your total, but that doesn't matter if your local forces outnumber the local AI forces. The AI units can move 1 or 2 tiles per turn in your land, your horseman can move 6 tiles over your roadnetwork, so you can easily outnumber the AI forces localy.
Also, if bad luck happens on your turn, you can still adjust your strategy accordingly, but if a stroke bad luck for you happens on the AI turn, you'll lose the city.

But again, that is at later stages of the game.
At the eary stages, growth is all importand.

Deal with barbarans at the open places where they spawn, await them there with warriors, they cost only 10 shields, so you could build 2 for each one spear. If you do it well, they will not harrass your settlers and workers.

I also advice against AI style settler/defender pairs, run several tiles ahead of your settler, becouse then you see the barbs comming, and if a bad stroke of luck happens, you lose the unit, but you still have the settler.
Of cource, if you start close to an AI, and there is very little land, you will go to war a lot earlier. This is also the case whe nyou play at a very high diffeculty and the AI out expands you a lot. But not monarch, and unlikely at Empire

MAS, just like Wacken, you two are pushing me to do something that's tough for me. I will give it a try...an honest try...(not sabotaging it to make my point)...but the thought of expanding like you two suggest under the nose of an Emperor AI....just not comforting.

On Monarch I'm quick to kick butt and *then* expand.

 

[Obormot]

1) my starting location didn't totally suck,

So what you could make it even better! As Wacken sais food is most important in the early game. You loose 1 turn for moving, but then you gain 2 turns already at size 3 because growth from 2 to 3 takes 5 turns, not seven. And you gain even more later by setting up a settler factory sooner.

2) I didn't want to waste the forest,

You could move 2NW too. It is not a big deal though, forest chopping takes 10 turns in vanilla, so you cannot devote much time for chopping in the early game. And later 10 shields is not a big deal.
[/quote]

3) I saw the coastline, the tundra, and where I was on the mini-map and anticipated I'd be expanding up and to the right, therefore moving my capital to the left felt totally wrong...moving it up and to the right seemed best but then I wouldn't have first turn access to the cow nor would I be borderline to the tundra...there'd be no room to settle another city along the grassland-tundra border.

Well, you saw tundra in the south, so moving north is a good thing. Moving east 1 tile towards the coast may not be that good though, but 1 tile is not a big deal compared to the benefit of faster early growth.

Why not settle a second city before producing a granary? Wouldn't it be better to have the greater immediate impact of two growing cities, capable of two differing production capabilities, rather than a single city committed to a single project?

In your case as i said building a settler first is fine. However if you settle the city between the cows a granary gives you +4 fpt (the granary effectively doubles your food per turn, 2 comes from city square and 1 from each cow) while a settler gives you only +2 fpt because there are no other food bonuses nearby.

So, you're saying my two warriors is sufficient?

It is enough for now. You can build several more from other cities later, but the capital and the second city should concentrate on growth.

 

[Rurik]

If I understood...this is the spot for the second city...with another near the freshwater lake, right? Or is it better to settle on the cow?

Also, one of the furs is not going to be within my capital's radius. I'm thinking another coastal city on one of the hills...where it'll get two wheat...the hill surrounded by tundra and further from my capital?

Also note Russia's border near my warrior. Any ideas about dealing with Russia's close proximity?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Important is to have focus.

First, you focus 100% on growth. Think only in terms of food and food per turn. Always do whatever provides you most food per turn and does so fastest. This means you will be building settlers and you shouldn't mind finishing them 2 turns before your city grows to size 3. It is better than finishing it 2 turns after growing to size 3. Every single turn counts.
About half my games, i start without even building 1 warrior from the capital. (granary first, then nothing but settlers) If i do build anything, it is only 1 unit (Warrior or curragh) never more. Combi factories (settler + unit in each cycle) are most often a big mistake. It requires a larger city and thus delays your settler production.
Every single turn you can win in early game, can turn out to save you multiple turns by the end of your game due to exponential growth. !!!

The second phase, you are gonna have a focus on miliatary.
This focus is not 100% though, food also remains important. Food remains important until you are say 40 turns away from victory (at that point you could even choose to pop rush all your population into units to speed up your final bit of conquest)
however, during this military phase, you have no time to build libraries, temples, wonders or anything alike. You build units and nothing but units.

Practice will teach you when and how to shift between those phases. Maybe the first time you try it, you will be too late with your units and the AI will attack you with your pants down. Then you learn that you will have to get units a slight bit earlier. Or maybe you will be shifting too early, and your empire is too small. In that case you learn that you have to do it a little later.

The swich between 100% growth and going for military does not have to be a complete turn around. Typically, you first take 1 or 2 core cities with bad food and strong position to be your first unit factories. You start your barracks there first. A bit later, you add the rest of your core to be unit factories. A few cities with 5 food surplus may remain settler/worker factories troughout the game.

So while initially i tell you to focus, i don't really mean to say you don't mix things at all. You should however first realise the goals you have at what time, focus on those goals, and only when you fully understand this, start to mix some things. Mixing things too much will cause you to end up with nothing really.

 

[MAS]

If I understood...this is the spot for the second city...with another near the freshwater lake, right? Or is it better to settle on the cow?

I would, at first, have settled on the other side of the cow, but after reading Obormot his post I'm starting to doubt about that.

Settle next to the cow, not on it, the food bonus is wasted in the city core (but I think you already know, I mention it anyway, just to be sure.)
Your 3th city (capital being 1th) I would place it next to the lake, on that bonus grassland, 3 tiles from your capital. Lord Emsworth marked it with a C.

Also, one of the furs is not going to be within my capital's radius. I'm thinking another coastal city on one of the hills...where it'll get two wheat...the hill surrounded by tundra and further from my capital?

Settle the food rich land first, less usefull land later. I would a place city below your current capital, but much later, after the food rich land is taken.

Also note Russia's border near my warrior. Any ideas about dealing with Russia's close proximity?

To early to tell.

EDIT: use your second warrior to explore some unexplored land around your core, north and south, when the city grows, use the lux slider.

 

[Obormot]

If I understood...this is the spot for the second city...with another near the freshwater lake, right? Or is it better to settle on the cow?

Also, one of the furs is not going to be within my capital's radius. I'm thinking another coastal city on one of the hills...where it'll get two wheat...the hill surrounded by tundra and further from my capital?

That tile is pretty bad even with the furs on it because you loose food working it. It is noit something you want in the early game. You can settle it later on that southern hill if you want to.

Your 3th city (capital being 1th) I would place it next to the lake, on that bonus grassland, 3 tiles from your capital. Lord Emsworth marked it with a C.

If it were C3C I would place the 3rd city on the hill near the wheat. It also has fresh water and it will have 2BGs and wheat immidiately without the need to found more cities there. But here I would wait a bit so that I can decide on the kind of RCP to use for the second ring. That exploring warrior should go to the east and the one in Berlin to the NW. NW is especially important because you can find fresh water there for the cows.

 

[Rurik]

Thanks a lot. I was going to put the game away for a week or so until I got some guidance. Going between CFC and work I'm pleasantly surprised the forum and this thread is active this time of day...and on a weekday.

I think it's going to be tough focusing on such intense expansion.

While scouting I saw Russia's two workers, DOW'd Russia to get them, lost one warrior but killed two of Russia's warriors before she gave me POTTERY and 10g for peace.

I'm finishing my granaries and will stick to the expansion mode (now that I got a little fight out of me...and two more workers).

I guess I'm now going to look to trade for THE WHEEL and HORSEBACK RIDING or research them myself after I get IRON WORKING.

I'll hold off palace jumping until I see how much land there is. Granaries, settlers, roadwork, workers, then chariots.

 

[Rurik]

Maybe not.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

research something you can trade
writing - literature
math - currency
or str8 for republic.

 

[MAS]

Maybe not.

Now THAT is unexpected.

Sorry, I'm a little lost here....

(I wouldn't have risked a war myself though, although I'm not sure if it had any influence.)

You could just settle around it, but It will mess up any plans for RCP.

I wonder if you could have beaten that AI settler if you had build less warriors...

 

[Rurik]

Russia DOW'd Germany and a slugfest ensued.



Already, from comparative losses, I would consider this attempt a failure. Russia is about to burn the first of a number of cities.

 

[MAS]

Russia DOW'd Germany and a slugfest ensued.

Already, from comparative losses, I would consider this attempt a failure. Russia is about to burn the first of a number of cities.

That update came pretty fast, You should have switched from expansion to partal mil somewhere inbetween the last 2 updates, if you had posted some inbetween update we could have told you from our own experience: "now is the time."

Oh well.

One thing the try is to excersize your starting moves. Start a new game every time after the REX face ends. The start of the game is the most importand part, Once you know how to do it right, the rest becomes a lot easier.

Other points of interest:
You made way to few workers.
I see you are building a temple somewhere
I see you are building warriors, you should be building archers, vet archers! In towns where the citizens work improved tiles. (see: more workers)
Your towns that are about to be sacked, near the enemy, have no units near them, other towns, far away from the enemy, have units fortified inside needlessly.