Advice For Emperor+ Difficulty & Playing Wide

[Orky Boss]

So, I find myself at that dreaded crossroads in a 4X where one difficulty is "too easy" but the step just above it is "too hard", in my case that being King & Emperor respectively. The obstacle I keep running into is that, on Emperor, I can never grab enough land for myself to be "comfortable" before the AI surrounds my borders, and while I can build an army capable of slowly grinding through one Civ at max unit cap I then find my playthrough abruptly ending when I'm DoW'd by another Civ, "peaceful" or otherwise, who rampages across my unprotected flank. I can't pretend it's impossible to float at this difficulty because there's plenty of discussion & photojournals of Immortal/Diety runs, but I nonetheless find myself at a loss on how to do so myself.

Additionally, as someone who's natural tendency has always been to go Tall but is getting bored with just watching my starting cities grow for hundreds of turns, I've been attempting to tackle this difficulty going for a war-focused, wide playstyle instead, but the optimal early game strategy for a wide playstyle remains quite daunting for me to comprehend.

And so I come to this board to ask the hopefully not too broad question of "How 2 start Wide at Emperor & Above"; Which techs to research first, what my general "build order" is, when to go for Progress or Authority, and how to conduct an early game war in these higher difficulties without being overwhelmed by the monstrous army sizes of multiple AI neighbors. Advice on transitioning into the mid/late game would be appreciated as well, but to be honest my games at Emperor have yet to get past the Renaissance before I give up on them so I feel I need to understand A before I can get to B or C.

...I realize after writing this that this could very well be dependent on game speed & map type as well. For discussion's sake, then, let's say I'm on Standard-Communitas-Terra at Standard speed, though if I would have an easier time on a different map/slower gamespeed then I would appreciate such advise as well. Personally, I'm averse to Continents because the AI seems to struggle with inter-continental warfare and I've found it quite tedious to execute myself.

 

[Stalker0]

So learning from my own troubles on Emperor with regards to early warring, the most important lesson I can offer is....patience. When you war early, the real resource you are acquiring is XP.

It can feel frustrating to sit there pounding away at the AI, and not "gaining any ground". But...you are gaining XP all the while. Keep your units alive, attack when you gain, heal when you must, pillage when its available. There comes this point when suddenly your units are well promoted, and you start upgrading them. And suddenly they do significantly better than you might expect against the AI forces, and that's when you can become dominant.

Beyond that, military is really a snowball effect. Building an army early on is a significant resource sink, so if your going to do it, go big on it. If you have a "decent army", you can stand up to the AI but you won't gain any ground. Increase your size further and suddenly you can push areas that wouldn't have been able to before. One key indicator of this is city surrounds. Ideally you always want the forces available to surround a city, it becomes significantly easier to take. If you can't muster that you need to increase your forces further.

I would also say Emperor is the first difficulty when you have to consider the notion of "City defensiveness". In lower difficulties, its all about yields, you want the coolest cities you can get. At this point, that is no longer your top priority. You have to ask "how easy is this city to attack?". Cities with hills that block line of sight, forests you can fortify your forces in, rivers that block enemy paths...these are huge considerations for your border cities. You mentioned the "attack from flanks" problem. If your cities are built defensively, normally you can hold these with just a few units, and then continue your main army push. When you don't, you need a big military investment.

Lastly, it depends on how wide you want to get. For example, I find 6 cities is about as wide as I can get on a standard map without warring....and that is only in certain circumstances. Now that does depend on type, for example if your playing a New World kind of map where half the world stays open until Astronomy you can bag several later game cities peacefully. But for most Pangea/continents style maps, its about 6 to me....when the stars align.

There are plenty of games where I could only manage 3-4, and then had to war to open up some territory, that is part of the game. It just depends on conditions. Keep in mind though that its doesn't have to be wars against an AI, sometimes snagging a few CS early on can be easy pickings, and they often have good land to take.

 

[Recursive]

Keep in mind though that its doesn't have to be wars against an AI, sometimes snagging a few CS early on can be easy pickings, and they often have good land to take.

City-States aren't AIs?

In all seriousness, while I don't play much on higher difficulties myself, I'll quote myself from back in June on the difficulty changes between King and Emperor, hopefully this is of use to you:

As there's some confusion about the difficulty differences between King and Emperor, I shall clear it up:

Player differences:
Happiness
-1 global happiness from difficulty level
-1 local happiness bonus "for being the capital"
No 5% difficulty reduction to citizen unhappiness from needs

Unit Supply
-1 base unit supply
5% less of the total population is added to unit supply

Barbarians
Barbs can cross your borders five turns earlier, on turn 15
Barbs can target your (visible) trade routes from 1 tile further on land and 2 on the sea

AI differences:
Units
All major AI civs start with a Worker
Workers build and repair improvements 10% faster (AIWorkRateModifier of 50 rather than 40)
City-States start with 2 Warriors instead of 1
AI gets 16% more XP from combat

Costs
AI gets an extra 10% base Production cost discount on units, buildings and projects (80% of total cost in Ancient Era, as opposed to 90% on King)
Unit and building Gold maintenance is 10% cheaper (80%, rather than 90% on King)
Unit upgrade costs are reduced by an additional 5% of the base price
AI Per Era Modifier is -8 rather than -7 on King. The per era modifier for Emperor means that each era, an additional -8% of the base Production cost for units, buildings, and projects is subtracted, on top of the base discount.

Unit Supply
+5% base unit supply and +1% more per era compared to King

Yields
The multiplier for the AI's periodic yield bonuses is x5 rather than x4, so they get 25% more yields. Note that founding a city gives them a Food and Production yield bonus to all of their cities.

Other
AIDeclareWarProb multiplier is 175 instead of 150 (this only affects enmity towards humans who are close to winning the game)

 

[ShadedSkies]

I exclusively play Deity pangaea, with a random civ and no save scumming. I'll impart you with some of the wisdom I've attained.

1. If you manage to go wide and not die then you basically win. Having a large amount of beefy cities lets you pursue the victory of your choice pretty much uncontested, since the AI isn't quite smart enough to manage their own empires optimally. Early expansion is difficult but absolutely vital on higher difficulties, even if it means stepping on some toes.
2. When you get to Skirmishers the AI should no longer pose a threat. If you need an army ASAP, like "Montezuma breathing down your neck ASAP", try to settle on top of some horses so you can instantly buy chariot archers and the AI won't be able to pillage the tile. It's cheap to upgrade to skirmishers, and they solo barbarian camps with ease too, plus they arrive at the same tech as catapult, so once you beat back the enemy's army taking a few cities shouldn't be a problem. Sadly most cities you get at this point in the game will be really awful, so unless you went Authority it's probably better to just stay on the defensive and settle your own lands. If you do grab a good city you can annex it and then starve the population down to maybe 2 pop, so you only get 2 unhappiness but the buildings all contribute their yields to your empire. Puppets are for Persia.
3. Personally I like to connect luxuries as early as possible, since you get better tiles to work and at least one or two AIs pay well for them. Each tech route has its own benefits; Trapping and coastal resources mean you can grab archers instead of warriors. Plantations let you start with Pottery so you can grab any early natural wonders you might stumble upon, and gets you closer to the all-important Skirmishers. Mines give you production to crap out Settlers faster. Quarries are little iffy, but having stones or jade can really boost your production with a stone works and free science from lapis is just great. Amber doesn't really need to be improved to shine so you can wait with those. Forest-Plantations are awful. Absolutely terrible. If you get nothing but those you might want to consider restarting.
4. Make sure you found a religion. It's not hard and the rewards are invaluable. Expand and then get a Monument-Shrine in your cities and pick a good pantheon. If you have good faith generation then you can go with Festival and buy luxuries from the AI to get a truly absurd amount of gold and culture very early in the game. But why risk it? Aim for the faith.
5. The best snowball strat I've found is to rush over to the Oracle and then finish it after researching Education. Since the Oracle gives bonuses based on era this gives you 1,500 culture and science on epic speed, which is probably 1.5 policies and 5-6 free technologies. Then you just build Oxford University for a free great scientist and you're probably #1 in the rankings by a fair bit. This will piss off the AI something fierce so make sure you can defend yourself. You can't really dabble in the lower part of the tree for this to work, but if you stay the course you get it surprisingly often. Since you get Skirmishers there's little for you to do down there anyway, unless you have tons of mines and want a Forge.
6. Progress scales better than Authority unless you plan on warring a considerable amount. Authority is also much less consistant on Deity. Sometimes barbarian camps just don't spawn because the AI already broke them all. Sometimes your neighbor has a great chokepoint, or gets walls early. And at a certain point in the game, the AI starts to build Castles, making war very very taxing even if your units are a full era ahead. Authority works wonders when all the stars align and you get a bunch of barbarian camps and then an expansion-happy neighbor with lots of tasty yet poorly defended cities to destroy, but Progress always works and is always good and you don't need to break your back with constant war to optimize it. Even if it just means getting a Farm from that free worker, or a bunch of free science early on, or extra culture from that free tech you found in the ruins. Don't ask me about the other trees because they keep changing. I like Faith for wide though.
7. That's it for the early game. To win, you want to quickly discover coal, GRAB ALL OF IT, then rush factories and railroads and train stations and all that good stuff. With this much production you can get every building in every city for infinite yields and happiness, build an army to harass your competitors (if you still have any), get wonders, win world congress projects, build nukes and pretty much do whatever you want. Congratualtions!

 

[tu_79]

City-States aren't AIs?

In all seriousness, while I don't play much on higher difficulties myself, I'll quote myself from back in June on the difficulty changes between King and Emperor, hopefully this is of use to you:

Tl;Dr
Steal a few AI workers

 

[Txurce]

I exclusively play Deity pangaea, with a random civ and no save scumming. I'll impart you with some of the wisdom I've attained.

1. If you manage to go wide and not die then you basically win. Having a large amount of beefy cities lets you pursue the victory of your choice pretty much uncontested, since the AI isn't quite smart enough to manage their own empires optimally. Early expansion is difficult but absolutely vital on higher difficulties, even if it means stepping on some toes.
2. When you get to Skirmishers the AI should no longer pose a threat. If you need an army ASAP, like "Montezuma breathing down your neck ASAP", try to settle on top of some horses so you can instantly buy chariot archers and the AI won't be able to pillage the tile. It's cheap to upgrade to skirmishers, and they solo barbarian camps with ease too, plus they arrive at the same tech as catapult, so once you beat back the enemy's army taking a few cities shouldn't be a problem. Sadly most cities you get at this point in the game will be really awful, so unless you went Authority it's probably better to just stay on the defensive and settle your own lands. If you do grab a good city you can annex it and then starve the population down to maybe 2 pop, so you only get 2 unhappiness but the buildings all contribute their yields to your empire. Puppets are for Persia.
3. Personally I like to connect luxuries as early as possible, since you get better tiles to work and at least one or two AIs pay well for them. Each tech route has its own benefits; Trapping and coastal resources mean you can grab archers instead of warriors. Plantations let you start with Pottery so you can grab any early natural wonders you might stumble upon, and gets you closer to the all-important Skirmishers. Mines give you production to crap out Settlers faster. Quarries are little iffy, but having stones or jade can really boost your production with a stone works and free science from lapis is just great. Amber doesn't really need to be improved to shine so you can wait with those. Forest-Plantations are awful. Absolutely terrible. If you get nothing but those you might want to consider restarting.
4. Make sure you found a religion. It's not hard and the rewards are invaluable. Expand and then get a Monument-Shrine in your cities and pick a good pantheon. If you have good faith generation then you can go with Festival and buy luxuries from the AI to get a truly absurd amount of gold and culture very early in the game. But why risk it? Aim for the faith.
5. The best snowball strat I've found is to rush over to the Oracle and then finish it after researching Education. Since the Oracle gives bonuses based on era this gives you 1,500 culture and science on epic speed, which is probably 1.5 policies and 5-6 free technologies. Then you just build Oxford University for a free great scientist and you're probably #1 in the rankings by a fair bit. This will piss off the AI something fierce so make sure you can defend yourself. You can't really dabble in the lower part of the tree for this to work, but if you stay the course you get it surprisingly often. Since you get Skirmishers there's little for you to do down there anyway, unless you have tons of mines and want a Forge.
6. Progress scales better than Authority unless you plan on warring a considerable amount. Authority is also much less consistant on Deity. Sometimes barbarian camps just don't spawn because the AI already broke them all. Sometimes your neighbor has a great chokepoint, or gets walls early. And at a certain point in the game, the AI starts to build Castles, making war very very taxing even if your units are a full era ahead. Authority works wonders when all the stars align and you get a bunch of barbarian camps and then an expansion-happy neighbor with lots of tasty yet poorly defended cities to destroy, but Progress always works and is always good and you don't need to break your back with constant war to optimize it. Even if it just means getting a Farm from that free worker, or a bunch of free science early on, or extra culture from that free tech you found in the ruins. Don't ask me about the other trees because they keep changing. I like Faith for wide though.
7. That's it for the early game. To win, you want to quickly discover coal, GRAB ALL OF IT, then rush factories and railroads and train stations and all that good stuff. With this much production you can get every building in every city for infinite yields and happiness, build an army to harass your competitors (if you still have any), get wonders, win world congress projects, build nukes and pretty much do whatever you want. Congratualtions!

This is a fantastic cheat-sheet guide. You should port it over to the Strategy section.

 

[anastazjasz]

Let me also ask here then, I have same issue like Orky, played few games with new patch on E diff, epic, and those games was one long road of sufferning and pain. Constant wars to keep AI away, being 10 tech and 5 policies behind, normal thing. Very frustrating and it seems like I was following all the rules by the book, well I don't think so now, just need confirmation and clarification.

Yesterday I saw part of that play Rome on deity series on YT by Martin. How is it about the city placement and distance between one and another? I must admit my city placement is heavily influenced by Civ 4 I think (I'm steel playing Rand there). Because I saw Martin is poping cities 5-6 tiles away from each other and it seems to be working.
So what about that 5% increase in culture cost and research cost? Does it mean I need many small cities supporting capital and have just many of them as close as possible, and agree tonever grow them beyond 20 pop? Does it also means that tiles of the cities are not as important as specialists (if u can afford food for them) and they will give u more of everything and compensate for the cost numbers you increase by founding new cities?

Also I know I can end my suffering by going 6 civs (instead of 20) on huge map but that mod deserves to be played on high settings and I know there has to be smth I can do. Thanks guys.

 

[cerk]

5. The best snowball strat I've found is to rush over to the Oracle and then finish it after researching Education. Since the Oracle gives bonuses based on era this gives you 1,500 culture and science on epic speed, which is probably 1.5 policies and 5-6 free technologies.

This makes warring significantly easier too. I build the oracle in the classical era and stop it 1 turn away. Finish it when i hit medieval through physics and get free education and chivalry. With knights and trebuchets, this is the point when you can wipe out the entire neighbour civ or with vassalage kicking in, instant vassals.

 

[CrazyG]

So what about that 5% increase in culture cost and research cost? Does it mean I need many small cities supporting capital and have just many of them as close as possible, and agree tonever grow them beyond 20 pop? Does it also means that tiles of the cities are not as important as specialists (if u can afford food for them) and they will give u more of everything and compensate for the cost numbers you increase by founding new cities?

A city doesn't need a large population to be worthwhile, but it certainly helps. Frequently, have cities only 3 or 4 tiles apart, and I sometimes which tiles back and forth. For example, switch a farm to a new city while the capital builds another settler.

 

[andersw]

I'm in the same spot.
I try to be more patient with wars and certain civs are more forgiving.
Had a real stomp on emperor where I fished for a forest heavy start with Iroquis.
There are other ones worth trying for emperor, carthage/dido for example is considered by many as one diff easier.
You can also use really advanced setup if you want to disable any of the more nasty warmonger AI's or you can just handpick all your opponents.
I mean you don't HAVE to push yourself if you don't want to, its a game, for most of us the prime goal is fun, if that is winning on diety, or doing whatever on settler its fine.
I swap a bit back and forth between king and emperor depending on my mood.

 

[amateurgamer88]

From what I recall, the transition from King to Emperor is tough since mistakes are far more punishing. While there are some good advice already posted in this thread, I think that's overlooked (unless I missed it here) is knowing the civs. You really need to know the strengths of not only the civ you're playing but also the civ your neighbor have. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses will dictate how you approach various aspects like settling cities and when you need to focus on military. The UA, UU and UB of all the civs give them different power spikes so taking advantage of your spikes while minimizing the impact of enemy spikes can make a huge difference. Let's use an example below.

Let's say you have either Greece or Persia as your closest neighbor. Both of these civs have a Spearmen replacement but the Hoplites are more offensive and Immortals are more defensive. The difference can make a huge difference in how your army composition despite both civs being dangerous early game. In both cases, you need to think carefully about your city placement but, thankfully, the placements doesn't change for these two civs. What if you are facing Songhai? Rivers that might help you against Greece or Persia will now be your biggest disadvantage.

As you can see with a short example above, you really need to know the strengths and weakness of your own civ and your neighbor because they will greatly affect your decisionmaking.

 

[ShadedSkies]

This is a fantastic cheat-sheet guide. You should port it over to the Strategy section.

Alright, done. Added a bit about Medieval trees.

 

[plus]

in my current run,emperor,large map,dynamic eras,imo its important to have the biggest army all the time this deters the ai from declating,but u also need to war all the time.so i war one ai,takes a city,peace out,and turn to the other ai next to me,so far it works,but still lot to be done...happiness is a paon,but managable.