Another Monarch to Emperor Thread

[futurehermit]

Well, my struggles on emperor are continuing. I started to question my domination abilities so I started and won a monarch game yesterday. I played with Louis and used my favourite strategy: Pyramids, parthenon (built in military city to avoid gp pollution), GL and FE/SE until democracy. I started out with Gandhi semi-close. I had horses he didn't have copper hooked up, so I chariot-rushed him keeping 1 city and razing another leaving him crippled early. I got 6 cities and then settled down under caste system and pacificm and representation.

I won ca 1900. I would've been a couple centuries sooner I'm sure except for some bad luck and a bad decision. The bad luck was that despite 5 scientists + 2 from GL = 7 total scientists, I got 2 GAs in a row when I wanted to be lightbulbing education Stupid NE...This significantly delayed my liberalism time. The bad decision was transitioning to a CE with military production cities post-democracy (and semi-beelining democracy once renaissance military techs were in). My thinking was I would use my cottage-covered-continent to boom ahead in research to late industrial/early modern units and then invade the other continent. The other continent had genghis (who was seriously backwards in tech), hatty (slight tech leader and only real competition), and wang (tech parity but very low power, few cities). What I SHOULD have done was keep FE/SE and just keep whipping/drafting renaissance units and invade first Genghis then Wang (was on decent terms with Hatty). Genghis only had medeival units when I invaded him with Tanks so I didn't have to wait that long for sure!!! Wang would've been easy because he had few cities. In fact at the end game I realized that I had enough land with just Genghis' cities!!!

I was slightly short on population though at the end and Hatty had 2 20+ pop cities near my Genghis borders and the temptation got to me and I declared with the goal of quickly capturing them and winning. Turns out that was another bad move because she had a bazillion units including mech inf and gunships that beat up my many tanks and modern armor. I had to do everything in my power to hang on to some of my Genghis cities (Hatty wouldn't talk) until I could grow my cities back home for the win.

Anyways, I learned a few things in that game (I am still learning how to fight modern era battles...), including a fortification of my conviction that domination games really should be won in the renaissance age!! Forget cottaging the whole empire and just keep whipping/drafting (I switched to CE civics, which was a mistake imo...).

ANYWAYS... now that you have some context, I thought I would start another monarch to emperor thread. Despite some kinks I still felt like this game was not much challenge (the micromanagement was more challenging than the AI )! But I find emperor too difficult!!!

What are the bonuses the emperor AI gets over the monarch AI? I know that there is less and health on emperor and that 1 loss is actually quite significanat. If you don't have an early resource you can't really whip in your non-capital cities. Charismatic can overcome this, but there is no charismatic-philosophical or charismatic-industrious. I only really like Nappy from amongst the charismatic leaders frankly.

But the AI must get significant tech and production bonuses from monarch to emperor as well because the AI on monarch just doesn't expand as fast or tech as fast either.

Anyways, I know there's some other threads on this topic, but I think it is relevant for a number of people on these boards (hence why it keeps popping up), so I thought I'd throw this out there for some more discussion How do we smooth out that transition from monarch to emperor?

 

[cabert]

Well, my struggles on emperor are continuing. I started to question my domination abilities so I started and won a monarch game yesterday.

My WotM attempts made me doubt my own abilities too, so I started an emperor game going for cultural (the easiest victory condition IMHO).

I played with Louis and used my favourite strategy: Pyramids, parthenon (built in military city to avoid gp pollution), GL and FE/SE until democracy. I started out with Gandhi semi-close. I had horses he didn't have copper hooked up, so I chariot-rushed him keeping 1 city and razing another leaving him crippled early. I got 6 cities and then settled down under caste system and pacificm and representation.

I too played with my favourite strategy, but adapted it for emperor (more diplomacy) :
- early religion
- stonehenge + oracle for GP
- then I for 5000 years
- then I got attacked
- then I just let the attacker get kicked by my neighbours and

I won ca 1900.

same for me but cultural (it was a few years before 1900 if I remember well

I would've been a couple centuries sooner I'm sure except for some bad luck and a bad decision.

same for me

The bad luck was that despite 5 scientists + 2 from GL = 7 total scientists, I got 2 GAs in a row when I wanted to be lightbulbing education Stupid NE...This significantly delayed my liberalism time.

the bad luck wasn't really a problem for me although I only got 2 GA for the whole game, but I started out farming GProphets, didn't I?. So not much bad luck involved.

The bad decision was transitioning to a CE with military production cities post-democracy (and semi-beelining democracy once renaissance military techs were in). My thinking was I would use my cottage-covered-continent to boom ahead in research to late industrial/early modern units and then invade the other continent. The other continent had genghis (who was seriously backwards in tech), hatty (slight tech leader and only real competition), and wang (tech parity but very low power, few cities). What I SHOULD have done was keep FE/SE and just keep whipping/drafting renaissance units and invade first Genghis then Wang (was on decent terms with Hatty). Genghis only had medeival units when I invaded him with Tanks so I didn't have to wait that long for sure!!! Wang would've been easy because he had few cities. In fact at the end game I realized that I had enough land with just Genghis' cities!!!

the bad decisions in my game were about :
- settings : epic speed ? I just forgot to go back to normal...
- techs : why o why didn't I go for judaism??? My next GProphet could have lightbulbed theo for me!
- too few workers
- too slow in the expansion departement
- forgot about the pyramids for too long, then forgot to chop for them = I had to tech all the way to democracy.
- too cautious (I should have captured one jew city, even a completely remote one, but with what troops )

I was slightly short on population though at the end

same for me : it's hard to be high on commerce when your capital is size 6 (It was size 19 before Saladin set up a navy attack on my fishes and clams)

and Hatty had 2 20+ pop cities near my Genghis borders and the temptation got to me and I declared with the goal of quickly capturing them and winning. Turns out that was another bad move because she had a bazillion units including mech inf and gunships that beat up my many tanks and modern armor. I had to do everything in my power to hang on to some of my Genghis cities (Hatty wouldn't talk) until I could grow my cities back home for the win.

Anyways, I learned a few things in that game (I am still learning how to fight modern era battles...), including a fortification of my conviction that domination games really should be won in the renaissance age!! Forget cottaging the whole empire and just keep whipping/drafting (I switched to CE civics, which was a mistake imo...).

transition is good for space, not for domination
I didn't have any transition to make : pure CE from the start.

ANYWAYS... now that you have some context, I thought I would start another monarch to emperor thread. Despite some kinks I still felt like this game was not much challenge (the micromanagement was more challenging than the AI )! But I find emperor too difficult!!!

Did you read snaaty's thread about the emperor isolated start? Why don't you give it a try?

What are the bonuses the emperor AI gets over the monarch AI? I know that there is less and health on emperor and that 1 loss is actually quite significanat. If you don't have an early resource you can't really whip in your non-capital cities.

really? I can't think of a situation where I can't whip. Just let the cities grow into and whip for 2 pop.

Charismatic can overcome this, but there is no charismatic-philosophical or charismatic-industrious. I only really like Nappy from amongst the charismatic leaders frankly.

Play Gandhi, you have a good opening strat. And his UU is terrifying
Seriously, the UU is great and the UB is fine for domination.

But the AI must get significant tech and production bonuses from monarch to emperor as well because the AI on monarch just doesn't expand as fast or tech as fast either.

yep

Anyways, I know there's some other threads on this topic, but I think it is relevant for a number of people on these boards (hence why it keeps popping up), so I thought I'd throw this out there for some more discussion How do we smooth out that transition from monarch to emperor?

One word : diplomacy