Attempting Emperor!

[comet]

After playing on and winning comfortably on Monarch for some time, I recently decided to try to move up a level. My first game I failed miserably when poor fogbusting and insufficient early defense allowed a barb spear to take a city. My second game I tried a HA rush. My first target was Sitting Bull cuz like, he was close and stuff and had good lands. It failed miserably (seriously, on monarch you can HA rush anyone and things like being protective with 2 promotion archers wont matter, I swear).

My third and most recent game I pulled off a Domination in 1816 AD and it was by far the most intense, challenging, and rewarding games of Civ4 I have ever played. I probably haven't challenged myself much in the past in terms of difficulty level, usually moving up only when I feel supremely comfortable; generally not moving up until not only can I win easily, but win while playing in auto-pilot, playing sloppily but still eventually spitting out like 15 units 2 eras ahead of everyone else to go mop everyone up with. This game was probably the first game I ever waged a late war without a tech lead or at least tech parity. Certainly it was the first time I can remember fighting offensively with inferior units as I was forced to fight with infantry/artillery against tanks/bombers/marines etc. I learned a ton from that game, and really began to appreciate the value of hammers and what unit spam really means.

However the game had a very favorable start and I was quite lucky in a lot of regards to get to that point as I made several mistakes that I was fortunate enough to not end up paying for. There's several key areas I know I am fairly weak in so I figured I'd try playing through a game here and let people point out when I'm doing dumb things!

I'm going to list what I believe are the areas of my game I need the most work in to improve, but as it may be a bit lengthy and not very interesting, I'll put them in spoilers, since they are mostly for my reference to keep me focused and evaluate my performance post-game anyway.

Goals for the game:

Spoiler :

Fogbusting/Barb Control: Losing a city to barbs is completely unacceptable. Focus on getting fogbusting units out earlier, or make sure a reasonable defender is available if barbs can't be completely fogbusted early enough.

City Specialization: This is probably my biggest hole in my game atm. Despite being aware of the advantages, I rarely specifically designate roles to certain cities, especially in terms of planning out early where certain national wonders will go. In particular, I need to work on the following...

GP Farm/National Epic: I just frankly don't end up doing this and I know I should. Honestly, 80% of my games I don't even build National Epic, and the other 20% it ends up thrown up somewhere as an afterthought. Right now I consider Philosophical the weakest trait because of how poorly I utilize GPP.

Heroic Epic/Ironworks/Maoi Statues: I need to identify cities that can benefit from these early on and plan to build them. Right now Maoi is probably the only one I frequently use, but even there I could better planning as it's available so early in the game.

GP Usage: Unless there's a very obvious use for a GP (i.e. Academy in Oxford City, Bulbing something important, etc.) I am very indecisive about what to do with them, and often end up just stashing them away then using them for a Golden Age for civic swaps. I need to make better decisions on the most efficient use of them.

Espionage: I don't think I've ever adjusted EP weights ever. I usually build 0 spies, unless I get a Great Spy and there's some juicy techs available to steal. I need to incorporate espionage into my game more.

Micromanagement: After the early game, I usually get lazy and stop checking my cities to make sure they are working the right tiles and trying to maximize their output. Either I need to slow down and check these more often, or I need to get better at looking at the map and quickly being able to observe where a city is working an inefficient tile.

Whipping: I've been incorporating it into my game more, but I know there are plenty of situations where I am not maximizing my gains through the whip, especially in regards to when I've reached the happiness cap.

Reloads: I need to not use reloads. In particular, when I'm not sure if I have enough units to take a city, I need to learn to figure out my odds better rather than just saving, attacking, and reloading if I fail.

Diplomacy: I need to understand diplomacy better and recognize when I may be in danger of a DoW, how I could avoid them, and when to give into demands. My previous Emperor game was nearly derailed when Toku unexpectedly declared on me in the medieval era. Also, I need to take better advantage of tech trading and knowing what techs the AI is likely to research and which I can get to trade around. Right now I am mostly only using things like Alpha/Aesthetics as good trade bait.

Transitioning Economy For War: I need to recognize that war generally means my cities need to stay focused on war, instead of making sure my science slider stays high and 'Oh I should probably make military in this city here.... but I really could use a market! ....and a bank/university/observatory/aqueduct/etc.' That may fly on lower difficulties, but I will need larger armies and more units here.

Hopefully after the game I will go back over these and see where I've made improvements and what areas I still need to work on.

Anyway, so here's the settings for the game: Pangaea/Standard, No Huts/Events (Honestly I usually keep these on--not because I think they're fair but because I know they aren't. Anyway I understand why they should be off for a learning game), Epic Speed (Sorry, this is my one crutch I won't give up yet, I just really prefer this speed), everything else standard.

We've gone with random leader and ended up with Churchill. Charismatic is decent and Protective is lulz, so whatever. Redcoat drafting is quite fun though, so we'll see how things go.

Here's the start:

Honestly I've never been much for analyzing the first move. I probably SiP in like 95% of my games without even thinking twice. So I'm probably not very good at analyzing this but I'll try anyway. SiP gives us 2 corn, 2 sugar, 4 green hills, 1 freshwater, 3 grass river, rest grass. We have freshwater but not riverside. Appears some plains north, small amount of green then coast west, jungle east, possibly good land along river south, unless it just goes into ocean. If I were to not SiP, then I'd look south somewhere to try to pick up more riverside tiles. 1S is not an option to me because I don't want settle on a special resource. We can move the Warrior 1 SW however and see what we have down there.

Actually I'm just going to do that now anyway and see what other people think before I settle.

(Idk why it's all lined up weird but anyway you can see what's going on)

I can see an argument for both 2S or even 2S1E. 2S gives us 5 an extra green hill, an extra green river, an extra lake, puts us riverside, and picks up a cow at the cost of basically the 2 sugars. 2S1E gives us only 3 hills but picks up an extra grass river if we want a slightly better bureau cap. The downside I see is that it may be difficult to make a city by the sugars useful early on; if we're lucky we could irrigate them and maybe run some hills, but no guarantee of more than 1 hill up there. On the other hand SiP will almost surely let us settle a solid early city by the cow. What do you guys think?

(Btw, save is in BUG mod. I think. It's been so long since I installed it )

 

[obsolete]

Settle ON THE CORN!!

ON THE CORN!!

I learned this trick from TMIT and it has taken my game to the next level...

 

[mtr12]

Settle 1S for River and Levee's bonus lategame.

 

[Mylene]

If you settle on the SW corn, you still have the wet corn + don't lose any hills.
It's "only" a 4 food tile you give up (if you take away the 1 bonus food you always work), which is a good deal.
Didn't think long about it, might not be the best option...but it is one.

 

[MyOtherName]

I can see an argument for both 2S or even 2S1E.

You haven't considered 1N yet. IMO, that's the most obvious movement to consider. It has the side benefit that the obvious city #2 to the South picks up fewer of what looks to be plains tiles. And if it matters to your consideration, note that 1N2W looks like an unforested grassland hill.

There's also 1SE if you want to have a greedy capital.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Epic Speed (Sorry, this is my one crutch I won't give up yet, I just really prefer this speed), everything else standard.

I wouldn't have hidden this one in a spoiler - people won't see it and will end up being surprised by the outcomes.

1S is not an option to me because I don't want settle on a special resource...

Fear is the mind killer....

That said, there do seem to be a suspicious number of trees about.

Honestly I've never been much for analyzing the first move. I probably SiP in like 95% of my games without even thinking twice. So I'm probably not very good at analyzing this but I'll try anyway. SiP gives us 2 corn, 2 sugar, 4 green hills, 1 freshwater, 3 grass river, rest grass. We have freshwater but not riverside. Appears some plains north, small amount of green then coast west, jungle east, possibly good land along river south, unless it just goes into ocean. If I were to not SiP, then I'd look south somewhere to try to pick up more riverside tiles....

I can see an argument for both 2S or even 2S1E. 2S gives us 5 an extra green hill, an extra green river, an extra lake, puts us riverside, and picks up a cow at the cost of basically the 2 sugars. 2S1E gives us only 3 hills but picks up an extra grass river if we want a slightly better bureau cap. The downside I see is that it may be difficult to make a city by the sugars useful early on; if we're lucky we could irrigate them and maybe run some hills, but no guarantee of more than 1 hill up there. On the other hand SiP will almost surely let us settle a solid early city by the cow.

Not bad. I'd like to see your analysis go a bit further - you've offered a good recital of the map, but what's it for, eh?

What does your development look like when your happy cap is at 6? What does it look like when your cap is at 10? 15?

This for a moment about specialization: given what you can see right now, what national wonders make sense?

Note that this isn't about committing to anything yet - you've another 22? turns or more before you start improving the land - but laying the groundwork for the possibilities that are currently favorable.

For instance - the first thing that catches my attention is that everything is very green. This capital is probably going to be able to sustain itself on only one food resource: the dry corn is enough to feed the four hills that we see now, and even a 5th if there's one hiding in the fog.

So one thing to consider is that you'll be able to use that wet corn, and probably irrigate the sugar, to feed an overlapping city to the east (where things look similarly green).

That's one of the things I like about the move SE - the capital picks up the cows, which is enough to sustain. Because you move east, there's more room to the west for a city that shares the dry corn; because you move south, there's more room to the north for a city to share the wet corn.

"Those are nice forests you've got there Colonel, it would be shame is something were to... happen to them."

Forests are rocket fuel for the ancient era, so you ought to be thinking about how to use them. The usual answers are to chop (a) an army (b) cities (c) wonders out of them.

... In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if obsolete were to complain that I've already put to much emphasis on the corn. City (2F) + 2x corns (6F) + 4x mines (4F) is enough to feed a size 6 city, so who needs Agriculture? BW->Myst->Stonehenge, Great Wall, and maybe a settler to grab Stone/Marble for an even bigger wonder party.

 

[comet]

I wouldn't have hidden this one in a spoiler - people won't see it and will end up being surprised by the outcomes.

Appears out of spoilers to me but in case anyone didn't see, yes this is on Epic.

Thanks for the feedback, obviously there are a lot of things I haven't considered in initial city placement here, probably a byproduct of typically spending two seconds to look around then press 'b'

In particular I have overlooked the food bonus for sugar. I like 1N here for some nice early food while keeping 3 hills, and potential for dry corn sharing for coastal city west or cow city to the south. My preference here is to break up the food resources at least a little rather than settle somewhere to the south and take the cow as well, though obviously we'd likely end up sharing corn with another city.

So we settle 1N:

and reveal nothing terribly interesting to the north. Obviously we're going Agriculture first here and getting the corn irrigated asap. Plenty of forests here, so BW will come next, switching into slavery immediately as the heavy food will mean we'll probably want to whip fairly often even if we'll likely be throwing mostly settlers/workers out from the capital early.

Worker improvement order is Wet Corn > Dry Corn > Mine in green hill. Warrior runs around checking the surrounding land. Hannibal is ~9 tiles to my south and Mao ~11 NNE. I meet everyone relatively quickly and if I was paying more attention I could probably tell you who else is close to me

Anyway I pop out two warriors then begin my settler. Cap is already at pop 5 and my worker can't get improvements up fast enough. Following the 2 corns + 1 mine, I move to chop out my settler, which I will also whip off a pop to finish and put overflow into a worker. I'm not sure what the optimal play here is; perhaps it would have been better to farm the sugar or throw a second mine up instead of chopping, I'm not sure.

In any case, we're at 2950 BC and have just begun the settler. Settler will be done in 6 turns with chop/whip at which point we'll settle the cow city to the south. AH actually won't even be ready by then but we can share the dry corn anyway.

Here's what we can see of our surrounding land so far, with potential city spots marked:

The cow icon is covering up 'e' but basically you should be able to see I'm starting at 'a' to the south then going counter-clockwise. Here's my tentative thoughts for these potential sites. Also I have misplaced what I thought was surely coastline to the west for a lake.

A: Settling here as my second city. There's a wheat that for some reason isn't showing the icon the screen capture but it's right in the nook just outside Hannibal's cross. Not considering settling in a spot to get wheat/cow since Hannibal will just dominate me in culture there since it's his cap and it'll probably piss him off too. Plus I don't have Mysticism or even AH just yet so this spot makes the most sense to me; Ultimately I will have 3 hills + cows and plenty of grasses to irrigate so this should be a solid production site. It looks like Hannibal may be stuck on a peninsula there, so this site will somewhat block him off, unless that body of water is like one of those ocean-lake things (those do exist, right?).

B: Obvious commerce city sitting somewhere in here, not sure of the exact placement just yet. Current location will pick up 7 riverside grasslands, 1 banana, 2 riverside dye, 1 grass hill and a few forests to chop to help put up infrastructure. 1E of the marked spot will pick up an extra dye with the same number of grasslands, and a plains hill instead of a grass, but won't have the hill or banana in its immediately borders and may be slow to develop depending on when it's settled. The AI seems kinda slow at settling jungle sites to me, so I don't envision needing to rush to this spot even with at least 1 AI to the east there somewhere. The earliest I can see this being settled is as my 4th city, but probably later.

C: Fairly mediocre site, with just plains/sheep and sugar for food, 2 hills, and a small amount of riverside. As marked, it's the best long-term spot I can see as it will be somewhat food poor and any other spot will lose a hill, unless there's something in the NE fog I can't see. This will at least somewhat block Mao, as he has desert to his west and appears to be on the northern coast, so he'd have whatever is left to his east only. My major concern here is that if I did settle as marked on C, Mao would still settle near the sheep, so it may be worthwhile to take a weaker long-term spot nearer the sheep to ensure he doesn't. Of course, all this is moot if Mao settles here as his 2nd city, which I'll be upset with him if he does

D: This site is pretty bad, but it would be a mediocre early game site to at least work the gold. There's enough food pre-CS to work the cow, rice, gold, and a plains hill so it would at least have decent hammer output early on while working the gold so I still want to settle it, but I'm not thrilled about it's long-term potential.

E: Need to scout more to the west here to make a better decision, but for now this seems like the best way to take the ivory, although it may be better to take it on F and build closer to the capital and share the dry corn with the cows. If we settle overlapping the dry corn, then the site actually becomes stronger than A by mid-game, with more hills + spices, while still having farmable grasslands. We can make a better decision soon as we scout more to the west.

F: Can't see much here yet but if there's nothing interesting in the fog to the SW, then perhaps we will settle for the corn/ivory.

Overall, with the food + forests in my capital, I can't foresee any issues getting the majority of these sites. We should be able to settle a solid core of at least 6 cities--possibly more depending on how close we are constrained by AI to the east and west. If we can get these sites, we'll have 3 calendar happiness resources + gold + ivory, which with Charismatic puts as at 10 for the happiness cap before religion or monuments. Overall that should be strong enough to bring us through liberalism/rifling, at which point we can look at things like using drafted redcoats or something.

If we end up with horses nearby or even in our capital, well, I'm not sure what the move would be. There's definitely enough solid city sites to make for a very strong HA rush on Hannibal or Mao or both or more, but honestly I'm fairly happy with the land I'm seeing around me and think I am better positioned to grab it than my neighbors currently, though I may change my mind if Mao settles the sheep as his 2nd city.

I'm not sure where my 3rd city will end up just yet; it's going to depend on where Mao settles his 2nd city and how close my west neighbor is. If I'm given enough space to settle the sites I've found so far, then I'll be content to play nice until post-liberalism. If I end up being boxed in more than I anticipate, then I'll hope for horses or at least iron to look at an early push.

 

[krikav]

Seeing that you settle on a 3f tile, and that you have another 3f tile in the inner ring, and that you are playing a civilization that starts with mining. There is a interesting gambit that could be usefull, (no idea if it is in this situation though, probably not).

You can build warriors first, and grow, while teching BW.
You start to build a worker at some point before BW is done, and you can then whip out the first worker right after that.

You would have to spend some time teching agriculture AFTER that though, which might be to slow.
The worker should probably mine something after that, but he could also start chopping direcly.

Settling on a 3f tile, and having a 3 food tile available is as good as growing on grassland cows, or growing on improved dry rice. So growing could be a option.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Again, those all look like moves. What's your plan?

 

[goldys_lackey]

Following VoU's suggestion, you are charismatic, so you'll need 14F to sustain your base happy cap 7 (with garrison) in your capital. Once at your happy cap, you can pull off the wet corn and the dry corn, and work the farmed sugar, 3 mines, and 2 cottages for break even. So I would share the wet corn with a 2nd city, and the dry corn with a 3rd city.

 

[ben-jammin]

Strong start, your B city placement will be useless until iron working and still mostly useless until calendar.

 

[comet]

Played a bit today, here's through 10 AD (there's no 1 AD on epic )

Well apparently that 1 tile of fog SE of my capital was actually stone!

So the options here seem to be either move site 'A' east to pick up the stone or move 'B' south. Moving 'A' 2E1N will let it share the wet corn. Imo this is the only viable option, as 2E1S will lose the wheat to Hannibal, and anything else will be food poor especially early. The other worry is that I'll lose those 2 lakes early on which may be significant because I'm going to be commerce weak here with few riverside tiles, no gold or whatever, and my best commerce site requiring iron working and calendar. So ultimately I choose to simply keep moving forward with the original plan, and will take the stone by moving 'B' south. Chop comes in, which is followed by a 1 pop whip to get the settler out.

I am somewhat surprised to see Hannibal moving his settler in for my site, although presumably he's trying to set up on the hill 1SE of my site so he'll pick up the wheat. In fact he's sitting on that hill right as I get my settler in place.... sorry Hannibal!

And um, VERY sorry for what happens after I settle there.....

Honestly I can't say I've seen that before. York won't need border pops a really long time, surely I won't forcibly kick him out via border pops. I can simply refuse open borders with him and he'll be pretty set back here to essentially lose a settler/archer so early on.

In any case, a few turns later AH finishes up and.... what do you know, Horses in my capital!

It still remains to be seen how much room I'll have for expansion east/west but if I end up having trouble getting a good amount of cities, HA rush isn't out of the question, especially since Hannibal will be so slowed.

Meanwhile, Mao settled his second city not quite on the sheep to the NE, but close enough that I don't think it's a strong play for me to put up city #3 there anymore. I went Wheel after AH so that we can hook up the horses and get chariots to be safe from barbs, so it'll be a few more turns before we can get mysticism for border pops, so my next city actually ends up being another overlap city on the dry corn, taking the cows to the west. The cities can take the corn when they are growing, but can support a reasonable pop on their grass cow + irrigated grass as needed. Both will have plenty of hills, and have some lake tiles available to help my early commerce until I can get some actual good commerce sites.

Here's Nottingham, city #3:

Once Mysticism finishes, I'll chop out a monument so we can get the cows up ASAP. Meanwhile, I really need more commerce to support further growth so the next target will be C for the gold. It will need a border pop ASAP to work the gold and maybe oasis so we'll send workers up to chop one out.

I've scouted most of my surrounding land out by this point. Mansa is sitting to my Northwest, and everyone else appears to be east of Mao or south of Hannibal.

Speaking of Hannibal, I guess the AI doesn't know how to handle the situation where their settler gets trapped, so Hannibal is now playing one city challenge. Actually, he's not doing a bad job as he's easily the first to Alphabet and a substantial tech leader early. Of course, he's also a sitting duck and his power is crap and I'll eventually be able to take his capital with minimal effort.

There's a decent sized peninsula directly west of my land with some jungle and some nice resources. I can block off Mansa from settling here with 1 more city, though it'll be a weak city with little to offer except copper and some grasslands. Still, settling here will guarantee me 4-5 more decent city sites since Hannibal doesn't want to expand, so I make this a priority, settling here earlier than I normally would like, as my economy is beginning to slow now as I desperately wait for the gold to be hooked up.

From here, it's a struggle to right my economy enough so I can at least take the dye/banana/stone site before Mao gets there. I slowly trudge my way to writing, at which point most of my cities begin building libraries, since they have little better to do atm. It would have been nice if an AI not named Hannibal could get Alphabet and let me trade for like pottery or something but instead the only tech trade partner I have available is Hannibal, who has everything I can offer. With my slider struggling at 20%, I open borders with everyone not named Hannibal and begin roading to Mao and Mansa for some extra trade route commerce, which is very badly needed.

Libraries and scientists greatly help my tech rate out when they're finally through. Alphabet is the next tech, as I have a feeling I can beg it from Hannibal when it's halfway done as his power rating is crap with his 1 city. Thankfully, he obliges and saves me 8 turns or so of research, as I *finally* can start trading around for some techs I badly need. I pick up pottery, iron working, sailing, and masonry over the next couple of turns. Between scientists and alphabet, I'm not terribly concerned about my research rate as long as I have enough commerce to stay at like 10-20% even. With Iron Working, it's time to settle the jungle site before Mao does. That site really requires Calendar to be useful too though, so I bulb Math from a GS and work towards Calendar next. I don't really have any interesting trades available atm for Math, so I just hang onto it for now. Hopefully something decent will open up down the line.

With the river/jungle city up, I'm at 6 cities and still have room for another 4-5 to my west with no one really to worry about taking them before me. By the site originally marked 'F' I have revealed Iron and can settle a corn/ivory/iron city, although none will be in the small cross so it'll be weak until I can get a border pop. Technically this will block Hannibal but he still is playing OCC so I'm pretty sure it won't matter. In fact it may be better to settle the gem/banana site first, but I'll be safe just in case Hannibal figures out how to build a 2nd settler and block him at the ivory/corn/iron.

Eventually I end up trading Math around for religious techs as it's getting close to the point where others will begin to get it and trade it around, so I pick up Meditation/Polytheism/Monotheism/Priesthood. Not super exciting but better than nothing.

7th city is up at 245 BC, as a stupid archer finds its way towards me. Stupid Hannibal won't fogbust the south desert.

My fogbusting gets messed up here as I move back to deal with an archer and an axe coming from the south, and I'm promptly rewarded with a barb city popping up to the west. Ugh. I won't have anything to take it until I get a border pop in my iron city, which could be some time. Hopefully I can avoid someone taking that city because that would totally ruin my plans for throwing up 4 more cities there.

Meanwhile, Mao has settled like every possible city site around my eastern banana/dye/stone city. I'm actually somewhat concerned because I could have 3 cities with pavilions culture pressing my main commerce city by mid-late game. Of course, the flip side is that I could really starve or flip those cities with sistine chapel or something like that. I'm really not keen on losing tiles there so hopefully I can get Sistine Chapel.

Calendar finishes up which will really, really help my economy out. The banana/dye/stone city can finally grow and work those nice commerce tiles, I'll quickly pick up an extra 3 happiness cap, and I can begin working on getting the banana/gem site to the west up and settle the jungle.

Mao begins plotting, which somewhat concerns me since we're like neighbors and stuff, but we do share a religion and he's cautious with me and has a worst enemy (Gandhi, who is like, everyone's worst enemy as a heathen Buddhist in a mostly Hindu world). Just to be safe, I beg 10 gold off him and he accepts, so I assume he's going for Gandhi.

Hannibal, my South neighbor, still has his settler/archer trapped as I still haven't opened borders (god I'm so cheap) and his OCC efforts are finally catching up to him as he's lost tech lead to Mansa Musa (big surprise).

MM meanwhile has switched into Confucianism, but you know, he's Mansa so I'm not worried about him. Overall, I can't see any danger of anyone wanting to start a war with me.

Here's the tech situation at 10 AD:

I'm pretty close to tech lead, and I should easily be able to keep up until my I get all my cities settled and my economy really starts to take off.

Here's the land I still have to settle:

And here's what I already have settled:

Overall the plan is as follows:

Settle the land to the west and avoid another civ capping that barb city. Cancel Open Borders if that's whats necessary to do so.

Play builder mode up to Liberalism. I don't have marble which is unfortunate, but I may still be able to pull of Great Library and Sistine Chapel. Sistine will really help Coventry avoid losing tiles to culture pressing from China and possibly flip them, Great Library, well yeah. I do have stone but since I couldn't hook it up until so late, there's really not really anything that useful I can go for with it. Angkor Wat and Chichen Itza I have no interest in, Notre Dame I'll surely can't get first since I'll be so late to Engineering. Sankore is probably the only one I'll be able to get, which may not be terrible since I'm going to be trying for Sistine anyway. Of course then it would make sense to try for Spiral Minaret but I definitely won't be first to Divine Right.

MM already has Aesthetics (I didn't trade it to him) so we may need to go for Literature > Music sooner rather than later, then hope to trade for Code of Laws and maybe Monarchy to help our economy. I'm researching Currency in my save atm but I think it may be better to switch to Literature and hope to trade Aesthetics or Calendar or something for Currency.

Winning Liberalism should be possible but I'll need to get my economy on its feet quickly. Unless I decide to take a brief detour to take Hannibal's capital, I see no reason I should be at war or preparing for war before then.

Post-Liberalism, I should have a solid base of 11-12 cities, and depending on what the tech scene looks like, I'll look to push with either Cavalry or Redcoats. If I haven't taken Hannibal yet, I'll probably do that first real quick. Actually I probably should scout more because there may actually be some decent unsettled land by Hannibal's little capital there. From there, hitting Mao will likely piss off Saladin but may be worthwhile if I can get a peace treaty first from Saladin, as it will probably be better to keep MM around as a trade partner to try to stay ahead of the rest of the world, and focus on their land to meet the domination requirements, while leaving MM alone.

 

[Seraiel]

I looked at your Save, he are all the things I found:

London:

Not working the Food though it could still grow, having no whipping unhappiness. Work the Food and whip some Military Units. The Monument btw is totally over as the City got the Palace giving +2 .

York:

Building Research (?), being founded 1 tile far of the coast, and not working the riverside hills but the sweatwater lakes, and also having no whipping anger. Whip some unit as it has a Barracks and work the mines, this will leave you with -2 and -2 but will give you +6 immediately sparing you 2 rounds of research on currency if it's already building research. Next time, don't settle your cities 1 tile far from the coast, it will prevent you from building a lighthouse with which the sweatwater lakes would give +3 .

Nottingham:

Working an unimproved forrest. Switch London on the cottage to free up a hill that Nottingham can work, instantly spares you 1 turn on the Settler and gives you +1 .

Hastings:

Again having a Barracks but building no Units. Just a question, but do you build a Barracks, Monument and Library in every City? You say you need to learn to specialize, so do it, build Barracks only in your produciton cities, spare the Monuments where you're going to construct Libraries.

Canterbury:

This city is odd, as it has no food and sits next to a holy city, which will take everything from it with . If the city would have been founded 1SW 1S it would reach Bananas, 3 grassland hills and gems and would not be under cultural pressure Also working the plains hill is wrong imho, gives you a little bit more research, but this city is already low on food, build a lighthouse and work the sweatwater lakes as long as you still have them. Also, grassland hills > plain hills.

Coventry:

Where Canterbury is not imnproved, Coventry is This city could really use a Library though, part of it could already be rdy if you hadn't built the monument
Also: instead of having 2 Cottages and 1 Hamlet that isn't worked, this city could have a farm on the Bananas

Warwick:

This city should have been 1NE 1E, then it would have 5 (!) sweatwaterlakes that could be worked for food and commerce! Again, it's 1 tile far from the coast, don't do that. Also, don't work unimproved tiles, if you have to, the plains forrest would spare you 11 turns on the granary which could also be whipped, since whipping granaries is ueber-important.


Summery:

By switching Tiles I immediately spared you 1 round of research and brought your economy from -4 to 0. Your city placement also needs a lot of work, cities 1 tile far from the coast are the absolute exception to the rule. Just think about Warwick and the 5 sweatwater lakes, that would be +5 and +10 and you could have squeezed in another city.

General Things:

I see no GP farm. I guess London would be the right location for that, as it has the most food, so build farms instead of cottages, spare the barracks next time, and now that you got it, whip an axeman with max overflow into the Mausoleum of Maussollos, one of the best wonders there is imho. Also, always work the food, and whip every time you can, except in your low-food-cities or your possible oxford-city.
And I found an unused clam or crab in the west, learn, where there is food, there can be a city, so squeeze in one more city between the two most western c's.
Next thing is, you could have twice as many units if you wanted, and you have open borders with everyone but Hannibal, so go and explore the map, see what your enemies got!
Then, tech-trade more often. 2 Civs already got Aesthetics, so there is no need to hold it back. Trade it for Monarchy and for Diplomacy Bonuses and to bribe some Civs to war against each other. Get Mao

And some last things: Don't kill Hannibal! His power-ratio will be so low for the whole game, Civs will always be likely to declare war on him then on you, and he's high in tech, use him to get techs and as a shield! And chop! Chop chop chop chop chop chop chop! And after that, chop more! Chop Workers, Settlers, Units, Wonders, chop every forrest there is until 1 AD (or 10 AD in epic games ) .

 

[comet]

Thanks for the feedback Seraiel.

Most of it makes sense, I will say though that Canterbury was mostly just to block off the peninsula from Mansa so I could settle it peacefully. I think I can keep the lake tiles with a little bit of effort, and perhaps its not a terrible production city with 3 lighthouse lake tiles, grassland copper and some hills.

The monuments I built also for the +1 happy from charismatic, but probably not necessary at by mid-game since I have so many calendar happy resources.

Do I build a barracks, library, and monument in every city? Probably, guess I should work on that.

Really the problem was that I expanded too quickly and am not quite used to the significantly higher cost of maintenance on Emperor. 1 Gold mine + some water tiles is enough to easily feed the rate of expansion I went for, but it really crippled my economy early on. I guess I undervalued early commerce. That's part of the reason I had barracks and crap everywhere; my cities literally had nothing to build early on when I was barely sitting at 10% science, trying to get to alphabet so I could start fixing my economy, and building a unit would put me at 0% science.

Anyway, I played the game out but a lot of mistakes led to me quitting at ~ 1200 AD. Here's a summary of what happened:

I eventually get to Currency and trade for CoL which starts to fix the economy a bit. Basic plan was to play nice, tech to nationalism and rifling while building infrastructure necessary for a redcoat draft. Here's a list of the mistakes along the way that led to my defeat:

Missed every single wonder I attempted (which was like, almost every mid-game wonder) including one I put 6 chops into (Great Lib). I guess lack of marble really hurt, as virtually everyone else had it. I was first to Paper and still couldn't even get Sankore and I had stone, though I could have if I saved chops for it or whipped the last few turns but I don't really value it that much. On the other hand, I did end up running my slider at 100% for a lot of time from all the failgold so I'm not sure if this is even that bad but I really would have liked at least Great Library.

Poor tech choices/trading. I'm not really used to having to use tech trades to keep tech parity at this stage and I suppose I picked poor choices as I was able to pull a monopoly tech and trade it around once with Paper, and once with a Philosophy bulb, though I was second to Phil. I'm not sure if this is simply because of poor tech rate or poor choices but everyone other than Gandhi (backwards heathen) and Mao always had everything just before I did. Heathen Suleiman was tech leader.

Civic swaps. I'm not sure what the ideal civics were for me to run. My capital was at best a decent bureaucracy cap, much better GP farm. I probably should have either moved the cap (I don't think I've ever done this actually) or ran Caste/Pacifism, but I went Bur/Org Rel when I missed Great Lib. Also, I am very used to being able to get Music first and run a golden age for massive civic swap which I wasn't able to do. I skipped HR because my happiness was fine and it would have cost another turn of anarchy; as it was, 2 turns to switch into Bur/OR which made me cringe. Without caste, I never really made a GP farm (again) since I missed TGL and wasn't running caste and felt like my GPP output wasn't going to be that great anyway.

Infrastructure. On monarch I honestly end up self-teching the majority of the mid-game techs. Which means its slow and I have tons of time to build whatever infrastructure I need. Instead, here every tech often meant multiple techs via trades, which means much faster tech rate and less time to build up infrastructure. I am not making smart decisions on what buildings I really *need* and probably ended up with some poor choices. I realize this somewhat contradicts the previous complaint about difficulty with techs, but perhaps I am overstating that issue. I traded for Machinery, Engineering, Construction, CS, Feudalism, Metal Casting, along with some fluff techs like Compass and Theology so really I suppose it wasn't that bad. However it was disappointing to lose Music and Liberalism. I didn't trade Paper right away, and beat everyone to Education but Suleiman beat me to Liberalism. Along with like every wonder.

Diplomacy. Despite all the problems above, plus some poor spawn busting and barb annoyances, honestly I still feel like I was in a decent position to win the game. My 3 immediate neighbors were either very small (Hannibal), backwards (Mao), or a little of both (MM). Saladin and Suleiman were the biggest threats but I wouldn't have to deal with them for some time. With the AIs general disdain for teching to Rifling, I felt I could at least get 1-2 hits in on a non-rifling target. By that time, pure numbers would prevail, plus redcoat bonuses.

Unfortunately it all started to come undone when Mao declared on me as I was researching Printing Press. His point of attack came on my best commerce city, happily pillaging away my best tiles as he came in. I also don't remember seeing the 'We have enough on our hands' thing come up but I could have just missed it. Either way I was woefully unprepared for a hit there, as I suspected heathen Mansa would declare on me, if anyone. Anyway I had to whip away a lot of my pop in my best city just to keep it (two 3 pop whips). It was never really in any danger though, protective longbows and pikemen easily stand up to maces and elephants and cho-ko-nus or whatever. However, MM then declares on me shortly after I beat off Mao's stack but before he'll make peace. Definitely a bribe as he only sends in 2 units at first but still annoying as I have to scramble to reposition troops. Still not the end of the world, even with my best city whipped into submission, as redcoat drafting will still be good enough to get through a few civs even without a tech lead. Sadly, as I'm repositioning troops to make MM go away, Suleiman declares on me as well, and I give up.

I'm not sure where I went wrong to have Mao declare on me; I'm pretty sure he was at pleased with me but he could have been at cautious. I don't know enough about different leader tendencies to know whether I should have been aware that he'd be likely to hit a neighbor even if they're pleased. Saladin was way bigger than him and either he didn't share enough of a border with Hannibal to care or maybe my power rating really just was that bad. I admit I really go strong into builder mode during this phase of the game usually and honestly I didn't have a unit stronger than an axeman at the time he declared on me (when I had maces, longbows, pikes, xbows all available). So I guess that's my fault there, I get really focused on getting all the infrastructure I need and tend to neglect my military, just like the loading game tips tell me not to! In any case, obviously in my production cities I need to scrap the libraries and crap and pump out some more units to avoid this in the future.

In any case, still a good learning process. I actually played another game while this one was ongoing where I won with MM by drafting and rifling everyone into capitulation in a similar game to this one (where I also had unwanted pre-rifling DoW) and had some of the similar problems that were highlighted by this game. So thanks for all the feedback all, I'll probably go for another forum attempt in the upcoming week at some point and hopefully it will go better than this one!

 

[thbrown81]

Missing wonders is actually quite effective on higher levels. Failure gold helps to accumulate surplus gold that enables you to tech with a larger trade deficit. With many of the Wonders the failure gold is more useful than the Wonder itself. Although you are correct that the GLib is one that you really want to get.

To elaborate further, you don't want to complete Wonders that don't contribute directly toward your desired victory condition. Based on this map (Pangea?), a Conquest/ Dom probably would've been the best option based on the Brits UU. So you want to prioritize your goals around beelining Rifling and Steel.

 

[Gwynnja]

Settle ON THE CORN!!

ON THE CORN!!

I learned this trick from TMIT and it has taken my game to the next level...

Fireaxis is learning your tricks:

Spoiler :

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Gumbolt]

Mao was in war mode on the 10ad save. He must of been planning a war for a long time. You perhaps should of scouted him out a bit.

Building research in most cities at 10ad for 37 beakers is not good. Probably mainly due to the capital and lack of academy/specialists. Wealth works better as it allows you to rise the slider for more science.

No Great people farm. Great people are important to give you the edge on higher levels. has not helped you. Probably your capital which could of run 2-3+ specialists. It was 3 below the happiness cap.

All that forest and jungle still around most cities by 10ad.

Overall what was missing was direction. No point building barracks everywhere unless you plan to build units. What were you planning to do with all these cities?

As for carthage I would of taken it. 1 city probably with 3-4 defenders. Looks like it had the mids too.

 

[comet]

The barracks were built because I overexpanded early (did not realize maintenance costs were so much higher on emperor) and *literally* would go on strike if i built more units. I did not have alphabet yet (or currency) so all I could do was build stupid things until some techs were done. Honestly in some cities that already had like library/monument/barracks I just built warriors and immediately deleted them. I just built those buildings in cities that didn't have them.

A lot of the forests were still there because I had nothing worthwhile to chop early on (see above). I'm building research not wealth in 10 ad save because I do not have currency (it's being researched in that save).

Lack of a GP farm is something I've been trying to work on. I ran 2 scientists in a couple cities during this game (perhaps not in 10 ad save) but I guess I'm not really sure how people usually accomplish this. Running a bunch of specialists, duh! No but seriously, I don't really consider running 2 scientists a GP farm, and running more requires caste (or TGL). Is it generally acceptable to run like 2 scientists + spy + priest or something? I sorta gave up on the GP farm when I missed both Music and TGL as I couldn't easily swap civics (3 turns anarchy to switch to Caste + Bur + Pacifism, which isn't even touching on HR) though perhaps it's better to just do it anyway.

As for Mao, yes he was in war mode at 10 AD but as stated above I begged 10 gold from him right as that came up so I had peace treaty still in 10 AD save and I knew he wasn't plotting on me (if this isn't how it works, let me know!). He doesn't actually declare on me until after 1000 AD and I honestly think he was bribed on me or something because I do not remember seeing the plotting icon come up, which I usually don't miss, though it is possible.

Most of this all comes down to a poor job of early expansion. I didn't scout much because for a while I literally couldn't afford to send units outside my territory. Perhaps I didn't quite emphasize just how much I destroyed my economy early on when I was sitting at 10% slider and +0 gold, trying to get to Alphabet. In any case, I have a better understanding of how I need to balance my early expansion. I don't need to try to super fast expand to like 12 cities and totally out-tech the world like on Monarch; I know I can compete with 6 decent cities. Rushing to take a poor city spot just to block off some land when my economy was already weak was a mistake. I should have just settled quality city sites at reasonable times.

Anyway, hopefully next game I won't shot myself in the foot so much early on and maybe I can get a better idea of what I need to work on.

 

[Gumbolt]

Fair enough. It is possible Mao was targeting another AI. The demand for 10 gold would of certainly delayed any DOW on you. I had a look on diplo page but it wasn't clear he was after one particular AI. To be fair you had little or no defences on the 10AD save. Although your power rating was similar to Mao on the save.

GP farms - One city with 2 GS early on is fine. When you reach caste you can normally run 4-5 GS in one city. Add on NE national wonder and Glib and you soon start pumping out lots of GS. Add an academy to capital. Next one on Philosophy/edu and so on and so forth.

Over expanding is fine if you have a plan. For instance having writing is important so you can build libraries. Then specialists can help you reach techs once your economy is crashed. Other key techs are Alphabet, COl and currency. This with cottages and soon you will find your economy begins to flourish. Basically make sure you have the basics like writing/pottery and sailing before you crash the economy. Then work to teching or trading for the other 3 techs.

Bring on the next game. Least you are trying emp level.

 

[Dirk1302]

@comet, doesn't necessarily work that way. If Mao's is already in war mode and you beg gold you get your 10 turn peace treaty but if the wheoohrn doesn't go away you're not safe from declaration (if it does go away he was planning on you for certain btw).He can still be planning on you. If he goes into wheoohrn while you have the 10 turn peace treaty you are safe.

Also declaration is largely independent of power rating, Sera is incorrect with that assumption. Declaration document from DanF in my sig gives some insight into the mechanics. Bottom line you need a huge power rating ~1.5 times power rating of AI to avoid declaration.