BTS – A guide for higher difficulties for standard speed and maps (emperor+)

[Kelvenor]

Thanks for the answer shyuhe and oyzar. Snaaty very good post...Can it be moved in the War Academy?

 

[xanadux]

I've been trying a few games on immortal, and I think I am finally getting the hang of this.

It took me a while to get the early techs and builds right. I think I was grabbing BW too soon (before archery), and not getting archers out scouting quickly enough. So I gave myself a handicap and started with Sitting Bull, since the dog soldier is resourceless and allows me to get BW before archery. I still got archery though because the archers are cheaper and quite strong with the totem pole and protective bonus. Philisophical is of course very useful, and protective, if not great, helps a bit.

Most of the games I was having trouble getting the AI blocked off. In this game, I actually played a small map, and was very close to the south tundra with Justin above me, and ZY NE of him. I lost out on the one prime spot by quite a few turns, but did manage to block Justin, although I only had 4 soso spots other than the capital, and the capital was ok but not great. One city had 2 gold mines, but was food poor, so it helped some, but no more than a cottage city would have, and is stuck at size 5.

But I did manage to keep the military high enough to not be attacked, do some good trading, grab liberalism with 4 lightbulbs around 700AD, be the first to the new world, and bribe ZY against Justin. A few turns after machinery, I am close to enough military to attack Justin, and in my Taj GA. The other continent is large with 2 friendly confucians, Gilgy and Joao. All other religions were founded on my continent. They are quite backward, despite huge amounts of land, probably because I have been accelerating the tech pace on my continent (having traded away Aesthetics, Literature, Paper, and Liberalism while bribing with Education and Nationalism). Not sure if it was a mistake to trade so much, I guess I'll see how much trouble I have taking out Justin. Actually used the 4GS on phi, 2 on education, and liberalism, self researching paper.

I was wondering how much game speed effects the strategy ... I like to play on epic because I think it is the most balanced. I can see that playing a small map can be trouble because trading may not be possible.

 

[StuntedAzrael]

This strat really works great for me on Emperor and Epic. I have a problem being the cottage addict and not specialising my cities for production. The result is always pretty uneventful game of racing for space race or getting crushed by enemies for not haveing enough defenders.

Later in the game Universal suffrage, rivers & Levee can do wonders with my commerce cities in terms for production.

Btw, this should go for War academy.

 

[duende29]

Ummm, I learned a lot from this guide, almost won my first Emperor game, but I lost the space race to a cultural defeat.

I did great at first, Continents, Small, Normal. Went Pacal. Got an amazing starting location with Gold, Cow, Corn and Stone (and Iron too!). And I had a lot of river to cottage later on. I started with only Washington on the continent, however he was pretty close and since I haven't quite gotten how to settle, I could barely settle my 3 next cities before being landlocked in a peninsula, which wasn't all that great except for my Capital (desert and jungles). This however set me the goal of having to gain my land thru warfare. I raised a medium sized army, made my move at 100AD, Washington dead by 1600AD. I made contact with the other continent (Toku, De Gaulle and Augustus) and amazingly I had both the tech and scoreboard lead! (I think it ended a little too late tho, however, it didn't feel that way)

This is when I think I went wrong: I decided to go for a lazy Space race victory, so I modified almost all of my cities to money/science, even the ambiguous productions cities. I had completed several WWs and decided to go Pacifism, which I don't think it was a great idea, even tho I had completed TGL and the Statue of Liberty and had some specialists here and there. Bureaucracy, Free Market, Free Speech. Got a full tech/gold lead, I even researched 1 Future Tech. However Augustus culture beat me in the end...

I could load and nuke the **** out of his cities, but I'd learn nothing, it'd still be a defeat.

You think I should have just gone military and invaded the other continent for domination victory? Or I just failed at Space racing?

 

[MrFelony]

you should have just nuked the hell out of his least cultural city. i remember that's what obsolete did in one of his games he posted about. or you should have made a giant army and invaded them. i have to say, it sucks losing to a cultural victory. that's how i ended up losing what was supposed to be my first domination victory on emperor way back when. always look in the victory conditions here and there to see if one of your opponents is going for that.

 

[Snaaty]

@ duende29:

MrFelony is right, an AI going cultural isn´t really a thread when you see it comming and know how to deal with it. Just check out on the victory screen from time to time, IF one of them is trying to do so... ...they will stop teching and producing units pretty early then... ...some modern units are usually enough to raze one of his cultural cities... ...but nukes are also a GOOD option

 

[oyzar]

Btw you don't need to play emperor+ to use this early strategy.. Growing your capital to happy limit then churning out 2*workers then settler en masse works great at all levels. However you obviously don't need so much protection at the lower levels.

 

[Gr8scott]

While the opening does indeed work fine at all levels (and is a nice change from all the whipping), the focus on aesthetics and backfill tech trading is not really ideal at lower levels. You will generally get aesthetics before anyone even has alphabet!

GS

 

[oyzar]

It works in some multiplayer games though . However monarchy and construction are often more important goals there...

 

[JBossch]

Great strat and I think I will employ some of these strategies when I get BtW. I am still on warlords though (with aggressive AI) and I think this would get me crushed. I just cannot imagine building 8 cities! I usually get about 4 before I start conquering (sometimes less). The whole GL/bulbing thing is very sound though and I was impressed with the speed with which you got liberalism (was it 325AD? Holy crap!)

 

[duende29]

I won my first emperor game! Did it with Zara, one of my favorites on Pangaea. Grabbed land and resources, maintained the power rating, then I did Oromos into DrillIV Rifles when the rest were still pulling Macemen. What I found funny was that just when I wiped out Pericles and was ready to conquer Darius, HC brought up a Diplomatic Victory thru AP, voted for myself and WON thanks to khmer who I had on Friendly for a long time (he had been leading the scoreboard for ages).

Thanks a lot Snaaty, doubt I would have pulled it off so soon without reading your WT.

 

[PsyberKen]

I have to say I really liked the post up until I found some problems that make me think this is fake.

1) This map has been edited. You have Wheat in your city radius on grassland! This is impossible without editing the map! Wheat only spawns on plains NOT grassland.

2) You started with Hunting and Agricultuer??? No way! Perciles starts with Fishing and Hunting NOT Agriculture!

3) You got 3 food resources in your city radius. I never seen this on many many map generations.

4) Your city has to perfect of a starting position to be realistic. Your first 3 worked plots have 8 , 7 , 6 resources being generated. Never have I seen such a perfect starting spot in the real world.

5) Your starting space and the way the land is layed out the enemy does not settle right up next to you like every other map I have seen. 2 of your oppenents are way south with a narrow jungel filled land to keep them away from you.

6) On this map it's WAY to easy to cut some extra land for your self for later settlement.

7) The barbarians did not build a city around you? Only one way up north? I played your map many many times. And every time the barbarians did build cities where you planed to settle. And yes I had several units out fog busting. They often were killed or ignored and barbs setteled anyway. Also they walked past fortified units into the city radius to plunder impoved land.

There is to many things that do not add up to a realistic map and strat here. If this is not fake and this strat really does work as you say. How about posting a more realistic map and starting position. This whole thing is to perfect and it is obvious you edited the map and starting techs.

Show us a real game please?

 

[PopHut]

you should have just nuked the hell out of his least cultural city. i remember that's what obsolete did in one of his games he posted about. or you should have made a giant army and invaded them. i have to say, it sucks losing to a cultural victory. that's how i ended up losing what was supposed to be my first domination victory on emperor way back when. always look in the victory conditions here and there to see if one of your opponents is going for that.

The problem with nukes is that

A. You need uranium
B. Your opponent can't have SDI up
C. You need to defy UN votes against nukes

 

[Julian Delphiki]

I have to say I really liked the post up until I found some problems that make me think this is fake.

1) This map has been edited. You have Wheat in your city radius on grassland! This is impossible without editing the map! Wheat only spawns on plains NOT grassland.

AFAIK map generator can do tile changes like that to capitals FC.

2) You started with Hunting and Agricultuer??? No way! Perciles starts with Fishing and Hunting NOT Agriculture!

Who is Perciles, and what does he have do with Snaaty playing as Persia/Darius which starts with Hunting/Agri?

3) You got 3 food resources in your city radius. I never seen this on many many map generations.

Three ain't really that many.

4) Your city has to perfect of a starting position to be realistic. Your first 3 worked plots have 8 , 7 , 6 resources being generated. Never have I seen such a perfect starting spot in the real world.

5) Your starting space and the way the land is layed out the enemy does not settle right up next to you like every other map I have seen. 2 of your oppenents are way south with a narrow jungel filled land to keep them away from you.

6) On this map it's WAY to easy to cut some extra land for your self for later settlement.

Maps do differ, even with same settings. I think Snaaty has proved to be very good player in many threads.

 

[Dirk1302]

^Psyberken, this is just nonsense as Julian Delphiki already accurately pointed out. I've been around here for more than a year now and read a lot of Snaaty's posts and particpated in some of his open challenge threads. Snaaty is just really good at the game, it's reasonable that after reading this thread you can't copy what he's been doing because there's an underlying sense of timing needed to achieve these sort of results that needs lots of experience, practice and probably also real talent for the game.

 

[illram]

There is to many things that do not add up to a realistic map and strat here. If this is not fake and this strat really does work as you say. How about posting a more realistic map and starting position. This whole thing is to perfect and it is obvious you edited the map and starting techs.

Show us a real game please?

It doesn't appear you have any evidence besides your own failings at working with the strategy. As others have pointed out I really don't see any reasons for calling shenanigans, so I'd recommend you go back to the drawing board and work a little harder before you start yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Since this is your first post I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but suffice it to say there are a lot of really good players on these boards that can do things that at first might seem incredible but really just involve a lot of timing, skill, and experience.

 

[madscientist]

PsyberKen, Your wrong. This thread and the sample game were all legit and a very good example. I think the map is a typical temperate generated map. Based on the fact Snaaty won the game at Diety level and you do not even realize he played the Persian leader Darius who starts with Hunting/Sgriculture compared with the leader you are thinking of, Greek leader Pericles who starts with hunting and fishing.

The comment I will say is he started with one of the stongest leaders in the game, but he made it clear in his opening post that the game works best with financial or philosphical leaders.

Finally I have used this method in various modified forms since he posted it. Teching food techs, building the capital to the happy cap, building a worker first, spamming settlers/workers to block off the AI work great at all levels.

 

[Yesod]

1) This map has been edited. You have Wheat in your city radius on grassland! This is impossible without editing the map! Wheat only spawns on plains NOT grassland.

2) You started with Hunting and Agricultuer??? No way! Perciles starts with Fishing and Hunting NOT Agriculture!

Poor guy, you must feel like an ass right now. But I see your point, that was a wonderful start. It's rare to stand between the other AIs and the other half of the continent. And 3 food resources in 21 tiles of forest??? Snaaty's strategy looks good though and probably works with any reasonable start I'd guess. If i was posting a game i'd probably reload till i got a crap start, not the other way around though. Snaaty, i'll second you showing us this works with a mediocre start.

 

[PsyberKen]

Let me start by apologizing for the accusations of cheeting or faking and for my mistakes about the terrian and leader/techs. I'm sorry Snaaty and anyone else who reads this thread, MY BAD.

With that said I would like to humbly request another example of this using a more average common starting map position and starting resources. Another example to compair to the first would go a long way to better understand all the techniques explained here.

Also what is a "AFAIK map generator" ?

Thanks,

Psyberken

 

[Dirk1302]

^ , start is not extrordinary but certainly above average (but only because Snaaty correctly blocked the others). Another example is always welcome of course....