[BTS] Emperor Shadow Game With Zara Yaqob Ethiopia

[CGQ]

Thanks for all the advice! I went back and restarted back a couple turns

Spoiler Played to Turn 60 :

Bear with me here, I probably made a whole crap-ton of mistakes here lol

Worker improves corn as adviced, and warrior protects worker from the 1.8 health warrior threatening him.


*Presses next turn while biting nails

*CIV 4 Trumpet of death plays

He died!! Oh no! He took my worker! My game's ruined!

Wait a minute...He's still alive!

...that one other warrior died:

And he was fortified in the forest with a woodsman I promotion defense! Ouch!

I move that other warrior SE to the hill.

Uh. Oh.

Okay, that archer has lower health and the warrior is on a hill.
There is a good chance that maybe he could avenge those brave warriors that sacrificed their life, for the greater good of our empire! Tonight, we will be victorious!




*Clicks Next turn*






W....WHAT?!

*cries in french

And just as I see that...

2.5 Archer vs 1.8 health warrior who is fortified in a forest.

He has to survive that.








"Next Turn"









Ah come on!!!

Damn...

Guess I can learn from my idiotic mistakes and just carefully move my warriors...



Ahhh not again!!

(Next turn)


I move my west warrior further west and, as I imagined, it's Persia. He's quite the guy, really knows how to get along with everyone!


Oh yeah and that other warrior ALSO died...



And during all that warrior fail, city 4 was settled right in the same spot as suggested (even the game liked that spot and offered a "blue circle" there!) and moved the worker to improve it as shown. Chopped a worker from city 2 and used him to build cottages and chop for granaries once pottery arrived.

Should I have not built granaries and just kept building/whipping settlers and workers? This is around the point where I screw up in most games, the middle of the early game, mainly because I don't know how to do things more optimally. I'm pretty sure I made a whole bunch of mistakes here.

I lost 4 warriors. 4 Warriors, to archers. They are straight-up jerks. It's like they can smell my fear and just want me dead, whether they're unhealthy or not. They want blood. Like for real, I will never underestimate the power of barbarian archers again. They're really no joke. I don't even want to begin to imagine what deity must be like.

If it's really that bad I'll reload the last few turns. Plus I've always read that I have to prioritize granaries, especially on food poor cities, so I started them on all cities as soon as pottery arrived, but I'm not sure if that was the right choice. Either way, the one thing I don't know how to do well is what to do with my excess warriors.

 

[CGQ]

Any input?

 

[lymond]

too bad about your warrior problems. yep, the archer thing is ridiculous sometimes how much they win at low odds. I can understand taking a defensive fight against an injured archer, but the other cases I might have avoided the fights by just dancing around the archer.

Granaries are fine, but note a concept regarding the ideal time to complete a granary. You want a granary to finish ideally at or below the food bar at half full. This gives time for the granary to store food surplus for the benefit at the next growth point. Take Aksum, for example. Aksum's food bar is actually at exactly half-full (13/26). If the gran had completed this turn that would be great. In this case, you could do two things a) build gran to 1t but queue something else and wait to Size 4 to finish b) Just one pop the granary now. Yes, Aksum will be beyond half full next turn when it completes, but at size 2 with corn/cow Aksum will have a food surplus of +7 which is strong. Next turn you can click the "avoid growth" button and use that for 1t. That is a nice little trick to use sometimes to allow the gran to max storage at size 2 that turn. Then turn "avoid growth" back off and watch Aksum really grow.

On the other hand, Gondar I don't think we want to whip that and there the Gran is beyond the half food, so I would just continue to slow build for now there until it completes at size 4. (I think that worker is chopping so you can just put the chop into a settler and then back to granary)

Looks like you have 3 decent spots down in the SE area if you can get them. Maybe at least one or two settlers soon, but I would focus on getting Horse Archers soon, unless you don't want to fight early. Up to you.

I think with - soon to be - 5 workers you are good there for a bit.

I think worker NW of Gondor should consider roading that horse now and then start a road to Aksum (as i think you may have been planning). Road on horse first, so that you can then step 1W of Gondor and road there to connect horse, and road via farm>ivory>cow to connect Aksum to Gondor. Technically you only need those 3 roads to connect those cities due to the river, but you need to connect horses regardless. Building a chariot soon for protection may be of use. Though in my test I did not have barb troubles like you.

Scout the coast 1 tile at least near copper to check for seafood.

This turn only..just knock slider back to 80% to finish Writing...then back to 0% research (100% tax)

oh..not sure what that warrior near Alex is doing but that is not a very good position for him.

again, try to avoid go-to routes on units especially early..be deliberate in how you move them

Lastly, go to Espionage screen and set weight to 1 on Darius so all your EPs go to him. He is by far the best techer on this map, so you want to soon be able to see what he is teching.

edit: Warrior near Addis and Persia...let's send him home to Aksum for MP there, as it will need it soon as it will start growing fast.

Aksum will finish a Library soon from granary whip and then can grow into scientists. in my test of your save, based on how I laid things out, including the 1 turn of "avoid growth", the warrior will arrive in Aksum at exactly the right time. (just remember to turn "avoid growth" off after 1 turn)

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler Played to T70 1200 BC :

Some more barbs, but I beat them this time


Found sea food!



I put some chops into new settler in Addis


New settler is out from Addis and capital grew back to size 5. Running two scientists. Building library in Lalibela to increase research with gold. Where should I settle him? I put some location in my last save. I definitely want that marble and rice later but wouldn't it piss Alex off?

Check out my save, I put in notes. Thanks!

 

[lymond]

Please don't semi-automate workers. They often don't do the right things. Doing so is sloppy and belies the strong worker management that we are trying to teach you here.

Take the worker near Aksum for instance. A road on the cows would be far better there to actually connect the cows. I think the workers near Addis should still be chopping. Instead they are wasting turns on a desert tile which requires 3 worker turns for a road.

The worker under your sign can just move to the forest under Gondor to chop..likely for a library there.

I think you have 3 good options to settle down there. Obviously, 1W of copper for fish. I like 1N of deer as well. That should lock the area down as well, and you can settle sheep/furs later right where you marked it.

Lali can take new cottage for now until aksum can grow on it.

Probably want a couple more workers soon. You can chop or whip one after granary in Addis, and send 1 of those Workers to help out new cities in the E/SE.

I would have probably gone straight to HBR here, but you've already committed to Alpha, so finish that i guess. You need to bank some gold.

Why do you have 2 warriors in Aksum.

I don't like taking those OF hammers in Aksum into that warrior. Maybe put that into a new worker and then back to growth, then finish worker.

My thinking here is that you get off an HA rush on probably Alex, then get some Eliepults later to trash everyone else. But that is up to you.

You have too many warriors duplicating busting efforts in the E/SE, while the area near sheep is a danger zone. Again, note that a single unit busts a 5X5 tile area from the tile he stands on. So you can adjust these guys to better bust the area.

Warrior 1NE of spice can move 1S. Warrior next to Alex's borders can move down toward sheep area. Warrior next to copper is probably ok there for now.

Worker near Lali can move SE to forest to chop that for library

I would restart this turn so you can fix those workers.

 

[CGQ]

Please don't semi-automate workers. They often don't do the right things. Doing so is sloppy and belies the strong worker management that we are trying to teach you here.

Take the worker near Aksum for instance. A road on the cows would be far better there to actually connect the cows. I think the workers near Addis should still be chopping. Instead they are wasting turns on a desert tile which requires 3 worker turns for a road.

The worker under your sign can just move to the forest under Gondor to chop..likely for a library there.

I think you have 3 good options to settle down there. Obviously, 1W of copper for fish. I like 1N of deer as well. That should lock the area down as well, and you can settle sheep/furs later right where you marked it.

Lali can take new cottage for now until aksum can grow on it.

Probably want a couple more workers soon. You can chop or whip one after granary in Addis, and send 1 of those Workers to help out new cities in the E/SE.

I would have probably gone straight to HBR here, but you've already committed to Alpha, so finish that i guess. You need to bank some gold.

Why do you have 2 warriors in Aksum.

I don't like taking those OF hammers in Aksum into that warrior. Maybe put that into a new worker and then back to growth, then finish worker.

My thinking here is that you get off an HA rush on probably Alex, then get some Eliepults later to trash everyone else. But that is up to you.

You have too many warriors duplicating busting efforts in the E/SE, while the area near sheep is a danger zone. Again, note that a single unit busts a 5X5 tile area from the tile he stands on. So you can adjust these guys to better bust the area.

Warrior 1NE of spice can move 1S. Warrior next to Alex's borders can move down toward sheep area. Warrior next to copper is probably ok there for now.

Worker near Lali can move SE to forest to chop that for library

I would restart this turn so you can fix those workers.

I'll go back and continue, in the meantime yesterday on Christmas I decided to play an Emperor game for fun (huts and events on) and kept worker management in mind and it ended up being the best game I ever played. Just from the first 50 turns of this game has made me much better at this game Thank you so much and please check it out!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/my-first-emperor-win-i-did-it-read-game-review-here.653153/

I'll continue this game in a week, going to celebrate new years!