Critics required for an Emperor level game

[Matthew.]

Doesn't mean much in the context of this thread since camel archers are available, but basic infantry is not completely useless. It is just that if you go that route, you need to place a focused effort on it to make it work. Discipline + Heroic Epic + Great General = ~50% increased combat strength before promotions are even considered. A 14 combat swordsman becomes 21, a pseudo-longsword. A 34 rifle becomes the equivalent of a 50 great war infantry. Throw on the cover promotion and camp outside of an enemy city with ease.

With enough focus and strategically moving through the tech tree, you can even attack cities themselves with little damage in return.

This isn't meant to imply that you can ignore range; crossbows/trebs will always be useful, just that basic infantry can greatly enhance the power of your military. Keep them fortified down on key tiles to soak up enemy hits and protect your ranged. If an enemy ranged unit wanders too close, one-shot kill. Purposely send them in range of cities partially damaged to draw fire away from your ranged units.

All this said, 2-3 infantry per group of ranged units is enough. If one dies rush buy another from your heroic epic city. I also try and keep a siege unit or two in the mix, as while crossbows ~> gatling loses range, cannon ~> artillery gains range. A heavily promoted artillery is ridiculously good, and if the game lasts long enough until rocket artillery, it will drop cities faster than a handful of stealth bombers. Worth the investment.

 

[Makaz]

Thanks a bunch - i never build heroic epic and i think it is a flaw of mine.

Reading through comments and retro analysing my playstyle. I think my flaw comes from the following 2 opposite beliefs:

A./ I don t like rush through leaving great expanse of map empty behind me. It doesn t feel like Civ or real to have a massive overstretched empire with ignored foreign non strategic cities in the middle or zones the size of china not populated in the modern era with pikemen barbarians spawning inside. I like to see my colour cover the map and crawl to conquer, filling gaps and grabbing over land. I just feel unsatisfyed to win by 1700 with 3/4 of the world not yours because i ninja caps. Goal is to enjoy the win through building a strong, balancced, developped empire. Not just win.


B./ I just hate cultural and science or diplomatic victory. So that leaves domination / conquest to me.

These two make my life a contradiction.

 

[Matthew.]

I don't think many people do bother with Heroic Epic, and it isn't needed if you are abusing range and sending in cavalry to snipe cities at zero health. But there are tools available in the game to make basic infantry more than viable, it just requires additional focus.

If you are playing wide you can usually ignore aqueducts/granaries, which allows you to build barracks instead. It isn't a huge sacrifice in time/hammers to get Heroic Epic if you modify your play a bit.

And it should be possible to conquer the entire map without carefully targeting enemy capitals. I feel the same way: Domination just isn't domination unless I am taking over the whole map. The key is to get enough happiness per city to allow you to have an infinite number of cities (as many as the map allows). Social policies are a huge source, but also just watch the growth of your cities. Additional growth in your main 2-4 cities is OK, but no need to push growth in any of the others. They are used as connections between your main cities and the areas left to conquer, nothing more.

 

[Makaz]

Alright, I have taken back a lot of advice, read more forum posts, tried a few game with mitigate results but overall seems I have progressed quite well, although I still have a couple questions as I read very different advice and can't make a decision between them


1./ Rush NC or settle a few cities first ? As I currently play the 4 city tradition openner, I do not build NC before turn 70 or so when my cb archers are already laying siege to a neighbour.

Is that too late for NC ? I read people getting education at turn 100 and feel behind in tech. I do not want to abandon my early CB rush as I find it a nice part of the game but it seems it puts me a little behind in tech and I like the idea of conquering a civ per period since I aim for domination. What is the general feeling about this ?


2./ honor policy ? worth getting after completing trad for the 50% exp ? Or better open commerce and go rationalism once i hit renaissance ?


3./ holy warriors ? Has someone try who can tell if this is worth it ? How much faith a unit ? Or does it only makes sense if you have like desert pantheon and lots of desert tiles


4./ the big question ; Crossbow VS education. Once I finish my CB rush, I am usually down to 6 cities and always consider the same problem: CB are a bit too light for a 2nd civ rush (just need to have a neck on the map or a neighbour like hiwatha and its failed) but I fear that if I move from CB straight to crossbow / treb / iron, I will put myself so far behind in tech. But if I go education, my cb sit there useless for 50 turns. I m going domination and my problem is pangea


5./ conquer more vs settle more ?

If i play standard pangea with default settings I find that I get in average 1 neighbour close. When he falls, there is usually around me lots of empty land with sometimes a difficult cross to 3rd ennemy. There is also lots of possible new city sites around, in gaps or coastal which are appealing. this heavily links to q4 as if I go education, i ll settle to pass time but if i go crossbow and rush i may not have the happy to do so. What is the general feeling ?

 

[Knut_Are_M]

Get a religion of happiness and you do not need to ignore cities for conquest. you can take the whole map. Also picking egypt with the burial tomb makes this strategy very good.
Ps chariot archers and especially horsearchers will defeat chukonus cost effectively on flat land.
Because the first hit matters alot in ranged combat. PS you can build 2,x chariot archers for every crossbowmen/chokunu.

PS chariot archers are more cost effective vs longbowmen then knights when you consider hammer cost. Ranged combat is very good as a blob in this game.
Camel archers is one of the best UU in the game, it can change the balance of many wars. from a looseing battle to a winning one.

Chariot archers>>>> composite bowmen on flat land.

 

[Browd]

1./ Rush NC or settle a few cities first ? As I currently play the 4 city tradition openner, I do not build NC before turn 70 or so when my cb archers are already laying siege to a neighbour.

Is that too late for NC ? I read people getting education at turn 100 and feel behind in tech. I do not want to abandon my early CB rush as I find it a nice part of the game but it seems it puts me a little behind in tech and I like the idea of conquering a civ per period since I aim for domination. What is the general feeling about this ?

NC by turn 70 is more than adequate, whether pursuing science, domination or diplo.

2./ honor policy ? worth getting after completing trad for the 50% exp ? Or better open commerce and go rationalism once i hit renaissance ?

Personally, I almost never take Honor (exception is early Liberty/Honor rush with Ancient/Classical Era UUs). If there are enough CSs on the map, Patronage to Aesthetics can be profitable, or through to Scholasticism (for science from allied CSs). The Commerce opener can save you from mid-game gold crises.

3./ holy warriors ? Has someone try who can tell if this is worth it ? How much faith a unit ? Or does it only makes sense if you have like desert pantheon and lots of desert tiles

You need superior faith generation to make Holy Warriors worthwhile. The Civilopedia states the faith cost of each unit, but it's generally twice the hammer cost.

4./ the big question ; Crossbow VS education. Once I finish my CB rush, I am usually down to 6 cities and always consider the same problem: CB are a bit too light for a 2nd civ rush (just need to have a neck on the map or a neighbour like hiwatha and its failed) but I fear that if I move from CB straight to crossbow / treb / iron, I will put myself so far behind in tech. But if I go education, my cb sit there useless for 50 turns. I m going domination and my problem is pangea

If you think you can finish off the map with just X-bows, then go for it. If you will need later generation units, go Education. You should still be able to keep your neighbors distracted with your CBs, and accumulating more XP, even if you can't take down their cities.

5./ conquer more vs settle more ?

Once you have 4 settled cities, you can generally accomplish what you want with puppets. A fifth or sixth city won't hurt policy costs all that much, if the settlement sites are compelling (either because of resources or to serve as a forward base of operations as you target your next victim), but I find that other civs' annexed capitals will often be more productive as working cities.

 

[Makaz]

Ah thanks ! Good tip about faith cost of unit being in civopedia, I will need to check that out later.

Here is a typical game example. Since I m experienting, I tend to pick up civs with not strategy breaking or strategy orienting units or bonus. I tend to try to form my strategy first, then tweak it to adapt to civ's unique feats, rather than winning abusing a civ's strength and then lose the next game because I lack that bonus.

I am really struggling to get NC out early with that strat

Here was the start point:



Turn 15 I would meet Wu who would immediately turn hostile, comment on my weak economy and denounce me on turn 16...

This is when my first settler is out turn 26 (rush buy from selling lux). Since Wu is hostile, she will make the CB victim, while polynesia to the south is my big friend and anyway, getting to him with all that jungle would take me days... So my decision is to settle towards her, on the barb archer to be both in range from cotton and 2 more spices



Turn 72 - finally 4 cities out, really struggled by the lack of funds in the civs I met - often sold lux for 130 + Xg/ turn since they couldn't seem to have more. Finsihed the tech for CB and the upgrade done ready for attack. After doing archers, my cities focus on shrines / workers.

Also at this point Wu and Polynesia (backsab) will double DOW me



Ok - turn 81 - Beinjing falls, I manage to steal 2 more workers on the way. She had quite an army but I didn t lose a unit.
In the meantime we have learned writting, goldrushed a library in the last city settled to the west and cut 3 forests to get city 2 and 3 their own library. The last lib will be finished in 2 turns and I should be able to start building the NC. This already feels very late. We are also 2 turns away from a good or bad surprise regarding iron.



So basically in tech I did:
Mining - potery - calendar - ah - archery - trapping - construction - writing - bronze working - iron working

Religion
I picked up the +1 culture per plantation

Build order:
Capital - Scout - worker - shrine - settler - warrior - archers x4 - worker - library
2nd city - archer - shrine - library
3rd city - archer - shrine - library
4th city - shrine - (library bought)

Policy
Tradition - legalism - monarchy - landed elite - oligarchy


Multiple choice from there:
1 settle the land left open around me and go peacefully to education
2 try to fight down polynesia with CB while researching machinery (we are still at war but I didn t see any of his unit, assume hostile wu bought him into the war but he couldn t be bothered)
3 push to Austria with the CB and try to beat her while researching machinery (risky, cb may not be enough that late)
4 go south with the CB to crush the celts and research machinery (risky, cb may not be enough that late and lots of jungle to piss me off)

I m really hesitating at this point which is always the point I make a wrong decision in my games. What to do if I have iron, what to do if I haven't ? Will a civ settle around my cities if I ignore the gap and continue forward ? Am I not too late on science already ?

 

[wloff]

No, you're doing fine. If I go Tradition 4 I'm usually fairly happy if I get my NC up before turn 100.

The whole point of Tradition 4 is that you're willing to sacrifice a little very early economy and infrastructure, such as a turn 70 NC, in exchange for fast expansion. The benefits of the strategy will only really kick in once you finish the whole Tradition tree, get your free aqueducts and food bonus and watch your cities grow like no tomorrow.

If you want more of a mega-capital and early NC rather than four strong cities, it's a better idea to stick with just one or two settled cities before NC. It's a valid strategy as well, but a different one.

 

[Makaz]

Thanks !

It seems that in that game I was able to rush a 2nd civ with my cb in the end ! I m tempted to push my luck and try Austria too ... who knows...




On the tech side I beelined education which i should get around turn 122-123

On the building side we did granaries, watermills and a circus ir so... I forgot to start NC for about another couple of turns which will make it pop by 113 instead of 105 now ... silly me.

I m still tempted to settle another 2 cities (1 spot with sinai and with sugar, a lux that no one else has and one with another 3 spices in a good location) however happiness becomes an increasing worry. CS only have gold or gem which I both have and I have already traded away anything the other AI have. 1 mercantile CS is mine, the other was at war with me recently (friend of the now deceased Boudica) and would require significant effort to settle.


Any advice ? Settle 2 more cities and wait crossbow or try out Austria with 6 upgraded CB and 3 swordsmen ?

 

[smallfish]

Go down the Longswords line, all the way to Minutemen and cannons.

You're welcome.

 

[Makaz]

Ah, should have read before continuing and then I would have lined up for minutemen instead of going education. Anyway, this game is really easy compared to the previous ones :/ Seems like I don t have to worry about someone completing apollo or manathan in 1600.

I went the education route and finished 4 universities at turn 142. Austria fell to Xbows 2 turns later. I am now 8 turns from minutmen which should allow me to wipe suleiman the 2nd strongest and get things fine.



However got to solve some heavy happiness problem - should have razed austrian cities really. Traded everything I could and still -16. May have to detour through theaters or hard build ND to get through at this point.

Also my back country is being filled with barbarians which is a pain in the ass.
I m thinking of only doing 3 city trad start next time and courthouse the first ennemy cap I secure instead of planting a 4th city. Not sure I needed that 4th one in fact.

 

[Maxym]

See if you can sell a city, most likely to your next victim, it will get you into manageable unhappy and give you time to build happy buildings. Also u can keep fighting and take the city back when you arevready.