Diamondeye pushes for Emperor

[Diamondeye]

I guess the title says an awfull lot of what is about to unfold - basically I would very much like to strengthen my game, so here is an ambitious attempt at beating Emperor. I will play turnsets when I have time and feel I have recieved the necessary feedback to continue the game.

First of all, details about the game;
Large Continents Map, Standard speed,
Standard amount of opponents,
no custom settings,
time victory disabled.

... And for this ambitious project I am playing a Financial leader:


I love Imperialistic for the fast Settlers, and Financial is always good. I must admit I am inspired by DaveMcW's Cottage Guide (posted December 8th)...

Anyway, I roll this start:


My spidersense tells me that there is tundra north, desert east. Moving through forests is costy, so unless the warrior move proves me wrong, it's a Settle-in-place;


As you can see, I start out Worker first, with BW on the menu (fits so that the worker can move onto a hill and start mining/chopping the turn BW comes in).

Turn 6: First encounter:


... Oops. If any AI is going to ruin this attempt, this is a likely candidate!

Turn 8: It gets worse...:


And the Great Khan is here aswell, excellent! I will need some diplomatic skills to survive this!

Turn 10: Third opponent:


I don't know much about this AI, but I bet his rather peaceful approach to the game combined with the fact that he is already the worst enemy of GK (and vica versa) will lead to his certain death, sooner rather than later.

Turn 22: First casualty:

My starting warrior is eaten by a Lion, against odds. Ah, well, I have a rather good idea about where my next couple of cities will go.

Turn 30: Pathetic attempt at MM:


A chop between warrior builds goes into Settler (2nd chop). In hindsight I should have worked either Gold or the second mine this turn to maximize hammers into the Settler.

Turn 39: First Settler out:

... This time I think I got some of it right, this is an overflow from the first Settler (finished by third chop), and an attempt to maximize hammer output.

Turn 42: York is founded:

I couldn't see Rice nor eastern Gold when settling, but the city is actually in a decent spot still. I have not yet teched Mysticism, so the city builds a warrior for fogbusting/powerrating.

Turn 45: The Buddhists:
Turn 15, Buddhism was founded. Now I find out who did it:


... And I guess this is the last rival on my continent, although this is just guessing.

Turn 50: First stop, and an overview:
First of all, the land around me:


None of the units has moved yet.
Notice the Settler moving towards the western Warrior - is this the best spot to settle?
Notice the barbarian city in the southwest - this may prove a good addition to the English Empire, or a military focus in order to surive.
Notice the lack of Copper - Horses are in a poor location. My military is not looking good, I have no access to Archers yet (no Hunting either). First barbarian Warriors have been spotted (and one of them killed)

London city screen:

I am building a Worker (currently I only have one), I have a feeling that this is a good choice, perhaps even a third one after that - is this right, and/or should I let the city grow?
Am I working the right tiles?

Tech Tree:

As mentioned, I have poor military techs. Still, I have set tech to Pottery (Graneries and Cottages) - is this a good choice? My neighboors are warriors, rather close, and barbs are Emperor level - should I aim for Archery first?
I should probably be running binary research - meaning the slider needs a turn on 0% to finance running 100% the next few techs?

Demographics:

My GNP is the best there is (Financial, gold mine, traderoute London-York, etc.), but my Power is the worst. Nothing I didn't know.

I have not adobted Slavery.

That was the first round! I appreciate all the feedback I can get, and for those interested, the save will be attached after each turnset. You can shadow and see if you do better. Just make sure you put any spoiler information in spoiler tags!

 

[pigswill]

With low food high commerce gold tiles to work this doesn't look like a whipping situation. On the other hand barbs are a bit more lively on emperor. This looks a bit like a research archery soon and grow to caps while building archers situation. If Shaka's got metals and is feeling unneighbourly then chariots won't help too much.

 

[MkLh]

Large Continents map, Shaka and Genghis as neighbors, standard game speed... Not going to be easy first attempt to Emperor..

 

[Diamondeye]

With low food high commerce gold tiles to work this doesn't look like a whipping situation. On the other hand barbs are a bit more lively on emperor. This looks a bit like a research archery soon and grow to caps while building archers situation. If Shaka's got metals and is feeling unneighbourly then chariots won't help too much.

I see the point. Either HBR (Archery needed aswell) or a shot at IW (one blank tile in Capital BFC, Plainstile 2N1E) would be a good pick after Archery?

Large Continents map, Shaka and Genghis as neighbors, standard game speed... Not going to be easy first attempt to Emperor..

My thoughts exactly, two earlygame monsters and two lategame monsters won't be doing me a favor. Here's hoping that Genghis and Shaka ends up bullying Fred and George without actually conquering them - in that case Shaka would probably grow to an overpowering size.

 

[PaulusIII]

I can see them starting to pick on Fred. He's usually weaker than George in military terms (compare Fred and George's unit build probabilities), and in every game I've seen him and a warmonger they usually end up at war.

Oh, and you'll need Archery soon, Emperor barbs on epic usually start attacking around 1700 BC, give or take 200 years or so.

 

[pigswill]

Maybe go for a simple rex, gold and cottages will support a decent early empire. With imperialistic it's nice to have forests to chop into settlers. Maybe writing before IW, look to build a library and get a GS for London Academy (all standard emperor advice I'm afraid; no startling insights).

 

[Skallagrimson]

Large Continents map, Shaka and Genghis as neighbors, standard game speed... Not going to be easy first attempt to Emperor..

My thought exactly, lol. Add to that: no copper!

 

[Bleys]

Bout damn time you moved up to your "true" skill level D! I have all the confidence in the world that you can compete quite well on Emperor.

If you can get Shaka and GK into your religion, and Fred is in a different one, you can buy yourself the time you need to consolidate your empire and equalize. Thats what I usually do when I get neighbors like this.

That being said, it may be better to try an Emp game with hand-picked opponents. I dont mean you should take 6 Gandhis, but if you choose non-backstabber, non-unitspammers, you should be OK. Guys like Zara, Sury, Willem, etc are very tough opponents, but they wont roll up on you while your looking the other way, heh.

 

[r_rolo1]

My first thought when I saw the map was : " He should settle 1 W"

My point about GK and Shaka: how about making them to war each other until they are both powerless and backward?

 

[pigswill]

Getting GK and Shaka warring with each other is certainly the elegant solution. The problem is stopping them being best pals and willing to fight each other (and of course having something to bribe them with in the first place).

 

[slobberinbear]

I am also an Emperor newb. Just so you know, I've seen barb archers at 2400 B.C. (and not the incursion event, either). You need Archery right away, and yes, followed by Iron Working.

I was surprised to see Washington founding Buddhism. He must have gotten Mysticism from a hut.

As far as city settlement: be greedy. Why not grab that eastern gold tile with city 3, assuming you can find some food for it? There are three tiles allowing you to get both the horses and gold, and two of those would let you farm a floodplain for the food to run them.

Assuming that you are set on expanding in your current direction, however, consider the riverside plains 1 NW from your warrior. That gets the incense and cow, frees up a riverside grassland, loses a desert tile, and has no overlap with London.

Lastly: keep scouting! You need to know exactly where everyone is.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't forget shaka/GK are very likely to have a hidden +4 or +5 due to similar peaceweight. This means that while it's normally impossible to get those asp-hats to friendly, they can be friendly with each other with JUST shared religion and open borders. BS but that's how it works. HOWEVER, they can be bribed to declare at pleased, and will even declare on people who are pleased. In that respect, they're loose cannons to an extent. Try to side with one, probably whichever is less hated by Washington/Fred.

On a side note: Be very careful refusing requests from Washington, too. He's the most warlike of the 3 Americans (though still not very warlike), and while his buildunitprob is only 25, that's shared with the likes of Cathy/Izzy so it isn't like NO units. More relevant is the fact that he's one of the top leaders for declaring over a rebuked request.

 

[Abegweit]

My first thought when I saw the map was : " He should settle 1 W"

1E, didn't you mean? And screw the cottages. That city would have been a production powerhouse. As it is, we have two cities settled on FPs.

Can we have the 400BC save?

 

[Joshua368]

Probably should have gone hunting -> animal husbandry first, getting food up should be your first objective... also you took a little while to mine the gold. Your worker should have been able to mine the gold and pasture the pig before BW comes in... maybe not, but the food/commerce would help.

Oh well, chopping is good. Without bronze or horses in your first or second cities, I'd say Archery is important.

 

[r_rolo1]

1E, didn't you mean? And screw the cottages. That city would have been a production powerhouse. As it is, we have two cities settled on FPs.

Can we have the 400BC save?

I meant 1 W. Gains a cow and a FP.

1 E gains a desert hill

I agree with Abegweit concerns about settling in FPs..... it is a huge waste, since FP is a overlay and settling removes the overlays.... especially with a Fin leader.

Can you post the 4000 BC autosave?

 

[Abegweit]

All right. I took a look at the game.

I've already mentioned placing cities on FPs. Whether cottaged or farmed, they are far too valuable to waste (well, sometimes it has to be done but not here).

Then there is the issue of micro-management. First of all, you have four mines (plus the pigs) in your capital and the city is at size three. Why? Even at size five, the pigs couldn't support them all anyway so the FP should have been irrigated before at least one of the mines was built.

Meanwhile your second city does not have a single developed tile. A third city is about to be founded and it will be working undeveloped tiles as well. In general, when you found a new city, two workers should go along with the settler to get it up fast.

Joshua is right that the first priority is food although I disagree with the tech order. You need Agri and don't need hunting. Second priority is to get the gold online. I personally would have gone Agri-AH-TW before BW. I hate wasting worker turns especially at normal speed.

Finally, forget the advice about Archers. Instead, turn that settler around and claim the horses. This is a large map and you are in the frozen north. The barbs are coming soon. Actually, that's where your second city should have been placed. Then the capital could train a few horsies while it grew to a decent size before spewing out more settlers and workers.

 

[Abegweit]

I meant 1 W. Gains a cow and a FP.

How can you tell that from the opening screenshot?

1 E gains a desert hill

This is something you can discover before settling, but I don't care. 1W gets me off FP and onto a plains hill with plenty more hills to mine. It's a production powerhouse.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can see the desert hill in the opening screenshot ( ok, just the spill in the grass hill north of hill, but it is enough for the trained eye ). That alone is enough to push me to the other side

 

[Abegweit]

It's not like you actually plan to work the desert hill, although I would be happy to if could find enough food. It not a horrible tile.

I'll take my 2 capital, thank you very much. That's huge in the early game. And I'll irrigate the other side for still more production. Unless you actually know about the Cow, west is clearly inferior. BTW, where is this extra FP you were talking about?

Anyway the whole discussion is somewhat academic. The thing is not to settle on FPs. Of the original nine tiles, only the other FP and the Pigs are worse choices than the one actually made.

 

[Diamondeye]

Bout damn time you moved up to your "true" skill level D! I have all the confidence in the world that you can compete quite well on Emperor.

If you can get Shaka and GK into your religion, and Fred is in a different one, you can buy yourself the time you need to consolidate your empire and equalize. Thats what I usually do when I get neighbors like this.

That being said, it may be better to try an Emp game with hand-picked opponents. I dont mean you should take 6 Gandhis, but if you choose non-backstabber, non-unitspammers, you should be OK. Guys like Zara, Sury, Willem, etc are very tough opponents, but they wont roll up on you while your looking the other way, heh.

Thanks for chiming in - I don't plan on founding my own religion (it looks like I have pretty many techs to catch up to follow militarily), so this might be hard. Also, I hate opponents like Zara, Sury and Willem, Perhaps I'm too warlike and too bad at economy to keep up with these guys...

My first thought when I saw the map was : " He should settle 1 W"

My point about GK and Shaka: how about making them to war each other until they are both powerless and backward?

While I see your point (both about the cow, which I couldn't see from opening), and desert (which I saw!), I must say I preferred settling in place. losing a turn from moving is one thing, losing the Plains tile (only non-overlayed tile in BFC) another. I bet there's Iron there.

Concerning tile improvements, I needed the chops for early settlers and was late to AH, so I decided to chop/mine all three hills. Not having improved Yorks tiles seems like my worst mistake, the city has been there for like 20 turns and has no improvements yet, not good.

Making Shaka and Genghis attack each other sounds fine aswell, as long as one is not dominating the other (I could imagine Shaka dominating GK, considering his usual play and their UUs roles), since it would mean relations hits with both of them (Brought a war ally and/or refused to help during wartime).

I meant 1 W. Gains a cow and a FP.

1 E gains a desert hill

I agree with Abegweit concerns about settling in FPs..... it is a huge waste, since FP is a overlay and settling removes the overlays.... especially with a Fin leader.

Can you post the 4000 BC autosave?

... Are all starts autosaved? (In that case, I can)

You can see the desert hill in the opening screenshot ( ok, just the spill in the grass hill north of hill, but it is enough for the trained eye ). That alone is enough to push me to the other side

As mentioned earlier, I saw that desert hill, and should I move anywhere, it'd been west. I was just kept away by the forests movement cost and the fact that a ressource might be hidden 2N1E. Also, the hills seemed like a good thing to have close for chops/mines to utilize Imperialistic.

I will probably play next turnset tomorrow, it will be shorter and probably more entertaining than this first.

Happy new year all of you !