Emperor: All Civs Attack

[sNOW_cRASH]

So, after being 4-1 in Emperor games (lost one early when out scouting and the Incas captured my capital after a few turns grrr) I now get clobbered every time. I won 1 by space race, 2 by domination, 1 by conquest, and one by diplomatic.

I have started 5 new games (standard, 60% water, random) and every time the AI civs gang up. 1 Bab, 3 Iroq, 1 Sumeria. I have been building:

City 1: (2) warriors to scout, granary/settler depending on food, settler, settler
City 2: worker if completes at same time as growth, if not barracks then worker then spearman, then try to crank out military
City 3: same as 2, unless a lot of food, may crank out some settlers

Anyhow, after about 5-7 cities (settlers popping out faster than military units, so only ab 1 spearman/city and two warriors retuning home) one civ will declare and then in the next several turns I will have 3-5 civs declaring. I trade with them and even have two civs polite declare. Inca/Mayans/Aaztecs always start.

Here is a save (1375 BC) right before Inca, Maya, and America gang up on me and one a bit earlier (2030 BC). Any pointers would be great.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/54275/1375_BC.zip

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/54275/2030_BC.zip

 

[ecuwins]

Whenever a civ declares on me I always get one or more of their neighbors to declare on them. This will prevent your new 'allies' from attacking you. Also it will slow down the AI that initially declared on you. If you are behind in techs and have little gold this could be tough.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

a few questions:

Are they demanding anything from you?
I would recommend not setting your 2nd city to building a barracks. i would build warriors, which you can use as MP for happiness - more important, it means you don't have empty cities.

 

[vmxa]

I will try to look at this tomorrow, but having civ go to war with you at emperor is not a huge problem. It just takes longer to get control of the game.

It is unlikely that you are in any position to ally anyone as you probably have nothing to offer them and they are going to view you as weak. So they are not going to join you to fight a stronger civ for nothing. You will have to make it worth their while. That reads techs at this stage of the game.

In the main you do not need to make spears, warriors will keep you until you have swords.

 

[vmxa]

Ok, I loaded it up. First if you want to play peaceful early, you want to have enough troops to not tempt them. Then you want to be able to trade with them to build up some positive attitude.

To that end you want to get a warrior for each town, if you see you have contacts near you. Given that you are in despotism, you can stand to have 2 units to gain the max MP effect.

This save on the lux slider and gets the AI to see you as not weak.

I understand the desire to found towns on rivers, but you are going to be crowed soon and cannot afford that much open space. I woul dhave slapped a town on the hill NE of the capitol.

You started out with Alpha and did not research writing? As I mentioned, do not build spears, unless you need them. IOW you are going to be in a war and cannot attack.

The fact that you have only one worker is just going to stunt your growth, you cannot wait till now to start making them.

 

[sNOW_cRASH]

Instead of writing I tried to go for horseback riding so that I could build up a MW stack. As I went a long I discovered I had no horses. After three similar games of 3-5 AI civs declaring when I couldn't pony up the extortion costs, I thought I would try to be ready to attack them.

After reading your comments I see where I really messed up. I neglected warriors and tried too soon on spears. I neglected to realize that MP would keep me from having to use the lux slider so much. Somehow I bumbled my way through some easy Emperor wins, but must not have really known what I was doing. My scores were in the 7000s and I wanted to win with more points and play better.

I usually try to average CxxxC in the first ring and then CxxC in the second and beyond. City Placement is still a struggle.

I am trying another game with Byzantine on a Arch map and doing better, but I had the island to myself. Barbs have been causing me trouble. I held off on spear until after at least one warrior MP and my cities were built up a bit, but stinking barb horses have been wiping out veteran spears fortified in cities.

 

[PaperBeetle]

After three similar games of 3-5 AI civs declaring when I couldn't pony up the extortion costs, I thought I would try to be ready to attack them.

I presume you mean wouldn't pay the extortion. The AI never demands more than you actually have, although it can sometimes demand your whole treasury, while you are running negative gpt. This would cause something to disband, but you can respond by changing your sliders during the negotiation, so that you are no longer running a deficit.
To cut a long story short, in the early stages, you must pay up on any demands from any civ who has the ability to reach you (i.e. is on the same landmass). Conversely, if they are on a different landmass, then they can't reach you, and it is almost always best to laugh in their face and hope they declare war.

With respect to barbs, if they are getting out of control, I find the best way to deal with them is the same as dealing with unavoidable early aggression from your civilized neighbours: archers. This makes War Code a useful tech to get early on. The AI favours it quite heavily though, so trade for it unless you find yourself in the position you just described - stuck on an island with just you and the barbs.

 

[vmxa]

sNOW_cRASH, MW are going to smack the AI down on Emperor, but you do not want to use them so early anyway. You will trigger a GA with just a few towns in despotism.

I do not like to see wide spacing, unless you playing on a map with less than standard number of civs and it is going to be a free hand at the start. Even on low levels like Monarch, it is just going waste tiles.

Not saying you cannot do it, but why? The best way to avoid demands is to be strong or at least not weak. So early in the game having 2 warriors per town will do the trick.

If you are very familiar with civ, then you can get away with a small force, for a longer time. It could lead to demands and wars even then. Something you won't see at lower levels so soon.

In a peaceful game, I would for go barracks until I was ready to either fight or build better than warriors. Then just make one in a town that will be building troops.

You can get a couple of warriors up to vet status via barbs. The other thing about spears, is you have to research that tech or trade for it and often that is not the path to head down at the start.

The AI will all learn it soon and it will be cheap, so let them research it.

I also meant to point out the hut not being popped? Golden opportunity to get a free tech or at least some promotions.

You have two problems with your start locations, 1- no food bonus that I noticed and 2- no lux in sight. True you do not have horses, but lots of fog south of you.

As long as you get Iron, you can hold out for horses.

The thing about going Writing and philo is they will be so very god trade items. In that vain, you do not know enough of the map and should have a second curragh out.

You want to be able to trade any monopoly techs to the max number of civs. This will also delay them form getting froggy with you while you try get by with min troops.

 

[sNOW_cRASH]

Ok, just won diplomatic victory with Byzantine. I stayed with warriors and was lucky I was on my own island. There were only 3 civs left, I was about to lose to India. They had a culture of 93000 to my 40000, so I gifted some luxuries to America right before UN being built. It was my highest Emperor score in 5 Emperor wins, but still only 4300.

I am going to start a new game on non-island map and see how things go. I wish I could get one of these 10000+ points wins I see.

 

[vmxa]

Score is going to be impacted by several things, but two large ones 1- pop, 2- time. If you play on large maps you tend to get higher scores as you will have more towns and pop.

If you play for a domination or better conquest, you will have even more towns and pop. Emperor on lots of water is not going to lend itself to large score, unless you win a very fast game.

Higher levels also increase the score for more or less the same results in temrs of speed and pop. Space and Culture or UN will take more time, unless you also take lots of land.

 

[sNOW_cRASH]

I am going to try for domination. I won Domination on Emperor with Maya, standard map 60% continents, and I won a space race with Greece, but both were in the mid 3000s for score. I think I need to try taking out neighbor civs earlier. If I try your suggestion of closer city spacing, that could get me more cities making units to attack earlier. What I lose on city size I can make up by quantity of taking over other Civs.