Emperor Attempt

[Lexicus]

I wanted to play a game, but not really feeling like playing as many turns as usual. So I thought, why not post my first Emperor attempt and take it slow.

I decided to play with Unrestricted Leaders off just for the novelty, and I quickly settled on Julius Caesar of Rome. I recently read an awesome historical fiction series centering on Cicero, with Caesar featuring prominently, so that'll be fun.

Settings are Large Pangaea, 11 civs, Choose Religions is checked because I can't stand having the same ones go to the same techs every time, Epic Speed. Cultural and time victories aren't checked. Huts and random events are.

The start:

Spoiler :

I think tech path should be Ag->Bw and then to Pottery.

 

[Lexicus]

I settled in place, considered moving 1S to get on the river but figured the PH bonus would be better.
Turn 14, and our Warrior has fended off a Lion as Christianity was founded. 2 turns into BW. '
I'll finish at Turn 15.
Including screenshots of land explored and capital's BFC.

Saladin's Scout came from the NW around turn 7 or 8, I think.

 

[Pangaea]

With so few forests and two free green riverside hills for mining, I'm not sure I'd go BW so early here. Admittedly being Rome makes things a bit different and you may for once want to self-tech IW, but you can also go for a non-BW line, get up cottages on those FPs and expand. You get cheap settlers, so can slow build them in decent time, though it's of course nice to be able to 2-pop them early.

Depends on what sites you find nearby, I see there are a few cows (AH), but maybe it would be viable to go Pottery->Writing->Alpha and backfill.

Very nice capital spot btw

 

[sampsa]

Good comments by Pangaea. I don't like going for early BW, prefering techs that give a boost to research and often get BW via trade, but many players seem to favor BW-beeline. 2-pop whipping your first settlers is certainly good if you take this line.

Hopefully you will find an agri-resource from west by the river. Otherwise I guess you have to go for cow-fish, and lacking AH you probably should settle on fp to get fish on first ring.

 

[Lexicus]

Depends on what sites you find nearby, I see there are a few cows (AH), but maybe it would be viable to go Pottery->Writing->Alpha and backfill.

I generally go for Pottery after BW but I'm hoping for a Gold or two to be revealed to the West. If there isn't some source of commerce there then would it be worth switching from BW to Pottery line midway through BW?

Hopefully you will find an agri-resource from west by the river. Otherwise I guess you have to go for cow-fish, and lacking AH you probably should settle on fp to get fish on first ring.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing (it makes me feel good that I was also eyeing the fish-cow spot). Ideal would be wet corn and gold spot. Dream big, I say!

 

[ikotomi]

Dry corn isn't that great for whipping, and you do have river hills to grow into and work, so I think BW can be reasonably skipped for an Alpha beeline. Unless you find a commerce resource, Pottery is going to be ideal to fuel your early research until you get Alpha.

 

[Pangaea]

Given the land here, and your capital, pretty sure I'd go for Pottery instead of BW. Cottaging those FPs early will be good, and slavery doesn't really give you all that much here. Sure, it's nice to know where copper is located, but it can wait a little longer. And as mentioned it may be viable to haul ass to Alpha and then backfill instead. Praets last a long time, especially on slower than normal speed, so you can still go stomping with them post-alpha. Doesn't hurt to take advantage of cheap IMP-settlers either, even if you slow-produce them. Those green hills are great for that btw.

 

[Virupaksha]

If this is your first game on emperor be careful of the barbs, they come quick and on mass compared to monarch. Personally I'd be going BW for copper here but I've not really mastered emperor yet, maybe a better player than me could explain how they would deal with them.

 

[sampsa]

If this is your first game on emperor be careful of the barbs, they come quick and on mass compared to monarch. Personally I'd be going BW for copper here but I've not really mastered emperor yet, maybe a better player than me could explain how they would deal with them.

Fortified warriors get you very far, if you place them well. I never tech archery and I don't always happen to have horses/copper.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Definitely Pottery first. Your opening spot is about as good as non-gold starts get, but not very rich on commerce.
Backfilling is also a serieus consideration: writing-alpha isn't that much more expensive then bw-iw, and iw you might even be able to trade for with alpha, while the other way around is more difficult and more unlikely.
Settling wise, I'd hope to settle west if some nice spot exists. It appears from your screenshots that Arabia might be that direction, and he is a fine target despite being protective. Otherwise the fish-cows will do.

Other than that, you play with some pretty whacky setting, which is fine but does make giving advice a bit more tricky, since few people do.

 

[Lexicus]

Other than that, you play with some pretty whacky setting, which is fine but does make giving advice a bit more tricky, since few people do.

Considering my 'standard' settings include Aggressive AI and unrestricted leaders this is a distinct step down in wackiness for me I've found that I simply can't stand playing with the default number of AIs on the map, it just seems so....empty. And I dislike normal speed because the game goes too fast and I feel like it takes longer to build units than to research technologies Though, I haven't actually played normal speed in a *long* time, probably not since, like, the third Vanilla game I ever played, ca 2006.

Alright, I've actually only put 1 turn into BW so when I fire up the game after work I'll switch to Pottery and get some cottages online on the FPs.

As a side note, the Marble isn't important enough that I shouldn't just backfill Masonry right?

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Considering my 'standard' settings include Aggressive AI and unrestricted leaders this is a distinct step down in wackiness for me :crazyeyes: I've found that I simply can't stand playing with the default number of AIs on the map, it just seems so....empty. And I dislike normal speed because the game goes too fast and I feel like it takes longer to build units than to research technologies Though, I haven't actually played normal speed in a *long* time, probably not since, like, the third Vanilla game I ever played, ca 2006.

It is fine, it is still a game and you definitely shouldn't play what you don't enjoy. It is a bit different from the normal pangaea/fractal/continents, normal speed, no huts, no events that are the norm for 'help me advance to the next difficulty' type threads.

Alright, I've actually only put 1 turn into BW so when I fire up the game after work I'll switch to Pottery and get some cottages online on the FPs.

Definitely like this more. Though your next point raises some interesting possibilities.

As a side note, the Marble isn't important enough that I shouldn't just backfill Masonry right?

Interesting point, hadn't considered this enough
The funny thing about marble is, when you think about it in terms of early wonders:
-Oracle. Research is usually the more critical part of getting the Oracle, since hammer wise, it is cheap enough to be chopped/whipped into rather efficiently. Most of the time I build it without masonry.
-Temple of Artemis. Pretty bad to build except for failgold.
-Parthenon. I like this one a bit, but better players tend not to, so probably not super efficient.

After that, there is a bit of gap, Great Library and Mausoleum are both excellent, but require techs further up the tree, same for national wonders like NE and HE.

Combine that with the fact that AI's tend to be unwilling with Masonry in trades early on and you often end up getting your marble rather late.

HOWEVER, , this might be an exception. Riverside marble is actually decent commerce, and your capital might have enough raw hammers that you can build the oracle without chopping (much). You also do not need to road much to hook it up. The oracle also goes fairly late on Emperor starts (ah, the good ol' days of slingshotting into CS on gold Emperor starts ), so going for an Alpha-Oracle with marble might not be out of the question.

Curious what others think of that.

 

[Pangaea]

The marble is a fine tile to work, but it's quite expensive in worker turns. Think I'd prefer to spend those on building cottages and maybe also the green hills. You can build the Oracle without marble, it's often better in fact, even if you have access to it like here.

 

[Anysense]

You so far met only one AI which probably means that you you will have to take care of barbs. That should not be a problem though, there are many forested hills around there. I think some 3 warriors before the first settler will do the job well enough.
Marble is certainly a good tile, virtually a green hill mine with extra , but this should not be a priority. You will need first to get other more important techs like AH, BW, math etc.

 

[sampsa]

I'd actually go AH. That allows a very good 2nd city 1E of cow, leaving fish (and spending on a boat) for later. 4 fps on first ring too. You still lack wheel, so pottery is two techs away. You want to get out settlers, so working those mines is great since you are imp. Not the time for cottages yet imo. Revealing horse is a bonus.

Is the river north of capital connected to capital? You can see it by zooming out and choosing "toggle different trade routes" or something similar below the scoreboard. If yes, 2nd city would be insta-connected to capital without wheel, which is always great (+2).

 

[Lexicus]

After some consideration I think I'm going to go with sampsa's plan, but should I go for Pottery after AH or straight to Alpha?

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Getting to alpha without pottery or precious minerals sounds waaaay to slow. You need commerce to tech, which is where cottages come in.

Not a fan of getting ah first at all. Not see it working out nicely. It is quite an expensive tech early on and the city site one east of the cows is fine working floodplains that are farmed/cottaged anyway for a couple of turns. While pottery requires roads, those can be used to connect the two cities, since I'm pretty sure that river does not actually connect them.
Moreover, you don't need it right now. It will be a little bit before you get your settler out, since you have 3 turns till your worker pops, then a bunch of turns to get to size 3/4, then you have till the settler is done, since we are not whipping. I'd much rather get some cottages going and be slightly late on the cows, especially as your bottleneck seems to be commerce, rather then hammers, food or available land.
The plus of getting to see horses is real, but with Rome you are realistically not using them as primary strategic resource, so I guess you are hoping to pop some in your BFC for a single pretty good tile?

Getting some commerce to get to Alpha and then IW or just to IW faster seems like a better plan to me.

 

[Lexicus]

It is quite an expensive tech early on

I was thinking kind of the same thing. After more consideration I like Pottery better. You can see how decisive I am here

On the one hand I do like the idea of more hammers from the cow but I also like the idea of having cottages on a few of these river tiles.

Alright, the next 15 turns:

Turn 15: switch to Wheel.

Turn 16: Buddhism founded in a distant land.

Turn 18: Worker finishes, begins farming the corn. Work begins on a Warrior.

Turn 20: We meet Lincoln, his scout shows up 2 SW of the marble.

Turn 26: Finish farming the corn, move to the grassland hill to start a mine.

Situation as of Turn 27:

Spoiler :

Newly-explored land is in the screenshot. Nice resources but no gold or gems unfortunately (though gems under jungle would obv be useless at this point).


I still have some hope for the northwest, though. Brown land = more chance of gold unless I'm wrong.

Turn 28, finish wheel and move to Pottery. Warrior move reveals the edge of the coast only 3 tiles away from Rome at the closest point.

Turn 29: second warrior pops. Will move it east to spawnbust by the Cow-fish spot. We start work on another warrior.

Turn 30. Here's what the Warrior revealed:

Spoiler :

So, thus far we don't have gold revealed, so it looks like Pottery was a good choice.

 

[Pangaea]

If you'll excuse the pun, you can't bank on locating gold, so it's better to plan as if there isn't any if you don't see it right away. So I think Pottery was the right call. You have such good land for it, and it's nice to get up a few cottages for when you're not building settlers, and then use two two green hills for IMP-bonus when you are.

Unfortunate to have so much jungle nearby, so hope you find good spots to the west or north. Sadly it looks like there is just plains and desert, but food nearby the riverside plains hill west of your capital would be a nice spot.

Looks like the AIs aren't terribly close, so REXing a bit before warfare might be good here, also to get some mileage out of cheap settlers. With Rome you don't need to think about a rush right out of the gates, since the Praets are so strong.

 

[sampsa]

Value of cow-fish -spot goes down quite a lot if you lack both AH and BW. Just no quick way to get the boat out. Sure, you can grow on fp cottages, but you need to expand quickly and to get those fog busters out. Also, cottages in capital are a lot more valuable than cottages somewhere else due to bureaucracy, academy etc.

I'd be looking at the spots that share good tiles with the capital, like the plains hill 1N3W of capital, maybe even 1N3E. It's hard yet to determine the value of alpha beeline. Can you see from if they've met more AIs? If there is only 3 of you, alpha goes down in value.

On barbs: epic makes it tougher for you, and I'm not sure how big the difference is between immortal and emperor regarding barbs.