Emperor! Discussion revisited, help needed.

[skallben]

Yay, been discussed 5 billion times before, I know - but its so different once you make the jump yourself...Been trying to stay away from emperor for a long time but my monarch games are usually settled in the medieval times now and I know Ill win by then...But emperor, it eludes me - I keep failing before even getting to the medieval age.

AI is expanding super-fast and I just cant seem to both keep military to fend of Barbs and expanding at the same time. Im curious on how to start the few first turns, on Monach I usually just went on intuition but that doesnt work anymore.

If I get fishes, crabs or clams - is it smart to start with fishing boats? I normally did that before...

If I dont, what do I start with then? Worker first will pay off in the long run? Or slow growth and ruin early phase?

Ive tried all kinds of different continuations on Monarch, going for Pyramids, fouding religions, GP farming, brutal conquest...Its not what Im after here, what I want to know is just the first 50-100 turns, how do be successful past this phase.

 

[voek]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=188372

 

[DrJambo]

Try stealing another civ's worker(s) with your scouting warrior(s) and pillaging their early improvements. If you can achieve this you can give yourself some leverage whilst at the same time crippling an AI civ's early expansion. As this civ is most likely right next door to you it can give you some much needed breathing space during the ancient period.

 

[Rast]

I hear you - I also have yet to win an emp. game. So far my best go at it was with the Incans - I was able to quecha rush mansa and steal a few workers, and then fought on-and-off wars with Elizibeth, Bismark, and Hashteput.

Pillage, raze, pillage, pillage, pillage. pillage, raze, raze, raze, I forged a strong alliance with Monty and between that, whipping most improvments (I whip like I've never whipped before on emp), and very aggressive play against the other civs I was able to keep up all the way to Liberalism. Then the AIs zoomed ahead of me on tech and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

Incans are the only civ I can get anywhere with on emp though - without being able to rush at least one AI civ before they build tons and tons of crap I can't even get a foothold.

 

[Thomas G.]

I can win all sorts comfortably on Monarch. I struggle on emperor, but still win some. If I try real hard.

I think the emperor level is where you HAVE to pay attention, and spend a lot longer time making sure everything is okay. I think I play my games too fast. I recently played a monarch game, won by space race. Easy enough, I was way ahead in tech due to a large continent of my own (after I eliminated an opponent). I spent 5 hours.

In this game, I noticed a lot of errors I was making, due to not taking enough time. I would enter a city screen, and notice the computor had assigned specialists, was working all the wrong tiles. I guess you need to check every city every time they grow.

I often forgot to trade resources. My cities would be unhealthy/unhappy, while I could easily have gotten a trade to fix the problem. Also tech trades, I guess one has to check all the time what to trade for.

When at war, I was focusing on the interesting theatres, which often enabled the AI to sneak in a pillager off a galley, or to sabotage my fishing boats. An AI with caravels managed to do this even when I had transports close by. Always check the map.

Monarch difficulty forgives. Emperor a lot less so.

And get a good start. Worker, chop, settler, settler. Get 3 cities up fast.

 

[Jorunkun]

For me, Emperor was all about learning to be efficient and to build only what is needed.

What made the biggest difference was learning to use the whip properly. Rushing settlers and armies in particular. I used to be shy about losing the population, but going on the offensive super-early (through expansion or conquest) pays big dividends on the higher levels.

Workboat first is still a very strong move on emperor, especially if you you beeline for BW and - you guessed it - poprush settlers and workers.

As for Barbs, fogbust and pick your fights by guarding easily defendable terrain. I would argue that one hallmark of an emperor level player is that s/he knows how to manage barbs so that they become a non-issue.

Also, please see the link in my sigfile for more ideas.

 

[shivute]

It took me a lot of games to make the transition from Monarch to Emperor. I find that raging barbs slows down the AI as does very early war. I don't often find workers to steal but I do find lots of scouts to kill for easy exp and GG points. This war appears to stunt the AI and they don't tend to bother you if they are a decent distance away.
You need lots of units on emperor and It is very difficult to hold yourself back from overexpanding - razing cities is necessary until COL and then Currency.
Don't bother building a wonder unless you can chop for a large part of the hammers or you have an engineer, because there is a very good chance you will lose the race.
Workboat is the strongest first move, but also warriors until level 2 when you want to pump out a worker.

I used to get fed up getting slaugthered on emperor, would go back to monarch and not play the game long as it was too easy. Emperor is all about playing again and again and again, you may not notice but your game play will be improving all the time.

 

[Minmaster]

i think the key in emperor is getting just the right # of cities before too late, attacking a rival at the most opportunistic time, strategizing your research right, and maintaning diplomatic relations.

your first priority should be grabbing land, grabbing goodie huts before AI (money from huts are crucial for keeping research levels high), and fogbusting. i recently realized that going war early to steal a worker works out well because i think it makes the AI less likely to come near you or sometimes, they might even keep their settlers inside the capitol cuz they're scared. now, just because you got a huge chunk of land by yourself, dont over populate it. if you cant afford it, send a warrior/scout there to fogbust. if you pass the optimal # of cities, you cannot support science and will get nowhere. make sure to get cottages goin early, and aim for code of laws and currency to offset the heavy city maintenance costs on emperor. the biggest hurdle is getting past ancient age and having developed cottages and establishment of courthouses. early aim at alphabet helps out a lot, especially if you keep alphabet but trade all other techs so that AI cannot trade amongst themselves.

then to war. you should try to first aim for one of the weaker civs, but if a strong rival is involved in a war with another civ, that makes it a great opportunity to vulture some cities. sometimes, you can piggyback on the civs that are attacking the common enemy, and capture the city after the other civ has done all the work. same goes for well garrisoned barbarian cities. i usually park a couple axemen by the barb city and sometimes i'll get lucky when another civ takes out most of the garrison and its easy work for my axemen to vulture that city. these days, im starting to like barbarian cities and will place my other cities accordingly, assuming those barb cities will be mine later. barbarian cities are a good thing, because they hold the land that you cannot afford to settle, and it means a free city without building a settler.

for research, once past alphabet, i try to discover techs that i can trade. before choosing my tech to research, i go to the trade advisor and look at the tech section. usually, there is a tech or two that several civs wont have. even though i can benefit getting another tech first, i will research the tech i can trade first. usually, i try to make it a tech that needs just a bit more beakers than techs im trying to trade for. that way, i can trade that tech to get what i want for sure, as well as getting some extra gold out of it.

now diplomacy. first of all, if you have to choose a religion, choose one that is common with more civs and your close neighbors. i initially open my borders with religion founders once i get writing. then i wait for religion to spread to one of my cities. if it's not the religion that is widespread and one of my neighbor's state religion, i pass on converting and wait for the next one. in some rare cases, it might be better not choosing religion, but in most cases, i find religion is too important to not choose. monastaries alone are crucial for expanding cultural border and research aid, while organized religion and theocracy are crucial at this level to play that building mode/warring mode switch. if you have good relations with brothers of the same faith, you can receive free techs, gold, as well as resources. i usually ask and receive small techs like archery, sailing, etc. as gifts once i convert to their religion. also, you cant keep everyone happy at this level, and you will need to choose your allies and enemies. try to keep your allies happy by not trading with their enemies. try to keep an extra tech handy so that you can use that to bribe neighbors to go to war with you. this is crucial because you will most likely be outmanned against AI at emperor.

 

[skallben]

Wow, thanks for all the replies,,,some really good advice here. Since making this thread, I managed to get through ancient age with some strange chain of events - I read The Emperors Masters' Challenge 3 and its predecessors in detail and learned quite alot. Mainly the chopping and whipping part and researching according to what you are given in the game. I normally went for the worker techs and maybe some wonder and then straight for alphabet for reserach for trade craziness.

I must say my current game is one of the most interesting Ive played so far in Civ4, Ive learned alot (never used Hereditary rule before for instance) and its also just been generally odd. Somehow, I managed with a rather small empire (horsehockey power-graph and score) to top the GNP and together with Qui the chinese guy top research. Had to backstab him when he was starting to get too fast on research, besides I only took some cities he founded on my lands anyways

Have a problem currently though, its rifle-men age and Genghis Khan is going berserk all over the continent, eating up the smaller AIs. He founded Hinduism and most are Hinduist so he got good reputation with most, also he's quite far from me which makes war hard and the AIs thats not Hinduist are "Afraid of their military might". I have a few choices:

A: Continue peacfully as there are really no good conquest targets, diplomatically OR geographically. Only option would be colonization and barb-killing and later go state property. Keeping my eyes open for warring opportunities of course.

B: Send a naval campaign to a close neighbor to get some cities, its possible but got several disadvantages. First off many would be pissed at me and secondly its costly and would split my empire up as the chinese are in the middle with their HUGE culture, Id never be able to hold their cities without complete elimination of them.

C: Napoleon-style rampage with Cavalry, Riflemen and cannons. Id prefer to have more production power for this and AIs might catch up and get Infantry before complete conquest.

D:Aim for a WW1 campaign with factory powered war machine with artillery and Infantry. I feel like I need to do something sooner than this but sometimes waiting could be good, I dunno.

I am on the southern edge of a continent peninsula with some island cities aswell, hence the geographical issue with conquest.

 

[DrJambo]

Some screenshots would greatly help here!

 

[skallben]

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My mainland, followed by chinese to the north and their surroundings. Mongols are straight north of China. Targets of invasion would be Rome, China or Aztecs. Problem is diplomacy, somehow I made a lot of enemies ( I usually dont) and China is a somewhat useful ally this far (still friendly with Mongolia though). Monty is crazy like allways but weakened, problem is that he's also friendly with Genghis. Lastly, Rome - probably best target as they are Christians, only one in this game and not that friendly with the rest, downside is that only two cities are really accessible and they will be isolated from my main empire. Not sure if an invasion is really worth it. Its a terra-map so there's a big kingdom of Barbaria aswell, feels like the best options right now.

I often end up in this position during midgame, reasonable kingdom but Im not sure what to do. Somehow, people like Genghis tend to scare me the more time goes, I usually fight early wars so I got military to defend, midgame I go for more building usually.

 

[skallben]

All hell broke loose just a few turns after this. I noticed Monty stacking up a humongous stack of death next to my city of Nanjing, see picture in last post. Borders changed so now chinese border are just at the gates of the city and Monty got a free ticket in. So I amassed my navy and my army towards Monty, waiting for him to declare on me.
Ragnar declares. Two turns later Alex does aswell. Alex sends land units to my borders and Ragnar spams me with ships transporting his army the sea route, two different stacks with two full galleons came out of nowhere. Luckily I withstand it all.
Just a few turns later, Genghis Khan overwhelms China (they where friendly ) and China is in a few turns their vassal. Alex does the same with Cyrus. Eventually I sink some more ships and get peace with both my foes.

Now here comes the real mess a bit later,,Mongolia-China-Germany attacks Greece-Persia. Again I need to make a choice. I have to get rid of Monty's stack of doom and after that Ill probably go into china. I just got Assembly line, first of all Civs.

Here comes the question, shall I mass produce infantry and use the heat of the moment to grab some land or shall I build factories first to get some real badass production power?
I cant decide. Part of me wants to act now while part of me wants to build a doomsday army first

Any advice welcome.

 

[cabert]

Here comes the question, shall I mass produce infantry and use the heat of the moment to grab some land or shall I build factories first to get some real badass production power?
I cant decide. Part of me wants to act now while part of me wants to build a doomsday army first

Any advice welcome.

are you at war?
if no, just build up your army and wait until one party invites you in=better relation modifier + both armies will have losses before you enter the war = easier preys