Emperor early game - what am I doing wrong?

[Sydney Posada]

So after winning my first couple of games on Monarch, I decided to move up to Emperor, and wow, it's pretty intense! After my first unsuccessful attempt as Rome (took over Shaka, but then Kublai wiped me out with his war buddies), I started a new game as Pacal II (Pangaea, normal speed, standard size, Aggressive AI on).

I decided to try a "rapid" expansion strategy, but even by my third city, my economy was starting to tank. I used my 3rd city to block out some land from Ragnar and to secure a gold mine, and the 4th and 5th city to block off land from Zara and secure Iron. At that point I pretty much had to stop because my economy was completely tanked; I was briefly at a negative gold rate even at 0% slider. Ragnar declared war against me, too, which shut down my growth even more. Luckily, I managed to scrounge enough money to bribe Zara into the war, and Charlemagne followed soon after. Those two were the ones I committed to being friends with, since Charlemagne had spread Buddhism in my towns, and I LOVE Charlie when we're the same religion.

Thus, here at 1 AD (see attachment for save), I'm in no danger of extinction, I'm just hopelessly behind on tech and am still paranoid that Ragnar's gonna send another massive stack my way. Most of my efforts are going towards building more units, because the Viking almost took my northern Gold city...

I've read here that you should have 8-10 cities by 1 AD, I only have 5. I've also read that you should have 100 beakers/turn by 1 AD, I have ZERO (well, 20 gold/turn, but that's awful). What am I doing wrong?

I did build Monument and Library in my border cities, but that's because they're in danger of being culture blocked by the neighbors. Is that an acceptable tactic or still a waste of hammers? The northern city in particular I wanted to expand culture so I could get access to Gems, which I now have in my borders, though I'm paranoid to actually build on because of the war (Ragnar's taken a couple of workers, even defended ones). I've built cottages where I can to shore up the economy, and they're starting to pay off, but I'm still far behind everyone else. I've also been chopping and whipping quite a bit, perhaps I've whipped a little too enthusiastically?

Should I start trying to settle more cities? I don't even know where would be good, as there aren't too many ideal places left. Also, should I eventually settle in between my cities, which I've built far apart? Did I build them too far apart?

I was thinking of going for an aggressive start, but Ragnar had so many more units than me throughout the game (it might be different now that he's fighting a 3-front war), and I didn't want to mess with Zara, who's my best friend at the moment.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any advice y'all more talented players can give. The advantages the AI gets at this level are kind of overwhelming me.

(BTW, I did play a few hundred years past this save, but I want to focus on my early mistakes, not my later ones )

 

[mariogreymist]

After reading your post, I had a suspicion what was done wrong, and looking at the save I confirmed it in about ten seconds.

You played a strategy you decided on before you examined the map. You have easy access to horses, copper, and iron and a tough neighbor to rex next to (ZY) nearby and another (Joao) not too far off. These factors favor limited settling followed by either a chariot/axe rush or a sword/cat war against ZY, whose land is pretty sweet and close enough to control.

The reason your third city tanked your economy so much is that it is so far from your capital. Getting the gold/gems helps make such a city worthwhile, but getting them all working (by settling 1SW or 1W of current site) is very important. Honestly, given this site is in between four civs makes me think you'd be better off having not settled it at all, preferring more local sites for cottage development. Also, settling on Ragnar's border is an invitation to war, and one you probably could have avoided not settling that site, as he has a zealot of a different religion right next door to him.

Distance penalties start to get significant as you move up in levels, and settling your sites clustered around your capital gains in value. Try a Pacal game where your second, third and fourth cities all touch the capital bfc, and examine your economy after you get them up and you'll understand what I am talking about. Even at this point in the game, the upkeep on C-Itza alone is worth a whole point on your slider.

By settling so far out so early, you cost yourself the ability to build more cities closer to home. So you got all the problems of Rexing, with few of the benefits here. This is a mistake I made when I first made the move to Emperor level myself, and I suppose it is common enough.

I haven't looked closely enough to mark many execution errors, but those are the broad strategic mistakes you've made here. I did notice the gems aren't working yet, but that may be that they were only recently captured from Ragnar's culture. I do suggest you try a game by settling in a close ring around your capital, just to see how much you can accomplish by moving naturally outward rather than stretching for that distant, yet very tasty, site. You may be shocked at how much larger your kingdom can grow when you do it without significant distance penalties.

In time, you learn when that distant city is worth the costs involved. In my experience, distant gold/gem/silver sites are often either game winners or game losers, and rarely neutral in terms of contributing to victory.

 

[Gumbolt]

Okay going for that gold site killed your game. You settled on the gold probably to try and grab the gems too. The site has no food resources nearby and the flood plains were gobbled up by the vikings too. Must of taken years for that site even to be useful. The upkeep would of been huge too due to distance from capital. Early city sites should be more food heavy or give you a resources to rush an AI.

Your start was starved of food resources. Rushing Zara seemed an obvious move. Shame the clams near capital were unused.

You say you rexxed at the start? You built your second city in 2000bc or so? Did I miss something? A rex might have second city by 3000bc with a bit of chopping.

For me taking out Zara would of changed this game and given you space to expand. Starting near Vikings can be tough as they are one of the highest unit probability production Ai in the game. Well on a par with nappy.

Being financial your save could of used more cottages. 5 workers for 5 cities is also a bit low.

Seeing the starting save might of helped my review of your game.

 

[Sydney Posada]

First of all, mario, thanks for your lengthy and well-considered reply!

After reading your post, I had a suspicion what was done wrong, and looking at the save I confirmed it in about ten seconds.

You played a strategy you decided on before you examined the map. You have easy access to horses, copper, and iron and a tough neighbor to rex next to (ZY) nearby and another (Joao) not too far off. These factors favor limited settling followed by either a chariot/axe rush or a sword/cat war against ZY, whose land is pretty sweet and close enough to control.

Yeah, you're right I did want to try "rapid expansion" this time, since I've never done it before. I'm sure I completely biffed up the "rapid" part. Anyway, I usually declare an early war, like you suggested. Wanted to try something different, but it seems like killing someone early is almost always the right answer!

When would you have suggested I make the rush attempt? After my 2nd city? Must say also, I was a little daunted seeing other civ's Axeman running around before I'd even come close to getting Bronze Working. I guess superior production could make up for that...

The reason your third city tanked your economy so much is that it is so far from your capital. Getting the gold/gems helps make such a city worthwhile, but getting them all working (by settling 1SW or 1W of current site) is very important. Honestly, given this site is in between four civs makes me think you'd be better off having not settled it at all, preferring more local sites for cottage development. Also, settling on Ragnar's border is an invitation to war, and one you probably could have avoided not settling that site, as he has a zealot of a different religion right next door to him.

Ah I see... I really wanted some resources to boost my happy cap, since Monarchy seemed soooo far away. I built on one of the gold itself, since I was afraid of culture taking my spots away, and so that at least one happy resource would be in my control until the city fell. But I guess the maintenance outweighs the benefit here...

I often hear players here talk about "blocking off the AI" in terms of early expansion and city placement. Then they "backfill" cities in later. I was attempting something similar; is this not advised on Emperor? Or was I simply going for too much this time?

Good point about settling near Ragnar being like knocking on a hornet's nest. I'll definitely keep WHO the neighbor is in mind before I aggressively settle a city near them.

Distance penalties start to get significant as you move up in levels, and settling your sites clustered around your capital gains in value. Try a Pacal game where your second, third and fourth cities all touch the capital bfc, and examine your economy after you get them up and you'll understand what I am talking about. Even at this point in the game, the upkeep on C-Itza alone is worth a whole point on your slider.

By settling so far out so early, you cost yourself the ability to build more cities closer to home. So you got all the problems of Rexing, with few of the benefits here. This is a mistake I made when I first made the move to Emperor level myself, and I suppose it is common enough.

So you'd actually recommend overlapping BFC for early settlement? Having just come from lower levels, it really does seem like I severely underestimated the distance maintenance on Emperor. However, I'd be worried about not getting enough land under my control. Though I guess that line of thinking leads back to war, once you start to get boxed in...

I haven't looked closely enough to mark many execution errors, but those are the broad strategic mistakes you've made here. I did notice the gems aren't working yet, but that may be that they were only recently captured from Ragnar's culture. I do suggest you try a game by settling in a close ring around your capital, just to see how much you can accomplish by moving naturally outward rather than stretching for that distant, yet very tasty, site. You may be shocked at how much larger your kingdom can grow when you do it without significant distance penalties.

Yeah, the gems weren't being worked because my Workers I sent to claim them got killed by Ragnar (he killed the two units I sent as defense, too).

In time, you learn when that distant city is worth the costs involved. In my experience, distant gold/gem/silver sites are often either game winners or game losers, and rarely neutral in terms of contributing to victory.

Yeah, I guess experience is key in figuring out the balance. But thanks a lot for bringing these factors into the equation; I would probably have underestimated their importance otherwise.

 

[Sydney Posada]

Okay going for that gold site killed your game. You settled on the gold probably to try and grab the gems too. The site has no food resources nearby and the flood plains were gobbled up by the vikings too. Must of taken years for that site even to be useful. The upkeep would of been huge too due to distance from capital. Early city sites should be more food heavy or give you a resources to rush an AI.

Yeah, it did take years for that site to be useful. Was trying to "block out the AI", a term I've heard used on this site quite a lot, but I think I went for way too much. Or perhaps it isn't so useful on at this level? Thanks for confirming what mario said about the distance.

Your start was starved of food resources. Rushing Zara seemed an obvious move. Shame the clams near capital were unused.

Are you saying I should have built a city to get those clams? As for war, I almost always go for an early war and I wanted to do something different. Guess war is usually optimal, though.

You say you rexxed at the start? You built your second city in 2000bc or so? Did I miss something? A rex might have second city by 3000bc with a bit of chopping.

Oh I would never claim to have ACTUALLY rexxed. I just ATTEMPTED a rex, as I've never done it before. I'm quite positive that I have no idea, beyond the overall concept, of how to execute a truly "rapid" expansion. I waited until I had built 2 workers and 3 warriors or so before I started on my first settler. I did use chopping, but it was still probably quite slow. And I definitely don't know when to build the 2nd-5th settlers. Should they come in pretty rapid succession after the first?

For me taking out Zara would of changed this game and given you space to expand. Starting near Vikings can be tough as they are one of the highest unit probability production Ai in the game. Well on a par with nappy.

War, what is it good for? In Civ IV, everything, it seems!

It seems easy to get Zara to like you, so I wanted to go after someone else, but I guess the map dictates who you attack...

Being financial your save could of used more cottages. 5 workers for 5 cities is also a bit low.

Oh, I think I had 7-8 workers at one point; some got murdered by Ragnar. I often had more cottages than I was actually working for much of the game.

 

[mariogreymist]

First of all, mario, thanks for your lengthy and well-considered reply!

It's just karmic for me - I get lots of good answers when I ask questions about my games here too.

Yeah, you're right I did want to try "rapid expansion" this time, since I've never done it before. I'm sure I completely biffed up the "rapid" part. Anyway, I usually declare an early war, like you suggested. Wanted to try something different, but it seems like killing someone early is almost always the right answer!

Actually, I have noticed it being the right answer less often as I move up in levels. Rushing ZY would certainly have crashed your economy here, but only in exchange forf doubling your land in size, and more than doubling your quality city sites.

When would you have suggested I make the rush attempt? After my 2nd city? Must say also, I was a little daunted seeing other civ's Axeman running around before I'd even come close to getting Bronze Working. I guess superior production could make up for that...

With axes or chariots, you want to go with 2 cities (capital +horse/copper site) at most. If you are lucky enough to get copper in your bfc, just build axes there and go for it. If you wait for swords (not advisable here) then you can have 3-4 cities total, but make sure they are all sites that can generate more than you invested in the settler before you plan to rush. That means getting them out fast, and having the ability to work tiles and chop/whip in the cities. Don't settle your cottage sites until after you get your army built. (but do settle them then, as you will need the .)

As for early AI axes...that's why God created chariots.

Ah I see... I really wanted some resources to boost my happy cap, since Monarchy seemed soooo far away. I built on one of the gold itself, since I was afraid of culture taking my spots away, and so that at least one happy resource would be in my control until the city fell. But I guess the maintenance outweighs the benefit here...

Rex is about horizontal and not vertical expansion. Ten cities with a cap of five will work as many tiles as five cities with a cap of ten, and do so in a better whipping range. (whips peak in efficiency between pop 5-8) The real key is: they do so while controlling more land, which means when you do get that cap up, your overall kingdom production skyrockets.

I often hear players here talk about "blocking off the AI" in terms of early expansion and city placement. Then they "backfill" cities in later. I was attempting something similar; is this not advised on Emperor? Or was I simply going for too much this time?

It can be done all the way up to at least Immortal, but needs to be done in selective situations. If you have divergent early religions, it becomes far more dangerous, and if the "blocking" city is questionable in terms of affordability, I don't do it. If one city can close off room for 3-4 behind it, and border only one civ, it is often a good play, and particularly if it is a highly defensible spot. (on a hill surrounded by flatlands is preferred) It gets to be a better play the simpler the diplomatic situation appears as well - only one early religion on the continent, or at least the nearest neighbor in the same religion you are adopting.

The play you made here could potentially block off significant land, but the city site itself was bound to be on the border of no less than 2, and potentially as many as 4 other civs with 2 different early religions. So, yeah...you tried to grab too much with this site.

Good point about settling near Ragnar being like knocking on a hornet's nest. I'll definitely keep WHO the neighbor is in mind before I aggressively settle a city near them.

Ragnar can be an excellent neighbor, but he requires some care to play with. Getting to HR early is important (his fave civic) and keeping his religion is usually good enough to keep him friendly, and his tech rate is solid and he trades very fairly. But if you're going to get into an early (long before HR) culture contest with him, you will face a DoW before you can get him to friendly.

So you'd actually recommend overlapping BFC for early settlement? Having just come from lower levels, it really does seem like I severely underestimated the distance maintenance on Emperor. However, I'd be worried about not getting enough land under my control. Though I guess that line of thinking leads back to war, once you start to get boxed in...

Yes. If you consider that the first 1/4 of the game is often played with cities of size ten or less, you lose nothing in that time frame by sharing land between cities. Since playing for a medieval/renaissance war is a very common high level play, you can work more tiles preparing for that event by crowding your cities than by spacing them out.

It aids greatly in whipping, as cottages and high tiles can be micromanaged to ensure cottage development and regrowth rates remain ideal for multiple cities. If you have only one city that can work that fw corn, it sits fallow while whip unhappiness wears off. If another city can work it, you can swap to cottages to get growth to its ideal turn (the turn whip unhappiness wears off) while growing the neighboring city to be whipped in alternating cycles. The slower the game the easier this becomes; at normal/quick it can be challenging to perfectly maximize this technique.

Yeah, the gems weren't being worked because my Workers I sent to claim them got killed by Ragnar (he killed the two units I sent as defense, too).

I kinda figured it was something like that.

Yeah, I guess experience is key in figuring out the balance. But thanks a lot for bringing these factors into the equation; I would probably have underestimated their importance otherwise.

We live, we learn. And if you like EXP leaders and want to try rexing, try using Mehmed or Joao. Mehmed is particularly wicked, as his early powerful UB allows you to have a high (I've had it up to 11 with a good resource draw) happy cap long before monarchy and whose ORG trait allows for cheaper civics, lighthouses and courthouses. (Oracle->CoL is a powerful move with a rexing Mehmed)

 

[Ghpstage]

War was an option but wasn't the only way to fair well, Creative civs can be a pain to rush.

I think your biggest mistake was to accept a state religion personally, it didn't make anyone like you enough to justify the amount of hate it brought you and to top it off you are in the spot where Buddhism and Hinduism collide.... and have 2 Hindu neighbours compared to your 1 Buddhist ally neighbour.
Your "REX" was also exceptionally slow

The rest is more for your current position than previous things except for Workers

More on diplo,
I see Washington demanded gold as tribute, its about time you cancelled the 'deal' to give him gold for free, you get no penalty for doing so and can then trade that gold for another resource, perhaps Silk from Zara? Also as you have both Iron and Copper feel free to trade Copper for resources or GPT (Sugar from Joao?), well at least when you get a road to your Iron.... .
Also Hereditary Rule would have been nice to have by now, Ragnar and Cathy, the worst warmongers both have it as a favourite civic and Joao does too.

On the Worker front,
This is a mess, you don't have enough and they seem to be improving things haphazardly, Uxmal has an improved but unworked cottage tile and won't even be able to grow till that Worker is complete, why does it need 2 mines and another farm so urgently?
By contrast Chichen Itza is working an unimproved grassland forest and the gems tile isn't improved yet and don't worry the forest will give all the warning you need should Ragnar appear to want to take your Workers.
Then, your capital has a 3 grass silk tile that could have done with a cottage or something earlier and has an unimprved riverside grass tile but for some reason has 2 normal (weaker) grass cottages
Theres also the earlier mentioned unconnected Iron....

City locations,
The Clams Copper site is worth settling as is the Fish, Whale, Horse one in the South (on the ice tile). When it comes to Chichen Itza, depending on where Ragnar had cities at the time there were a few better spots, 1 West to immediately get at those gems and grab the Banana, 1 West to secure Elephants perhaps Northward for the Floodplains but settling on the Gold just seems a waste. Though i'm not entirely convinced it was worth going for a city so far away so early as I didn't see the early game.

Tech,
Why are you building up gold right now? You could easily had researched Alpha with defecit research a turn or two back. But even better, if you look at the foreign advisor screen at the techs page you can see that several AIs have Alphabet meaning it has little trade value so avoid it and get Aesthetics instead. Aesthetics will most likely net you Alphabet, Maths, lots of backfill techs and if you put a turn unto researching it, Monarchy and maybe even Calender with some shrewd teching and trading
Aesthetics and perhaps a tech or two you pick up will almost certainly be enough to end the war with Ragnar too
The techs page of the foreign advisor is extremely useful . In this case it can tell you that you are quite a way behind, but it isn't insurmountable.

In your war,
Ragnar has Construction and Elephants and War Ellies hit hard, but I also think that Ragnar only has 1 source of Elephants and its conveniently right on your border so why not burn it
For that matter he has a few 5 villages on your border and pillaging would get some use of you Chichen Itza based military
Elephants are your biggest threat though but they can be reduced by pillaging, unfortunately the Copper, Horses and (probably) Iron are out of your Hands.

And finally Great People, you should have had at least 1 by now

 

[Gumbolt]

War isnt always the right option but in this instance where you need land to expand it is the best option as you are somewhat boxed in at the end of your continent. You also had little or no food resources close.

I think a city near the clams would of been useful as ghpstage has suggested.

As for workers if you want to rex build one worker, chop out the second and use both to chop out a settler for a quick rex.

The alternative normally is one worker while you tech agriculture or Ah and work the food resources while your city grows to happiness cap. Then whip/ pump out workers/settlers.

If you go the war route then you need axe/chariots instead of lots of settlers.

On higher levels securing enough land for 7-8+ good cities is normally key on a standard map.

 

[Sleepless]

Mmm things not looking so great at the moment but certainly very winnable from here.

Techs. Yes you are behind but as someone pointed out Aesthetics currently 6 turns at full speed will get you a few of the missing ones. Then I would head for currency/compass (great trade fodder as well). You do need foreign trade routes as one city still only has an internal trade route. So sailing and calender (resources) are required as well. Plus side with Rag at war with 4 civs I don't think you have to much to worry about with him. Might be wrong though.

Defintely can do better with resource trades. I would hook up the iron and the only extra military I would build at the moment is a few swords to take out the barb city. Cash will come in handy and helps block your borders.

Always good to give away copper when you have iron.

Personally I do try to avoid early wars. An early rush is something the AI can't cope with. Gives you 2 capitals and game over. So getting enough cities and paying for them is the key. Foreign trade routes I always try to hook up as soon as possible. It doesn't seem a lot but the one extra commerce helps a lot early on.

Good to see you begged some money though. Something I usually forget to do unless I really need it.

 

[Sleepless]

Played for a few hundred years. Good and bad news.

Spoiler :

Well the good news is the war with Ragnar is over. Bad news you are now at war with Cathie. I saw a small stack of hers heading for that barb city (unable to take it as Joao got there first). They then headed for Chichen Itza and she declared. Wouldn't expect to much trouble from her. Depends how far away she is and how many soldiers are coming your way.

Tech situation looking better. Though I had a bit of bad luck/timing. Traded Compass to Zara for Calender and planned to use compass/calender for currency with Charlie. Next turn he wouldn't trade it.

With marble I would head for Lit and the GLib then currency. Col, CS and onto Lib hopefully. Also pick up Mono and go into HR/Org Rel. Settle the copper/clams and possibly the hills to the West. Shame no food there.

Also have a Great General who I would use as super medic/soldier so you can open the Heroic Epic. GS used for academy in capital but prob better to bulb philo with him down the road. Then again if I got the GLib wouldn't have to long to wait for the next one.

It would be interesting to see how you went on from the 1AD save.

 

[Sydney Posada]

War was an option but wasn't the only way to fair well, Creative civs can be a pain to rush.

I think your biggest mistake was to accept a state religion personally, it didn't make anyone like you enough to justify the amount of hate it brought you and to top it off you are in the spot where Buddhism and Hinduism collide.... and have 2 Hindu neighbours compared to your 1 Buddhist ally neighbour.
Your "REX" was also exceptionally slow

I dunno, with Zara and Charlemagne both as Buddhist, I decided to choose them as my allies, rather than trying to be that neutral guy in the middle. In my experience, the neutral guy in the middle often ends up getting screwed over by everyone, or at least has the uncertainty of being declared on by anyone. Zara and Charlie would both prove to be quite useful, later. I even begged a couple techs off of them.

And yes, my first attempt at REXing was awful, I'm well aware.

The rest is more for your current position than previous things except for Workers

More on diplo,
I see Washington demanded gold as tribute, its about time you cancelled the 'deal' to give him gold for free, you get no penalty for doing so and can then trade that gold for another resource, perhaps Silk from Zara? Also as you have both Iron and Copper feel free to trade Copper for resources or GPT (Sugar from Joao?), well at least when you get a road to your Iron.... .
Also Hereditary Rule would have been nice to have by now, Ragnar and Cathy, the worst warmongers both have it as a favourite civic and Joao does too.

On the Worker front,
This is a mess, you don't have enough and they seem to be improving things haphazardly, Uxmal has an improved but unworked cottage tile and won't even be able to grow till that Worker is complete, why does it need 2 mines and another farm so urgently?
By contrast Chichen Itza is working an unimproved grassland forest and the gems tile isn't improved yet and don't worry the forest will give all the warning you need should Ragnar appear to want to take your Workers.
Then, your capital has a 3 grass silk tile that could have done with a cottage or something earlier and has an unimprved riverside grass tile but for some reason has 2 normal (weaker) grass cottages
Theres also the earlier mentioned unconnected Iron....

Yes, I was certainly a bit sloppy with my workers, sometimes over-improving one city's tiles that would not see use for a long time instead of improving a city's tiles that would see use very soon or even now. The problem is that I can sometimes get impatient and won't calculate out the growth rates of various cities and see which city will need the improvements next. It's probably something I have to do if I want to be competitive at this level. The missing road to the iron was a careless mistake that I fixed several turns later. I used to have more workers, but several got captured by Raggy.

Good point about the gold tribute to Washington; again I don't check these things as much I should. I did eventually cancel it, but probably wasted a good long amount of years supplying him with free Gold.

City locations,
The Clams Copper site is worth settling as is the Fish, Whale, Horse one in the South (on the ice tile). When it comes to Chichen Itza, depending on where Ragnar had cities at the time there were a few better spots, 1 West to immediately get at those gems and grab the Banana, 1 West to secure Elephants perhaps Northward for the Floodplains but settling on the Gold just seems a waste. Though i'm not entirely convinced it was worth going for a city so far away so early as I didn't see the early game.

Interesting, I would have thought that the clams city spot would have to share too many tiles with the capital; that's really what you would do? If so, I'll certainly consider settling close resource spots in the future, in spite of the close proximity to another city.

Tech,
Why are you building up gold right now? You could easily had researched Alpha with defecit research a turn or two back. But even better, if you look at the foreign advisor screen at the techs page you can see that several AIs have Alphabet meaning it has little trade value so avoid it and get Aesthetics instead. Aesthetics will most likely net you Alphabet, Maths, lots of backfill techs and if you put a turn unto researching it, Monarchy and maybe even Calender with some shrewd teching and trading
Aesthetics and perhaps a tech or two you pick up will almost certainly be enough to end the war with Ragnar too
The techs page of the foreign advisor is extremely useful . In this case it can tell you that you are quite a way behind, but it isn't insurmountable.

I was actually trying for Alphabet, but then I noticed that almost everyone already had it, so that kind of defeats the point of that tech, no? Good point about beelining Aesthetics at this point in the game. You'll be happy to know that I did eventually start beelining techs to trade to the AI, and I eventually joined the front pack of tech leaders (around 1500-1600 AD), though it should be obvious that I'm not the SOLE tech leader, and I won't ever be.

In your war,
Ragnar has Construction and Elephants and War Ellies hit hard, but I also think that Ragnar only has 1 source of Elephants and its conveniently right on your border so why not burn it
For that matter he has a few 5 villages on your border and pillaging would get some use of you Chichen Itza based military
Elephants are your biggest threat though but they can be reduced by pillaging, unfortunately the Copper, Horses and (probably) Iron are out of your Hands.

And finally Great People, you should have had at least 1 by now

Good point about my war timidness. Ragnar gave me a good fright, and I just wanted to make sure I could hold on to Chichen Itza. I will definitely try to keep the pillaging spirit in mind in future military adventures, however. I'll try not to hide under my bed too much.

Yes, I'm really bad about making specialists early. When would you recommend I do so?

Thanks for your comments, though I must say, you're the most smiley-happy person I've seen!

 

[Sydney Posada]

War isnt always the right option but in this instance where you need land to expand it is the best option as you are somewhat boxed in at the end of your continent. You also had little or no food resources close.

At how many cities would you have declared? 2, as mario suggested?

I think a city near the clams would of been useful as ghpstage has suggested.

All right, this seems to be unanimous, heh. And it would fit in with mario's comments about making the initial cities much closer to the capital.

As for workers if you want to rex build one worker, chop out the second and use both to chop out a settler for a quick rex.

So in this case, would you beeline Bronze Working even before some of the worker techs like Wheel and Pottery? Or wait until those are done, THEN go for BW?

The alternative normally is one worker while you tech agriculture or Ah and work the food resources while your city grows to happiness cap. Then whip/ pump out workers/settlers.

I assume you mean teching Agriculture and Animal Husbandry before BW? Which means that sometimes, you do actually go for BW before anything else?

Thanks again for your replies, Gumbolt.

 

[Sydney Posada]

With axes or chariots, you want to go with 2 cities (capital +horse/copper site) at most. If you are lucky enough to get copper in your bfc, just build axes there and go for it. If you wait for swords (not advisable here) then you can have 3-4 cities total, but make sure they are all sites that can generate more than you invested in the settler before you plan to rush. That means getting them out fast, and having the ability to work tiles and chop/whip in the cities. Don't settle your cottage sites until after you get your army built. (but do settle them then, as you will need the .)

All right, I like your focus on making sure that the hammer pay-off exceeds the investment on additional pre-rush cities. Not sure if I can actually calculate that accurately in game, but it's a nice idea to have in mind.

As for early AI axes...that's why God created chariots.

So for an axe or chariot rush, if the resource is in a really bad place, would you still rush with 2 cities, even with the 2nd city being poor due to trying to get the resource? Or would you wait to get a 3rd city (2nd productive city) up first?

It can be done all the way up to at least Immortal, but needs to be done in selective situations. If you have divergent early religions, it becomes far more dangerous, and if the "blocking" city is questionable in terms of affordability, I don't do it. If one city can close off room for 3-4 behind it, and border only one civ, it is often a good play, and particularly if it is a highly defensible spot. (on a hill surrounded by flatlands is preferred) It gets to be a better play the simpler the diplomatic situation appears as well - only one early religion on the continent, or at least the nearest neighbor in the same religion you are adopting.

The play you made here could potentially block off significant land, but the city site itself was bound to be on the border of no less than 2, and potentially as many as 4 other civs with 2 different early religions. So, yeah...you tried to grab too much with this site.

Ragnar can be an excellent neighbor, but he requires some care to play with. Getting to HR early is important (his fave civic) and keeping his religion is usually good enough to keep him friendly, and his tech rate is solid and he trades very fairly. But if you're going to get into an early (long before HR) culture contest with him, you will face a DoW before you can get him to friendly.

Excellent points. I definitely didn't consider the amount of potential neighbors when making the blocking play.

Yes. If you consider that the first 1/4 of the game is often played with cities of size ten or less, you lose nothing in that time frame by sharing land between cities. Since playing for a medieval/renaissance war is a very common high level play, you can work more tiles preparing for that event by crowding your cities than by spacing them out.

It aids greatly in whipping, as cottages and high tiles can be micromanaged to ensure cottage development and regrowth rates remain ideal for multiple cities. If you have only one city that can work that fw corn, it sits fallow while whip unhappiness wears off. If another city can work it, you can swap to cottages to get growth to its ideal turn (the turn whip unhappiness wears off) while growing the neighboring city to be whipped in alternating cycles. The slower the game the easier this becomes; at normal/quick it can be challenging to perfectly maximize this technique.

Tile flip-flopping between cities certainly sounds powerful when you explain it that way. Isn't it a bit of a micro-managing chore, though?

We live, we learn. And if you like EXP leaders and want to try rexing, try using Mehmed or Joao. Mehmed is particularly wicked, as his early powerful UB allows you to have a high (I've had it up to 11 with a good resource draw) happy cap long before monarchy and whose ORG trait allows for cheaper civics, lighthouses and courthouses. (Oracle->CoL is a powerful move with a rexing Mehmed)

Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely want to keep trying REX until I figure out how to do it right.

 

[mariogreymist]

All right, I like your focus on making sure that the hammer pay-off exceeds the investment on additional pre-rush cities. Not sure if I can actually calculate that accurately in game, but it's a nice idea to have in mind.

If you just figure out how long it will be to get the axes/chariots you need from your capital & resource city, then you can usually guess if you can make up the from another city. I play a lot of slower speeds, and have discovered that it is often best to crowd a few cities for Praetorian rushes, but the Caesars are Imperialistic and get cheap settlers. At normal, the chances are good that you are better off 9/10 of the time with minimal cities building a sword-rush army.

So for an axe or chariot rush, if the resource is in a really bad place, would you still rush with 2 cities, even with the 2nd city being poor due to trying to get the resource? Or would you wait to get a 3rd city (2nd productive city) up first?

At any speed but marathon, axe/chariot rushes with 3 cities are pretty much doomed to failure. If the resource city is particularly bad, you are probably better off grabbing what land you can and planning for a catapult based or HA/espionage war than a rush.

Excellent points. I definitely didn't consider the amount of potential neighbors when making the blocking play.

It's understandable too, as the modifiers the AIs get increase with levels. It is at this level where AIs tend to start getting significant land grabs, creating more early border tension.

Tile flip-flopping between cities certainly sounds powerful when you explain it that way. Isn't it a bit of a micro-managing chore, though?

It is a micro managing chore, no doubt about it. It's remarkably powerful when done well, and there are tricks to it. Build some 1 cottages (gl hills or plains), some 2 ones and 3 (if you can) to maximize flexibility in growth rates after whipping. Use the reminder (alt-m) feature to tell you when cities need to change the tiles they work. If you do those two things efficiently, you don't have to check every city every turn.

Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely want to keep trying REX until I figure out how to do it right.

Like most tactics in Civ, the real key is commitment. If you have sufficiently spawnbusted, you can just get into a worker/settler/worker/settler/worker/worker/settler kind of rhythm in your capital until there is no more land to be had. Occasionally whipping a settler or worker and building a few escorts as it grows back to happy cap is sometimes in order. Chopping is also key. Diplomacy is important when doing this, for obvious reasons, as are those key early techs (pottery is an absolute must, as you can't rex on trade route alone - cottages are necessary). Learning to balance all of this is something that I have yet to master myself, but I can get a ten city spread by 1CE pretty easily at emperor (assuming the start isn't crowded).

The place where I most often went wrong while trying to Rex (and still occasionally do) is when I decide a wonder is too shiny to not attempt. While 10-12 peacefully settled cities + wonders can be done easily on lower levels, wonders just need to be set aside when building a big kingdom at this level and above. An occasional run at a late pyramid build can be in order, (or a chopped stonehenge in a second city might make sense) but it should only be considered once the land is secured and with the key resource. Land is the goal when Rexing, not shiny toys. Let your neighbor build the pyramids in his 5 city kingdom, then take them with maces/trebs when he can't keep up with your 10 city medieval production rate.

 

[Mutineer]

you would get better understanding if you post your starting save together with 1AD save. In that case folk can play a few different strategies and show you how they do it.

Claim or not to claim resource is not usually valid decision by itself, but with conjunctions of strategy you use.

 

[Gumbolt]

At how many cities would you have declared? 2, as mario suggested?



All right, this seems to be unanimous, heh. And it would fit in with mario's comments about making the initial cities much closer to the capital.



So in this case, would you beeline Bronze Working even before some of the worker techs like Wheel and Pottery? Or wait until those are done, THEN go for BW?



I assume you mean teching Agriculture and Animal Husbandry before BW? Which means that sometimes, you do actually go for BW before anything else?

Thanks again for your replies, Gumbolt.

The simple answer is you play the map! With this map and the closeness of the neighbour I might of tried for the rush. Agriculture first is sueful if you are near corn. If you have plenty of forest this opens the chopping route.

Ah opens up chariots as an option. In terms of rushing an Ai the longer you wait the harder it will be to rush an AI. Especially if they get spearmen. Pillaging metals/horse resources can be key! I am sure with all the advice you are getting you will be fine.

 

[Sydney Posada]

Haha, you're right, I am being a bit obsessive with my questions. I'll stop now. I don't have the original starting save; I didn't save until a couple thousand years in.

Anyway, the game turned out to be pretty fun. I ended up doing the whole beelining an unresearched tech path, then shopped it around. Philosophy, Education (lost the race to Liberalism), Constitution, etc. I was also a pretty shameless tech broker, as I seemed to be the only one on Friendly terms with a couple of civs.

In fact, I had such good relations with most of the civs, I decided to pursue a diplomatic victory (which I'd never done before and didn't really have a good idea how to do), and made Joao II into the whipping boy. Joao had the most land, highest score, and was Hindu (Charlie, Zara, Augustus, Washington, and I were all Buddhist). I got a 4 vs. 1 dogpile against Joao going, and I thus had Friendly with all 4 of my war buddies. I was beelining towards Mass Media at this point as well, and I was one tech ahead. Reaching the United Nations first would not be a problem.

However, here's where I messed up. I should have made my two big allies (Charlie and Zara) stop the war. Zara took a big city, and with it he became the most populous civ in the world! Thus Zara became my rival for the U.N. diplomatic victory option, but I thought I could still win if I got all of the Buddhist buddies to vote for me instead of Zara. Augustus and Washington just got bumped up to Friendly due to the war, and while Zara was still at around +3-5 for them. Charlie liked us equally (+16), and at that point I didn't have any techs to give [I was at +3 trade fairness anyway], so I just gave him a bunch of resources and waited for the Resource Supply bonus to kick in. After several turns, they finally did.

I finally proposed the Diplomatic Victory option, and... Charlemagne, Augustus, Washington, and myself all voted for me! YAY! But oh... I had 430 votes but I needed 439 votes. Grr! What I should have done at this point was just make a bunch of cities within my borders to boost my population. OR... gift a city or two to Joao so that he would be the population leader. Zara hated Joao and still loved me, so I'd have been a shoo-in at this point.

What I did instead was stupid espionage tricks. I tried to flip two of Zara's cities over to mine, putting my Espionage slider up and making all the espionage buildings in all my cities. Then I spammed spies and Spread Culture all over the place. Let me tell you, cultural revolts take FOREVER to happen, even if your culture in the city is twice as much as theirs!

Unfortunately, at this time, Zara decided to convert to Islam, and a several turns later, he declared war on former BFF Charlemagne! I was completely caught off guard, and was pretty helpless as Zara and Ragnar completely went to town on Charlie, taking 5 cities and making Charlie into Zara's little puppet. Thus, my dreams of diplo-victory were dashed. I made a half-hearted attempt to make Catherine into my buddy, and I got her to +6, but could never get her over the hump due to our past conflicts.

I did eventually flip a Zara city, but it was too little too late. Zara and friends then went on to destroy Joao, vassalizing him, and then Catherine, vassalizing her. Those 5 civs in turn went on to nuke the crap out of Washington, which resulted in a record capitulation, and at this point, I gave up. I voted for a diplomatic victory for Zara and said Good Game.

Was 2nd on the scoreboard, though.

EDIT: I just wanted to mention as well that I had more fun in this loss than I've had in most of my victories... Losing a close battle is much cooler than winning a blowout!

 

[aimlessgun]

Wow sounds like a fun game. Good comeback after the start.

I don't think the obvious has really been mentioned: the capital site you were given is awful. Corn as your only starting resource? If not for hidden resources it might be one of the worst capital sites I've ever seen. Kudos for having the fortitude to not reroll it.

And from there your city sites were generally not good. You needed the clams in Mayapan: a city without a food resource is generally not worth founding unless it controls a key strategic resource. Frankly I don't think Chi-Itza was that much of a reach. Yes, it is at a prime spot to anger people and it is a little far away, but you didn't go bankrupt and have to scale back your tech slider because of the placement of Chi-Itza, or because of the difficulty. It's just because your previous cities were subpar cities.

But as people said you play the map, and with that map I suppose settling that far out wasn't the best idea. Just wanted to point out that a 0% slider and huge economic problems are NOT in any way normal for that city distribution.