Emperor Entertainments

[Snarkhunter]

I recently finished an emperor/'pelago & found it tough going as the Vikes: the tech pace proved brutally fast & there was a definite resource scarcity all game long. What saved me was peddling monarchy & lit for all they were worth to get to the MA. then, after falling well behind again, realizing that my neighbor had the GLib; that pulled in all the bottom techs & most of the top, leaving me 2 down. Falling behind a 3rd time, ToE allowed me to peddle monopoly techs to get to within about 8-10 turns of parity & then I forged ahead for good in the ModA.

The tricky parts operation-wise were that I had to take on the sh*tty Hitties while I was weak to them; then Gandhi built the UN & had a powerhouse at the end. (There was never an election; I guess the AI figured everyone was too po'd at everyone else!) He started on a spaceship, but v-e-r-r-r-y slowly; I gambled that I could complete a domination without having to do anything about it. So it proved; he had built 4 parts by the time I won. I was a bit on tenterhooks the last quarter of the game; this was one time the AI could definitely have won. . . had it been human

To finally go over the top, I had to DOW & take 2 Indian cities the last turn. Good I did; I had forgotten some Indian remnants hanging out by an undefended city on an island way up top. they grabbed it on the interturn, but it wasn't enough.

And now for the kicker: also on the interturn, Gandhi launched! Hit me with 5 ICBM's he did--so don't say that the AI never launches first--it definitely can. There was a little bit of method in its madness: hit 2 cities with aluminum (1 twice, for some reason), but 2 other cities had no particular value. And there were 2 sources of aluminum it left alone, plus it didn't go after oil, rubber, or uranium--go figure!

I played on a turn, just to see what was what. Gandhi was making spaceship parts in cities with, say, 9 spt while his 20-80 spt cities were churning out mechs. He was weak to me at that point, but facing 65 mechs would have been tiresome with my proportionally fewer armors & tanks. bombers & arty don't redline mechs very fast, I find. It would have been a bit of a slog & there would have been numerous metros to help his defense along.

In my current emperor, I switched to continents as Aztecs & immediately got a more comfortable game: more resources, more production & the AI is slower to research relative to me. My continent alpha has 4 civs, the beta has 3, including Persia. I grabbed the GLib again & turned off my research, but may have to turn it on; the Persians are leading & no one else seems willing to learn a new tech just so's I can have it, too. Ingrates! So dealing with the Persians as a runaway is really the only the operational problem in this game; it won't be before the end of the MA that I could seriously consider invading: galley attrition rate was about 80-90% getting to beta thus far & you can't send much of an army that way. I should have knocked everyone else out by then on alpha. . . .

kk

 

[Spoonwood]

Sounds more like a Stories and Tales thread.

 

[Snarkhunter]

Sounds more like a Stories and Tales thread.

The part about the AI launching first is the punchline. There's been some question about that in the past, I recall. Here's a counterexample to the usual position. Someone with more experience might amplify under what conditions the AI will launch first.

Could go in General, I guess, but there's been some discussion of how to move up to emperor, so the contrast I find between the recommended 'pelago and continents could prove instructive.

kk

 

[vmxa]

If I see any post that claims the AI will not launch first, I will surely speak up. There are many games posted on the board where they have, now there is one more.

 

[TheOverseer714]

On your first go, Emperor is quite a jump from Monarch, the tech pace is especially shocking. Suddenly you have to be smarter about what you research and be a better trader. You need to grow and conquer more to stay afloat. As to nuking.....yes the AI will nuke first, and they will nuke resources first, but only if the resource is within 1 tile of a city, AFAIK, they only nuke cities. A colony is safe. A resource between cities is safe. As long as there are no resources within the first 9 tiles, most cities are safe, though there is a randomness about that.

 

[Spoonwood]

I know that when I moved to Emperor I didn't go a conquering in my first win there.

In my opinion it actually comes as more difficult to go a conquering than to go a building at upper levels.

 

[Snarkhunter]

On your first go, Emperor is quite a jump from Monarch, the tech pace is especially shocking. Suddenly you have to be smarter about what you research and be a better trader. You need to grow and conquer more to stay afloat.

That's exactly what I'm finding. It takes a while to get a good monopoly tech & you don't seem to get much for it in the earlier parts of the game. In the MidA, looks like you don't get one until chemistry. I've had to get over my queasiness at trading military techs to AIs I'm going to attack sooner or later, or I wouldn't get any trades at all. (Finding that they were going to pick these techs up fairly quickly in any case helps; trade it or lose it.)

A bigger surprise is that the continents game is going more smoothly than the 4 'pelagos I tried. I'm wondering if I didn't play those with too little water settings, like maybe 60%. That might have given the AI too much leverage, whereas in this continents with 70%, I'm still the only one knowing all the civs. And as I mentioned, there are a lot more luxes & resources in general to be had in this game; my empire is more productive as well. The 'pelagos tended to start me out in one corner or another of the map, often close to tundra, but never in the middle. Is that generally the case, or was I just rolling bad starts, I wonder?

I am playing all these starts without barbs, that's supposed to be easier, right?

Spoonwood, my favorite VC is domination, but I've tried everything except 20k at least once & am perfectly willing to do so again at this level, depending on the start, I guess. I'd like to feel I can win with anything at a given level before figuring I've doped it out. . . .

kk

 

[Optional]

It takes a while to get a good monopoly tech & you don't seem to get much for it in the earlier parts of the game. In the MidA, looks like you don't get one until chemistry. I've had to get over my queasiness at trading military techs to AIs I'm going to attack sooner or later, or I wouldn't get any trades at all. (Finding that they were going to pick these techs up fairly quickly in any case helps; trade it or lose it.)

The military techs are favourite among the AI. If you're purely interested in getting a monopoly tech, the line Monotheism > Religion > Education > Astronomy is probably best. Also Music Tradition can be good. In itself perhaps not such a great tech, but if it gives a monopoly and you can trade it for 5 or so other techs it's still a good deal.
And any tech can be used for war diplomacy. The more you move up level, the more you will have to let the AI do the fighting, while you will concentrate more on striking at the right time.
To be fair, on Emperor you can still beat the AI by numbers, certainly with a good start, but good diplomacy does become more attractive.

A bigger surprise is that the continents game is going more smoothly than the 4 'pelagos I tried. I'm wondering if I didn't play those with too little water settings, like maybe 60%. That might have given the AI too much leverage, whereas in this continents with 70%, I'm still the only one knowing all the civs. And as I mentioned, there are a lot more luxes & resources in general to be had in this game; my empire is more productive as well.

The AI rarely builds curraghs, so that'll hold them back a bit on any Archipelago, but once galleys are available to them, a 60% water map will normally give many easy crossings, so I expect the AI's had no problems finding each other.
Where the resources are concerned: 80% water maps always appear packed with resources, 60% water maps look resource poor. Always. How many resources there are probably just depends on the map size, not the land percentage.

The 'pelagos tended to start me out in one corner or another of the map, often close to tundra, but never in the middle. Is that generally the case, or was I just rolling bad starts, I wonder?

On 'pelago maps I often see islands lining the bottom and top of the map in a way continents and pangaea maps don't have, but that's all. It's mainly the roll of the dice. You can certainly draw central starts on 'pelago maps as well.

I am playing all these starts without barbs, that's supposed to be easier, right?

Players will certainly say that about Deity and Sid, where the human player has zero attack bonus against barbs. On Demigod the human bonus against barbs is 25%, and if memory serves me right the bonus on Emperor is 50%. They're not a big pain yet at this level.
If you choose no barbs, there will also be no goody huts and no gold bonuses from barb camps. So it slows down the tech pace in the AA. If you still have a bit of a problem with the tech pace, then maybe you will find no barbs an easier setting.

 

[schizerbone]

On your first go, Emperor is quite a jump from Monarch, the tech pace is especially shocking. Suddenly you have to be smarter about what you research and be a better trader. You need to grow and conquer more to stay afloat.

Don't mean to change the topic on this thread, but...damn, I'm playing my first Emperor game, and it is challenging... I'm playing Conquests and the civ directly south of me built the Statue of Zeus, and started a war with me...I survived. And just as I was about to save and quit, the civ right next to me built the Knights Templar. I can only assume a war is coming soon.

 

[Snarkhunter]

Don't mean to change the topic on this thread, but...damn, I'm playing my first Emperor game, and it is challenging... I'm playing Conquests and the civ directly south of me built the Statue of Zeus, and started a war with me...I survived. And just as I was about to save and quit, the civ right next to me built the Knights Templar. I can only assume a war is coming soon.

Sometimes you get compensation, like your nearest neighbor builds the Great Library & doesn't crank out as many defenders as you have attackers I've seen variations of that gambit in my last 2 emperor starts. Very helpful, to shut down research for a while.

Lessons learned on my last few starts: armies are more fragile than I've ever seen & are distinctly at risk if used to defend points--mostly cities, which is no great surprise, but even open ground, sometimes. If I go a-raiding, I'm careful now not to engage in combat unless I can quickly get back home; the AI tries to pounce on armies that have taken even a few hp damage, it seems. Redlined infantry can still be tough to beat, even with a 18hp cav army. I had plenty of armies last start & eventually worked out that combining, say, 3 cav armies with 1 infantry army gave a good balance of attack & defense without risking an army: I'd stack them at the point of attack & keep them together, using the cavs to attack & the infantry to absorb a human wave AI assaults. I didn't lose as many hp that way, the armies were no longer at risk, and I had enough force, combined with arty, to take just about anything on the map. Once the AI had lost everything down to its core defense in its towns, I could break stacks up to attack more points, but it was a long time reaching that point in many cases because the AI had more productive capacity & could churn out a steady flow of attackers until close to the end. That all is one of the bigger changes from monarch that I have discovered, army management.

kk

 

[ThinkTank]

I know that when I moved to Emperor I didn't go a conquering in my first win there.

In my opinion it actually comes as more difficult to go a conquering than to go a building at upper levels.

As bad as my memory is, I'll go a remembering this.

 

[schizerbone]

Okay, I'm back to change the subject once again...lol. I'm doing my Emperor game, and I've already conquered two civs (the two nearest ones). The problem is, I switched from despot to republic and my gpt went WAY down. This has always been a problem for me on Monarch, but now it's crazy. I'm at -200 gpt for corruption...plus all the maintenance and unit costs. I think I should have stayed at despotism for a big longer.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

There was a little bit of method in its madness: hit 2 cities with aluminum (1 twice, for some reason), but 2 other cities had no particular value. And there were 2 sources of aluminum it left alone, plus it didn't go after oil, rubber, or uranium--go figure!kk

Wondering what the spacing was between the cities hit and the tile with aluminum? I found that a city sitting on an aluminum will draw quite a number of nukes.

 

[Aabraxan]

Okay, I'm back to change the subject once again...lol. I'm doing my Emperor game, and I've already conquered two civs (the two nearest ones). The problem is, I switched from despot to republic and my gpt went WAY down. This has always been a problem for me on Monarch, but now it's crazy. I'm at -200 gpt for corruption...plus all the maintenance and unit costs. I think I should have stayed at despotism for a big longer.

Best bet is to post a save. My hunch is that you switched before you had enough cities at pop 7+, and may not have enough roads, as well as too few markets.

 

[vmxa]

Okay, I'm back to change the subject once again...lol. I'm doing my Emperor game, and I've already conquered two civs (the two nearest ones). The problem is, I switched from despot to republic and my gpt went WAY down. This has always been a problem for me on Monarch, but now it's crazy. I'm at -200 gpt for corruption...plus all the maintenance and unit costs. I think I should have stayed at despotism for a big longer.

Aabraxan probably got the proper answer. I would add that I never even look at the corruption. Think of it as your taxes and forget about it. I don't mean you should not make a court house here and there, but you will not be getting much of that money back.

Better to increase your non corrupt gold. Get roads down on all worked tiles, with the least corrupt towns as the priority. Take a hard look at the troops and see, if thy are paying their way.

Same for structures, be sure you get what you paid for and what you need. Then start adding more towns. Use specialist, where it makes sense. Not taxmen, so much as scientist. You can still gain some gold, by adding enough scientist to be able to reduce the slider and end up in the same place, except you now have more going to taxes.

If you have plenty of slaves, consider adding in some native workers to get some towns to city level. Even adding one worker in a core town can gain you more shields, gold and food.

 

[schizerbone]

Too few markets is probably the answer...but I don't know if that alone is the answer. Probably too many units...it's my first Emperor game...be easy on me! lol. You guys think I should have switched to Monarchy instead of Republic?

As you can tell, I've destroyed two civs (Americans/Byzantine)...and I've set the victory conditions to only domination or conquest.

 

[Optional]

Somehow I always get errors when I try to upload someone else's save, so I can only see your save with CivAssist. I can still make a couple of points, though:
* Too many obsolete units. As soon as you become a Republic, ditch the warriors. You can't use them for MP and they're too weak for use as actual military against opponants. Those 10 warriors are costing you 20 gold each turn. Disbanding the regulars and upgrading the veterans is what I usually do. You're researching Gunpowder, so also the archers and swordsmen are becoming obsolete. And 31 Impi is way over the top. In Republic you need to scan your military regularly.
* More of your towns need to be cities. A towns supports 1 unit in Republic, a city 3, so get as much towns as possible at size 7. Emphasise food.
I believe you've got a lot of unworked tiles as well, even in your core. Make use of those tiles!

Looking at your military I'm also noticing they're all slow units, mostly swordsmen and medieval infantry, but you've got only 3 artillery units, all catapults. I would have built a lot more of those, upgraded to trebuchets by now, because they help keeping your losses down.

There's a lot more to say, but I'm sure somebody else will make more comments.

 

[schizerbone]

Somehow I always get errors when I try to upload someone else's save, so I can only see your save with CivAssist. I can still make a couple of points, though:
* Too many obsolete units. As soon as you become a Republic, ditch the warriors. You can't use them for MP and they're too weak for use as actual military against opponants. Those 10 warriors are costing you 20 gold each turn. Disbanding the regulars and upgrading the veterans is what I usually do. You're researching Gunpowder, so also the archers and swordsmen are becoming obsolete. And 31 Impi is way over the top. In Republic you need to scan your military regularly.
* More of your towns need to be cities. A towns supports 1 unit in Republic, a city 3, so get as much towns as possible at size 7. Emphasise food.
I believe you've got a lot of unworked tiles as well, even in your core. Make use of those tiles!

Looking at your military I'm also noticing they're all slow units, mostly swordsmen and medieval infantry, but you've got only 3 artillery units, all catapults. I would have built a lot more of those, upgraded to trebuchets by now, because they help keeping your losses down.

There's a lot more to say, but I'm sure somebody else will make more comments.

Thanks for your help. I used the strategy of going straight for Iron Working at 10% science while building warriors, then upgrading them as soon as I got iron. Those stragglers were left over from that time...I guess it's disband time.

Also....I thought with Republic I'd have 0 unit support no matter if it was a town or city.

 

[vmxa]

First I would suggest you not thread jack any further and start your own.

F1, first thing you see is many towns with clowns. Two steps I would take 1) up the lux 2) get markets up as they will gain an extra happy face with three lux. Then put all the clowns back to work to make up for the cost.

I think I mention in my tutorial that I really dislike seeing forest in the core at this stage of the game. Cut the trees while the 10 shields is significant and put a mines down.

You have lots of tiles with trees near the capitol.

Does it make sense to you to be making Impi at this point? No, it does not. You add in the fact that you are paying 160gpt for support, it is crazy.

What is the purpose of making pikes, you have no one to fight on your land.

Don't build Colosseums. Learn to play without them.

Get those boats back and ferry over settlers and troops to fill that island.

I did not look at how many beakers you have into Gun, but I would not have researched it at this point. You need to get to Astronomy and on to other good stuff, as well as Education. What is the point of racing to MT, you have no one to fight and cannot do much until you have galleons.

60% taxes and still losing gold, that is fine, IF you are in an rough AW game and need to have lots of units. You do not even have any real threats in sight. BTW you show have gotten some boats looking for land, long ago.

Another thing I gripe about in the tutorial is the building things that are not going to be useful at least for a long time. Like a harbor and the town is size 2 and not working any coastal tiles nor making any boats. Why waste the shield and pay the main for that?

One town is size 6, cannot grow to size 7 as it was not placed by the lake and has no aqua. The town next to it is on a flat tile and should have been on the hill. This give you a better tile to work for food and more room to have the other town on the lake.

Do not make colonies, that waste a worker. You have gems already.

After the first few warriors, do not make troops in a non barracks town. That is best done in special cases, such as AW and being in Monarchy. Then the regs can be used for MP duty.

I would probably disband lots of units, you have no threats. Use them to rush settlers first and get more towns down. That will lower support cost. Then I would disband some to rush workers, you just have to pay the support for them. They will earn their keep.

You want to be putting most of your income into beakers at this point as you cannot really go any where, until Mag/Nav. You own your continent, so trim down and get more beakers.