Emperor game - advice and tips

[Strijder21]

Hi,

I've recently picked up Civ 4 again. I used to play at Monarch/Emperor, and thought I wouldn't be able to handle Emperor anymore. However, it turns out I'm less rusty than I thought and I am in a good position on this Fractal/Standard/Standard random leader map.

I was on a continent with Louis and Zara, with Louis being between me and Zara. I had fairly arid land and room for about 10 cities after blocking off Louis. No luxuries except for calendar resources and only Corn in capital.

I attacked Louis in 1200 AD (ugh) with Cataphracts, and Zara with Cavalry in 1650 AD.

That said, I got luckier than I should have been with a slacking and wonder-hogging Louis XIV being an easy target (Zara already had Engineering for quite a while when I got my Cataphracts up) and my tech pace only recently started to pick up. I probably am going to start a forum Immortal playthrough to improve my play. However, any advice/tips/comments/pointing out what I am doing completely wrong in this game is really appreciated too, and pointers towards an end-game plan would help too. I currently am beelining for Communism for a SP-CS workshop economy (as there are too much plains to get a viable Cottage economy). I think I also have enough of a tech window to finish off Sury and perhaps even Gandhi with my cavalries.

 

[InovA]

Some of the mistakes I noticed from a glance:

• You're not trading any resources for per turn! Right now you could give a useless rice (which you have 4 of) to Mehmed for +15 per turn! A few others willing to give +7/+8 gpt, so you could instantly add +37 per turn to your income! This is something you should be doing with excess resources ASAP (even for just +1 gpt early on), with + resources if you don't have any cities near , and even with resources like Marble/Stone/Copper when you notice you're not using them anymore. You can always cancel them (after 10+ turns) if they'd help speed up a wonder you're after. Also try to trade for + resources and feel free to donate excess resources (until you can sell them) for good relations.
• You should run Police State and Nationhood while in war, and NEVER Pacifism while in war! Your civics aren't synced properly. Bureacuracy is great for the midgame, but you're getting big enough to where it doesn't do as much.
• You settled 2 Great Scientists in your capital, they should've been used for Bulbing or Golden Ages. The 1st used on Academy is right.
• You settled your 2nd and 3rd cities very far from your capital, I'd prefer the spots east and west of your capital to so far south.
• Your automated workers built forts on resources like Bananas, Incense, etc. It's ok to automate them after Turn 150+ or something if you want to, but watch for the obvious stuff.
• You should be sure to set up some chain farms once you have Civil Service. The rice on your western city could use irrigation from it, even if you don't work the chain farms made for it.
• You built some markets, grocers, and banks, these buildings are useless 90+% of the time. Just build "Wealth" instead, unless you need the + or + bonuses from them and can't get them by trading.
• Build a city on the desert next to the cows south of your capital.

 

[Strijder21]

Some of the mistakes I noticed from a glance:

• You're not trading any resources for per turn! Right now you could give a useless rice (which you have 4 of) to Mehmed for +15 per turn! A few others willing to give +7/+8 gpt, so you could instantly add +37 per turn to your income! This is something you should be doing with excess resources ASAP (even for just +1 gpt early on), with + resources if you don't have any cities near , and even with resources like Marble/Stone/Copper when you notice you're not using them anymore. You can always cancel them (after 10+ turns) if they'd help speed up a wonder you're after. Also try to trade for + resources and feel free to donate excess resources (until you can sell them) for good relations.

Correct. I checked some ten turns ago or so but the situation changed after I got Astro. I really should get BUG to remind me of these kind of things.

• You settled 2 Great Scientists in your capital, they should've been used for Bulbing or Golden Ages. The 1st used on Academy is right.

I was behind on science - the only bulbing option I had was Philo, and Zara already had it. It was also not on the way to research guilds. Should I have bulbed Philo instead?

• You settled your 2nd and 3rd cities very far from your capital, I'd prefer the spots east and west of your capital to so far south.

Maintenance-wise, I guess? In my defence, I had failed to explore the copper between the mountains (barbs got really lucky with killing off my warriors...) and the horse was my only strategic resource at that time. Guess I should have founded a cottage-helper before the marble city.

You built some markets, grocers, and banks, these buildings are useless 90+% of the time. Just build "Wealth" instead, unless you need the + or + bonuses from them and can't get them by trading.

Are banks useless even if you're running the slider at 0%?

I did build wealth throughout the game.

• Build a city on the desert next to the cows south of your capital.

Is that ever going to pay off? It barely has any food.

 

[elitetroops]

Good advise from InovA, but I must disagree with this one:

NEVER Pacifism while in war!

Why not? The extra support cost for military units? Since Pacifism itself has no upkeep cost, it is often cheaper than anything else despite the extra unit cost. In this game it is the cheapest. Keep slider on 0% and switch into any other religious civic, you will notice that gpt income goes down.

Pacifism is good when you are using it to generate great people. Whether yo are at war or not makes little difference most of the time.

 

[InovA]

I was behind on science - the only bulbing option I had was Philo, and Zara already had it. It was also not on the way to research guilds. Should I have bulbed Philo instead?

Settling them gives +1/+6 (+10.5 with multipliers) per turn. Bulbing a Great Scientist gives +1500 + 3*Total Population = ~2000

So it would take nearly 200 turns for the settled GS to be worth the bulb! Other than the hammer, I guess
I wouldn't have bulbed Philo, since that's a 1200 tech and you'd end up wasting ~800, I'd wait for Education or another tech where you can use the full bulb.

Are banks useless even if you're running the slider at 0%?

Thessalonica has a base of 13, so the +50% from the bank is worth 6.5. The 200 applied could have been +200 instead. It takes 31 turns for the bank to pay for itself. Not 31 turns total, but 31 turns of 0% tech slider! So the +% buildings are never really worth it unless it's a city with very high wealth, like a holy city, where it generates even while at 100% slider. High commerce cities can be used for it, but you'd rather focus on +% for those. Speaking of which, your capital would do great with an Observatory and a University if you're not planning to go to war with everyone for a dom/conq win. Build some Universities in a few other cities, too, so your capital can build the Oxford University for a +100%.

This also has to do with the whole "A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow" motto. So Wealth building more often helps get a tech a turn or two faster.

Is that ever going to pay off? It barely has any food.

It would have +5 from the grass cow and the southern farm, that's plenty for growth. You can build it 1 south of the desert and have it take the rice farm if you want, so it hits up to +9 excess food. Just build a Granary and Forge in it, followed by pure Wealth, like most cities should be. Bottom line is that it's an unworked food resource, so it's calling for a city to be near it.

Maintenance-wise, I guess? In my defence, I had failed to explore the copper between the mountains (barbs got really lucky with killing off my warriors...) and the horse was my only strategic resource at that time. Guess I should have founded a cottage-helper before the marble city.

Partially, yes, it's also about how it slows down workers and settlers by going so far, delaying the city by about 5 turns and requiring more defense while making it so workers improving nearby tiles waste more turns travelling. If you needed the horses, it's a reasonable city to take, but I think it could be delayed until your 3rd or 4th city. I did a quick run through of Worker - Warrior - Settler - Settler and had 2 cities at 2500 BC and 2300 BC, but yours weren't until 2100 BC and 1700 BC. Though I did have better luck with barbs than you it sounds like. But my point is that I settled closer, settling on the bananas just Northeast of the capital and between the cow and pig even further north. (After looking over it more, I liked these 2 spots more than East and West. East's wet rice is fantastic, but in the actual start it has a jungle, so until IW it's not a great city.) These city spots don't require me to have more than 1 warrior going out of their way to help guide the Settlers. From here my Banana city (where your fort is) can work the cows once the 3rd city is placed, which would work the pig to start. The workers have an easy path to set up these improvements. With these 3 cities I have -6 gpt for maintenance while you had -9 gpt with your 3.

Why not?

Because Pacifism is about being passive. It's not named Aggressifism. To attack with it is against morality!

Ok, I'll take your word for it! Maybe I use Pacifism too little to recognize its benefits.

 

[sampsa]

My advice would be to focus on improving the early game. Fairly arid land? I see nothing but green river tiles. Especially with an imperialistic leader, I'd try to settle many cities asap. They are connected via the river and the sooner you found them the sooner they generate and for you.

I was able to found my 4th by T50 and next I'll get workers out and cottages up to gear the empire towards generating lots of . Note how sharing tiles between cities gives you flexibility.

 

[sampsa]

T100

Spoiler :

Have 8 cities (2 more settled next turn), 12 workers (+1 next turn). Went straight to calendar, probably the first time ever I did that. Don't like it, everything is just slower than normal. Straight to alpha or monarchy was certainly better. Very unlucky that no religion spread, but I can see a missionary finally approaching my lands. Only just got IW via trade. HR+religion+cheap temples will allow me to grow and I should be very dominant position say 500AD.

 

[Strijder21]

Thanks for the advice and especially the shadow posted! I'll try to keep everything in mind while expanding in the early game.

 

[sampsa]

T115 (1AD)

Spoiler :

Just attaching a save for you to check. Far from perfect play, but good enough I guess. A more bloodthirsty approach would have probably been optimal, since Louis built some nice shiny stuff.

Note how insane the progress of the empire has been in the last 15 turns though. That is the power of food!

Some general pointers:

• Where there is food, there will be a city!
• Fractal rewards exploration! You can already see in my T50 screenshot minimap that I sent a scouting workboat up the coast asap. Mostly to open trade routes, but also to possibly find unmet AIs. Ice blocked the path, so had to return, no biggie. Settled on the jungled rice on the western coast just to gain access to that fish (don't miss out on 6 tiles!), and luckily gained access to some islands. Imagine my surprise when I met other AIs, I thought we were isolated with Louis+Zara. I gain a lot from meeting more AIs: intercontinental trade routes (at least 3), resource trades (check what I got from Gandhi), tech trades, tech sells.
• If you adopt a religion, spread it. Missionaries don't cost much and you want to take advantage of the religious civics. Pacifism being the Rolls Royce of those, as already pointed out by elitetroops. +1 and +1 isn't useless either. No need to spend 30 on monuments in new cities after you have a religion.
• Get AIs to friendly. Both Louis and Zara are one tech gift away from friendly (fair trade is capped at +4 and I think I have +2 with both). I can get theology (for eventual theocracy) from Louis and feudalism (on the way towards guilds) from Zara.

Louis has been WHEOORN for a while and I have 5 more turns of peace. He is not stacking at my borders though so I think Zara is the victim. I can easily survive a declaration, though, he doesn't even have cats yet. Silly of me not to have been running scientists after the first GS (academy), as now it would be very nice to bulb philosophy (for pacifism). Guess I'll switch to caste and get a CS out, bulb philo, run caste+paci merchants. I think I'll be ignoring liberalism and just try to take over the world at guilds/engineering.

 

[sampsa]

To the end:

Spoiler :

Decided to self tech philo and switched into caste+paci 175AD. Ran merchants in 3 cities (this, on rice and on marble). Got two of them out (1900 a piece in Zara's capital!) and 3rd one will come out later. Those allowed me to run 100% science slider nearly full time in the ADs. After that time to whip forges (=slavery+org rel).

Capital reached full size already at 475 AD. Castle adds a trade route, which is worth the investment with such nice trade routes.

After org rel, switch into theo 520AD and take units out. Many were whipped earlier but left in the queue. Them chariots are for decoy and one for super medic.

Declare 600AD intending to take two cities next turn. Plan succeeds.

Lure his stack into my lands using a chariot. Soften it up with a catapult and mop up with no losses.

Louis declaration 600 AD, capitulation 660 AD. Zara 740-760. Gandhi 920-960. Sury 960-1000. Tokugawa 920-1120. Mehmed 1000-1120. As you can see, wars are swift if you have a tech lead and enough units.

Toku was the only one with a decent stack and I had to cease fire once. Re-declare and wait, he moves his stack next to his ex-capital and is cannoned and mopped up into oblivion (it says treb in the event log, but they were all obviously upgraded into cannons).

Conquest 1130 AD.

Like I said, you should focus onto what happens in the BCs. If you manage it right, AD years are often just a technicality. Attached some saves if someone is interested in details.

 

[Strijder21]

Wow. Yes, getting those Cataphracts about 50 turns sooner really resulted in a steamrolling effect in your game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Maybe I use Pacifism too little to recognize its benefits.

Pacifism is great, really my go to religious civic. +100% great people points is an huge deal given how good great people are.

I generally bulb with my great people, a great scientist have a base value of 1500 beakers. So if your great scientist cost 500 great people points. If we divide 1500/500 we get the beakers per point to be 3 beakers per point. A scientist give 3 great people points so 3*3 = 9 so the scientist in effect give 9 beakers per turn from the great people points he generate and if we add in his 3 base science he give atleast 12 beakers a turn which is equal to 3 towns not counting any multipliers yet. (which is the big reason why I use farms over towns).

Add in pacifism and now or scientist is worth 21 beakers a turn and even more if you add in library multipliers. And at the point you have farmed you great people pool dry you should be at the point you can get emancipation cottages or state property workshops. Compared to cottages farms are good as soon as they are built while cottages have a enormous long growth time. Farms work well with slavery while cottages dont. A farm city can thus outdo a cottage city in terms of both production as well as science by using a combination of caste system and slavery.

However you need to make sure that your cities can actually get a great person otherwise the great people points are wasted and thus worth nothing.

Here is a nice tip: Build 4 cities close to the capital. These cities will be used to work cottages for you capital so when you hit bureaucracy you will have a good amount of extra towns for you capital. These cities will also have minimal maintenance because of their short distance to the palace and really have no disadvantages at all when health and happiness limit growth anyway while extra cities mean you can do extra whips. In fact more city mean slavery get stronger, 10 cities can do 10 whips every ten turns without happiness loss while 20 cities can do 20 whips in the same amount of turns.

 

[sampsa]

Wow. Yes, getting those Cataphracts about 50 turns sooner really resulted in a steamrolling effect in your game.

Indeed. I want to emphasize that most of the "work" was done early on. With a weak early game such results are impossible.

I can see that you started a new game, on immortal. Lymond already gave you some good advice. Good luck and happy learning!