Emperor Game Help

[Revent]

Well, I've been reading a lot of the guides here and it's been really helpful and everyone here is so awesome and great with advice, but regardless, I'm a bit stuck on what I should do now. Help would be really appreciated as this is the first emperor game I haven't rage quit (yet )

Spoiler :

Now my demographics aren't too great, but I think I'm on my way to win the Lib race at the moment.

Spoiler :

Tips for what I should do from here on out would REALLY be welcome.
I did cheat a bit here and there, I have to admit I got a bit slack and let Huyana settle on my island so I had to erase that bit and I sometimes just took out barb galleys just cos they're so God damn annoying!! But the rest of the game has been clean

At the moment, my military is a bit weak, but I'm hoping to take out Huyana with Infantry so that I have transports. So two priority techs are combustion and assembly line. Is that wrong to do? I have a feeling he's probably the best techher out there actually because he's got GLH and Colossus in his capital so once I take him out, the rest of the AI shouldn't be too much of a worry and I'm hoping to take out the English afterwards, have two continents to myself and then win by space hopefully.

Whip/Build out universities in my cities and then try to rush out Oxford ASAP is also my short term target.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Yuck - what a mess.

Somebody else can come in and point out a winning line (the positions awful, but not necessarily unsalvageable); I'm more interested in the lessons that you should take away from this position

1) It looks to me as though you wrecked yourself badly in city placement - three cities with no food resource? (And I'm sorry - but I have no idea what you are thinking with that city placement in the north.)

2) You're over building a bit. Cities with nothing to do train units or, when that's not appropriate, build wealth to accelerate your development into the next era.

3) You don't seem to be paying attention to the allocation of your citizens. I saw one citizen specialist running, which is bad under almost any circumstances. You also seem to be running Merchants in your Academy city -- that's just drunk.

4) With sugar and spices on hand, your plans should likely have included Calendar some time before turn 168.

5) Trading away your only source of corn when your capital is unhealthy doesn't seem wise.

 

[Revent]

Thanks VoU, really appreciate the comments

1-Eridu was built very early on so I could grab the stone to build the Mids. Sole purpose of that was to grab the stone. The city at the north was to make sure the AI don't settle on my continent. Admittedly Lagash could have been settled 1S however, I built it based on the map I had at that time; didn't know I was on a separate island to Huyana and wanted to block him.

2-Will improve on that. Thanks

3-I didn't see any city with just a citizen however there was one running a spy for some reason. Will keep that in mind and be more careful.

4-Will bear that in mind, but for now, I plan to use Lib for something along the lines to Rifling, however, one turn from completion, I will give Philosophy up for trade to all of the AI for something and also save a GS if I can generate one to insta bulb most of astronomy so I can get some intercontinental trade routes up.

5-Will cancel that trade, thanks for the thumbs up. It was set up early on just to get the fair trade bonus.

Thanks for all the help, really appreciate it!

 

[obsolete]

Well, I've been reading a lot of the guides here and it's been really helpful

Yuck - what a mess.

Oh dear... has civfanatics got a lot like those horrible ign walkthrough sites? Or has his guides just been from the OTHER side of the forums?

 

[Revent]

Oh, sometimes I just forget to apply what I've read. But the guides and the awesome people here have helped me move up from Chieftain to Emperor since I've joined

 

[Jex]

Biggest things I noticed:

-Workers! Six in the entire empire! With 10 cities, 12-15 would be recommended. Late in the game this matters less, but I imagine you've been working unimproved tiles for much of the game.

-Some city micromanagement. Shurupakk, the size 1 city in the west, is working its horses, not the fish, so it's growing slowly. Capital working merchants when it has academy. No GP farm. Undeveloped cottages in capital and other city (suggesting they have only been recently built, or haven't been worked). Your micromanagement isn't terrible, but there is certainly room for improvement. How to fix this is depends on personal preference; Either manually assign the tiles, or automate citizens and emphasize food, production, and/or commerce until it works the tiles you want.

-Minor city placement issues. Northern city should probably have been settled on horses to work the fish. Eridu should probably have been settled one south on the hills to work the clam. As a general rule, every non-filler city should have at least one food resource. Also, the fact that some cities are size 1 suggests you just settled them. You usually want to fill out your continent sooner if you start on your own landmass like this.

-No caravels. You have optics, so get to building them! You have a shot a the circumnavigation bonus, and meeting the other continent will help in speeding up the tech trading. (Edit: Consider building triremes and upgrading them once optics comes in for maximum chance at circumnavigation.) And speaking of tech trading, you should probably trade paper/philosophy to one of the AIs for Feudalism and other techs. They're not going to beat you to Liberalism this late.

As to where to go from here, I would probably build the Globe Theater in a city and tech rifling, adopt Nationalism, and then get to drafting. If you farm over most of the tiles in the Globe Theater city and/or it has a lot of food resources, you can draft a rifle from it every turn. With lots of rifles and cannons/artillery, you can beat the AI until they start getting Nukes. Then again, I go drafted rifles in pretty much all of my games.

As far as Oxford goes, remember that it is only built as fast as the slowest building University city. I say this because only the capital is building a University as of now. Aiming to get it around 1000-1200 AD is usually a good idea (1000 is hard to hit, 1200 not so much.)

Overall, your position isn't bad. Second in land area is always nice to see. Biggest reason your demographics aren't more dominant is probably because you have relatively undeveloped land, a side effect of having so few workers.

 

[Revent]

I'm actually surprised I only have 6 worker because I felt my land was on the whole more developed than in other games. I think it's because I built a couple of cities really late so ended up allocating lots of workers to them up quickly. But agreed, I need more along with the cities themselves being built faster.

Yeah, I actually changed that right after I posted up the save Very silly of me. Will bear the settling the continent in mind for next time Didn't see the fish up there so I'll probably reload and fix that up haha. It's JUST been built.

Caravels: Do these get priority over the universities? Because my two coastal cities are almost finished on a forge and I did think of caravels but not sure if I should go uni's or that.

For the GT city, I'm thinking either Bad-Tibira or Ur. Which would you suggest?

Thanks. I think I may have to switch to Emancipation as soon as it gets out though because as you have mentioned, those cottages are really undeveloped. I left them too late.

Thanks for the help Jex!!

 

[Mylene]

Yep, 1 or 2 Caravels should be built shortly after you researched Optics, you might miss out on loads of tech trades and it's also useful knowing if any other AI will reach Lib soon
Your Pyras plan was not bad, but you could have settled stone city 1S for Clams, then it's a good future city also.

Overall GP seem 1 weakness you show here, only 3 with Pyras which highly favor using Rep. Scientists by 1100AD isn't much
Favor farms over cottages in all spots besides your future Ox city, if you build them.

 

[Jex]

Yeah, typically you just build the 1-2 caravels as soon as optics comes in. They're cheaper than Universities, so build them first. Universities can always be built in other cities. Good idea is to build on caravel on each side of your landmass when you access to both oceans like this.

Either Bad-Tibira or Ur would work as a GT city, Ur would be probably easier to set up since it's closer to fresh water.

 

[Gumbolt]

Too few workers. Instead of building mids and rushing for the stone city you needed 1-2 workers to chop the forest. You still have 5-6 forest south of your capital.

Poor second city choice in Eridu. 8 tiles from the capital for mids?? You had good food city spots east and west of your capital. Plains hill for clams/ sheep/ 2 flood plains. 1 great city is better than 2 average cities.

City build wise. Walls, barracks, monst not always needed. Colloseum too?? Wealth would of worked much better. I rarely ever build walls/colloseums or monst. Monst maybe if part of a game plan.

Overall you had time to grab the entire land mass. At 1040ad you are still in a very strong position although it appears you failed to abuse mids properly using specialists.

 

[Revent]

Thanks Mylene, will bear that in mind for next time I just completely forgot about sending two caravels out! However, will just probably whip them out for now once the forge is done. And the stone city was based on the map I had at the time so I quickly just settled it, had I know about the fish, no doubt 1S would be miles better.

Will bear the GP's in mind, although it's something I am struggling to get. Normally, on Monarch, I do tend to win the music and economics races so for those I have enough GP but how am I to go about generating more GP without caste? I've come to love slavery after reading Sera's replays otherwise I normally go for caste and run lots of scientists in a food heavy city.

Any particular reason for farms Mylene? I would still have my limit of just two scientists which is a problem without caste and these cities are production poor so need a lot of whipping. Dilemma

Thanks Jex, I was thinking Ur as well since as you mentioned, it is closer to water and I'd have to farm its tiles on the way to Bad Tibira any way.

I'm saving the forests for Oxford Gumbolt Is 8 tiles really that far? I didn't actually notice it hurting me that much to be honest.
The city idea is actually really nice, will bear that in mind for next time.
Oh, at the time, I couldn't build wealth so built walls rather than extra warriors and chariots which weren't needed in case of a naval invasion saving me some gold there although wasting hammers.
Yeah, I didn't use the mids as efficiently as I could have unfortunately. The best way to utilise them is to build cities with lots of farms right? And then put up as many specialists as you can in each.

Anyway, I'm going to play on a bit and see how this goes.
Plan:
Whip out caravels ASAP to get the +1 ship bonus and meet other AI.
Trade off paper to everyone for some techs that I need.
Don't want to trade philosophy as I want to save using liberalism for a while
Hopefully bribe some AI to declare on another if there's a war monger on the other continent.
Eventually take out with Rifles/Infantry. Huyana because his capital is really giving him a big boost and I'd like that for myself
Maybe see if I can bribe Lizzy against Huyana first.
Part Isolation should mean I won't get WFYABTA with the other AI
Eventually take down all cottages, run workshops under SP and go for space.

 

[Pangaea]

Hold on. Take down all cottages? When they are developed to villages and especially towns you don't really want to tear them down unless there is no other choice. The commerce is too good. Want a ton of farms in the GT city though, so it will quickly regrow after whip/draft.

Send out a caravel in each direction and maybe you can still get the +1 movement bonus. May be getting a little late though, but no idea how quickly the AI does that on this difficulty level.

Think you may be underestimating the importance of building military more or less all the time. You're bound to have a low power rating now, which means opponents are more likely to attack you. Being isolated helps you a great deal here, but in any case it's nice to have a powerful army before you actually need it. Yes, there will be more upkeep, but it's well worth it when you need it to either defend, or more likely on this map - attack somebody.

Normally you want to get up NE and HE early too for extra benefit. No great NE locations, maybe Ur but there are cottages on the way to villages there. And you can't build HE without a level 4 unit, which you don't have due to isolation and lack of war.

Without a real army I suppose your best bet right now is going for space. So then you need cottages for and and then later for production. So in that sense the cottages -> workshops make sense. But probably only late when you have enough tech or research rate to justify it. Still think it would be a good idea to build a bit or an army though. Or maybe try to get good relations with the other AIs when you find them on back of a good tech rate and then try to go for UN win.

Also, as Capac is closest and the most likely target if you are to go to war, maybe put all EP on him so you get to see his research.

 

[Revent]

Well, if I'm done researching my techs, I don't really need any more research Although probably not all. Almost all I'm already building the theatres in all my cities as we speak (4 are done) and the farms for the GT are set up already with the last one being built right now.

I've managed to get the +1 bonus already They hadn't got it because clearly I haven't met them yet . I managed to trade maps with a couple of AI once I completed my map and that got 2 of them to pleased even though the religion is different.

Regarding military, I could quickly whip out longbows if it came to it. The longbow is probably the best defensive unit out there of its era so it can take a lot of beating. I once had a Hills 3 longbow survive around 10 attacks from maces before dying (including 3 times I attacked a city with it as well) AI suck at naval attacks anyway. I'm not the worse enemy of anyone and the only person who can really attack me is Lizzy who sucks. Huyana is at pleased with me.

Yeah, no time to build the HE and didn't really have any city special enough to deserve the NE so I left it out which is a noob error I guess

Good idea! Will do that

By the way, love how we are helping each other out here. It's awesome

 

[Gumbolt]

War seems obvious.

Looking at rifles or curs? Lib for MT and research nationalism and gunpowder.

You can't build HE yet as no level 4 unit yet.

If you go curs or rifles you will need 3-4 galleys or galleons. Rifles would be easy to draft with the GT.

Curs can be easily whipped 2/3 pop per city. After 6-7 turns you could have 20+ curs easily.

Overall start thinking how you will win this game. Not even sure Ox Uni is needed right now. Focus is. Longbows are nice defenders but I really don't see an Ai assault coming in next 50-100 turns.

Decide on your choice unit for war and start spamming! Astronomy will be needed later on.

 

[Revent]

I decided to forget Oxford as you said, although this may be a decision I may come to regret as I head towards space

However, I did end up going towards MT for a Cur rush and God frikking damn it has hard! I managed to take two of his cities and I was losing money at 0%. So I had to do a 10 turn peace for a couple of hundred gold which he gave me.

For some reason, Hats was annoyed with me, but I've got her back to cautious. I'm keeping a lot of the AI to at least cautious to keep diplomacy going so I don't get some random DoW's. Lizzy still isn't talking to me after I stopped trading with her. God it's been so long! And right now, I want to finish off Huyana and then Lizzy. That means I will have two continents to myself, highly promoted Curs to keep my power rating up and I'm gonna cottage some of the stuff to get up my economy and tech. I've been whipping A LOT so my cities need to grow a lot as well.

Spoiler :

Advice on what to do next would be REALLY welcome!!

Plan:
Split stack of 29 into 2 with one going west (with the GG) and one going east (without GG) and then kill off Huyana.
Heal the out of my units, bring over more reinforcements, whip some infrastructure into Huyana's cities (banks, grocers, libs) etc...and have them actually doing something while I take out Lizzy. Interesting thing will be that if all goes to plan, I'll have 6 of the 7 holy cities


Am I doing it right or wrong? Advice welcome please

 

[Gumbolt]

Firstly if the AI did dow they would need to send a fleet of units your way. The Ai launching a naval invasion is highly unlikely. With Curs on your mainland you are quite safe.

As for your war. You have a stack of nearly 30 curs and you took a peace treaty?? Ceasefire next time to heal!!!

Run science at 0% and wealth in cities when you are nearly out of gold. Overall your curs rush took 2 cities when perhaps it should of had the incas capitulated by now. When you capture cities you can use this gold to keep the war going.

Then you can use the cities you captured to whip more curs. 1500ad on emperor is a bit late for curs. My last immortal game with a curs rush was over by 1550ad or so on a pangea map. Overall you are looking at a dominoe effect. Don't start whipping banks/infrastructure if you are going all out war.

Overall if you build 30+ units you should attack full out or the Ai will reach rifles before you can finish the job!

 

[Revent]

Good point, but I still like to keep the diplomacy good because well, Washington is doing much better trade than me so I want to be able to trade with these guys in the future so that I can get ahead quickly and then if I get ahead in techs, bribe them against each other

Well, my economy was dying and I was whipping out Curs continuously in all my cities. This is actually the first time I'm using the whip this intensively. It is REALLY powerful! I've got another 7 Curs in my pile in just 5 turns! Which also means the peace treaty is about to end soon *evil laugh*

Will do that actually and do you think I need any more reinforcements? I don't actually have any seige after all and I want to take out Lizzy as well. She's WAY behind in tech so don't even need to worry about her getting rifles

Because I think I should grow all the cities on my mainland now, ie grocers and banks to get the economy up, add forgers where needed, etc....and build wealth.

 

[Jex]

A note on power, just in response to what Pangaea said: Don't be afraid about having a low power level. On higher levels, power is somewhat misleading, since much of the AI's power is tied up in immobile city garrison. You will almost always be last in power until you do a major military build up. This is fine; You can't keep up with the AIs bonuses in the early game anyway. Futhermore, power DOES NOT deter declarations most of time. The way it works is you will only deter a declaration past a certain threshold. Hit the threshold, and the deterrence is absolute. Miss this threshold (typically about 150% of AI's current power) by even one soldier, and the deterrent effect is zero.

As to your current situation, consider using some spies and some espionage spending to induce city revolt the turn you attack a city with a lot of defenders, stripping the city of its cultural defense. When you don't have siege but do have more advanced units, spies can act as an effective substitute. Otherwise, I've never gone curs before, so not much to say there. Seems I like drafted rifles a little too much.

 

[Gumbolt]

Trust me with 100% curs you will need no trebs or cannon when fighting longbows/pike/muskets. The odds after the first 2-3 curs attack are normally in your favour. The incas are not even protective.

You put far too much faith in the AI on emperor level. Use 2 stacks and destroy Incas.

All this chat about teching to other techs. Not sure it will be needed although 1500ad is a bit late. As long as the Ai are backwards curs should work well before the Ai reach rifles.

Diplomacy is useful and perhaps you should bribe the other Ai to fight eachother if possible.

 

[Pangaea]

Well, my economy was dying and I was whipping out Curs continuously in all my cities. This is actually the first time I'm using the whip this intensively. It is REALLY powerful!

Had the exact same experience after all that whipping in my own game recently. In no time there was a fleet of galleons with cannons and rifles to board them. Amazingly powerful. And even with lots of whipping anger the cities grow back quite quickly as long as they have food and a granary.

A note on power, just in response to what Pangaea said: Don't be afraid about having a low power level. On higher levels, power is somewhat misleading, since much of the AI's power is tied up in immobile city garrison.

That's a good correction, you need a lot of power to deter attack. Diplomacy and being isolated is much more relevant here of course. In the save, though, there was virtually no military anywhere bar the needed military police for happiness. Suppose no army was really needed considering he is totally isolated, but I find it's good to keep building military more or less all the time so you can quickly go on the offense if you find a chance. Whipping Cuirs certainly seem to have done the trick here tho.