[GS] Emperor is WAY harder than King

Problem is, the very act on playing on Emperor means a low likelihood of snagging one of those pantheons (forbearing low portioning AI civ's). Oh, it's possible by way of sheer chance (tribal villages, religious city states). Otherwise, only certain civ's have a real shot. Don't even think about Religious Settlements.

Same goes for a lot of that early game... Machu Picchu is gone before I can even get to Engineering
I agree, particularly Sacred Path can be hard to obtain, the others are a bit more hit and miss. I'm currently playing a game as Brazil where I got Sacred Path ... :hammer2:
 
Im an expansionist, which is why I go walls first and usually chop them out with the free builder, I colonize everywhere I can, often right next to barb camps.

That's the main reason I choose the 25% bonus to first district pantheon. Walls, Harbor, Lighthouse. +food, +production, +cash.

This game is not a test though, at turn 225 I am not "winning," but I am winning.

Please, keep the tips coming. I am trying to think of other areas where choices I make may be slowing me down. I like long games though, I play Epic speed because I dont mind the micromanagement, the game has some excellent tools to help you avoid long end-of-turn clicks, at least in my opinion.

And thank you again, this is awesome, I have read all the posts twice, some three times now, and I am looking for those little things to push me through. Any suggestions for my next game would be great as well.

Here is my status on winning conditions. I have a research alliance with Rome, and I am cranking out libraries like mad. Turn 226, e[ic.

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Very surprised to read that, in Civ IV it's fairly easy to fog-bust to ensure Barbs don't spawn - as a result walls are an item that very few people build. This is particularly true at the higher levels where there will be more AI cities and units on the map.

I want the barbs to spawn. The cash, experience, and Era points are awesome. I always leave an area for barb cities to spawn in. I have had almost non-stop Golden Ages because of the regular +2, +3 era scores from "Defending Whatever City" and such.

Of course, in IV, walls and settlers were much easier to chop out. I kinda miss that version, I might brush it off. Heck, I still play Alpha Centauri quite a bit.
 
Barb camps are great. The pesky geysers of barbs that they can generate, less so. Even if they're generally not a short-term systemic threat, they can divert the player from strategic goals.

Oh, and those damn barb quads. So broken.

Still, I'll always play with Barbarian Clans on, methinks.
 
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Barb camps are great. The pesky geysers of barbs that they can generate, less so. Even if they're generally not a short-term systemic threat, they can divert the player from strategic goals.

Oh, and those damn barb quads. So broken.

Still, I'll always play with Barbarian Clans on, methinks.

I tried that clans once, didnt like it one bit, lol, but being open minded, Im willing to try again. How does it work later in the game?

Walls alone can take out almost any barb unit by itself. Add an archer or a catapult and let em come. It doesnt divert me from any strategy ever, in fact, funding from barb outposts and XP fuels my growth and power. I often have Man at Arms on their 4th promotion before they become muskets.
 
It doesnt divert me from any strategy ever, in fact

No, but it slows you down unnecessarily (granted that you go walls first in every freshly settled city).
Those chops you spent on a wall could have been spent on chopping out a district, granary, monument or water mill, or improving 3+ high yield tiles instead.
Meanwhile, barbs can be pre-emptively kept in check by scouting around, clearing camps and having a "police force" of fast moving units that go where they are needed.
This doesnt waste production on walls whose cities might never need them.

All in all, this is an area that your gameplay has room for improvement on.
A friend of mine who plays on emp/immortal (single player) does this as well when we play coop together (deity).
He gets walls and Archers out, even the occasional encampment on the border as well.
And while he defaults to this style despite my advice, he always quickly falls massively behind me in the number of cities, techs and civics as I instead focus on infrastructure and catching up to the deity ai.
Getting those walls every time is holding you back a lot, and it will keep holding you further back the further up in difficulty you go.
There are cheaper ways to keep barbs in check, walls are a big overkill.
 
I tried that clans once, didnt like it one bit, lol, but being open minded, Im willing to try again. How does it work later in the game?
Well, the clans will transform into CS's over time, so often in the late game there are gobs of the latter and no place left for barbs to spawn. There's some process by which the game gives one civ the free envoy. Seems like if any gold was given to the clan, then the one who gave the most gets it. I get it often even when I don't give anything.

Now, if players spot a nice place to settle, they have to factor in that the barbs will become a CS (which always spawns with walls) so they can't take their sweet time with clearing the camp and settling.

The mode needs some tweaks. The option to pay the tribes to not enter my territory or pay them to target someone else are simply overpriced. And it seems that when a clan becomes as CS, the CS ignores barbs that spawn nearby. It also seems that AI civ's not attack these CS's, tho I might be wrong on that.
 
I have to say, the general consensus that the jump to Immortal isnt as hard as the jump to Emperor is accurate. Biggest differences I see are CSs start with walls, barbs spawn closer more often, and the AIs seemed more aggressive at first but I gentled em down easy enough.

This game is won. I just want to beat the horsehocky out of Catherine of France since I rarely see her in a game, lol. Venetian Arsenal almost done, 3 cities building frigates that will pop after the Arsenal, Steam Power will finish at the same time and that's that. She doesnt even have walls on most cities, I dont recall seeing that on Emperor.

Suggestions for my next try? Does the Ethiopian dude with an economy running mostly on Faith work at this level? He is pretty badass on hilly maps.

I think Peter, Hojo and maybe a couple others would be too easy, similar to Emp, etc.
 
Yeah, Menelik's pretty darn strong. Hills strength makes early defense quite easy, and his econ gets pretty crazy by mid-game. He's a bit of a city-building challenge, cause his UI can take up a lot of real-estate, but it's all very worthwhile in the end.
 
Excellent post. Thanks!
I'd say the most macro thing to realize going up to Emperor is that Civ 6 rewards chasing your victory very narrowly. There's no sense trying to create a diverse and robust empire that can do anything decently well, limited tiles, district slots, and long production times means that you should decide how you're going to win early on (minimum first 100 turns) and gear all your play towards that. The AI for example, hyper focuses science, so if you're not doing that, you won't beat them barring bankruptcy (less so on Emperor than Deity obviously, but same principle applies).

Do you have a lot of mountains around your start? This makes for great Campuses, plus strong early defense, and since Mountains often mean Hills as well, solid production. You're lucky you might even find some Geothermals. Therefore, this is a probably a good science game. Plot out your early campuses first (somewhere between two and four), and make cities around that. Once you're in a more stable position you can expand beyond your cradle, you probably want to end up with at least 8 cities, although you can easily get away with as few as six on Emperor if they're of good quality.
People have discussed monumentality, but if you're not in a position to get good faith, finding a heavily forested city to put your Governor Plaza +Ancestral Hall with Provision Magnus will do the job nearly as well. It will take some time to set up, don't be afraid to "waste" a few chops getting the hall online, the sooner your start this next wave of expanson the better, even if the last couple cities end up lagging a bit. It helps to improve tiles underneath the forests while you're doing it, but this requires more builder charges.

Spawn next to Desert or Tundra? As others have said, terrain-adjacency + Work Ethic is basically free on Emperor. At that difficulty, you probably still want to HS first district, but you don't have to Prayers or otherwise hyper-cripple your expansion most of the time to get religion, just watch the Great Prophet Meter and Religions screen. Remember that first Religion will probably go to Stonehenge (should never be you, it's possible on Emperor, but awful), and the last WILL go to Arabia if they're in the game, so always try to get at least second-to-last to be safe. This strat can lead to....anything, production's the top yield.

Side note about Tundra: Means many more barbs, alter opener appropriately.

Lots of flatland/low production? These are often the hardest starts, but remember that chopping is your friend. This often means lots of room to expand or an early war. If it's the former, Culture Victory's on the table, you have time and room to sculpt your land. Not something I'd necessarily recommend to new players, it's the most complicated way to win, but it's satisfying to learn. What's good about culture is your early game doesn't matter too much as long as you have the land to scale well late. If you have a close neighbor and low-production, find a defensive spot, prep for war. This is either a great Dom or Science game, if you win the early war, you'll either have a highly promoted kill squad, or a lot of land to Campus up.

Coastal? This usually means war or culture. Coast does give appeal, but it also corners your expansion for a while. Remember the AI doesn't do naval combat, if you have enough boats to kill the city, you can do so with no resistance. You're gonna want boats, because Barbarian galleys are obnoxious, if you have no navy they can destroy a coastal expo before it does anything, and even Archers do very little. Barbarian Quadriremes are a straight up, "do not enter this coastline without Men-at-Arms" sign that you should heed. This can be extremely annoying if it's shielding a camp that spawns other annoying ****, but it is what is. The only way to stop them is 2-3 boats plus a land attack, and even then you're probably taking risks, not to mention a lot of production. You might decide to simply not improve sea resources until late, but traders prefer water routes, so ignoring aquatic barbs really limits you.

Now, I just realized you posted again, so I'm gonna respond to some things there, because advice tailor to the player is always better.



Voidsingers is generally the best Society (I didn't consider you'd be using the Game Modes actually, which ones if you don't mind sharing) imo, although if you have an early war opportunity, Vampires can be amazing. They're even great at peace because of castles. The specified builds are obviously for coastal cities, and yes Harbor should usually be first District in those, but if they don't have Fresh Water, granary is sooooo important. Being capped to three pop is really bad for production, even four is kind of low with improvements granting some housing, if you get that granary housing+food, it'll speed everything up over the medium term. Not only are granaries super cheap (they can even be directly bought if you can afford it) but Harbor doesn't give anything but a few gold until the Lighthouse is up, which doesn't directly help the city at all. Plus, districts increase in cost as you do research, so Harbor first can be a very long first build. Sure, a coastal city needs its Harbor ASAP, but a city's first build should be made with its weak status in mind, it wants immediate results to start being better, so it can contribute SOMETHING faster. Also, don't neglect the Reyna and Moshka promotions that let you buy districts. They're probably not something you'll get until quite late (often during a third, almost colonial phase of expansion), but they're super strong. Monuments are always good as well, but less necessary to build first past the first wave.



So you noticed how bad the AI is with naval, good. Not much advice here, but I'll point out the pattern here with these two wonders: The AI does not city plan, so any Wonder that has somewhat complex requirements tends to get neglected by them. Other examples include the Mausoleum, Colosseum (two amazing wonders to try and grab btw), Colossus, Terracotta Army, Zimbabwe, Ruhr, etc. Really most wonders that have to be put next to a specific district, although there are some Wonders they prioritize anyway, Forbidden City and Alhambra off the top of my head. Also, Panama Canal is always free, but always a meme.



Ooooooh, idk about this one chief. That Pantheon is actually pretty bad. If you do the math, 25% isn't actually a lot of total production before the city has its first district, although if you build that district for a lot of turns it can add up I suppose. The thing is, you probably don't want to be building one thing for 30 turns anyway (why Wonders are so situational, that's a lot of time before realizing any return). If you want production, the one that gives production and faith on strategic tends to scale really well throughout the game, as its value increases as you uncover more strategic. The trickle of faith is less valuable with Voidsingers, but still okay. God of the Sea is also really strong if you have the tiles for it, turning great food and good tiles into decent or at least okay production tiles lets cities grow quickly while building decently. The terrain-adjacency plus Work Ethic combo mentioned is amazing, but it's a bit of a slower burn, doesn't become amazing until scripture (policy card that doubles Holy Site adjacency). If you want to do a Science game, Divine Spark is actually really good, it lets you compete for the strong early game Scientists, and helps you propel through the later ones faster, although many are less impactful.



Good, this is often correct. If you did terrain-Work Ethic, converting can be worth it, but abusing Monumentality is super strong. That said, Medieval Monumentality expansion is still quite strong, especially on Emperor. Even just using it to purchase a bunch of Builders is amazing, improvements are so important. You should be able to afford it, assuming you get Government Plaza up by Political Philosophy, you have three Titles to play with. Four if you then get Ancestral Hall afterwards, but don't feel like it's necessary to delay expansion until then if you have Monumentality.



Possibly, the AI can't handle Archipelago well at all, but you have to keep in mind yourself that Barbarians are going to be way more annoying on those maps. Also if you do spawn on an island with an AI on that difficulty....things can get hairy real quick. That said, although it's really boring, I cannot imagine you're incapable of winning a Religious Victory. Maximize faith, pay attention to when Apostles have debaters, and you'll be fine.
 
First thing I notice is that the Barbs spawn more often and closer. I learned in Civ IV that walls go up FIRST, regardless of your danger from other civs (or lack of it) because without them, the barbs will rip you up at higher levels. Keeping that practice up in Civ VI has always paid off.

My closest rival declared on me, but I was more than ready for it, and wiped him out. It really bugs me that I somehow get negative diplomatic relations with others when I am defending myself, but I am sure that topic has been discussed plenty over the years.

This is definitely an easy map though. I would recommend it to anyone looking to make the jump from Emp to Immortal.
The negative diplo if the other guy is the aggressor usually comes if you take cities from the AI and keep them

It’s both a good game mechanic AND good history role play, the BS over Alsace Lorraine being an excellent example
 
I haven't really tried Emperor in civ 6, but I could say is that in civ 5, Emperor was also a lot more difficult than King which is below Emperor by 1 level.
 
Update, I have pretty much whipped Emp with all leaders on multiple map formats. I have taken a LOT of the advice on this thread that has made it better, one big one being not building walls first in every city.

Immortal is another matter, I just cant keep up. I have beating a couple maps, with my favored civs, Simon Bolivar and Joao, but struggle with tier 2 leaders, and cant win every game with the two mentioned. I have a Simon game going and I am too far behind to even use his military power to Dominate.
I guess I need to build Campus's faster, and more, but doing so at the expense of builders and settlers cramps my style. Turning off Science victory seems like a cheat though, and I cheat enough now, lol. I dont really, I reload actual bad clicks, and re-start if an AI is within 8 tiles of me, or the start is truly horrible, but thats it these days.
 
I haven't really tried Emperor in civ 6, but I could say is that in civ 5, Emperor was also a lot more difficult than King which is below Emperor by 1 level.
I didnt play 5, but in 4 it was also a big jump.

In 6, its the level where the AI starts with an extra settler and bigger bonuses to research and production. That extra settler is what makes it tough to keep up, but its not so bad with some practice and the tips here in this and other similar threads.

If you do, post back here about how its going. I love talking about this game.
 
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