Emperor key rules?

[Civilizator]

Hi all,

after getting used to win all my monarch games I want to play at emperor level now. I have started a couple of games trying to follow some rules I have read in this forum, like being extremely aggressive, letting the AI to build wonders and cities to conquer them and so on, but I have problems to keep a decent culture and produce military units all the time. The AI are mostly furious with me even as soon as I meet them, they demand whatever I may have and they are quite a few techs ahead from me. In my best emperor game I have managed to conquer my weakest neighbour but the price is that my culture is small compared with the others and there is a long time ahead before these conquered cities will start being productive. In this war I have got two great leaders that I have used to build the forbidden palace and Tzun Zu war academy. Now all the AI are producing techs at high speed and I can hardly buy their obsolete techs. I would like somebody to give me the key points to win the AI at emperor level or at least to have a chance.

Thx.

 

[cavemanf16]

I usually play at Monarch level, however I've played on Emperor a couple of times already. My best advice is to go read up some on the Succession Games forum (under the Stories and Tales forum) on this board.

After that, I'd say making early contact a priority (exploring your surrounding lands) and Map Making are priorities on the higher difficulty levels. Don't start an early war unless you can be sure that you'll decimate your adversary - don't waste the resources if you're not going in full-force with a goal of destroying at the very least, 50% of the enemy (both his/her towns and military might). Also, make sure to micro-manage your cities, tax/science/lux rate, and workers thoroughly during the first 100 turns.

 

[Belisar]

The key for winning at the higher difficult levels
is building a powerhouse economy after some quick, initial expanding
(no need to settle everywhere since only the two core rings
will be productive) and a combination of trading
(buying technologies from the tech leader, selling them
to weaker civs) and very quick wars (you are in republic,
start a war for expansion or some essential resources,
make peace for additional technologies and do all that
before you get war-weariness)
And of course: MM, MM, MM.....
Once in the industrial age, you can begin conquering the world with superior tactics.

 

[steviejay]

what's MM?

 

[Belisar]

Sorry, MM = Micro-Management
The point is: while your citizens are working five tiles in 3000 BC, the deity AI civs work already on 8-10 tiles, because they start with two settlers and have build the following settlers at 60%. Because of this, you have to
make the most of your limited labor. Apart from worker management (irrigating, mining and building roads on the right tiles), MM is very important
in this stage of the game. It means changing the work-assignments of your citizens to maximize growth, production and (not so important in the early stage) income .
This can include sharing some highly proprofitable terrain between two cities (because city A only needs 1 more food for growing), switching between a food and
a shield tile or simply rearrange the tiles after
something was build (e.g. a settler)

 

[BillChin]

Some key points:
1) Expand fast. Learn when and where to build granaries and practice the early game (first age). Learn to build cities very close together for better early game defense and higher early game production. Learn to use the luxury slider to keep citizens happy. These three techniques are often what separates a good player from an average player.

2) Learn about the tech tree. Learn how to do one scientist research to get expensive techs in 40 turns (especially on large or huge maps). On higher levels it is often better to set research to 0% and have one lone scientist in an outpost city. Learn to trade techs. When an AI discovers a new tech, if you can buy it that turn and trade it to the other civs, you might be able to get the tech for free or get several other needed techs for the price of one.

3) Learn to do mass upgrades:
warrior-swordsmen-medieval infantry
chariots-horsemen-knights-calvary
This involves building many cheap units, getting the tech and gold in a timely fashion so that the units are still useful for an offensive war. The easiest one is warrior-swordsmen. If a player is not familiar with mass upgrade strategies, practice some on standard size maps. Build a few cities, a bunch of warriors, upgrade ten or more and attack before 1000 B.C. For a novice this will seem like a tough timeline. However with a little practice it is doable even for a novice, by building fewer cities and making iron working a high priority. Learn how many cities can be built before switching to unit production. Learn when to turn down research to save enough gold (usually right after Iron Working for novices).

4) Learn AI behavior. This applies to several areas: how the AI expands, what it tends to research, when it is likely to attack, what kind of war tactics it uses. The AI is pretty good, but once a player learns a few weaknesses, a human can run circles around the AI.

+ Bill