emperor level, I need help

[robbus]

I defeated game at monarch level twice, small map then large map.

I levelled up... and here I am in a bad position.

I have made mistakes.

Should I quit now and start over or continue my current strategy of military buildup (catch-up) and cultural catch-up.

I see myself playing this game for 40 more hours before my defeat.

Should I defeat Egypt then attack Viking outlier cities?

 

[tjs282]

I defeated game at monarch level twice, small map then large map.

I levelled up... and here I am in a bad position.

I have made mistakes.

Should I quit now and start over or continue my current strategy of military buildup (catch-up) and cultural catch-up.

I see myself playing this game for 40 more hours before my defeat.

Should I defeat Egypt then attack Viking outlier cities?

I had a look at your save, and I'm really at a loss to guess what VC you were/are trying/hoping to achieve? A Culture-win from this point seems unlikely/impossible, you don't seem to have been focusing very hard on Science (Edu not learned, so no Unis built), and you're extremely underpowered for a Dom/Conq win (you have SoZ, but only 4 ACavs left? What happened?). You clearly didn't expand fast enough in the early game, I'm guessing at least partly because you were too busy building Wonders in Co'ple (Pyramids + SoZ = 600 shields = 20 Settlers...); most of the map is still dark, so your Seafaring abilities have not been exploited to their fullest; and your too-few Workers are not being used effectively, e.g. mining a Mountain when you have towns needing irrigation to get to Pop7+?!

That said, given what space the AI left you, your City placement is generally OK -- but Smyrna really should have been coastal (you might want to consider re-Settling it at some point) -- and a lot of your towns have more infrastructure than they can really afford: Harbours (the Byzzies are Seafaring, after all!) + Markets + Lux-import deals would bring in more commerce (and hence earn more gold and keep more people more happy) than Colosseums and high LUX%-spending. Also, outer-ring towns which are >50% corrupt all need Courthouses before anything else. (I guess you wanted the Lib in Dyrachium for some Cultural pressure against Bergen, but Dyrachium's too close to the Vikings for that to work -- capturing Bergen would be the 'better' option, if you can do it before Dyrachium flips).

You also seem to have a major problem with the unhappiness in your larger cities. Even though you're running LUX% at 20% and have a Colosseum there, half of Co'ple's citizens are working as Scientists, which is a huge waste of the multiplier-buildings you've put up there (which are also costing you maintenance). Zeroing your Lux-slider gets you an income of >80 gpt (zeroing the Sci-slider as well puts it over 150 gpt), which is easily enough to buy Dyes from the Romans (Julie wants your WMap and ~16GPT), and probably also some Spices from the Vikes; and you could possibly also get some Wines from Ragnar, if you can persuade him to break a deal. The Vikes have 3 Wines and 2 Gems but none to sell -- having taken a hammering, Cleo probably can't afford to buy much right now, so Ragnar's most likely supplying his excess Wines to Abu and Julie -- who's probably also taking the second Gems, given that he currently seems to be the biggest and baddest on the board (poor old Honest Abe, RIP...). The possibility of Map-trading means that Julie has got as far as Navigation -- so you're waaay behind on tech. See if you can get Julie (and Abu's) Territory Map, to fill in some of the blanks.

A military solution is probably your best bet for survival/ a win from this point, but it's going to be a hard slog, and to do it, you'll need to pack a much larger offensive punch -- so why are so many of your cities building Muskets right now? You have plenty of Pikes (more than you need, TBH) that could be upgraded instead, once you can scrounge up the $90 per head, e.g. by zeroing your Sci-slider for ~8-10 turns -- upgrading your Swords to Maces (and Cat to Treb) would cost only $30 per head. So I'd switch as many of those Musket-builds to Maces as possible without wasting shields, pop some more Trebs out of your non-Barracks towns, and then start moving those Muskets+Maces+Trebs out to defend your outer towns while shuffling Pikes back to inner Barracks-towns for re-arming (or disbanding some of them for some extra shields into a USEFUL build, thus also temporarily reducing military upkeep costs). Bring all your ACavs back to your core as well, and don't put more than a token defence in any of your offshore towns (maybe, 1 Pike + 2 Maces per town).

While reducing SCI% is not ideal, slowing your run at Metallurgy would also get you a few more ACavs to add to whatever else you can build (remember that the SoZ goes out of business with Metallurgy, so with current settings you'll only get 2 more ACavs at most). Training some Horsemen wouldn't come amiss either -- which you can upgrade to Knights if you can get Chivalry from Abu (in exchange for Gunpowder, maybe?) -- and then later to Cavs, once you get MilTrad. Alternatively, it might actually be worth buying your remaining Metallurgy-beakers ASAP, so you can get to MilTrad that much quicker (you shouldn't wait too long) -- but don't buy it from Ragnar, since you don't want to give him the cash to upgrade his Archers and Horses (he has Leo's).

The Vikings are your most immediately dangerous competitors, since they're (probably a lot) more advanced, and are sharing your borders -- never a good combination in this game -- so if you can persuade them to weaken themselves over the next 10-20T, that can only be good news for you. Ragnar's presumed Wines-deal with Abu could be broken by declaring a (phony) war on the Arabs, and then inviting Ragnar to the party (then buying those Wines before he can sell them to anyone else). I would give up on actually trying to conquer Egypt for now, though: Cleo's towns are too far away to be of any use to you -- other than as bait for a Viking attack, if/when you stretch yourself too thin trying to cover them yourself.

BUT if the Vikings and the Egyptians aren't already fighting (can't tell -- because you haven't built any Embassies either), DoWing Cleo might be useful: taking Abydos (at Pop2 to prevent it auto-razing), and then signing an MA with Ragnar against her, would send all Ragnar's attack-forces trekking south through that Jungle, giving you some breathing space to build-up for your own backstab against him later (after any Lux-import deal(s) runs out). If they are already fighting, that means that most of his troops are already a long way from your borders, so you have a better chance of being able to take a couple of his cities while his back's turned. When you're ready, Stavanger is within easy striking distance, getting you Gems (let Heraclea shrivel away), and razing Hareid then grabbing Oslo would get you at least one of the Wines -- and both those cities could eventually be useful to you, since they're reasonably close to your core (and coastal!). If you're attacking using 1-MP units, send your stack in via the Hills, covered with a Musket or two -- or set up an RoP to violate. If you have sufficient Knights, you can DoW from your own side of the borders.

The danger of DoWing Ragnar, is of course getting hammered by his Zerks, and soon by his Cavs (he has Metallurgy already, so is likely to be pursuing MilTrad, if he hasn't already got that too); but you might be better off to risk taking that beating now/soon when it might be fatal, rather than later, when it will be...

 

[robbus]

many thanks for your reply.... Pretty well sums up my assessment... This game I seemed to be spinning my wheels for a long time..

I will take your advice and work on it, see what happens!

 

[tjs282]

many thanks for your reply.... Pretty well sums up my assessment... This game I seemed to be spinning my wheels for a long time..

I will take your advice and work on it, see what happens!

You're welcome.

Just as an aside, it's my impression that playing on smaller maps might actually increase the relative difficulty slightly, due to the fact that there are fewer land-tiles available per civ:[TABLE=head]Map-size|Total tiles|Civs|Land-tiles|per civ| at
|||60% water|70% water|80% water
Tiny|60x60=3600|4|360|270|180
Small|80x80=6400|6|~426|320|~213
Standard|100x100=10000|8|500|375|250
Large|130x130=16900|12|~563|~422|~281
Huge|160x160=25600|16|640|480|320[/TABLE]So for any given Settler-output, unfavourable terrain in your initial territory has a proportionately greater effect on your civ's development, and you run up against foreign borders that much quicker. While a larger map (even just a Standard-size map) may take longer to play in terms of real-time investment than a Small map would, you may find it less of a struggle when levelling up. Similarly, you could ensure that you play on 60% water maps rather than 70-80% maps.

Spoiler :

My first ever solo Emp game -- linked in my sig -- was a (randomly selected) 60% Small Continents, as the Agricultural Dutch, which I won (Space-race in the 1700s, with 4 or 5 of the 6 Civs left on the map, IIRC). I had no Iron immediately available, but the game was still pretty easy...

Semi-idle question: Would you be interested in starting/joining an Emp-level SG?

 

[justanick]

It is 100x100/2 tiles on a standardmap. The coordinates of tiles are either both even or are both uneven. I adapted your table:

[TABLE=head]Map-size|Total tiles|Civs|Land-tiles|per civ| at
|||60% water|70% water|80% water
Tiny|60x60/2=1800|4|180|135|90
Small|80x80/2=3200|6|~213|160|~207
Standard|100x100/2=5000|8|250|~188|125
Large|130x130/2=8450|12|~282|~211|~141
Huge|160x160/2=12800|16|320|240|160[/TABLE]

 

[Speedbird 95]

Hello, I am interested in the Emp-level SG

 

[robbus]

yes I am very interested in an empire level SG... I have been away from home and unable to play for about 6 weeks...

But I am enthusiastic yes!!!

 

[BlackHat]

Before the save:
unfocused strategy with no real goal leaves you unable to compete at anything. In the future, be good at something. It could be research, could be military, could be expansion, could be culture, but be really good at something that you can leverage. Of course the expansion feeds those other things. Except for 20k games and ultra early conquests, expansion is key to successful games. Here the early buildings did very little to promote a goal and held you back from expansion. You've got two courthouses going right now in towns that have no business getting one. At best they could get one extra shield. And you're mistakenly prioritizing production over growth with your (extremely limited) worker turns. And why the drommon? It's a cool toy, but the vikings won't care as they roll through your mainland.

Pay closer attention to trading opportunities. Arabia had theology and 17 gold to trade for gunpowder. They're not close to you, gunpowder is a low level tech, and Arabia is backwards. Similarly, Egypt has monarchy, 58 gold, 1 GPT and lacks invention. Making those trades gets you 75 gold and 1 GPT, plus a tech. But it is bigger than that because the backwardness of Egypt and Arabia not only has no benefit, it actively harms you! To catchup to a runaway effectively you MUST rely on research from 3rd parties to help you along, and it does you no good for Egypt to be putting beakers into invention. And Egypt has a border with the vikings, so whatever previous animosity you experienced, you now need them to balance Ragnar. The big question for me is how far ahead the vikings are. Are they knocking on the door of the IA, or just plugging away on Astronomy or MT? How long have they been out of sight?

Read this for an excellent SG on trading for more tips: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/training-game-emphasizing-trading-emperor.106205/ That thread was one of the most valuable teachers I had.

Going forward:
As TJS pointed out, the scientists in Con are just weird. Without adjusting the lux slider I was able to set them all to work with no unhappiness. I suspect that you had WW at some point and forgot to set them back? Or raised the luxes and missed a spot? Either way, The city is putting out 16 shields once the citizens go back to work. And buying luxuries from Rome at least is a must. They will use the income to research, and you can easily recoup the 16 gold by dropping the lux slider.

There are two options to win: space, or dom/con. Either way, I would set research to zero and work furiously to build cash to buy tech from Rome and arabia. If necessary pay Scandinavia, but that would be the last option. For instance, you could buy metallurgy from the vikes then trade it to Rome for education right now. I wouldn't do that since arabia and or rome will be learning stuff soon and the opportunities will be better once you get cash, but it's an option. Then either turtle and prepare to try to win the space race (you should be able to manage the production with your core) or prepare to use the speed advantage of rails and artillery to bleed the vikings dry. Honestly the game is just unfair once that complexity gets into the system, and the computer just cannot handle the tradeoffs.

 

[Spoonwood]

Read this for an excellent SG on trading for more tips: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/training-game-emphasizing-trading-emperor.106205/ That thread was one of the most valuable teachers I had.

Thanks for pointing that out Blackhat! I kind of wished they had gone to the modern age with it and traded around for modern techs also. It's given me some ideas.

1. I've lately tried to use gpt to purchase techs for 2-fers early on in some Sid starts. The reason for this lies in that you can use the tax collector trick to increase your gpt (you change all of your citizens to tax collectors, make trades and then put them back onto tiles... Moonsinger's 88k histographic game shows clear evidence of using the tax collector trick in her 1000 BC save... so does my lesser scoring game which should come in the update). But, I've had a problem in that even when I can manage to make a trade I can't always seem to get my gpt back on the second deal. I've finally realized that since you can always get a lump sum back, when doing an n-fer use as much of your lump sum as you can on the first deal and then get it back!

2. The best gold to gpt ratio is 18 gold to 1 gpt for a 20 turn deal. So, I think you end spending more money over the long turn if you use gpt. But, you never know what the AI will do with the gpt in a turn. They might have a negative cash flow and thus giving them more gpt will go nowhere. But, if they have a lump sum, they can use that lump sum for techs. Thus, draining the AI when doing trades early can help. The gold in the bank might also help towards a steal.

3. If you end up doing/having multiple trades available in a turn... say at the age change with scientific opponents, you might use MapStat in the following way.

A. You do the first set of deals.

B. Save the game.

C. Load the save using MapStat to see what all the AIs have available at the same time.

4. Keeping track of who knows whom and who doesn't might help things out.

5. It's not mentioned in that thread, but you might use wonder initiation to clue you into when you might have the ability to pull off an n-fer (in addition to change of age). Here's an example that I add in my recent game, which I wish I had made screenshots of, but it kind of happened as a surprise to me that I pulled it off at the time.

I had Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial. So, I couldn't see past Writing and Mysticism. One tribe had started building the Temple of Artemis. Another had started on the Great Lighthouse. Another tribe had The Wheel and no one had it. So, I managed to purchase The Wheel, and Writing and pulled off basically a 3-fer.

6. So, let's say you end up a bit behind and can't tell if the AIs have a particular tech yet or not. Let's say you don't have Masonry, but you do have Writing (doesn't sound like all that great of a game to me, but I digress). Do they have Mathematics? Well, if you investigate their cities and they have a catapult or a marketplace in that city, then they have mathematics.

You can also tell that they have a resource without you having access to that resource itself.

So, let's see if I can make a list of all of the techs that you might have the ability to tell without any wonders corresponding to those techs.

Ancient Age:

1. There's no need for anything after Writing, since you can see Literature, Code of Laws, Map Making, and Philosophy directly, except The Republic. And you might check the Military Advisor for that.

2. You might check the Military Advisor to see if someone has Monarchy also.

3. Sworsdmen might be in a city if you don't have Bronze Working and want to know if they have Iron Working.

4. They might have a catapult if you can't see Mathematics.

5. If you can't see Currency, they might have a market in a city.

6. If they have or are building horseman/their UU, then they have horseback riding.

So, in the Ancient Age there exists only one tech which you have no chance of determining if the AI have or not if you don't have the previous tech: Writing.

Middle Ages:

1. If the city has a cathedral they will have Monotheism.

2. If they have a trebuchet, or are building one, then they have Engineering.

3. If the city has a bank, they will have Banking.

4. If they have saltpeter in a city, then they have Gunpowder. Thus, you might manage to nail down when the AI gets gunpowder without having Invention.

5. If they have a cannon or coastal fortress in the city, then they have Metallurgy.

6. The military advisor might tell you when they have Democracy.

So, the only techs in the middle ages you have no chance of knowing when the AI learns are Chemistry, Physics, and the Printing Press. But, those are techs that the AI tends to wait a while to research.

Industrial Age:

1. If they have a rifleman or are training one, then they have Nationalism.

2. The military advisor might tell you when they have Fascism.

3. The military advisor might tell you when they have Communism.

4. If they have or are building and Ironclad, they have Ironclads.

5. If they have an Intelligence Agency or the SPHQ, then they have Espionage.

6. If they have coal, then they have Steam Power.

7. If they have a hospital or are building one, then they have Sanitation.

8. If they have a Stock Exchange or are building one, then they have The Corporation.

9. If they have or are building artillery proper, an infantry, or have rubber, then they have Replacable Parts.

10. If they have oil, then they have Refining.

11. If they have or are building a cruiser, destroyer, or transport, then they have Combustion.

12. If they have or are building an airport, fighter, bomber, flak, or an expired Colossus (what's their government... how much commerce should they have without it?), then they have Flight. Also, if they've have an airfield in their territory, then they have Flight.

13. If they have a marine, then they have amphibious war.

14. If they have or are building a battleship, carrier, sub, or commerical dock, then they have Mass Production.

15. If they have or are building a tank, or panzer, then they have Motorized Transportation.

16. If they have a radar tower in their territory, then they have Advanced Flight. Also, if they have or are building a helicopter paratrooper, then they have Advanced Flight.

17. You might also find some irrigation by a worker which makes no sense unless the Electricity.

So, I think, that leaves Medicine, Steel, and Atomic Theory as the only Industrial Age techs which you can't tell when the AI has if you're more than one tech behind.

Modern Age:

1. If they have or are building a mass transit system or solar plant, then they have Ecology.

2. If they have or are building a tow infrantry, a SAM missile battery, a cruise missile, a jet fighter, a mobile SAM, a TOW infantry, an F-15 or have aluminum, then they have Rocketry.

3. If they have or are building a Recylcing Center, then they have Recycling.

4. If they have or are building a nuclear plant, then they have Nuclear Power.

5. If they have or are building a modern armor, a modern paratrooper, the SS exterior casing, or the SS storage supply, then they have Robotics.

6. If they have or are building the SS planetary party lounge, then they have The Laser.

7. If they have or are building a Stealth Bomber or Stealth Fighter, then they have Stealth.

8. If they have or are building the SS fuel cells or the SS life support, then they have The Superconductor.

9. If they have or are building an ICBM or the SS thrusters, then they have Satellites.

10. If they have or are building a Manufacturing Plant, an SS stasis chamber, an AEGIS Cruiser, or radar artillery, then they have Robotics.

11. If they have or are building strategic missile defense, then they have integrated defense.

So, that only leaves smart weapons in the modern era as when you have no chance of determining when they have it.

The above kind of makes me think of a variant where you ONLY research those techs which you couldn't tell when the AI picks up.

Additionally, maybe it suggests one of the following two possibilities.

1. Forget stealing. The AI has a maximum research rate of 4 turns per tech. So, even if you can't tell when a tech appears using MapStat, maybe you can time out an n-fer possibility via some careful investigation of cities at the right time. Then you buy one tech to get to the n-fer techs, pull off the n-fer and get your cash/gpt back... or at least as much as you can. Looking at one of my modern age saves, it seems that stealing tech does go up quite a bit, but investigating cities doesn't. And you sometimes have cheaper cities which you can investigate. Checking two different saves of one of my old games... one modern and one medieval it seems that the cost of investigating cities depends on city size. That also perhaps leads to how the expansionist trait/building some explorers/signing ROPs/getting world maps can play to your advantage, since if you can find the smallest city of a tribe (which has connection to their capital if looking for a resource), then you might find the cheapest place to investigate. There's also the coastal aspect of the city.

2. If you're going to steal, other than during age-change, if you believe that an n-fer might be possible after doing some investigations, and you don't have enough to purchase two techs before selling one, but you do believe you have enough cash/gpt to pull it off if you steal a tech, then steal from the weakest tribe with one of the intermediate techs. Or one of the more distant tribes. That way, if you steal fails and they declare war, you'll have a greater probability of surviving.

Now if I can find out again how to calculate the cost of tech...

 

[Lanzelot]

Now if I can find out again how to calculate the cost of tech...

CivAssistII does it for you.

 

[Spoonwood]

CivAssistII does it for you.

From what I see, and I haven't used that program in a game before, CivAssistII tells you in beakers for how much to research a tech. I'm more wondering how much it takes to purchase a tech. Though, I guess there's some beakers to gold, or beakers to gpt conversion ratio.

Also, does CivAssistII tell you how much it would take to purchase a tech that you can't see yet and more than one AI have it already?

 

[justanick]

1. Forget stealing. [...]Looking at one of my modern age saves, it seems that stealing tech does go up quite a bit, but investigating cities doesn't.

The cost of researching techs go up by the different ages a lot. Early middle ages to late middle ages, that to early industrial age and that to early modern age each double the cost of research. So between early middle ages to early industrial age research costs quadruple while stealing costs less than double. Early industrial age to early modern age costs for research double, but stealing costs increase by less than 50%.

Including the chances of failure stealing is usually cheaper than research by the early industrial age. By trading things become more complicated, so i donnot want to jugde which choice is the best one.

Chances of stealing are higher when using spies and even higher if those are veterans due to communism or facism. Once you have the intelligence agency stealing becomes an attractive option if there still are techs to steal. But the later may be the trouble, AI may sucessfully have been outpaced by that late in the game.

I'm more wondering how much it takes to purchase a tech.

There is a huge markup if there is only one supplier. Trading costs are likely proportional to costs of research. Having started a tech does decrease the purchase costs, by something about proportional to invested beakers.

 

[Lanzelot]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that the cost to purchase a tech also depends on the AI attitude. An AI who is "gracious" towards you, seems to make a much better price than one that is "annoyed" or even "furious".

 

[Spoonwood]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that the cost to purchase a tech also depends on the AI attitude. An AI who is "gracious" towards you, seems to make a much better price than one that is "annoyed" or even "furious".

I've had a recent start where one tribe would want more for a tech at "Cautious" then another tribe would at "Polite". Though, I didn't know the contact status of the AIs. In the same start I had managed to pick up 2 slaves from one tribe and 1 from another on Sid with The Hittites via trading them Warrior Code. But, the game more made for an experiment than anything else.

 

[CKS]

I'm not sure it depends on attitude, but the price depends on your tribe and the AI tribe. I think that real-world neighbors charge you less - it might be AI in your cultural group. I read about it but never remember the details, so I always have to shop around to figure out who sells cheaply.

 

[Spoonwood]

Read this for an excellent SG on trading for more tips: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/training-game-emphasizing-trading-emperor.106205/ That thread was one of the most valuable teachers I had.

I'm not sure if it's covered in that thread, but another trick you can use involves looking at what the advisors tell you. I mean, let's say you have a potential 2-fer, but you don't have enough to purchase either tech with gpt. How do you tell which costs more?

Well, if you can get them both to at least to the point where the advisor says "I doubt they will accept this proposal", then you'll have the ability to check which costs more by figuring out the gpt amount where it changes from "I doubt they will accept this proposal" to "they will probably be insulted by this deal."

Real example: I didn't have any of the medieval techs and two AIs knew Engineering, but others didn't know it, and a bunch had Monotheism and Fedualism. It didn't look like I had any n-fers, and I didn't have enough gpt and hard goods to buy tech. So, I loaned out 306 gold from the Inca for 17 gpt. Using the lump sum I know had, I made an immediate steal (I would have had to loaned out more cash to execute a safer steal). I picked up Engineering that way. I wanted The Republic, so I picked that up, and also managed to trade for Monotheism and Feudalism. Then looking around some more, I saw that Egypt had Theology but not Chivalry, but the Maya had Chivalry but not Theology. Egypt didn't have Engineering, but The Maya did. It would be nice to keep up in tech fully/as fully as possible, but I could go really broke and the 2-fer could have failed if the AIs didn't have enough gpt. But, would the deals work out as worth it? And which of Theology or Chivalry costed more?

So, I checked to see at what point the change in what the advisor said with both tribes. Theology costed more. So, I picked up Theology from Egypt using Engineering and some gpt. Then I sold it to The Maya for Chivalry. Then I got some of my gpt (though not all) from Egypt.

5 techs and some change for 1 steal. I wonder if I could have gotten more. Actually, I might have done so had I built a harbor and had some curraghs out for better trade routes. But, oh well.