Emperor/Monarch middle to end game

[Keepitsimple]

Hi,

I play "play now" with standard time and pangea with either vikings or romans.

My strategy almost always is axe rush into swordsman rush. Which ends around 0-500 AD with me hopefully having around 20% of the land mass. If I play on monarch this is a VERY simple winnable situation. It almost always ends with domination around 1700-1800.

However on emperor I just cant continue warring after 500 AD since I will lag behind badly in tech. And even if I stop its 50/50 to win the race to liberalism. Its often so tight that its no use to make a beeline to rifles and draft myself to victory (also a very common strategy on monarch since I usually outtech everybody).

Its also more common on emperor for one computer to pull ahead and vassal 1-2 other computers. This is obviously the most advanced computer. I cant go to war against him and will obviously lose.

How important is it to manually assign your workers? I usually stop doing this after 8+ cities. I do specialise my cities but perhaps not enough. I dont know what to do really.

 

[illram]

I would think it's very important, as your tiles dictate how much commerce you bring in. I keep my workers on manual until there is nothing to do, and then I either assign a few to automatically build roads and connect resources and stash the rest somewhere where I remember where they are. And I make sure to turn on "automated workers leave old improvements" and forests.

 

[oyzar]

post savegames / do walkthroughs and people will give points on what you do wrong? without seeing what you do it is hard to tell what you do wrong. Maybe you never build cottages? Maybe you never run specialists? Maybe you never build granaries? Maybe you have too few workers? Maybe you try to build too much of everything everywhere? Maybe you work wrong titles in the wrong cities? Maybe your city placements are totally wrong? Maybe you have no clue how to tech trade. There is no way to tell what you do wrong without you telling us what you do. I find that i almost never automate workers until there isn't anything left to do. The 20% loss of productivity(from failing to do move + improve properly) + bad prioritizing of what titles to improve when just isn't worth it when your not under time pressure(think blazing mp and even than i mm til i have 10+ cities if possible).

 

[Keepitsimple]

Im definately bad with specialists. I basically never use them. Im not good with the whip either I guess. Almost only whipping when it costs 2 pop. I do cottage like crazy though. I think Im decent with tech trading, ie I research what I can trade.

Btw one thing that happens often is me researching alfabet during my first war. I do this to be able to build research when the war is over. Its too long to COL without being able to build research. Is it advicable to try for a oracle slingshot to COL even without marble on emperor?

 

[xanadux]

I guess before I say much, I should ask are you playing BTS or warlords?

If you have trouble self researching CoL, I might suggest you could be overexpanding. Since you don't use specialists, I assume you want CoL for courthouses.

Building research, if necessary, is occassionally ok. But since you cottage a lot, building wealth is better. A little less expansion, plus prioritizing cottages in the capital, getting CS for Bureaucracy, and getting an early academy in the capital will get you a great deal of research in the capital. It's not hard to have about 100 beakers/turn from the capital shortly after 1 AD. Once you have the nice science multipliers (esp. academy) in the capital, wealth is better than research because it allows a higher science slider.

 

[Keepitsimple]

Im playing BTS latest patch. For the record this patch seems harder, AI builds a LOT more military.

Imo its too late to wait with the axe/swordsman rush until you have COL. Its VERY too late if you wait to civil service. So Im forced to build research if I want to war in BC.

I will check out building wealth.

 

[oyzar]

building wealth / building research is basically the same thing as in the same magnitude of beakers it'll produce is the same. You need to get an economy up and running if you want to actually increase your teching capabilities in the early game. Either through cottages in large enough cities(HR!!) or loads of specialists(obviously before col you can only run 2 in each city). Specialists are very good for generating research in the early game but the main benefit is the great people they produce which can let you light bulb techs or do other stuff(academy + bureaucracy is very powerful and can easily let you produce 200+ beakers in the BC's). Expand your cities outward and build them up(so you can run loads of cottages and/or specialists).

 

[Keepitsimple]

Is it efficient to build military to just be in cities when you run HR? I can see the benefit of having a large capital under bureaucracy but other cities?

 

[shyuhe]

building wealth is more efficient if you have libraries in your cities because the commerce will get the library multiplier but wealth/research that is built doesn't get multiplied (except by production multipliers).

 

[oyzar]

Yes but what i ment it is roughly the same magnitude as building research(ie a function of his production, not of cottages or specialists or something). It would be way better to just grow his cities way larger and hence work more cottages(through HR, or the slider if he have a specialist economy).

 

[xanadux]

Research is never as good as building wealth with a cottage capital economy. This is because a good player has at a minimum a library and academy in the primary commerce center ... the capital. No cities may even have a market yet. Wealth and research get no building modifiers, so you want to build wealth to allow a higher science slider so that more commerce is multiplied by buildings (particularly the capital's academy and library).

 

[shyuhe]

wealth and research do get building modifiers. It's just that it's from forges and factories...

 

[xanadux]

wealth and research do get building modifiers. It's just that it's from forges and factories...

Yes, of course you are right, I didn't think to specify they get no beaker/gold building modifiers.

@OP

I think you may be concentrating too much on too early of a rush when it isn't warranted instead of getting a solid base of about 4 cities first. A couple of often stronger alternatives to the axe rush in BTS are ... the delayed axe/sword rush after 4 or 5 cities and economic development with the use of spies to drop defenses. And delaying the first war to macemen + cats or trebuchet.