Emperor more difficult than Immortal

[Fish Man]

Played a game last night with Inca, beautiful map, semi-isolation with further culture contact across ocean. Perfect island with a neighbor that has the perfect BFC for infinite worker steal (forest highway to its only source of food). I think I stole like 10 workers or some such, got 2 woodsman III guys... you get the picture. Oh and perfect bureau capital location with 3 (!) prime production sites very close nearby.

By turn 50 I realised I have this game in the bag, but then what? It's emperor, by the time I broke isolation (and I was in no way in a hurry, since there's no need), I was teching everything in 3-5 turns and I had the choice of either go space or go galleon naval across the globe. Well I played two games, one with space, one with conquest. Both were pretty boring. There's nobody to trade with, and I was either self-teching everything (not worth giving up printing press for drama, really) going with Cav against longbows and knights at best. In the space version, by the time *one* AI had something to trade, it was computers for democracy...

Perhaps I should go for a culture or UN version, but that's more for philo leaders.

I think it's time to move up to deity. Be prepared for a tough uphill fight the first few games, but it's well worth it .

 

[krikav]

For a few games...? I'm starting to get quite a collection of deity games now, but the uphill fight doesn't seem to end.
The jump up to deity was more than I experienced at any other jump up I did in the past.

It's just plain ridiculus how fast an AI can blow up and become a unhandleable monster with the bonuses they get at the highest level.

 

[Gwaja]

I'm comfortably can beat immortal most of the time thanks in a large part to this site. Big thanks to lymond and fippy! Reading old Posts. I recently tried to go down a level and it was hard the ai doesn't trade and techs slow! Anyone else experience this lol

I am actually glad they are still around to help people better their games. I personally enjoyed having them around more just for the fun of poking fun at them.

Immortal and Emperor don’t feel too much different for me, but experiences may vary I suppose.

 

[Fippy]

Be around more for fun poking

 

[Gumbolt]

I think it depends on the game. If an AI starts near gold/gems resources and are financial they can quickly develop a solid tech lead. This in turn makes it much harder to deal with them. Hannibal can be a tough cookie on this front as very aggressive and financial. Imperialist AI can also gain from this.

A game I started a few weeks ago on immortal had this issue. The Ai got metal and hooked up a few strong commerce resources. By time I reduced him to 1 city he had 4-5+ techs I needed. He had been spamming metal units.

A weak start could also make a emperor game feel more like immortal.

 

[lumpcalhoon]

I've had the same thing happen to me I end up backwards until I take peace after he has one city. Then he peace vassals to mansa who I don't really wanna take out. Or Monty even worse! Hello culture anger in his old cities. Any way to avoid that?

 

[Gavagay]

I've had the same thing happen to me I end up backwards until I take peace after he has one city. Then he peace vassals to mansa who I don't really wanna take out. Or Monty even worse! Hello culture anger in his old cities. Any way to avoid that?

There is a way: turn off vassal states. Another stupid mechanic.

 

[Bibor]

turn off vassal states. Another stupid mechanic.

Some features of the game work much better on huge maps. With 17 civs, it's not unreasonable for a few civs to to have a vassal or two. It's only awkward with 6 AIs

 

[Gwaja]

Be around more for fun poking

I miss being around on a regular basis like I used to. Now go cook some more evil maps! Though I doubt you can reach my level of pure evil ^_^

 

[Fish Man]

I miss being around on a regular basis like I used to. Now go cook some more evil maps! Though I doubt you can reach my level of pure evil ^_^

Challenge accepted. I already have a few ideas for the next NC.

NC 200 was good at fostering runaway AIs, with several getting 1400s tanks (though I got them too as Willem). Loved seeing AZ’s WTH reaction to Pacal getting 7 furs (all naturally generated!).

 

[elmurcis]

Some features of the game work much better on huge maps. With 17 civs, it's not unreasonable for a few civs to to have a vassal or two. It's only awkward with 6 AIs

Good thing about 17 civs (without additional slots added for players by some modding) - AI can't create colony (just peace/war vassal) as long as there is no AI eliminated from game. With tech trading that would be not that bad but with NTT - it basically makes AI less dangerous in future (vassal techs on its own, usually leading to drop in military - like Master gets Rifles so might be hard to do anything for some time but vassal just gets Muskets etc.). That can make some strange ways of war too (aim to get to point where vassal breaks free without touching master as long as its possible except some naval stuff to avoid SoD transport to human base land).