Emperor - Ouch!

[Rast]

I was going to post a save but I can't find my thumb drive.. so.. just a quick description will have to suffice.

This is my first 'real' emp game (where I haven't just straight up got my butt kicked). It's tough but I'm pretty sure I can make it to the end, I'm just trying to figure out how I'm supposed to win at this point.

Quick summary

Incans in vanilla civ/Continents/Emp/Marathon

I took out Mansa Musa with a fast quecha rush in 3660 BC and threw up a 3rd city and 4th city as soon as I could support them before the AI boxed me in. Toku to the north, Bismark and Elizibeth to the south, Egypt to the east.

I built up a few axes and declared on Egypt and went on a merry pillaging spree before I got some cats out and razed six cities. During this time I converted to Toku's religion and we've been best buddies ever since.

Elizibeth declared on me, Toku declared on Elizibeth, I made peace with Egypt and razed one of Elizibeth's cities, made peace, went back to warring with Egypt, took her capital (Buddhist holy city w/ the building, money, yay!) and eventually all her territory except for one city outside her normal territory. Bismark declared on me, Toku declares on Bismark, and that's where I am now.

Main things I've noticed are much harder from Monarch to Emp:

1) Maintenance. You have -2 in 4000 BC and it only goes downhill from there. Cottage spam is not enough - Courthouses, Markets, Banks are all hugely important. Even so I've been in the red every turn since I first started fighting with Egypt - pillage power is the only thing keeping my research slider at 70%.

2) The whip. The AI builds huge amounts of crap and the only way you can hope to keep up is to whip most improvements and if you need units in a hurry whip them too. I hardly touched the whip on Monarch, I whip my cities contantly in emp (so far anyway). I try to get them to grow back quickly but if I whip them too much they can't work their best commerce tiles - some cities I actually haven't whipped a courthouse because they'd lose more money than they'd save. Also getting production out of a city that just lost 10 pop points in 2 turns from back-to-back whips isn't happening for a while.

3) The AI is *very* aggressive. I'm still waiting on Toku to stab me in the back, so far he's been too busy keeping heat off me though.

4) Science. I can't keep up in science. I've been trading a lot with Toku but we're both 3-4 techs behind the people we're fighting and I can't seem to catch up.

So.. what I'm asking for in a nutshell is where do I go from here? I'm researching gunpowder, I think I'll be the first one to it, but I only have 22% of world area, 19% population, at this point domination is not happening, my whole economy is going into war production and research and has been since 4000 BC. I can see taking out Elizibeth and Bismark but it will take a long time and I can't see how I'm supposed to build a big space rocket either (at least, before whoever's on the other continent gets around to it). Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks!

 

[cairo140]

The only why I've ever been able to win on Emperor is:

- Use diplomacy wisely. Pick your friends. Form a diplomatic triangle.
- Wait for your unique unit to roll around that landgrab in that specific period.
- Don't make enemies, because unless you're really really good, you will always trail in military tech.

 

[voek]

Courthouses and markets are a must. At what rate do you maintain your research bar. You prob. need to expand/conquer more. Get that Forbidden Palace up ASAP. Religion money (you captured a shrine right?) is good too. Spread that religion for cash. Trade away techs for money against backward civs. Plunder money should keep you out of the red also. In most of my games at one time I will run at 0% and still lose money. Capturing/razing city's becauses crucial. Then I extort some techs and start recovering. I often use Great Scientist during that early stage since you stil can research while keeping a low tech rate. Lightbulbing tradeable techs always helps too. The AI tech path is predictable, so use this. BTW ONLY keep city's which can maintain thereselves (good resources).

 

[Roland Johansen]

You should not be so concerned about the research percentage. It's virtually meaningless. You should be concerned about the amount of research points that your civilization produces when you break even at gold.

20 cities producing science at a 30% research rate are going to produce more research than those 4 starting cities of yours at 70%. Also 20 cities are going to controll a lot more resources which can be used to keep your cities happy and healthy and supplied with the strategic resources that you need for your wars. And trading away the extra resources can get you friends and resources that are outside of you influence sphere. With all of those resources your cities can grow larger. Larger cities can controll more cottages and thus are far more efficient. So all of that razing of cities is not that great. I personally have city razing turned off and can still comfortably win at emperor level. You just need to get a really efficient economy.

-If you go for cottages earlier and have enough workers to build them, then you will have bigger cottages in your empire which will support your economy.

-Marketplaces and Groceries are important so that a lower tax rate can still support your economy and because the happiness and health bonusses that they give allows you to support bigger more efficient cities. Banks are great for the money. Of course courthouses are important in your bigger cities as they halve city upkeep. (It's not that well known but city upkeep increases with city size. It's fairly obvious that it increases with number of cities and city distance)

-A holy city (of a large religion) with shrine and Wall Street, Marketplace, Grocery and Bank is great. It alone can allow you to lower your tax rate something like 10-15 %.

-Don't pop rush before you have recovered from your previous pop rush. Try to avoid single pop rushes as they are not so efficient. You still get 15 turns of unhappiness but you don't get that much production. If you pop rush too much, then your economy will suffer. Knowing when to pop rush is not that simple. I usually do it when a city isn't suffering from pop rush unhappiness anymore and I'm about to grow to a size where my city would become unhappy. Then I try to have a project ready that would need (at least) 2 citizens to finish.
Pop rushing a granary is very important as the faster growth greatly increases the efficiency of pop rushing.

Good luck!

 

[Tyrant Roger]

My GOTM is Pangea/Standard/Warlords/Emperor/Vikings. It is my first Emperor game after a series of wins at Monarch. I am now in the 1800's and seem headed to a domination victory having conquered Louis and Gandhi and about half of the fanatical Spanish Isabel. Luckily, I had stone in my capital's fat cross and so built Stonehenge, Pyramids, and Notre Dame which has helped a lot.

My rookie impression of Emperor is that it requires much more concentration than Monarch. You need to constantly monitor your military, economy, tech progression, GP, and the like. Key strategies include tech bribing AI's to attack another AI, rushing key wonders, researching tradeable techs, intense city specialization, and most of all - exploiting the AI's lousy ability at war fighting.

Maybe I will get better and be able to play a more relaxed style at Emperor. Right now it certainly seems intense.