• Civ7 is already available! Happy playing :).

Emperor Tutorial Series I - The Pyramids based SE (Monarch/Prince players welcome)

Opening Strategy:

I see no reason not to settle in place on the plains. The other option is to move twice to the plains hill to the SE, grabbing the stone earlier but a warrior move shows that to be a poor choice, plus we’d give up two floodplains. I suspect there is some food in the outer cross – I certainly hope so if we’re going to run an SE!

Techs are going to start with AH, hoping for horses in the second border pop (there are a few tiles that could support ponies). I prefer to fogbust with warriors on emperor, avoiding archery if necessary, particularly if there are no cottages for barbs to pillage. I wouldn’t try this on Immortal though.

My experience with emperor is that it won’t be too hard to get the pyramids, especially with stone and IND, so I’m going to take a shot at SH, effectively converting myself into a creative civ. If possible, I’ll try to build the pyramids in the second city, perhaps teching math early for the forest boost. Heck, if there’s time, it might be worth it to throw in Hanging Gardens, thereby guaranteeing a Great Engineer early. Typically I would use him to rush the GL, but with an IND leader and early representation, settling seems the better option. Ditto with the priest from the capital. I’ll need metal casting for the forges, but I hate researching this myself so hopefully there’s a MM or Gandhi around. The only GP I may not settle is the scientist; if the tech race is tight I’ll bulb philosophy. And of course there’s the academy.

The other option is to go Oracle -> MC or CoL, but I think I’ll avoid the religious part of the tree for this game. I prefer to let a religion find its way to me, letting me decide which block to join once the picture is more clear. We won’t be limited by happiness as much with Rep. and I can usually grab either Conf. or Taoism later as it is, to enable theocracy.

My typical war machine strategy is to queue up troops everywhere under OR or Pacifism, fire off a golden age and switch to Theo, Vassalage and Slavery, grow the army like mad and then switch back just before the end. With a SPI leader and the pyramids, we can build troops under police state instead, once we’ve a few other sources of happiness. I would still queue them up, and only switch to Theo/Vass for the builds. We’ll see how it goes. To the game …
Spoiler :

Ugh, Willem. I hate this guy. No particular reason, he just seems to show up all the freaking time near me. Add in Peter and Brennus – two nice traders, an attack dog, and an attack target; sounds like fun! All 3 are from the south. I’d hate to make Thebes the front line, but the land down there doesn’t look that hot. Plus, horses just popped up north, so I’ll be moving there next. I’ll probably take the cite on the river to unlock the trade route earlier. I really wish I could’ve scouted more north, although if you look closely you can see some snow on the trees at the border so the map likely ends up there. The next warrior should explore south.

Civ4ScreenShot0006.JPG

My scouting warrior died to a lion. I was greedy and tried to move to the forest before healing. Still, he had the odds …

Techs went AH->Myst->Mining->Masonry->BW and builds went Warrior (to size 3)-> worker->worker->SH

My second warrior found this cite to the south: nice. I definitely need that ivory, which makes a math run early a priority. I also let the warrior heal in place this time! Justinian showed up too this round. He always gets pwned in my games long before knights. He’s already Brennus’ worst enemy! Justinian has Buddhism, and Brennus founded Hindu. I hope Hindu spreads first.

Civ4ScreenShot0007.JPG

OK, changed my mind. I’ll expand south first and try to grab some ivory. Found Peter’s borders, and he’s not too far off the good cite, although he’ll probably stick to the coast and take the rice location first. He will have elephants though, so I’ll try to stay on his good side. Problem is, along with Willem, he can backstab at pleased. Brennus will do no such thing.

My workers in Thebes hit the cows first, followed by the corn. The FPs will get farms soon enough, but first I want to road up the stone and horses, and prepare for chopping once BW comes online. My warrior stuck to the forests looking for fights, and circles back up north. I’m guessing Justinian is north of me. I think he’ll be my first target and I’ll nab that holy city after he builds a shrine. The warrior will double back and camp out near my (future) southern city.

2725BC – Shut up Tacitus.
Civ4ScreenShot0005.JPG

2400BC – Stonehenge in. At this culture rate, I’ll have those horses without a city!

2325BC – Moved my warrior across the river for better defense, and found Pacal. It’ll be interesting to see what religion he takes. Also, I’m not well prepared for barbs, so I may get greedy and try to nab the Great Wall before Pyramids. I really need to get some settlers out though. Copper popped to the west, but the rest of that cite is terrible save for the fish. Still, I’ll be taking it, but not before the southern cite.

I went for writing next, to improve diplomacy. The Woody II warrior circles back to escort the settler being built in Thebes down south. I can hold off on any more cities for now but I need a presence near that Ivory. Some warrior fogbusting and the settler can move unescorted for part of the way.

2300BC – See Peter, this is why you suck. I would be havin’ those two workers right now, but you’re just going to mope around instead. Also, Gems, Gold and Ivory! Health may actually limit us instead of happiness.
Civ4ScreenShot0010.JPG

1975BC – Memphis settled in the south (the irony …) I know it’s far away, but the distance upkeep is small compared to the number of cities upkeep, and with the quick border pop I should be able to keep Peter out of the resource rich area. Also this turn, I have lots of food now so I whip the GW with 7 turns left, killing only 2 citizens! Gotta love IND leaders with stone. Barb problem solved. Now, need to build up power to avoid a DOW from an AI.


1950BC – Yoinks! Time for some workers now, to let the slavery effects fade, and to prepare to chop out the pyramids. I guess they’ll be in the capital after all. Citizens are working food only, and workers are pre-chopping forests.
Civ4ScreenShot0012.JPG

1800BC – Writing in. The only friction is between Brennus and Justinian, so I open borders with everyone but the latter. I also notice that Peter will go to war as soon as I can give him some tech, Justinian has axmen, and nobody has “enough on their hands” yet. The post-writing techs are too expensive now, so I’ll backfill a little bit. Hunting->Fishing to open up some decent trades once alphabet comes in.

The AI has a few archers up in my grill, but there isn’t anyone aggressive enough to make a play with them.

1650BC – 4 workers. You can never have enough workers in the early game. I hire a priest to skew the GP odds away from a spy. 71% priest now, should be about 80% by the growth. The workers chop away, while one starts on the long road to Memphis. I’ll need it for the ivory as well as troop movement.

1600BC – Barb archers. Where you goin’ ... nowhere.
Civ4ScreenShot0013.JPG

1525BC – Judaism founded. Also, my power almost doubles as a warrior is built in Memphis. I start on a barracks to up my power. The woody II warrior will now leave and explore some more. I really wish I’d done more exploring this game.

1475BC – Shut up Livy. I wonder who’s on top? Probably one of the psychos – Monty or Genghis. Pacal switches to OR, and converts to Judaism the next turn, as does Willem. Also, my warrior gets nerfed by a spearman. I guess that’s a lesson to hide behind the Wall! The Oracle was built – no indication yet of who or which tech they took. I wasn’t watching the score table either, which can give you a hint. Doesn’t matter much; it’s not like the Oracle is worth capturing.
Civ4ScreenShot0015.JPG

1425BC – Damnit, a spy is born against the odds. I’ll settle him and direct all spy points to Pacal, who doesn’t trade as easily as everyone else. Steal me a few stupid techs like Priesthood, etc. so they don’t count against the trade limit. Now, if only I could find him … Pyramids in 4 turns.

1400BC – Willem shows up and demands Masonry. I give it, only to see that he’s 5 techs ahead of me (including Alphabet)! That’s fine, he doesn’t build many troops. I need Aesthetics next to trade with him. I can probably get IW and Alpha for it, between him and Peter. I check around, and nobody has “enough on their hands” yet. Peter will still fight for tech, although we can’t trade it yet.

I’m gonna get those horses shortly in Thebes, and I’m considering forgoing the copper to grab another southern city with rice, gems, banana and 2xIvory. That would probably give me a monopoly on the ivory, and block off at least 4 more cities. I can deal with axmen with the war chariots, and who builds an invasion stack of spearmen?

1350 BC – Pyramids in. Don’t forget to switch to Rep! Need horses and an army now, then a settler. I fire the priests in order to grow, and I road up the horses with 2 workers.

1250BC – Borders expand and cover the horses. Pasture is built within two turns. Barracks in Capital to grow a few pop.

1200BC – At size 7, I rehire the priests and slow down growth to work some mines. After two war chariots, I’ll expand a little more (2 more cities). I’ve NEVER expanded this slowly before, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a rush, so I’m not too worried. There are barbs everywhere, and I want to kill them with the chariots. Mainly axmen and archers, so it should be easy.

1000BC – The axmen are being d**ks, and hiding on the forested hills. O well. I think I should have put the spy points in Peter instead, since he made a very feeble attempt to settle near Memphis. I think I’ll keep him around until right before rifling, to trade and steal from. I get the feeling that most players are located southwest of me, since I haven’t seen ANY activity north other than Justinian’s scout, who may have come around Thebes.

Empire:
Civ4ScreenShot0017.JPG

Tech Situation:
Civ4ScreenShot0019.JPG

Weaknesses:

Obviously, having only two cities is pathetic, but in ten turns I should have 4 so it’s not quite as bad as it looks.
My army is pretty small
Memphis hasn’t been improved at all
My scouting is horrible, thanks to the death of both starting warriors (against odds...)
I probably didn’t need to build the Great Wall

Strengths:
I have a settled spy, which means I can run a hybrid EE as well
I got three wonders with many forests to spare
I have 4 workers free to work on the coming cities
Thebes is growing quickly, has great production, decent research and will probably end up being my military powerhouse, although it’s a little far from the fray. I’m going to put my Science City (with GL) near the rice/bananas/gems, and run only scientists there.

I feel that I have a good start. Although I am woefully lacking in cities and tech, I can make up the cities very quickly, and tech trades will be easy on this map, coupled with some stealing I don’t see a problem getting to liberalism first. There is a Jewish missionary on his way to Thebes, which is nice. And an elephant-cat war is very possible as well, if I can find some more borders. I don’t see the need to rush anybody with all this land though. Please comment; I’m interested to read the spoilers now.


 
It would only matter at size one before Flood plains are farmed right?

That means lose one turn 3 food+1H+10C but gain 1C for about 25 turns.
So a pickup of about 15C - 3F - 1H.
Is that what you are saying?
Is my math right.

You also lose a GH and pickup stone. Lose a 2 grassland and pickup oasis+lake I think and lose FP for plain.
Also some tiles will no longer be in any BFC that get left on the west side.

Technically speaking I believe we lose 3 grasslands, 1 grassland hill, and one floodplain, and one turn. We gain an oasis, stone on plains (equivalent of a green hill I think), 2 grasslands, and a lake. Yeah its kind of a wash and indeed it might just be better long term to stay in place. I mean you are probably looking at maybe 25 extra :commerce: from settling 1 east. The other thing staying in place nets us is more forest to chop.

Could go either way ... I am a little less upset about staying in place though. :)
 
Nice report Zisseus. The slower pace of this thread makes following other peoples games and strategies much easier. I love nobles club and LHC but they whizz by so quick.
:goodjob:
edit:
I think i am going to copy your queing up strategy and switching to vassalage/theo.
 
@futurehermit

Spoiler :
Being on the coast gives access to the coastal buildings, such as lighthouse, harbor, etc. If coastal tiles suck with a lighthouse, they certainly suck much, much worse without one. If you did not want to settle on the coast, then maybe 1 S, SW, or SE [not sure which would be ideal without looking at the pic again]. Settling one off of a river means a loss of health, as well as levy bonus later in the game. I also think that settling along the river would've made for a stronger city overall. Also, I think if you settle on elephants it gives you +1 hammers for your city tile. I tend not to worry too much about settling on hills or not, since I always feel that a good offense, or at least active defense, is better than a passive defense.

Yeah I hate coast tiles, specially when not FIN. I am not going to miss the Harbor or the Lighthouse and there's only 3 coast in my BFC ... I'll never miss them. This city is going to be under constant war and is more than likely going to be my HE city so it wouldn't build either of those anyhow. I also am pretty sure I had to be adjacent to the rice to take it from Brennus which is why I settled where I did.

As for the 4th city (elephantine) I am less concerned about health (my empire has like 6 health resources in it alone with plenty to trade) but I think you might be right about settling on the Jumbo for the :hammers:. If that's the case I definitely agree I should have settled on them. I rarely think long term enough about Levees ... by that point in the game I've won or lost already so the levee is less of a matter. Still when all I have is settle on hill for defense vs settle on the river jumbo for +1 early :hammers: and +2 :health: ... yeah you win.

 
As far as battles go, those of us who built the Wall can DOW on Peter and let him invade us. Using active defense (chariots, cats, elephants) we can rack up the GG points pretty quickly and not have to worry about pillaging. I may also do that if Willem takes my city cite west of Memphis. I really regret getting settlers out so slowly, but I've never played Ramesses and got tempted by the short build times for Wonders. When does round 2 start?
 
deleted message
 
@budweiser

Spoiler :


Right now I'd try and get one more southern expansion if you can (is that corn still open down there for you?) and then focus on fortifying and backfilling. Most of the AI's shouldn't get too testy too soon.


Spoiler :

My post got eaten. Briefly, I hesitate to expand south into the woods. I would rather go there in force later if necessary. Still, I would like to claim ivory but its 2 ranks away from the capitol.

Currently, I am thinking of expanding all along the coast of the peninsula to reap benefits of the Great Lighthouse.



PS - My college roomate was from hudson Ma.
 
Feral:

Spoiler :

I've sneaked in pottery out of habit, really. I never run pure SE economy, but actually this time I WANT to try it. Still, cottages make sense to me for a couple reasons:
- before caste system and even before libraries are completed, I still have the extra citizens from Rep. May as well start working those cottages for later.
- I think specialists can easily carry us to late medieval/early industrial era, but a switch to cottages is required at some point. A few already half-matured cottages will help in that stage.

The mistake was cottaging the floodplains at Memphis. Should have cottage grassland tiles instead, and use FP farms to feed the future specialists.


Agree about Brennus, very annoying city placement. I still hope to grab a couple cities in the jumbo/dye/banana region before things go violent. I think I'll adopt Judaism, so he probably will declare at some point. Good for me anyway, giving me the opportunity to capture Verlamion without diplo penalties.

 
futurehermit:
Spoiler :
I actually settled the spot 1E instead of the coast in that SW Copper spot. As feral said, it blocks off more land and gives me the Northern side of that river. If I dont take it, Willy will. The spot I settled only has 1 coastal tile, and while I am a big fan of coastal cities for harbors, CHs and TRs, theres no seafood there and it blocks both Bren and Willy a bit, sort of forms a Tri-State-Border corner.

I am playing this because I like it much better when all the AI's are a distinct different color. I hate those DeGaulle-Washington-Gilga or Brennus-Sitting Bull-GK games where you have to squint to see the borders. I am up to 800 AD though, but I will give an update on my BC's:
Spoiler :
Settled in place, jammed out a couple settlers and Wonders. Started with the GW, then Henge, then the Mids, all before 1000 BC. I also settled the Horse-Cow spot in the north, and the Copper-Rice in the SW, and had a wonderful time razing barb cities in the jungle. Its kind of fun to raze a barb city, then put a fogbuster just peeking there, so they re-build in the spot you want. In the end, the Barbs ended up building a city to cut off Peter (Ivory-Rice-Silk-Banana-Dye spot) and another to cut off Willy (the Gem-Rice-Nana-Jumbo spot), and I took them when I could (a bit early maybe, but the other AIs were lurking), worked like a charm. I own that whole river along Peters border.

I did blunder though. I should have built Henge first, then the GW. As it is, my first two GP's were Spys. I settled both, mostly for beakers and the ability to either never bother with Espionage the rest of the game and see research and eventually cities, or go full-bore EE at some point.

As for religion, I let Hindu spread to me, and with Peter, Willy and Brennus all Hindu, I have a nice buffer. JC and Justy are the only Buddhists.

Anyway, ending the report there, but I am playing it out. I need to start finishing some games, LOL. I dont mind letting my offline games go, I play Large "Lots of Landmasses" maps, because its the most fun. But I currently have no less than 7 online games that I want to finish up, and read the threads, but I always seem to start the next game that pops up, and the next one, and the next one . . . This one is fun though. Not going to give it away, but I also blundered away Lib, blah, and lost the AP. I have enough land to just sit tight and develop. I was planning to AP-switcheroo into Tao or Christianity too, but I didnt get the Prophet pop.

Just want to say "great idea" one more time feral. Going to read the other reports now, although I did check your game once I hit 1 AD, and noticed:

Spoiler :
We settled very close to the same first 2 spots, but I chose the spot between the Horses and Cows, saving room for another city right on that Wine by the other FPs. I also settled the 1E spot you mentioned by the Rice-Copper, and it took me a while to bust the culture on that Rice, so maybe keeping the Rice in the first ring is better. But I wanted some of that river, and didnt want a 2nd wasted coastal tile, and it worked very well to form a nice Orange-Yellow blocker of Brennus.
 
Pottery is still a priority tech for SE. The granary is the #1 economic building, and much of your production will come from the whip...granary allows faster regrowth.
 
@ Feralminded

Spoiler :
Why not finish the GW if you can? I understand that it may not be terrible to miss it and get the cash given your trait and resource situation, but you've boxed off a huge amount of land that is poorly fogbusted (and difficult to fogbust, with all the jungles) and difficult to traverse, and you have a very weak army at the moment. How will barbs not soon be storming your cities? Seems like a great time to get the GW to me -- yes, you'll be polluting your GP pool, but having an early settled GSpy with Rep. bonus wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for a game that is planned to be war-heavy.
 
About the SE vs CE in this game:

Spoiler :
I dont feel like there is enough food to run a pure SE here. I have a lot of cities where the 2nd food source is a 3F1C farm. Ramesses is excellent at the Hybrid though. Mids + AW gives you access to Priests on Roids. Lots of river for cottages, good commerce tiles in the Jungle, and even those cities will benefit from a couple Priests once they build up enough population.
 
@ Ultimocrat

Spoiler :

Why not finish the GW if you can? I understand that it may not be terrible to miss it and get the cash given your trait and resource situation, but you've boxed off a huge amount of land that is poorly fogbusted (and difficult to fogbust, with all the jungles) and difficult to traverse, and you have a very weak army at the moment. How will barbs not soon be storming your cities? Seems like a great time to get the GW to me -- yes, you'll be polluting your GP pool, but having an early settled GSpy with Rep. bonus wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for a game that is planned to be war-heavy.

Well my reasons on the GW are threefold.

First of all I REALLY need a scientist to bulb Philosophy for me and then another one to bulb education. Ideally I would have a third in there for an academy. I am anticipating a prophet here next which will be a nice boost (although I wouldn't sweat an engineer ... yey parthenon). Anyhow I really want a scientist and my capital is going to be where I drop GLib (see those forests ... don't they look like a great library to be to you?) That will be 8 scientist points from the lib, 6 more from the scientists. 2 engineers from the mids, 2 prophets from the SH. 78% shot at scientists there. If I build wall its only 70%. I can't have that. I can count on a scientist from a second city running two scientists but that's it.

Second of all I fear no barbs right now. My army is weak right now but I'm planning on building it very hard here. I need my army to deter an early attack anyhow and they might as well level up killing the local insurgents. In another 500-1000 years barbs won't much matter on land so its not worth it just for that. That said I do like the way some people are planning on using it to fuel a defensive war ... imho that's brilliant and I hadn't even thought of that. I tend to just maul my opponents and either win or lose ... I'm not smart enough to perform intelligent strategies :).

Finally I just want the :gold: bad. My tech rate is about to explode thanks to rep-fueled scientists but I could also use some deficit research until then. I need to wrap up Aesthetics here shortly and trade around for IW, Pottery, and Fishing among other things.

Basically its just the :gold:. I need it bad, specially since I really need to settle those last two cities and secure my Rexx its going to be really tight until I get Currency or CoLs up.
 
@Bleys

Spoiler :
I agree, there isn't really enough food here for the ideal SE, but that's the challenge! I plan to build zero cottages now just to show it can be done. No need to use the bottom civics at all then.
 
@Bleys

Spoiler :
I agree, there isn't really enough food here for the ideal SE, but that's the challenge! I plan to build zero cottages now just to show it can be done. No need to use the bottom civics at all then.

Honestly for the early part of any SE game you can live on basically your SSC alone, at least at Emperor. Our capital has enough food (2 FP, Green cow, corn) to support a plenty large city which can support our economy through liberalism. Of course we're (or I should say I'm) going to build some cottages along the way but I'm not too worried about the economy here as what we might lack in efficiency we will certainly make up for in size. I'm far more worried about securing my territory and winning the early wars.
 
Pottery is still a priority tech for SE. The granary is the #1 economic building, and much of your production will come from the whip...granary allows faster regrowth.

Absolutely and right now I know my economy is hurting without pottery (specially considering most of my cities are living on one food resource ... whipping hurts) but I almost always favor rushing Aes and trading for the backfill. By 1000AD you can't have it all and right now I don't regret my current tech path. Specially with Pacal and willem around who will probably get to alphabet fairly quickly.
 
As far as battles go, those of us who built the Wall can DOW on Peter and let him invade us. Using active defense (chariots, cats, elephants) we can rack up the GG points pretty quickly and not have to worry about pillaging. I may also do that if Willem takes my city cite west of Memphis. I really regret getting settlers out so slowly, but I've never played Ramesses and got tempted by the short build times for Wonders. When does round 2 start?

Oh and I am planning on tomorrow (thursday) to go over the plan/discussion for the next segment and then opening it up over the weekend. I figure we could play roughly 1000BC until 500AD or so but I am open for suggestion here. I figure that gives people friday->sunday to play the segment and then monday we discuss the next segment and open it up on Tuesday->Thursday play the third. I figure four segments to completion or two weeks total time per game. At the end of each game I plan on doing a full write up and submitting an article so that people in the future could follow each tutorial game if they like. That said this is all very much open for debate (I've never done this before). I suspect the second game in the series will run much better than this one but so far so good.
 
Heya, mind if I join the party? :)

I'm a Monarch player, just starting to win more often than once in a blue moon, although I must confess I probably only finish 20% of games. Not because they're lost or garunteed wins, I just get another idea into my head and want to play that instead!

Unfortunatly I can't take screenshots (Dodgy printscreen function on my keyboard, no idea how to use it [If anyone could help me. The keys got SysRq at the bottom, PrtScn at the top, and Insert is on the side of the key. Shift-PrtScn is the obvious but that seems to act as a paste function!]). Anyway, I'll just have to post my save often enough to be followed.

I did read through the first page or two of other peoples games, so I may have followed other peoples routes a bit more than I naturally would. Anyway, better to see how the greats play, then try to follow that strategy, and hopefully you can point out where I'm going off-course.

Spoiler :
Edit - 850 BC... a Great Prophet from my earlier wonderbuilding (I took Stonehenge and the Pyramids) comes along just in time to start a Golden Age, just when my units were starting to strike. I think I may have over-expanded in this game! Maybe I should rush to settle the gold and get some commerce in, or will that just add too my maintenance and make things worse? I've been harshly whipping my capitol, down to 2 pop so need it to grow quick for some much needed research. Once I get IW 2-3 Jungle cities can start to get underway!
 

Attachments

Top Bottom