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

[budweiser]

1000BC to 10AD

Dont read if you want to wait for discussion. But i would like some feedback. I am not used to this speed it feels like it is dragging.

Spoiler :

Phase II – 1000BC – 500AD

Whoops, a preflight check reveals Brennus is annoyed. Not good. I am also lowest on the power graph, roughly half what everyone else has.

Turn 121 – I refused open border with Caesar out of fear.

Turn 125 – Writing is in. Set to Pottery in 3. Super scout is scouting the woods. There is a buffer barb city in the S jungle.

WC are massing against east barb city, but I don’t like the combat odds. Cap is building barracks and growing pop. It will handle D for a bit while I build up pop. N city set to GLH in 21.

Oh no. Brennus wont open his borders. He does not like me.

Turn 128 – Pottery is in Math in 14? Justinina is the worst enemy of Brennus.

Turn 129 – Super Scout reveals Wil VOs border.

Turn 133 – Willy demanded Meditation. I cave. I’ll remember that Willy.

Turn 136 – Bronze is hooked up. Thebes is starting to grow. I put in a priest.

Turn 138 – The GLH is in. Cap starts settler 3.

Turn 140 – 500BC It’s been 500 years. I check the power graph. Barely any change and Willy is going off the charts. I decide to go Alpha in 13 for some trade back fill.

Turn 140 – Pacal demands I change to HR. I feel obliged to comply. That sets Alpha back 3 turns.

Turn 144 – Will cancels peace. Justinian offers IW for Math I accept. I need the power boost. Open borders with Pacal.

Turn 145 – A Prophet just showed up. Good ole Rabbi Achiva. Theology is mine if I want it.

Turn 147 – 4th city is down up by the NE river. I pop the GP now for Theology. Haha Hittites. Back to Rep.

Turn 153 – Alpha is in money in 13. 3 cities are on D as Thebes improves infrastructure, lib aquaduct.

Turn 158 – Aqua is done HG in 10.

Turn 159 – Priest for hunting to Caesar, Open Borders.

Turn 160 – 7 WC attack Hittites. 4 die.

Turn 161 – Ramesses captures the Hittites, 121G and a worker.

Turn 162 – I missed HG, darn. But I do have 400G.

Turn 163 – G Spy in cap. Settled.

Turn 165 - Trading – Willy Theo for Const, Arch, 90g Justinian Currency for Monarchy and 80g. Code of Laws in 7. Spies on Willy

Turn 167 - Ceasar demanded 320 gold, I refused. Enough is enough.

Turn 172 – 20 BC Conf founded in Hittite. Compass in 8. Caste System, priests go to scientists..

Turn 173 - 5BC Theo to Pacal for Calendar and 90g.

10 AD – STOP.

I have 5 cities, 596G (-14gpt), 3 religions, 5 workers, 3 axes, 4 WC, 2 cats (I got const from somebody in a trade), 2 spear, 3 warriors 1 galley, a settler in 1 turn and the GLH. Compass in 4. The capitol is at 10, Memphis is at 8.

I never did go south now Willy is taking it all. He is number 1 but I feel he is overextending into my sphere of influence. I also fear he will get Zeus, he has aest in 1.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Try Alt Gr + Print Scr, or a "Func" key + Print Scr if it is a laptop perhaps.

 

[feralminded]

OK so just for fun I did a Rush instead of Rexx to see how it turned out. Here's me at 1000BC

Spoiler :

Well I went with a pretty straightforward rush of Brennus. I managed to get down three cities (I wanted copper AND horses) and whipped out 8 chariots by 1500BC and sent them down after running into a spat of barb issues.

They arrived at his doorstep at 1300BC to find him completely unprepared.

8 promoted chariots vs 2 archers and a chariot on a hill? I took it out and lost 2 chariots but gained 2 C2 chariots and a medic chariot in the process.

His next city was also 2 archers and a chariot and this time I lost only 1 chariot (was a C2 though ). Finally found his 3rd city and razed it (was a pretty crappy city all things considered).

So here's how I look at 1000BC.

No SH, but did get 'mids around 1200BC and have rep going but my population is still recovering from the harsh whipping. Could get it all back online but I NEED to settle that rice/copper city to really secure my borders. I doubt I could swing settling one of those sweet S/SE cities though so this would be it for some time.

I don't like it. I feel far too stretched out and exposed. I mean it was easy enough to get the kill and hell with a few more WCs we might even be able to eliminate someone else because its so early but it just doesn't feel very good. I'm much happier with my other save I think even though it doesn't have that massive bankroll or the 2nd starting location (which honestly isn't super hot fwiw).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not good at writing structured reports, or rather I hate it. So, I'll do it like this: a 10 AD summary and a victory summary. Since I ran a CE rather than an SE on purpose, I'll also give my opinion as to which one would choose if they were to "play the map", and some general gameplay advice. If you want the walkthrough micro, that's what our host is providing .

10 AD

Spoiler :

OK. Opening techs? AH, mining/bronze, pottery. Since I'm going to use cottages I want them up early. Also, even the 2nd city is a cottage site:

So we're off to a good start.

I continue to expand and take on the dominant religion. After pottery I go writing, then I head for code of laws. I get beat to the religion, but I don't care. CoL is an alternative to aesthetics on maps like this. It trades well AND is a pre-req for bureaucracy. I used it to trade for monarchy and quite a few other techs while beelining bureaucracy. Ownage.

Barb city to the south kind of blocked me (and I didn't have power to take it, so willem got it). I still wanted the ivory and gems, and along with the gold this provided a solid +3 happiness pre-representation. ALSO, note the size of the capitol. It's conceivable you could be close to this size even under rep on this map, due to rep, resources, and trades. Grow it. I don't care what "economy" you're running. Grow the capitol.

0 wonders at this point, by the way. Academy is in capitol and that's most of my research.

On the map:

Unfortunately, while the happy resources suggest that rep would be strong, especially along with IND and stone, there isn't much food on this map. IMO, "pure" SE with specialists in many cities is weak on this map, relative to others. On the other hand, pyramids are easily attained, as are other wonders if you want to go that route.

IMO, the easiest/best approaches on this map would be one of the following:

CE: Similar to what I did, but way, way less lazy with running specialists in a non-capitol city to get more scientists.

SSE: The food is crap. However, with IND and a wonder resource, you have access to wonderspam. There's also plenty of room to block enough land to open national wonders. Basically, by spamming out wonders and settling great people, the capitol's output potential would be obscene. A fast oxford and this is a runaway tech setup, as long as you stay alive.

Rush: Not easy, everyone on the map declares at pleased except possibly justinian (I forget about him) brennus, who just happens to be the most logical rush target. Damn. They're all far too. So, this is #3 and not recommended.

1675 AD (Domination)

Spoiler :

Won't go into as much detail here. I do build one wonder:

Other than that, I just begged/sold for gold where I could and deficit researched. I got really lazy/complacent since diplo was really favorable (most of the problem AIs were jewish and liked me far more than others). So, I didn't even run specialists after getting my academy. This delays liberalism but of course I still get it:

Some backfill trades even nets me gunpowder, so cuirassers are the order of the day here:

First I bribe a world war:

Then hit willem and his vassal pacal (who does basically nothing). Willem doesn't build a ton of troops and basically gets bowled over. Pacal is an idiot and takes him as a vassal JUST before I kill him:

So basically I just kill pacal next because he doesn't have rifling either.

Brennus is also easy pickens for the same reason:

He gets some grenadiers after I take 3 cities but my #'s are way too high for it to matter now.

Peter declares on me too but I'm not scared of him. I bribe JC into war with him again and then quickly force:

JC just got replaceable parts finally. Now, it's just a matter of betrayal. I flip peter into jewish just AND beg 10 gold off justinian, then backstab JC. Most of the fighting is in Peter's area, and JC loses every unit he had been using offensively. I get some of his main cities before he gets rifling and he caps, game over:

 

[feralminded]

And that took you what ... 45 minutes to complete?

Will be good to see where we end up and compare it. As always your command of diplomacy makes me feel like a total hack. I mostly just smash things until they break ... finesse is for the smart people

 

[TheMeInTeam]

. Diplo might be the only thing in civ IV I'm ACTUALLY good at .

Like I said in the spoiler, WE/SSE is particularly strong on this map. Maybe the strongest.

But how religions/wars shake out will vastly affect comparisons regardless, even if one picks the same units!

 

[feralminded]

Ok lets talk about our next segment (looking to start it up tomorrow night). I would like to see us play through 400AD but am open to playing longer if people are feeling stifled by the time. I'm open to suggestions. Additionally from here forward we're going to be discussing what happened in the first 3000 years so no more need for spoiler tags for Segment 1.

That said lets look at the direction for our game. For this segment I will continue from my save from segment 1. Only AI and miked submitted saves (miked I'll leave you some feedback tomorrow when its not like 2am ... but yeah our saves are very similar) and while both are good, at least for this segment my previous save sets us up best for what I'm trying to illustrate here. I welcome people to continue their games but if you dead end or get frustrated don't hesitate to pick up from my 1000BC save and see if you can follow along.

Let's take a look at exactly what we're looking to illustrate next segment (1000BC->400AD).

1. We need to display effective trading tactics. A huge part of any Emperor strategy is tech trading. As you see I'm pushing hard for Aesthetics and this should provide me trade fodder to backfill my techs.
2. Show effective Diplomacy where possible. Diplomacy is my super weakness though so I doubt I will be able to show anything beyond how to avoid a dogpile. Hopefully some of the other experienced players here can show this when I fail.
3. Get down the Great Library ASAP. It is a HUGE portion of our techrate through liberalism ... we have no marble but its ok ... we have endless trees and IND.
4. Get down HE somewhere. We are behind the military curve and this building will catch us up. HE is a critical building on Emperor.
5. Catch up on the military side of things. Long before we will finish the HE we should be looking to fortify up a bit.
6. Finish our Rexx. This one probably won't happen this segment (we have A LOT of land) but we still need to be competitive in the land grab and block the AI as much as possible. Land is Power ... trust FutureHermit.
7. Begin to push for Liberalism. This means we use a GS to bulb Philosophy and unlock CS/Pacifism brokeness. We also get a GS into an academy and have a GS for education. I doubt we'll see education by 400AD but this still means we want 2 GS's in the next 100 turns.
8. Grow our capital. It's our SSC and we will need a lot of population to support CS scientists. This means trading and/or connecting happiness and health resources.
9. Spread a religion around. We need our religion to be in the major cities so we can abuse OR/Slavery when we aren't in CS/Pacifism. The capital absolutely NEEDS this or else pacifism won't work but everyone else should be looking to get it. Get your god(s) on!

So now looking at my save from 1000BC lets see the save specific goals to come.

1. We have a great person popping almost immediately. If its a GS our best bet is probably to academy him. If its a Prophet we probably settle him. But what about Engineer? My instinct says save him and build Parthenon with him (which will vastly enhance our CS/Pacifism cheese). However I'm open to suggestions. We don't need him for the Glib (that capital will build the Glib in 15 turns with a couple of lumberjacks)
   
2. We need some more units. The AI is still expanding but we don't want to make too inviting of a target. Heliopolis and Elephantine need some units to really hold back the ire. The threat isn't exactly immediate but by 400AD we better be fairly intimidating.
   
3. We need to land that Gem city and the Corn city. The gem city is an immediate need, the corn/dye city can wait until Peter takes out the Barb city (but we need to settle it very shortly thereafter). I'm pretty sure no one is going to bother with the copper/fish/wine city so we can hold off on that one but we will probably need to settle near the gold or else I'm pretty sure even with the dye/corn city Peter will still slink up the coast and settle the gold ... and once he's that close he'll probably push into our peninsula. I'm pretty sure we need to settle that as well.

Am I missing something major here? Honestly I think we'll be fine with a Pure SE for the rest of the game but we'll see what happens around liberalism (where we really start to slow down). Effective use of Caste/Pacifism really enhances our chances here so we really need to grow the hell out of Thebes so we can abuse Caste once it comes. I also am not seeing anything at all that looks like a decent Stock Market City ... I guess maybe that corn/dye city but its just not easy to see.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Damn, I really wish I could play this game with you, but my video card on my desktop got fried a couple weeks ago - which is why I've been posting on this forum so damn much.

On the prophet, if you get him, I'd bulb Theology and found Christianity with him. Here's why:

- Abuse Spiritual for Espionage: You can switch into Christianity for 5 turns to grab the -15% for dif religion and -25% holy city mission reduction cost. Get the most out of that Settled Great Spy.

- Apostolic Palace: IND and SPI; Build Reduction cost, Half Price Temples, Ability to manipulate civics to play a diplomatic game. Ramses has perfect traits to use it. If only I could load up a save to get a better handle on the diplomatic situation.

- Obelisks + Stone + Future War-Plans - With the ability to run two extra priest specialists in a city, you could very well make a run on Divine Right by bulbing a Great Prophet. Divine Right trades very well, gives you the Minaret (amazing for supporting large empires), and, IIRC, will give you a discount on teching towards Nationalism should you choose to go for Curasieers or step up Espionage.

Something to consider.

On the Scientist I'd bulb him for Philo if you can found Taoism for Pacifism and the aforementioned religion switch for Espionage. You'll get the second GS that much sooner, and can rely on Espionage to supplement your tech till them.

 

[mc-red]

Good stuff Feral never done this CS/pacificsm thing before.
I am thinking of taking your save to play this segment rather than continue my own.
I am guessing for the learning process that is probably the better way to go and try to stay with the script as much as possible.

 

[budweiser]

I am uploading my 10AD save. Please take a look.

Spoiler :

I will make some quick comments.

Researching Compass in 4 - I want to max trade on my 4+ coastal cities, will use OR.
After that choices:
Aes (4) Lit (4)
MC 8
CS 13 - I think this is a no brainer, yes?

Next GP in 21. Possible GA here.

Worries - Buddhist block, 4 guys have it. I also traded Theo around so they must be workin on AP. I would give my left you know what for a Buddhist city.

Military, but I think I can handle that with a beauro cap.

So, I will do CS, maybe MC and then gerenally tech the upper branch towards lib while trying, I think to grab stone wonders.

My game is more a combined WE/SE than a pure SE. And I could go for a cultural win, as long as I can defend myself.

 

[dorkynorky]

I just found this thread and it sounds really interesting. I can do well at Emperor with a CE and an early rush target, but I'm not too good at other strategies and conditions.

I'd like to take part in the series, but I need to see if anyone will be bothered by inconsistent participation. I've got a large family and can't always play the rounds at the times allotted. This is why I've stayed away from succession games.

In addition, I haven't done any posts with spoilers and screen shots so I'm pretty much illiterate in providing reports. So I'd have to make a few tests to get up to speed on that without making a bad (revealing) post.

Will it be okay if I participate and post the segments I can complete in the approximately appropriate time frame? If so, I'll give it a try.

A final question. I'm not sure whether the plan is for each person to play their own game following each round or whether, if they so choose, they can play from one of Feral's saves.

Sorry if this post sounds lame, but my user name isn't dorkynorky for no reason

 

[feralminded]

Hey no worries man ... everyone is welcome to participate in any fashion they can. The reason why I am putting this kind of effort into it is to try and make it easier for people. If you are a little late don't consider it a bad thing ... about the worst that will happen after each round is we'll start talking about the previous round without spoiler tags. That said the rounds are not that long so if you do fall behind a round given an extra hour or so you probably could complete two rounds.

As for the plan ... well you are welcome to play along or load up from one of my saves (or someone else's) at the beginning of each new round. What could be most instructive is try and play a round on your own and/or loosely follow my play by play and see where you end up. I definitely cannot claim to have played a perfect game here so its entirely possible you see something I miss. Ultimately what benefits this thread the most is the Q/A portion about the decisions made to get here. As you can already see some of the stronger players have quite easily picked out some holes in my play in the first 100 turns so certainly don't take my play by play as set in stone ... lol.

 

[feralminded]

Damn, I really wish I could play this game with you, but my video card on my desktop got fried a couple weeks ago - which is why I've been posting on this forum so damn much.

On the prophet, if you get him, I'd bulb Theology and found Christianity with him. Here's why:

- Abuse Spiritual for Espionage: You can switch into Christianity for 5 turns to grab the -15% for dif religion and -25% holy city mission reduction cost. Get the most out of that Settled Great Spy.

- Apostolic Palace: IND and SPI; Build Reduction cost, Half Price Temples, Ability to manipulate civics to play a diplomatic game. Ramses has perfect traits to use it. If only I could load up a save to get a better handle on the diplomatic situation.

- Obelisks + Stone + Future War-Plans - With the ability to run two extra priest specialists in a city, you could very well make a run on Divine Right by bulbing a Great Prophet. Divine Right trades very well, gives you the Minaret (amazing for supporting large empires), and, IIRC, will give you a discount on teching towards Nationalism should you choose to go for Curasieers or step up Espionage.

Yeah I have to admit I *almost* never go the religious path. I mostly stick to the Aes/Lit, then CoL/CS line early and trade around for what I need. Its pretty rare I get Theocracy until late and I almost never get DR. That's not to say those are not good things, it's just not my preferred tech path when I'm not going RE and when I am going RE I prefer a leader starting with Mysticism. That said you are absolutely right in your assessment ... Ramesses is a monster at RE and if someone wants to try that path here I'd say go for it. I just know a Prophet (5|2|3) would be a huge boost to our current and long term economy with no plans of going down the religious line.

As for the espionage ... since I didn't go GW (No Gspy) I'm pretty much going to ignore it until later. For those that did and did pop a Gspy though its definitely worth playing towards it if you can. I believe AI is already looking to boost his research off of Pacal.

On the Scientist I'd bulb him for Philo if you can found Taoism for Pacifism and the aforementioned religion switch for Espionage. You'll get the second GS that much sooner, and can rely on Espionage to supplement your tech till them.

It's pretty early to be bulbing Phi ... we need alphabet and CoL before it opens up I believe. By the time we get those we'll probably have another one pop (or we can force on with CS).

 

[budweiser]

BTW, 10AD to 400AD is only about 25 turns. Maybe it should go to 1000AD.

 

[feralminded]

BTW, 10AD to 400AD is only about 25 turns. Maybe it should go to 1000AD.

No its from 1000BC to 400AD. It should be 100 turns ... but I'm wondering if people would prefer 150turns. I'm just worried about going to far and losing sight of the steps along the way.

 

[feralminded]

Ok I got a very good PM recently about something I probably overshadowed or took for granted for the 4000Bc-1000BC segment. Here's the message

So ive been reading your posts because they seem to be the best.

Ive been an unsuccessful emperor player on civ iv and just got beyond the sword.

Ive been trying to play your egyptian scenario you got going and just cant seem to get it to work. Im right with you and your buildings and the corresponding turns. My error must be in how I am exploring with my warriors. First of all, some of them are dying. Second of all, by the time I am going to build the 4th city near the rice and elephants, I am being overrun and my 3rd city gets taken over. Any tips or ideas on what im doing wrong?

Thanks

I think I should have spoken more about Barbs before starting because honestly they very well might be the hardest thing about Emperor and I am VERY comfortable dealing with them at this point and the game I put up I really took some liberties without explaining it well in the play by play. Let me address the question as follows.

The barbs are straight up as nasty as possible on Emperor. On higher levels the Rexx is so fast there's just less fog for them to spawn in (even though they cross the border sooner). The key to exploring with your warriors is you want to end every possible turn on either a hill, forest, (both if possible) or by the coast or at least with a river between you and the unknown tiles. Even still this isn't fool proof but it helps. Also when exploring you want to naturally hit as many hills as possible because your unit see's farther this way. You also want to promote up the Woodsman line. You want to run away from bears even if you have a wood covered hill until you get at least woods I.

Once you stop facing animals things get more tricky. Your Woods I warriors can fare reasonably well against Archers if they are in a jungle/woods hill. That's a gamble I'd take. On flatground woods though ... woods I doesn't have much of an edge so I'd run. Against other warriors you are fine even on flatground woods. Your woods II warrior is precious so I wouldn't risk him again much of anything without a hill forest/jungle (we're really trying to get him to woods III to unlock HE). That said he has very solid odds against anything before 1500BC if he's on a forest hill. My Woods II warrior in this game killed 3 archers by defending woods hills before he got to Woods III. (You have what ... a 4.5 effective strength to their 3 + 1 FS?).

Spearmen and axes don't start to show up until ~1500BC but spears can still be managed with Warriors, you just need 2. An unpromoted warrior on a forest hill has like a 40% shot of taking out the spear but the 2nd warrior will win with the counter attack. You can reasonably defend even cities in this fashion but you are better off stationing a pair of warriors in a forest or hill on the spear's path just in case the 2nd warrior loses ... you can always whip out a 3rd warrior if need be. Axes require Chariots or other Axes (or archers ... but you won't see me going archery ever on Emperor ... I save that for Immortal) and in our case WCs. I've cut it super close and sent 4 warriors at an axe before (well had them stand on a forest hill in his way) but this is less than idea.

Regardless I do cut it very close with barbs. If you are not comfortable fighting off barbs you might want to start working on aggressive units (in our case chariots) sooner. If you follow the play by play instead of building a barracks in Memphis you might want to just start working WCs and forgo the barracks for the immediate future. Since we're not rushing its less important and a WC will run over any barb besides a spearman even unpromoted and spears are easy to handle with warriors once you get the hang of it. You will want to keep a WC up with your primary two cities (I did this in my playthrough) and get one down to your 4th city (Elephantine) ASAP. The city by Brennus (Heliopolis) doesn't have much fog around it and worst case can whip out an Axe since it has copper but I didn't have to do this. I defended everything with 2 WCs but 3 is more than enough.

That said defense wasn't enough. The other thing I did was around 2000BC use two warriors to fogbust that mega forest south of Thebes. Basically one on the hill between Thebes and Heliopolis and one on one of the hills near the gems. This pretty much eliminated Barbs from coming anywhere in my interior and only the ones coming for the NE peninsula or SE were all that mattered. Makes it easier to defend the territory when you can control where the barbs come from.

So I don't know if any of that helps people but I was fairly cavalier about my barb handling. Like I said we didn't need that barracks first since we weren't rushing so what might have been easier for people is just start making the WCs in memphis (I believe it started on the barracks around 2000BC ... plenty early enough to get some WCs out by 1500BC).

 

[feralminded]

@zizzeus

I'm sorry I didn't see your game sooner. Things move fast here sometimes. Anyhow that's definitely an interesting game ... I think you are going to want to Rexx hard into the AI while you still can though or else they will chew up your border. I'd look at that Gems city and the fish/copper city. You want copper at least. I'm pretty sure brennus has probably already gobbled up the rice/copper city but it's worth a look. You have the opportunity to end up with a really nice parcel of land here so leverage that and Liberalism will be no problem at all.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

I'd go to 400 AD in the next segment. 400 looks like a decent date to stop the expanding stage and start thinking about long-term plans.
Too much variance at 1000 AD, I think. At 1000 AD we are close to Lib (if not already there), probably AIs are fighting each others or fighting us.


I replayed my segment (lost the old save) following the same tech path, building order and city placement, but it's completely different:

Spoiler :

- Brennus didn't settle that stupid city.
- JC didn't declare war vs Justi. Actually, I didn't even met JC yet, so he's probably declared but I don't know.
- Stupid barb city to the NE is in a terrible spot this time, between rice and cows, on a hill, 1 off the coast and defended by archers.
- Barbs have settled a nice city 3E from Heliopolis, claiming 3x jumbos, dye and banana. Capturing this city is a top priority in the next segment.
- Pacal and Will are jewish, Brennus is hindu, Justi is buddhist, Peter still in no religion.
- For some reason I was some 5-6 turns later with everything. Wonders, buildings, cities. Probably first time chopped an extra forest.


Everything else is the same. City placement, settled GP and wonders.

edit: researching aethetics after writing this time, not alpha

 

[miked1991]

I've had about 4 attempts at this game now... I keep feeling I've gone wrong so want to try again to improve. Anyway, the pace is so slow I have the time to do that!

First 3 times I was playing specialists and once I put 4 cities down I couldn't cope with the maintenance anymore. Ofc minimal gold income as all specialists are scientists, so I was having to deal with units going on strike.

This map definatly seems to suit a cottage economy as that was my approach the 4th time, and I'm doing much better. At 395 BC I've just settled city #5 and am 2 turns away from settling the 6th city, with the Great Library just starting in Thebes. This game Peter beat the barbs to making the SE city, but luckily for me 3 tiles east from the spot I wanted (I went for the same one as feralminded has taken) so I was able to settle that as city number 4. Number 5 was to fill in between cities 3 and 4, ie that gap between the south city and the one blocking brennus. City 6 will be north of Peter's city taking the corn and 2 dye resources... that ones to block him off.

From here onwards I shouldn't have to race the AI to any city spots, so I can take my time a bit and build a few more workers to chop through all those workers before I expand further. My wonder approach was similar to feral's, took Stonehenge about 2100 BC after settling cities 2 and 3, then knocked in the Great Wall as I had barb Spears knocking on my borders, WC's not hooked up yet but useless anyway, and it was just as quick to chop the GW than train the warriors to defend. Pyramids followed after sending out a settler for city 4.

The only notable mistake I've made was with one of my scouting warriors I think. I got him up to 9 XP but then the axes started to show up. Found a warrior wandering around the north so sent him up to try to get that magic 10th XP... was struggling to get the warrior to engage and had to chase him around a bit. Eventually he took me on with me on a plain old hill, and I lost Disapointing, but I doubt I'd have had another chance to get him leveled up anyway, and a 9 XP warrior is fairly useless. What would be the standard approach if you can't for whatever reason get the 10 XP warrior? Is the HE just left until after the first war?

Big question really is how do I get the SE to work, as I was running dead on research whilst researching Asthetics/Iron Working... sitting with lower cities in jungle I can't improve until I get IW, and can't get IW until I improve those cities a bit!

Edit - Ok, I'm up to 235 AD, and I'll put a save onto this post. I havn't really done anything special since the above, I completed the GL and since then I've added a couple of workers to my empire, and am now starting to make a few units to improve my appalling defence! However the games diplomatic scene is getting very complicated and as thats something I'm terrible at (my policy has always been, I'm not giving you anything for free, clear off... so I rarely have many friends). I've decided to go Buddist as that seems to be where the strength lies. I'm with Peter, Pacal and Cesear as a Buddist, and we are the top 4 civs by score. Brennus is a lone Hindu, Oranje a Cunfuction, and Justine a Jew. My worry is that although I'm with the stronger civs, 2 of my 3 border civs aren't with me! The scenes even more complex, as Ceaser's jumped into war against Justine, presumably to get out of a hole. Pacal and Peter are both invading Oranje, with me sitting quietly although I did declare on Justine to keep people happy. My worry is that Brennus is aggressive and annoyed towards me. He could strike at anytime, and I can't bribe any civs to war him as they've all got their hands full in another war of sorts. Despite being pleased with Peter, I'm still worried about our borders as if he wanted to, he could steam roll over me at any moment. I wouldn't be surprised if Brennus could take me out too!

Oh... and I also have the small issue of 2 barb cities in the north I need to take out at some point. At least they picked a couple of nice city spots!

Any pointers on where I should go with this game from here? Being an im-patient person, I'll probably play on but keep the save to come back to and try out any advice. I seem to have gone away from the SE idea in this game, it just doesn't seem to suit the map and although I tried it 3 times, each one ended up in a ditch somewhere!

Here's that save...

 

[Thalur]

Sorry I'm a little late to the game, but I wasn't sure if I would join in. I had a first run through on my own (though I had read most of this thread already) and didn't do very well - I'm not at all used to REXing as I've been playing a bunch of prince/marathon sword rushes (as julius and then as boudica). So I had a second go, following feral's walkthrough up until about 2500BC (though I settled 1E). After that, I diverged a bit as I'll explain in the spoiler below. So far emperor doesn't seem much harder than prince, but maybe that's down to the excellent advice from this thread.

Spoiler :

The main deviation I made was to build the great wall and the pyramids in Memphis rather than Thebes because of Feral's comment about polluting the GPP pool in Memphis. I managed to get both built by 1025BC (which is where I stopped) by chopping all the forests I could, and by whipping two pop for each wonder. I think could have got them a bit earlier if I had decided from the outset that that was what I was going to do.

I was able to get the third city placed down by the rice/copper, but my fourth settler was delayed (I think I built the barracks and a WC before it) so I haven't got a fourth city yet.

The reason I stopped in 1025BC is to ask for some (minor) advice: what should I do about my first GP? If I put 2 priests in Thebes I will get a 100% prophet in 8 turns, and clear out the GPP pool for future scientists; or I can put 2 priests in Memphis and get (probably) a spy in 10 turns. I'm leaning towards the prophet route at the moment as it clears the way for high probability scientists in the future, but I can't help wondering whether a great spy would be more useful?