Emperor Tutorial Series II - The Fundamental CE (Monarch/Prince players welcome)

[Lansky]

Well I got antsy and finished the game in one of the most uneventful experiences in my life.

Spoiler :

All my southern neighbors had massive power scores even after I whipped and drafted an army of around 30 units. More than enough for me on noble! Emperor had me concerned so I spent another 25 turns building up another similarly sized stack. Tell Willem to die and he throws his massive power at me! What seemed like 100 crossbows and 30 elephants.... really? Shaka at least had a stack of 30ish knights by the time I tried to make him capitulate and quickly supplemented these with grenadiers and musketmen.

Honestly figured I'd lose and didn't want to document that so I'm severely lacking pictures other than the very end when it dawned on me that I had actually won. Game was horribly uneventful and ground on as I started watching tv and never actually built infrastructure. Every city with only a few exceptions pumped a mounted unit or siege from about 1150 on. Not really proud of that but it was just hard to try and focus when I was running over longbows with cavalry from around 1300AD to 1750AD. Then I had to go up against the mighty grenadiers! Bleh.

The only picture I even bothered to take.
[img=http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/164/victory2cw8.th.jpg]

On the plus side this was partly possible due to just how great my capitol covered in cottages ended up performing. Ended up running Bureaucracy until 1800ish and the one city covered the costs of a sprawling empire without Wall Street or uh... even a bank Think Darius is partly to thank for this heh.

 

[mc-red]

Giving this a try to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

tech path: wheel->pottery->mining->bw->ah->archery->math(partly)->myst->math->aesthetics
Built worker then warriors to happy cap.
Scout managed to find Mali and the Dutch.
Open borders with Dutch have mapped most of their land.
Barbs have settled two cities in jungle.
I really want that gem site.
I only have three cities.
Looking at everyone else my cities look underpowered but I wanted to expand towards the gems.
Teched archery and fog busted so have had no problems with barbs so far.
Teched math for better chops.
Unfortunately no one unit has collected a lot of xp.
Shaka declares on Mali.
Summary: crap start but slight hope I can get something out of this.

 

[Crusher1]

Initial tech.

Spoiler :

Min, bw, myst, ah, whl, pot, fish, wrt, ast

Initial B/o's.

Spoiler :

Capital; worker, warrior, warrior, StoneHenge, settler, settler, warrior, warrior, warrior, settler, immortal, settler. My Capital only had 1 Warrior fortified and never saw any action to good use of other fogbusting troops.

1st worker; farm, mine, mine, chop sh, chop sh, farm, road to city 2, road to horse, pasture, chop immortal, head to Capital to start cottages

1st city b/o; worker, immortal, immortal, granary. This city had 1 warrior fortified and 1 scout fogbusting and saw no action. My Scout had already encountered 1 bear and 3 lions and earned WII promotion.

1st city worker; help with pasture, chop immortal, mine

2nd city b/o; worker, worker.

2nd city worker; road to river for trade/connection, pasture, begin cottages. This city had 2 warriors fortified and defended against 2 barb warriors and 2 barb Archers. I saw the Archers coming and positioned myself on the other side of the river saving my butt.

3rd city b/o; worker. This city had 1 warrior fogbusting and never saw any action. This warrior fought off 2 warriors and 2 lions while fogbusting before the city was founded and also reached WII.
4th city b/o; worker. No action at anytime. Immortal is fogbusting.

4 screen shots.

Spoiler :

Final thoughts.

Spoiler :

The layout of the land made it very easy to skimp on warriors or other anti barb units. The Capital, city 1, and city 3 have their boundaries not only touching but also against the coast. They have the perfect fogbusting cover. Makes things much easier when you plan ahead.

Next I'll plan to settle or conquer (barb) a lot more cities. My GP will be finished very soon and this helps. I'll time my next segment to coordinate with the completion of drama.

 

[Monsterzuma]

1000 BC

Spoiler :

I have 4 cities settled among which a gem city to the far south-west. Capital is at size 7 and in full-out cottaging mode, growing as we speak. First satalite city built some axemen for defense, then switched to a library. It is currently working two cottaged floodplains and a scientist, to which another scientist will be added in 5 turns. The workforce is currently cutting down the jungles that are preventing us from harvesting the gemstones underneith them. We own the techs Monarchy, Iron Working and most of Mathematics (2 turns left). The plan is to tech Calendar next (via Fishing, Sailing) in order to exploit some of the resources in the capital BFC. From there on, it's straight to Civil Service. We have one grapevines tile that still needs improving in the capital BFC. Beaker per turn rate is around 50 and steadily rising.

10 AD

Spoiler :

Empire-wide break-even beaker/turn rate over 250. Owner of 6 cities with the 7th running about in Settler form. Philosophy, Code of Laws, Calendar, Civil Service and most of Paper are in. Founder of both Taoism and Confusionism. Currently teching towards Education so as to get the Oxford project running ASAP. Hope someone will trade me Stone or I'll be in for a drudge at the end of it.

 

[michmbk]

Some thoughts on the mining/bw vs AH debate on initial tech path - in spoiler in case anyone hasn't played the first 50-100 turns:

Spoiler :

It seems like a lot of people went mining/bw. I went AH, because with hunting and AG as initial techs, it was only 15 turns, not the usual 18-22 turns I usually see. Plus we have a chariot UU, so I would have thought hooking up horses would be a priority. Mining/BW is still 30+ turns, so it takes awhile to discover copper. I get that it opens slavery and chopping, but my thinking was hooking up those fast moving immortals early would help with barb busting and settler escort. In fact, it helped me immensely to quickly settle my superb blocking city way down south far away from my capital - any delay in that would have meant Willem would have gotten some of that land from me.

One big advantage I find from early AH is that a couple chariots really allow me to aggressively send my settlers off to block off land or to claim key resources like gold or gems. Time is of the essence in settling those key spots, and AH allows you to send a fast moving horse unit to accompany your settler and worker to the settling spot. I get it's not as useful if you're settling close to the capital as you don't need protection, but I like to aggressively block land when I can. Here it meant I only have to protect one border city - the AI can't even get to my other 12 cities unless they want to load up galleys.

In addition, having immortals early allowed me to delay BW a bit, since I didn't really want to use much slavery in this game - wanted to focus more on HR for large cities.

 

[Bleys]

Well I got antsy and finished the game in one of the most uneventful experiences in my life.

I didnt read your spoiler, so I am not sure if this comment is an overlay to a "smooth, no surprises game" or a negative testimonial about playing with Random Events off, so I am assuming the later for the purposes of this response.

I am not a fan of no events. There, I said it. In fact, "not a fan" is too weak of a phrase. No-Huts . . . ok, I have read many threads about them, even started my own, and got a reasonable response. But No Events just makes a game that already gets rather rut-ridden and mundane at times into a snooze-fest.

IMHO, the biggest negative of No-Huts is the gold, without gold to deficit research, the slider drops the instant you found your 2nd city. Personally, I think the biggest negative of Yes-Huts is that the AI gets the vast majority and a string of Tech pops can mean insta-death on Immortal, and even Emp can be a struggle if Willem or Mansa suddenly comes to Open Borders at 2900 BC.

Speaking for myself, I have decided to leave both Huts and Events on, even if I ever become a Deity player (not bloody likely, since I dont even enjoy Immortal much). If I get a bad luck break, oh well, I can always restart, or play another game, but Huts and Events add too much flavor for me to stop using them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Bleys...I'm pretty sure he's not talking about random events, but rather how the game felt in context to his life experience.

Um...I was able to upload to photobucket, so here goes the summary:

To 25 AD

Spoiler :

Not much to say. Settled off the hill to be able to work it, went BW/pottery/worker tech/writing/monarchy/col/math/bureaucracy. The AIs get monarchy too slowly on emperor IMO. Obviously city 2 grabbed copper so I could skip archers.

I expanded like mad. Darius is unbelievably favorable to do this. We also have a lot of cottage heavy land. The AI also hates each other a lot so I pre-emptively closed a lot of borders to avoid too much diplo ire and keep hate focus elsewhere. This meant OB with shaka and stalin only I think. It also meant lots of wars for the AI but not for me.

Cottages are pretty strong:

I grab the barb city early in the next segment with axes.

 

[Bleys]

Bleys...I'm pretty sure he's not talking about random events, but rather how the game felt in context to his life experience.

I know bro, I just used to opening to soap-box for Events On in all the series games except the Cookbooks, since they actually do influence the voting in those (both ways) and thats sort of against the idea of those series'.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To 835 AD/lib

Spoiler :

Here we are in 500 AD:

The capitol:

Liberalism:

Other than that, it's just staying out of trouble. I kept some border axes, expanded, spammed archers for happiness, and let the cottages mature. I wound up with 4 hammer cities and the rest cottages, I got really lazy on great people after the library or I'd have probably gotten lib sooner. Second time I did that in this series...

To 1744 AD/Domination

Spoiler :

Had some bad breaks, but it was ok.

After taking nationalism from lib, I went for military tradition, then guilds/gunpowder/chemistry, then rifles. While heading to rifles I was building knights then cuirassers from 4 workshop cities. The NE site with copper, the SE site with copper, the site along the south with iron, and the sheep site in the north. I hammered out quite a few pre cavalry, then produced more cavalry as I upgraded. The result was a decent/fast gunpowder strike force:

But this map wouldn't be easy on me. Nope. Shaka is instantly bribed into the war, and because monty was willem's vassal and mansa shaka's, I faced basically the entire continent except a handful of cities belonging to stalin. Fun fun fun. So much for this being an easy one, but let's do it:

HAHA! DIE!

They keep coming...

But I'm not so kind...

I finally pick willem off (I'd gone SP after rifling)

Monty actually wouldn't cap until I took a city. He was fine on his own? NOT.

Back to our neighbors who picked the wrong side:

And once MM is gone will shaka cap?

Of course not. That would make too much effing sense wouldn't it. I hate this game's mechanics.

Anyway shaka had rifles by the time I got to the 2nd city of his he took. I hate magic rifles but whatever. I foresaw this and had spies/ep focus on him, and many of the cities I took had EP buildings, while I did also make some jails back home to deal with emancipation anger and WW back hom.

I'd long set up HE/WP during the other wars, as well as IW. Four cities had military academies too. Basically I had a LOT of cavalry per turn and always a fresh supply of some combat II/pinch guys, so shaka's rifles weren't scare with spies.

I beat shaka down a bit more and he caps for my domination win:

 

[feralminded]

Holy crap ... a LOT of games. I will try to read through them all but I can't make any promises. Anyhow first of all on the no events, no huts. I normally play with both ... I LIKE both as well ... but for a tutorial series I turned them off. I would turn off resource popping from mines as well if I could. I'm just trying to eliminate as many random factors as I can for the purposes of instruction.

Now let me see about some feedback about the map. Since we're looking to play the next segment here starting tomorrow night its worth discussing the 2nd step of the CE process. First lets see what step #1 looked like.

Immediate Game Goals (4000BC->1000BC):

• Scout for a potential rush target.
• Get either horses or metal by 2000BC for barb defense (need horses by 2500BC if rushing)
• Start building cottages by 2000BC, sooner if possible. Prioritize river tiles.
• Try to get a 10XP unit either fighting barbs or in the rush so we can build HE.
• If we choose to rush we probably need to have already taken an enemy capital by 1000BC.
• If we don't rush we should have at least 4 expansions and be blocking off territory from the AI to set up a solid Rex for the next segment.

Now for the next steps in a CE we have a few pretty compelling ones.

#1. Start to grow our capital. This requires happiness and health resources as well as HR. If we do any whipping there it must be fairly calculated. A granary will be a big deal.

#2. Work our way towards Bureaucracy. To get Civil Service we will need Mathematics and Code of Laws. CoL most probably comes from Priesthood as well. We can trade for a lot of these techs.

#3. Land the Great Library if possible. While less compelling under CE than SE, the Glib is still a VERY nice source of Great Scientists. Ultimately that's the big win for us. We don't strictly have to build it in the capital if we don't want to though. If you have a decent GPfarm marked out already and you can drop it there in a reasonable amount of time go for it. That said this is NOT a strict requirement for a CE.

#4. What IS a strict requirement is we get ourselves at least 1 GS, but ideally 2-3. 1 for Academy capital, 2 for Education. If we can get 3 in time ... philosophy or even liberalism. All additional GS's should look into making academies in high commerce cities and we should look to build merchants and engineers from then on.

#5. Right our economy. While not technically tanked YET ... it will be soon. We are Fin/Org though so it won't be that bad and those cheap courthouses will come in handy. Still currency should be something of a priority and Calendar will come in handy as well since some of our food resources are Bananas. Tech trading will be a big factor here.

#6. Fill in our land. We have a gift of a parcel of land here and will need a small army of settlers and workers to make use of it. Don't fear building helper cities near the capital to grow cottages faster. I personally could see 2, possibly even 3 helper cities to help get the most out of those cottages. That said we have A LOT of other compelling sites to develop. We will need as many workers as possible here.

#7. Secure that front line. Most people will have the peninsula cut off shortly but we still must be mindful of other SoD's. We have two warmongers on our continent and while it shouldn't be too hard to keep them fighting each other we still must not neglect their appetite for a weak city. Catapults, HA's, and metal are the order of the day. Possibly even walls. Clear the trees adjacent to your frontline cities ... don't give them any advantage. You can neglect your military a bit if you can keep everyone else fighting but don't get lazy. You're only a turn away from Shaka making peace with whomever and turning on you.

 

[Bleys]

Spoiler :

I find it just freakin' crazy I only met one other civ by 1000BC. Most everyone else met Willam, Shaka, Monty or Mansa and Stalin. Lol cant remember if its Monty or Mansa or both.

Spoiler :

My first city went close to Willem, and I got most of my contacts once I opened borders with him. Willem sort of blocks off many of the AIs, but he is often the first to Writing and tends to open borders quickly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hey feral if you can make diplo give roughly 0 war odds why would you advocate building defenses beyond HR garrisons?

 

[feralminded]

Hey feral if you can make diplo give roughly 0 war odds why would you advocate building defenses beyond HR garrisons?

Because I know nothing about diplomacy. I'm all combat and empire management myself. That said I don't think its a bad thing for players to get used to building defensive forces at emperor level.

I will say this ... I'm pretty sure it will be easy to keep most of the AIs fighting each other endlessly. I think Shaka and Mansa actually have hidden negative modifiers against each other? I don't know the diplomacy too much. I just know Mansa is almost guaranteed to be friendly with us here, Monty almost guaranteed to hate us. Shaka and Stalin will be borderline but both attack with poor odds. Willem will just happily trade with us forever until we decide we want his land. I believe everyone here can and will declare at pleased though which is the only thing that semi-scares me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Because I know nothing about diplomacy. I'm all combat and empire management myself. That said I don't think its a bad thing for players to get used to building defensive forces at emperor level.

I will say this ... I'm pretty sure it will be easy to keep most of the AIs fighting each other endlessly. I think Shaka and Mansa actually have hidden negative modifiers against each other? I don't know the diplomacy too much. I just know Mansa is almost guaranteed to be friendly with us here, Monty almost guaranteed to hate us. Shaka and Stalin will be borderline but both attack with poor odds. Willem will just happily trade with us forever until we decide we want his land. I believe everyone here can and will declare at pleased though which is the only thing that semi-scares me.

Yeah everyone you've met declares at pleased. There is a big peace weight variance between monty/shaka and MM, and somewhat less of one (but still there) between the two idiots and Willem. Stalin's weight is pretty low too so he's a lot like monty/shaka only tends to suck more.

Thing is, if willem has closed borders or is at war with them, they can't attack . Also, the odds of the AI going across another AI borders to make war with us when it has a border worst enemy are slim to none. The most threatening person to us on this map is actually willem for most of the early game, but it's a pretty marginal threat. He has other things to worry about, like monty and people he's below cautious with, which monty/shaka usually will be.

Building military is often a good thing but excluding more useful short term builds because the opportunity is there is frequently better. You just have to make sure you can protect yourself although things like WHEOOHRN and some minimal border garrisons/city on hill or whatever will do in most games.

 

[tycoonist]

Spoiler :

well, its 100AD and the game is all but won. i have tons of land, and the second best leader in the game. space would be too easy, might try conquest or some such lark...

 

[Lansky]

I didnt read your spoiler, so I am not sure if this comment is an overlay to a "smooth, no surprises game" or a negative testimonial about playing with Random Events off, so I am assuming the later for the purposes of this response.

Eh it was more of a "the AI was even dumber than normal and for jumping up difficulties I was hoping for more" comment. However, no random events was also quite boring and I most assuredly prefer to play with them on. I do not mind no huts however as popping 2-3 settlers as opposed to a few maps can really swing the difficulty level of the game and after quitting World of Warcraft the lower the RNG influence the happier I am.

Spoiler :

Just meant failing to complete wonders for gold was actually part of my early game strategy. Actually had to stop building Stonehenge with 2 turns left as I wanted the gold more than I wanted the benefits at the time. That sounds dumber in writing then it did in my head.

 

[Bleys]

I do not mind no huts however as popping 2-3 settlers as opposed to a few maps can really swing the difficulty level of the game . . .

As soon as you hit Noble, there will never be another Settler or Worker in any hut, for the Human or the AI.

My problem with Huts is that the AI starts with so many units it can cover the land and pop 3 times as many as I can. When they pop techs . . . its like a double-whammy, especially at higher levels where they already have huge bonuses. I have gotten Open Border requests in the 3000 BC area, and then watched as they ran away with the tech lead and dominated their neighbors. And the time it happened to me was Monarch, I cant imagine getting an OB request at 3100 BC on Immortal, I might just re-start rather than try to run through that brick wall.

 

[Lansky]

As soon as you hit Noble, there will never be another Settler or Worker in any hut, for the Human or the AI.

Good to know. So many little points that I'm completely ignorant about. I see your point about AI tech rate though, as that would certainly be daunting.

 

[Crusher1]

To 1000 AD.

Spoiler :

Some thoughts.

Spoiler :

I don't like the HR route because it's inflexible, makes you keep troops at home instead of wherever, not to mention, the biggest thing in the book, for me at least, WW. Of course, if your creative then it's a hammer saver too (perhaps regardless)Drama gives you free rain of the slider and lets you have the most room to maneuver. Besides, you will be able to trade for Monarchy and all those techs leading up to it at some point. Then you have slider + monarchy.

Continuing from the 1000 BC I finished Ast, Drama, Alp, traded for sailing, IW, Mat and COL at some point, then researched Cur, CS, bulbed Phil, researched Paper, bulbed half of Edu, then finished Lib in 890ish. Getting SH early cost me 1 GS but it was still worth it. I also traded for Feud, MC, Cal, and Cons. I couldn't get Machinery......rather, I got machinery, I couldn't get Engineering.

So, to date I have built SH, GL, Parth, and finished Lib in the late 800's and took Nation. I built the HE and NE in my GP Farm/Production city. I have started the Taj Mahal and plan to coordinate everything so I can run 3 golden ages back to back to back. In the 1st Gage I plan to switch to caste and pacifism while pulling in over 160 GPP per turn which will net me 3 great people in 10-12 turns because I have already planned ahead and my next GP will be finished almost immediately upoon completion of the Taj. The rest of my empire will be either researching wealth or building needed things for the first 2 golden ages which will accelerate my research to Democracy A LOT.

By the time I start my 3rd consecutive G age I will have PP and DEM and will then run my science slider at 0% while all cities focus on wealth. I'll be pulling in 700-900 gpt. 7-9,000 gold will let me rush buy about 36 maces and 15 cannons in about 8 turns. Game over =) Or at least leading to it by that point for sure..

Last note, always use Binary Research. It will save you 10-20 research turns a game, minimum.. 100 beakers at 100% nets you 125 with a library. 70% of 100 beakers is 70. 70 beakers + 25% for a library is about 94 beakers. The same holds even truer when using a SE.

@ blocking off and initial tech preferences.

Spoiler :

The southern part of this map is wide open making any blocking attempts harder and the only thing you might block is yourself from your city. Then again, with access to horses and one of the best UU in the game, there is no need to worry about it anyway.

I prefer to grow to size 5, or 4 with only 4 tiles improveable to 4production. This allows me 2 things. 1st, my research will be faster if I can work more tiles with commerce and because I will have no maintenance cost. 2nd, by the time my 1st settler is finished I will already have BW, AH, and the Whl.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

I've accidentally deleted my save AGAIN, so I'm playing without intermediate steps.

To 1140 AD (late lib):

Spoiler :

First: I need to start researching Monarchy earlier. I always wait FOREVER to trade for it. Result: my capital is size 11 at 1140. Bad.
Second: faster expansion. Did a better job than usual here, but I need to improve. I still worry about my economy, but when pottery and writing are done, there is no such thing as unrecoverable crash.


Tech path: mining - bw - masonry - mysticism - wheel - ah - pottery - fishing - writing - aesthetics - IW and meditation (Will) - poly, priesthood and sailing (Mansa) - literature - CoL - mathematics and archery (Will) - CS - monarchy, alpha, monotheism and calendar (Will) - currency and construction (Mansa) - paper - MC (Will) - edu - philo (bulb) - liberalism + nationalism - researching gunpowder


4000 - Settle 1E

3150 - First AI is Mansa.

2900 - Scout dead.

2625 - Pasargadae:

2250 - Great Wall:

1750 - Stalin.

1650 - Susa:

1150 - Ecbatana:

1025 - Finally met Will. He's my closest neighbor, but he never sent a scout this way.

675 - Montezuma.

455 - Tarsus:

440 - Great Spy settled.

110 - Barb city razed:

65 - Montezuma declares war vs Will.

25 AD - I join the war vs Monte. He can't reach me, there's Willem between us.
Gepid captured and an Immortal unlocks the Heroic Epic:

70 AD - Gordium:

325 - Great Library:

400 - Crap. Montezuma capitulates to Willem. Should have bribed him out.

415 - GS finally builds an academy in Persepolis.

520 - Stalin declares war vs Mansa.

805 - Bactra:

950 - Sardis:

970 - Finally Shaka shows himself. He was one of the first AIs I met in my first game.

1000 - Meet Pericles and GS bulbs philo.

1050 - Crap II. Stalin capitulates to Mansa. So, to sum it up. Two warmongers (Monte and Stalin) declared war vs two peaceniks (Will and Mansa) and got completely owned, vassaled by said peaceniks.

1140 - I win lib:

Empire:

Techs. Will and Mansa already shared everything with their vassals:

Luckily Will and Mansa don't like each others: