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

[Bleys]

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.

No worries mate. The very, very best advice I can give on how to play Civ IV is "Read the forums". You will pick up stuff like this as it starts to gain importance in your games.

Huts can be fun, especially at lower levels. At Noble and Prince, one "trick" is to start with another Scout or Warrior, then go for a Worker, JUST to go find more huts. I actually used to do that quite a bit, but its a very cheesy thing because as you go up in levels of difficulty, it will actually hurt you.

Personally, as I said, I enjoy huts and events. I have basically decided that I will keep huts on despite the danger of having the AI get out to a blazing start, because the gold/map/tech I get from the 2 or 3 I will find is worth it (to me). Others have different opinions and thats one of the biggest beauties of this game. There are no "absolutes" in Civ. There are usually a number of different "right answers", and while some may be more "right" than others, that doesnt make less perfect choices "wrong". The biggest key is to HAVE FUN. So if building the Mids every game, or turning off Huts, or WBing in Stone and Marble in your BFC at 4000 BC is fun, by all means, go for it.

Sorry for the off-topic derail feral, this is shaping up to be a fun series and I am looking forward to future rounds. I hope we do a TRE next, lots of great leaders for that one, Willy, Hannibal, Vicky, Washington, Mehmed, Ragnar, Joao, heck any leader with FIN (water tiles are stronger), IND (GLH helper), ORG (Courthouses and LHs), EXP (Granaries and Harbors) is very playable. Other good traits for that style of game are IMP (for REXing, since you likely will make your own settlers), CHA (mostly for the Happiness bonus, since you want bigger cities ASAP), CRE (again, the doubled buildings), and even PHI (SE tasctics can be really strong with this economic system, since you will have less cottagable land, and more food+commerce tiles, i.e. Fish instead of Corn, Clams instead of Wheat, which make an SE thrive). Its a fun system and not difficult to play at all. TRs arent really micro-manageable, they just happen, so you have more time to focus on other things like exploring and REXing (always get an extra Work Boat or 2 our early).

Oh, one other off-topic thing, for EmperorFool, is that dot-map you have from the stuff you're working on for BUG? Looks awesome mate, you guys deserve a credit on the Box, and BUG should be offered as an in-game choice of UI's.

 

[bobbyboy29]

Just a couple of questions/ thoughts about this game, 1. When is it too late to go after the Oracle with marble hooked up, I can start at 1000BC, is that too late? 2. I settled in place, now I've only got 1 resource in the capital's BFC, I don't care if it's got oil, coal, aluminium and uranium. 1 resource for 5000 years is never enough!!!!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Huts can be fun, especially at lower levels

If you're wondering how that settler 20 BC culture win got there...that's how.

 

[dorkynorky]

1000 BC

Spoiler :

Got peninsula secured with some great cottage cities in Susa and Phonecia. Self researched IW to insure I could get the jungles down. Should be able to get a unit promoted up soon by picking off a few more barbs with Immortals. Settler going to Fish Pig Cu Marble city NE of Persopolis which will be worker/settler pump initially and then possibly GP farm. Getting a good production city is an issue I have'nt worked out yet.

Haven't seen Ai lands yet but I got a message indicating Susa wanted to join Willie so he must be over there not too far. Have OB hoping that he'll spread Buddhism. Since met Mansa first, suppose he's close over there as well. Need to get a warrior scouting down there post haste.

Will finish Aesthetics, but not sure what will come next. So far no one has Alphabet. Although it means self researching a couple of religious techs I think I'll head for Monarchy and HR for increased happy caps since its on the way to CoL and even though we have a number of Calendar resources thats a lot farther to go on the tech tree. With marble can build GL fairly quickly maybe away from Persopolis. Just have to watch out for Stalin and get back to Literature in time to keep him off the GL.

 

[EmperorFool]

EmperorFool, is that dot-map you have from the stuff you're working on for BUG? Looks awesome mate, you guys deserve a credit on the Box, and BUG should be offered as an in-game choice of UI's.

Thanks! Yes, the in-game dot-mapping tool is in our current development version. It works just like the sign tool (ALT + S), plus you can hide/show all the BFCs to see the map better. If all goes well, we'll release a new installer for BUG within a week.

 

[Crusher1]

When is it too late to go after the Oracle with marble hooked up, I can start at 1000BC

Yea, too late. For Emperor and Immortal you need to complete it no later than 1240 BC (AI's still complete it at 1500's and earlier sometime). If you still get the Oracle past that date you were simply lucky the AI's sucked because that is not the norm =).

That means with Industrious and no chops you typically start the Oracle at 1800 BC, or, if you are not Industrious, then 1700 BC + chops should be safe.

 

[feralminded]

Correct. Most early wonders are a "get them by 1000BC or else" kind of affair. That's not to say they won't go very late ... but if your strategy requires them then aim for 1000BC. That said if you have spare hammers when you have a resource like this it can still be worth going for since you will get a 2:1 return on the invested in ... which is awesome ... and worst case is you just get the wonder. Win-win really if you don't have anything better to do. That said on emperor there's ALWAYS something to be doing.

 

[Bleys]

I kind of sleepwalked through some of this, but here is my report through 355 AD (played til 3 AM, heh, so bear with me):

Spoiler :

First off, shortly into this set, Willy decided to drop a city in a spot that I didnt like. So I decided to do a shorty war with Will, raze the city, and get peace ASAP. I noticed the borders of my closest city were going to pop soon, so I hoped he wouldnt try to re-settle. He eventually did re-settle the area, but in a much better spot for me. I didnt want to try to compete with those cows with a CRE leader, thats for sure. I had built 8 or 9 Immys and a few Axes and Spears already, so I wasnt worried about retaliation, and sure enough, Willy made peace fast, straight up.

Heres the spot, check it out and let me know :

Spoiler :

Does anyone know how the mechanics of AIs settling works? Is there some numbers as to how far from my culture, how many open tiles, etc, that goes into that decision? He originally settled on the hill with the Ruins, I razed it the turn it was made, and about 20 turns later he re-settled the spot 2S 1W of his original, because my borders had since popped to their current position.

I actually pulled a bit of a move, I traded my extra Copper to Vicky for Elephants, and built the SoZ in that city you see that borders Willy, heh. I am also trying to build MoM there now (I have played through 800 AD), for both the culture and the future of my Golden Ages. SoZ and MoM are both +10 culture Wonders, and with the resources and a few forests, its not to hard to whack em out. Willy can be hard to push back, he founded Confu in his border city, which I am in but he is not, since he also founded Buddhism and built the Shrine. Almost all his cities have Confu though, so my medium-term goal post-Lib is to vassalize him and use his land as a buffer from those whacko's on the other side (poor Mansa, heh).

Shaka actually DoWed on me the turn after I hit Willy, and would not take peace for many, many years. Finally a small stack of his showed up, I took out a couple of them, and he gave peace for some gold, but what a PITA. BTW, you see Willy in Confu in that pic, thats because I bribed him into it to try and get him to re-open borders with me. One of the problems with those quicky wars, especially since I razed a city. Still worth it though. He'll never out-culture me til he builds a Shrine in the Confu Holy City, and when he does, thats my cue to pull the trigger with whatever I have, so that culture wont be relevant.

So heres a few more pics of the status of my Empire. Lots of GG's being Born in Distant Lands, and I still have a few more cities to settle. I managed to get the GL pretty quickly, and now I am pushing the pop's up as quickly as I can.

Spoiler :

Waiting for that Barb City in the NW to hit 2 pop so I dont waste a settler up there. I actually have 2 more settlers in queue now to start filling it out. Tech rate is still nice.

Machinery, hoping to get to Chemistry with beakers, and Lib with GS's, Steel will own this map I think.

Heres the sleepwalking part. I hadnt really noticed how far up the Lib line some AIs were already, and I didnt trade any of the techs. I missed Philo, though, built the Academy instead, and for some reason, Vicky teched through Paper and traded it around. At least the Koo Koo leaders arent up to speed, but still, Pericles can be dangerous. I am actually considering a long-term plan to use some Navy to hit Mansa from the north (now that I know the map in 800, but its pretty obvious just from what I have now. Roaming Impi got my mapping Scouts, heh)

Not much of a shock, with 4 religions in play on a single landmass map. To say much more would actually be a spoiler, but of course, things may go differently in other games.

Overall, I am enjoying the game. Its got plenty of Builder attitude, but the proximity of war makes it tense. Monty or Shaka could drop 50 units on me at any time, they have both been in WHEOOHs forever. I have a decent number of balanced troops though, including a few Cats despite no intention of a war before Trebs, and possibly Steel if I can, so if they come, I can fight. I have also been somewhat stingy with my forests, although I did chop out the SoZ and GL in their respective cities. I have my HE city founded (the common one SE of the cap, awesome Prod site) and Marble makes it even better. I always head up the Aesthetics line early anyway, and Marble is so strong as an "extra". I could have built the Parth, but the lame Barbs wouldnt found more than 2 keepable cities.

 

[Mogur]

Played a little further to 575BC. Really hoping for some advice.

Spoiler :

I was convinced I was isolated. Never came across this before in any game. Took almost 3000 yrs for a civ ~20 tiles away to find me. Granted, I should have found him first, but I didnt have a unit to spare after my 2 initial scouting units got killed. Was too busy fighting barbs before copper got hooked up. I just assumed if no one had found me by now I dont need to rush out settlers for blocking. I chose the Oracle instead.

Anyhow, first thing I do is send out a couple warriors to find Willem. My immediate plan is to build nothing but settlers/workers in the Capital and defense units in my other 2 cities. Just completely wreak my economy expanding.

Not sure on how to best block Willem. Ive attached the save. Im thinking settling the first city where my settler is now. Using this city claiming cows, spice, and gems and the barb city to block Willem.

Now I see a few options. Capture the barb city and try to battle Willem's culture(not fun). Plunk down a couple cities around the barb city then raze it. Basically Im unsure if I should try to keep the barb city and plan my cities around it, or ignore its location and plan on it being gone. One problem is if Willem captures it first he will have a stronghold on all the gems. So many options running through my head. Really not sure what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Im shocked at how slow the AI are teching. Im use to Prince, and even at that lvl Im usually further behind at this point. I plan to trade Math to Willem for IW before I end turn. Start teching Aes and gonna try for the GL. Im thinking of putting it in Pasargadae my GP farm rather than the Cap. Or perhaps I should go for currency to help with expansion cost. Or maybe Monarchy and raise the happy cap.

View attachment Corrosion BC-0575.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Ai Shizuka]

1140 - 1820, end:

Spoiler :

1190 - GS builds academy in my second best science city, Gepid.

1260 - Shaka comedy moment. He declares war vs Mansa and his vassal Stalin, losing a city in the very first turn of war. He's small, horribly backward and squeezed between Mansa and Stalin. Genius.

1280 - Taj:



1400 - I don't want Mansa with two vassals. Stalin is enough:



1410 - GS starts golden age.

1415 - I finally meet the last AI, Victoria.

1450 - I'm ready to declare war vs Will and I give him some distraction:



1465 - DoW. Spies ready in pretty much every dutch city:





1470 - Nijmegen caotured (Mausoleum).

1490 - Maastricht captured and Montezuma's little stack appears. Monte is Willem's vassal.



1500 - Tekedda captured. Small coastal malinese city culture-flipped by dutch culture.

1505 - Rotterdam captured (Shwedagon Paya).

1510 - Amsterdam:



1535 - The Hague captured. Kremlin and Notre Dame.

1545 - Utrecht (SY and military academy).

1550 - Monte breaks free.

1555 - Middelburg captured. Monte moves in a bigger stack and I sign peace with him. Cuirassiers are kinda scattered around.

1565 - Leiden captured and Willem is out:



1585 - Shaka declares war vs Vicky.

1610 - I declare vs Montezuma and wait for his stack.

1630 - Stack shows up as predicted:





1645 - Tlateloco captured.

1660 - Mansa is researching assembly line at this point, but still doesn't have rifling.

1665 - Tenochtitlan captured. Hindu shrine and a couple wonders. Monte's willing to cap, but I want to get rid on his culture pressure on Tenochtitlan.



1675 - Teotihuacan captured and Montezuma is done:



1675 - Mansa still doesn't have rifling. But he has researched assembly line and I fear I will end fighting infantry with cavalry. Not pretty, so I'll tech to infantry/cannons before attacking him.

1746 - A couple fillers:





1754 - And the last city:



1766 - Now I'm ready:





1770 - Djenne captured and Mansa's main stack destroyed (over 30 units). Statue of Liberty inside.

1780 - Timbuktu:



1782 - Secondary stack captures Adwaghost on the N coast. Mansa is willing to capitulate.

1792 - 2nd stack keep going on the coast and Gao is captured.

1798 - Kumbi Saleh captured by the main stack. Another nice shrine:



1806 - Mansa is done, but I want a couple more cities. The secondary stack stays there to mop-up and I declare war vs Shaka with the main stack.

1810 - Walata (coast) captured by 2nd stack.

KwaDukuza captured and main Shaka's stack (30ish units) destroyed. Enough for the clown:



1812 - Stalin breaks free. He still was Mansa's vassal.

1816 - Tadmekka captured by 2nd stack.

1818 - And a mini third stack captures Hsung-Nu down in the tundra.

1820 - I'm pushing on Stalin, but the game is over:




World:



Demographics:



Power:



Stats:



Score:



Techs:



Capital:





I really need to prioritize Monarchy. Could have easily won 100 years earlier. A capital like this should hit size 10 at 10AD, not 1000 AD.

And please, could someone explain me what's so . .. .. .. .ING hot about fishing boats. Really, it's one of the things I hate the most in this game. Getting completely owned, and they still keep razing those . .. .. .. .ing boats again and again. It's like they consider them the n.1 priority in any war.

 

[feralminded]

Lets play the 2nd Segment
The next segment is from 1000BC->400AD.

I realize a lot of people have gone much further ahead but the pace of the tutorial is such that everyone is supposed to be able to keep up so that hopefully discussion can occur with each step. I apologize that I have not been able to keep up with every game here along the way ... compared to the SE tutorial this one has had MUCH higher participation and additionally work has been fairly overwhelming this week. Regardless its time to forge ahead and hopefully for the next section I can be a bit more responsive.

Immediate Game Goals (1000BC->400AD):

• Grow our capital: The capital is the heart of a CE and we want to be able to work as much as possible come Bureaucracy. The proper abuse of Bureaucracy is our key to an early Liberalism. This means a Granary, health and food resources, and likely Monarchy.
• Civil Service: The other half of the equation is this key technology. It requires Code of Laws and Mathematics. The sooner we can make it to Bureaucracy the sooner our research can take off.
• The Great Library: Nowhere near as important or strong as under an SE its still a very nice to have since it will provide us at least 1 Great Scientist and more if we work it. It does not have to be built in our capital if we have another likely site.
• Economy: In order to properly continue our expansion we need to get our economy in order. Likely it hasn't hit rock bottom yet but with proper expansion it likely will. Cheap Courthouses and Currency should do the trick.
• Expand: We have a lot of nice land and the sooner we can get it covered in productive cities the better we are. Ultimately this is the key to long term success.
• Protect Ourselves: Either through diplomacy or defensive SoDs we need to ensure Shaka, Monty, and Stalin stay at arms length.

As for my specific game I believe I am going to make this game a peaceful victory which most likely means space (since I have no capacity for diplomatic victory and no stomach for cultural victory). I'm doing this for a couple of reasons ... first of all I am just VERY GOOD at warmonger victories so I don't think I'll be showing much that's interesting to a new player there. Second of all I think a new emperor player could afford to see how a mad-rush to space might look. I have a feeling the EASIEST path to victory in this game is going to be a very early lib into Cuirassers running over backwards civs who won't even have machinery at that point ... this map just lends itself to that style of win.

 

[michmbk]

1000 AD to 1742 – domination. Land is power. Sorry - I know the follow along game is more paced, but I'm too impatient - besides, when the wife is out of town, I have to take advantage of maximum civ time.

Spoiler :

Was 1 turn from lib at 1000, debating whether to delay for a better tech – I chose not to because I’m slightly concerned about my overall power especially with all the warmongers on the map. Figure lib-nationalism-Taj while beelining mil tradition and rifles makes sense to get power upgraded. I can get my immortals upgraded to cavalry and overrun the world, especially with my GP farm running merchants. So…lib:



Building Taj and units to get ready…and sure enough, my concerns were right on. A sneak attack - 3 turns from Taj, and realistically, 3 turns from where I’m about to obscenely upgrade my army to devastate, he must have sensed it:



I swear he was pleased with me a few turns back. I have about 20 units in my border city, but they’re mostly immortals, with a few maces – not yet upgraded. So, I enlist my tech pal and current BFF to help out:



And here goes…My 20 turn run of bad luck continues, as I’m beaten to Taj by 1 turn apparently by Willem as well. Ugh – he gets the golden age and backstabs me. Crappy start to this round, but no worries - once all these cities grow, they will pay. At least I can upgrade 5 immortals to knights as a result of losing Taj - very helpful. I drop the slider to 0 for a few turns, upgrade my immortals to knights, and he suicides a bunch of units into my one city. Knights, maces, pikes and cats aren't taking a city with loads of flanking knights in it. It's also fantastic to only have to defend one city – no one can attack anywhere else unless they used galleys, so I have 25 units holed up in one city. Monty his vassal sends a few units, but not many. They’ve both been warring too much to have a huge army, so I just defend and wait until I hit cavalry for the counterstrike. I start my counterstrike when he leaves a city poorly defended:



You pissed me off too much Willem - no capitulation for you. What's that Karate kid line - "an enemy deserves no mercy". Meanwhile everyone else is teching up toward democracy apparently. You all do that while I tech my beloved cavalry. This is why I HATE the auto-assigned spy:



I was running merchants the whole time in that city – it should have been 100% chance of popping a merchant. Stupid game thinks I want a spy, and I don’t catch it in time…on 6% odds, a spy. Oh well – he’ll go infiltrate Mansa. My, how pretty Amsterdam of Persia looks.





And a bit later, he’s finished.



Bad idea to backstab. Monty’s next. Mansa just DOWed Shaka, which is perfect for me – keep him busy while I obliterate Monty. I’ll be back for them. A GE is kind enough to pop on low odds – makes up for the spy BS. He finishes ironworks in my HE city - 1 cavalry per turn. Die Monty – nice war booty:





I love shrined AI cities. Especially now that I’m in communism. Night night Monty.



Here come my horses Shaka – first things first – we can’t have Mansa continue to beat you down and make you capitulate, so my merchant's trade mission to Mansa results in me sharing the wealth:



And Shaka, you always kill my early game horses – good luck with these horsies - check out the experience - this is why I love horses - 9XP before settled generals:





3 turns later, he had enough. And now time for Mansa – I don’t feel like attacking the other continent, even though they'd be easier - I've built like 3 naval units the whole game. Let’s see how fast this goes – city 1:



He then launches a couple massive counterattacks, but flanking cavalry dominate all…especially when you have over 50 of them. After city 2, he and Stalin have had enough.





And that’s enough for this:



This screen to me is what was telling about my game.



Look at what that third city placement did for me - the blue spot in the center - Susa in 1750 BC. It blocked an obscene amount of land, and as long as I could defend it, there was no chance of losing from this point forward. Just rex out the land, beeline lib, and dominate with ridiculous production the last 100 or so turns. My number 1 strategy out of the gate in every game is to try to find a blocking point like that. Score:



My highest score yet – by about a thousand or two over several different games. Only my fourth emperor game though, so this one turned out pretty good. 3 out of 4 wins so far on emperor, although 2 were set up for success, so I almost don't count those. I accidentally missed printing the build screen, and i was too tired to go back to the last autosave, but I basically built about 120 cavalry, 25 immortals, a few cuirassiers, knights, cannons and infantry. That was about it - oh, and a boatload of workers built/stolen too - 28 in total. Barracks and Stables in just about every city. Flanking was the promotion of the game – I love those flanking horses in mass quantity. I'm already looking forward to the genghis game.

 

[gspchamp999]

Feral can you post some tips and what you are planning to do in the next segment as you head towards space race?

 

[feralminded]

Well I cant think about that just yet, right now I need to focus on GLib, and then Bureaucracy. Getting Bureaucracy and having a large enough capital to use it are key right now ... everything else is secondary.

 

[feralminded]

Ok here's my game from 1000BC->400AD. I think next series I will screw with the segments a bit as this one is only 80 turns and definitely feels short.

Spoiler :

Well my first task was filling out my land a bit. The Barbs had a nice city but I was pretty sure Willem would take them soon so they were kind of a priority. I also needed to setup that horse city north of my frontline as a secondary unit pump to Pasagarde as well as Marble for my Great Library.

I spend a lot of my BC's building workers and improving the land I have. I think around 300BC or so I conquered that barb city which was probably letting it go too long. I also settled the city NE of the capital in this time since it was just too enticing and set it up as my Great People farm and eventual Wall Street city. A part of me wanted to settle SE of the capital to get a city helping on cottages but these other sites were too enticing. By 10AD I was in good shape with an Academy on the way soon and the Great Library would be finished in a couple of turns.

Here's the situation at 10AD, me still in a commanding tech lead.




And 55AD brings me


The next set of turns went by in a blur. Great Library, Academy, Currency, CS. By 400AD I am racing through paper with a GS on the way to finish Education up once I get there. I'm in really good shape for a fairly early liberalism which I am going to try and shoot for Scientific Method with or maybe even physics. Physics is the Rifling of the the space-race liberalism. Anyhow here's the 400AD situation ... again still in command of all the meaningful tech.

And here's the play by play

Spoiler :

950BC - Trade monty pottery for archery. Now I can build some cheap garrison units.
925BC - Found Ectabana between horses/marble/rice/cows. This will be another unit pump and get me some clydsedales. Start producing Galleys in Pasagarde, will make 2 to defend coast.
900BC - Get two workers heading to Ectabana to work on chopping out the monument and getting the marble hooked up for GLib.
750BC - Finish worker in Persepolis, start on settler and employ a scientist while working corn, 1x hills, and 2xFPs. Need that GS and need granary done quickly before GLib rush. May whip granary out right before Glib.
725BC - Finish Granary in Susa, start on library and begin working both cottages.
625BC - Chop out Monument in Ectabana, start on granary. Work on roads to and from Marble and horses. Nearly have all cities connected.
500BC - Finish Aesthetics, start on Lit.
425BC - 1 pop whip out Settler in Persepolis, start on granary. Finish 2nd galley in pasagarde, start on granary.
400BC - Change around Persepolis so working 2xFP, 1 hill, and scientist. Can't let it grow to size 5 for 15 turns.
380BC - Found Tarsus NE of capital. Start pre-chopping around Persepolis for Glib. All cities hooked up by roads.
350BC - Ectabana border pops, 2 workers start on marble.
320BC - Trade Aesthetics/Poly to Shaka for IW/Priesthood/Meditation. That trade pisses him off from pleased to cautious ... lol. Still have monopoly on alphabet, but next turn shooting for CoL and Monarchy so probably losing it. Whip out granary in Pasagarde, should finish immortal.
305BC - Ectabana finishes granary, starts on Axe. Going to be a 2nd unit pump. Change Persepolis from working hill to working corn. Will chop out granary when literature comes. Trade Aes/IW to Willem for monarchy. Revolt.
290BC - Trade mansa Monarchy/Aes for CoL. Still have monopoly on Alphabet. Go Buddhist, revolt.
275BC - Conquer Barb city before Willem moves on it. Willem is really pushing my border. Get a free worker.
245BC - Shaka DoWs on Mansa.
200BC - Finish Lit, start on Currency. Start on Glib in Persepolis. Pasagarde finishes 2nd Immortal, starts on courthouse.
155BC - Monty DoWs on Willem ... everyone is at war and no one has Alphabet yet!
140BC - Whip out barracks in Ectabana, start on Axe then courthouse. Trade Lit to willem for OR.
125BC - Aztecs take one of Willem's cities ... awesome. Willem is my only real rival on this map, die fool!
95BC - Whip out monument in Tarsus, start on Granary->Library (will be NE city).
20BC - Finish scout in Pasagarde, start on workboat for tarsus.
10AD - Whip out library in Susa, start on Buddhist Monastery (need to spread that religion).
40AD - Pasagarde finishes workboats, starts on settler x 2. Time to cover our land with joy. Whip out Glib in Persepolis, start on buddhist Monastery. Whip out Courthouse in Ectabana, start on Buddhist monastery.
55AD - Employ 2 scientists in Persepolis.
100AD - GS born in Persepolis, build academy. Employ only 1 scientist now to help growth.
115AD - Whip Buddhist monasteries in Susa and Ectabana. Susa has courthouse next, Ectabana Missionary x 2.
145AD - Finish Currency. Trade it to Willem for Math/OR/25 . Trade Currency/Lit to Mansa for MC + 110 . Revolt OR, start researching CS.
160AD - Trade Col/lit to willem for Calendar. My tech lead is basically erased now but I can boom my economy. Whip out settler in Pasagarde, start on forge. Whip out monk in ectabana, start on forge. Run 100% research slider to bang out CS fast.
205AD - Persepolis grows to size, employ 2nd scientist.
220AD - Trade crap techs to crap civs for some decent . Will be able to run 100% probably all the way through paper.
235AD - Finish Courthouse in Susa, start on walls. Whip out forge in Pasagarde, start on lighthouse to get in some growth.
250AD - Whip out forge in Ectabana, start on military units so that when these guys all stop killing each other they don't attack me.
295AD - Stalin Dow's on me with a chariot and an archer. I think he missed the memo where you're supposed to build offensive units to use on the attack.
325AD - Finish CS, start on Paper. Revolt to Bureaucracy.
385AD - Willem makes peace with Monty.
400AD - Stalin accepts peace for 5 . 2 turns from paper. 7 turns from a GS for education.

 

[Validator]

feralminded:

Spoiler :

With all due respect, 8 cottages being worked in 400 AD is not much of a CE. Your tech progress to this point is impressive, but I'm thinking it's not due to an efficient CE, but more likely due to keeping costs low with a small empire and military, and major tech trading skill.

I have some disagreements with some of the CE concepts presented in this thread so I thought I'd point them out for anyone interested to consider.

Regarding the first round:

1. There seemed to be an emphasis on an early Pottery opening, and I think this could lead to some misunderstanding that this is an essential part of a CE (which it isn't IMO).

This strategy certainly leads to a fast early tech rate, but it does so at a significant cost: slowing early development. It trades / for , and since you need / for things like workers, settlers and barb defense working early cottages is going to put you behind in those areas. If the map is favorable to this (as this map was) it can be a strong opening, but in many cases (probably most cases) that slow down in development is going to cost you in the end.

Also I would point out something that wasn't mentioned much (if at all), which is that it's rather significant that flood plains were available in the capital's BFC. Being able to work a 3 cottaged tile causes much less of a development slowdown than if only grassland tiles were available for cottaging.

I'm not saying that this strategy doesn't work, but there is a tradeoff that players should be aware of before they try it.

2. IMO the real key to a successful CE is volume. You need to work a lot of cottages, and do so as soon as you can manage it. This normally means a high priority on Monarchy for me. Frequently it's the first "expensive" tech I research in a CE game (almost always unless I have a lot of early available). This start was screaming for a high priority on Monarchy since it provides no early boost, but does have lots of available, and lots of high cottage city sites available (including the capital obviously).

Prioritizing tech trading friendly techs can have a good pay off, but how can you be assured of trading for Monarchy in a timely fashion? How many turns are you prepared to live with low pop cities waiting for an AI to make it available?

In regards to some of the second round goals I have a different take on a couple of them:

Grow our capital: The capital is the heart of a CE and we want to be able to work as much as possible come Bureaucracy.

I won't disagree with what you're explicitly stating here. Maximizing your Bureaucratic capital is obviously a good idea. And it is going to be your best city during this timeframe (usually by far).

But in a broader sense it seems like you're suggesting that a CE capital needs to be a super science city that's going to drive your economy for much of the game. This isn't my experience. In a good CE you should have a few highly cottaged cities and possibly several other with some cottages. The percentage of your overall science coming from your capital should be going down as the game progresses.

To accomplish that you can't just focus on developing your capital but need to think about the overall economy. Found your other high cottage cities as early as possible. Use HR to grow their populations ASAP so more cottages can be worked. Have enough workers to keep up with growing population (especially important for jungle cities).

This is the time of the game to lay the foundation for a strong mid-late game CE, and that means more than just the capital.

The Great Library: Nowhere near as important or strong as under an SE its still a very nice to have since it will provide us at least 1 Great Scientist and more if we work it. It does not have to be built in our capital if we have another likely site.

I actually think GL is more valuable to a CE than an SE. Sure you get more /turn out of the free scientists when you're running Rep., but the real value of GL to a CE is in the extra scientist-flavored GPPs. A CE wants GSs for bulbing and academies, but they're hard to get with only 6 scientist GPPs per city.

Build GL in the city you've identified as your NE city. Follow up GL with NE. Run only the two library scientists along with the two free scientists. Avoid building other wonders and running other types of specialists for a while (even if you have the food). That gives 30 GPPs/turn, with a 93% chance of getting a GS. With reasonable luck you should be able to get a few GSs out of that city in a short time. Eventually you'll want to add other specialists and then just take your chances with what type of GP you get, but even then the GPPs from GL greatly increases the chances of getting more GSs.

The GL should not be built in your Bureaucratic capital however. You want to maximize the benefit of GL by building NE in that city and then running other scientists (and eventually other specialists). Your capital needs to work max cottages to benefit from Bureau, so you won't run specialists there for most of the game. Even after Bureau you won't want to ever build farms there to support more specialists so you're not going to get the max benefit from NE.


Finally, one rather significant omission from the round 2 goals: Found and start developing your HE city.

The HE city is rather important in a CE since you're not going to want to whip military in your developed cities. A strong HE city can take care of the bulk of your military needs, freeing up the lower cities to concentrate on infrastructure builds.

In fact I consider a strong HE city so important that I'm usually thinking about where it's going to go when I'm creating my first dotmaps.

 

[Mogur]

I think Validator brings up some good points. Im not a CE expert, but its all I ever run. Every SE game I try ends up transitioning into a CE. In fact, transition economy's tend to be some of my best games. CE's are really tough to get up and rollin' early. You build settlers/workers early combined with whipping, its hard to justify working a 2 food tile even if it has 3-4 commerce when you could work a resource, farm or mine.

Pottery early makes more sense in this game than most because of FP's in captial. Usually I wont tech pottery until I get all the worker techs and am heading for writing. I went AH>Mining>Wheel>Pottery in this game. Worker improved the corn, a mine, then built cottage. I did this mainly because Im trusting feralminded to guide me through my first emperor game lol. I think it can pay off.

A strong Bureaucracy capital can be important in both SE and CE. Although its not necessary in either. Honestly in this game the capital is too hammer poor for my taste. Maybe workshops can fix this(love me some Caste System workshops) but the danger of building an overpowering Buro cap is that you generally want to get into FS rather than Buro in a CE. I hate games where I find myself torn between FS and Buro. Though usually when this happens its because of the hammer bonus of Buro rather than the commerce bonus and Im hammering out late game wonders in my Cap. May not be a problem here.

Great Library. This is a weakness for me. A lot of times I end up putting it in my capital and then never running any other scientists. Bad move, but I fear losing it if I dont because often times my GP farm just cant get it built in time. I justify this by telling myself 'at least I denied it from the AI'. This game Im putting it in the marble, fish, pig, copper site to the NE if I can manage it and forcing it to be my GP farm weather it likes it or not.

HE city. Another weakness for me. Obviously a strong hammer city. I lean more towards the builder in me than the fighter. Ends up building infa/wonders more than units. I mean hell if I can build Hollywood in 8 turns or 4 infantry I almost always chose the wonder lol. My cities tend to be more hybrid. Barracks/stable most everywhere, science and gold multipliers almost everywhere. Switch between units everywhere or infra everywhere.

I dunno, maybe Im just a newbie and shouldnt be playing this. Probably a bit above my head. Never even tried Monarch yet. Im going to play it out though and looking forward to other people's games.

 

[ajil]

I'll give a brief recap of my experience, up to 430 AD. (Got a bit carried away) First off, I had to reload a couple of times, as the barbs were brutal. BTW they will definitely enter your borders once it hits 1700 BC.

Spoiler :

I didn't keep a detailed log, something I will do in the future. Like everyone else, I soon realized we had tons of room, especially if I could block off Willem. I planned out my cities like so, (not including the 2 to seal the penninsula.)


The barbs of course had other plans, and I had to raze 3 of their cities, which ended up being handy for the money and a couple of workers. (man did I ever need workers, I usually never expand this much peacefully)
I built the heroic epic to the SE of the capital, one west of the copper. ( I originally planned to put that city where feral did, but after the barbs owned me I decided I wanted it in the inner ring.) I also was able to get the GL and NE built in the city with the flood plains and marble SW of the capital. I only popped to GS, first I used for academy in capital, and the second has bulbed most of education, which you can't see in the screenshots. One thing of note, Elizabeth is teching like crazy. As you can see in my shots, I still have a couple more cities to place, lots of infrastructure to build up as well. Not sure if I'm going diplomacy, space, or domination yet. Here are some shots.





Heres the capital, I put a decent effort into working those cottages.

And the tech situation.

 

[feralminded]

@Validator

Spoiler :

With all due respect, 8 cottages being worked in 400 AD is not much of a CE. Your tech progress to this point is impressive, but I'm thinking it's not due to an efficient CE, but more likely due to keeping costs low with a small empire and military, and major tech trading skill.

I freely admit I am not the strongest CE player. All but one of my immortal wins are under SEs and my closest Deity victory was with an SE. That said I do feel comfortable cleaning out a CE on Emperor but again ... I know its not my strongest playstyle. That said in this game I did pull a ~800AD lib which I don't think anyone can consider "weak". How I got there was indeed a lot of tech trading but also pulling several Great Scientists out of my capital along the way.

1. There seemed to be an emphasis on an early Pottery opening, and I think this could lead to some misunderstanding that this is an essential part of a CE (which it isn't IMO).

This strategy certainly leads to a fast early tech rate, but it does so at a significant cost: slowing early development. It trades / for , and since you need / for things like workers, settlers and barb defense working early cottages is going to put you behind in those areas. If the map is favorable to this (as this map was) it can be a strong opening, but in many cases (probably most cases) that slow down in development is going to cost you in the end.

Also I would point out something that wasn't mentioned much (if at all), which is that it's rather significant that flood plains were available in the capital's BFC. Being able to work a 3 cottaged tile causes much less of a development slowdown than if only grassland tiles were available for cottaging.

Not to sound too defensive but I did say almost exactly what you said above:

I decided since the land was so good to go for the Pottery gambit. Honestly I am not sold on this being a solid strategy and doubt it works on Immortal but I've done it a couple of times now on Emperor so I decided to give it a shot. The idea is shoot wheel->pottery first before going mining->BW. This means we won't be able to find copper until the mid 2000s and can slow an initial expansion if we have super close AI's. Still as long as we are aware of these facts and account for them ... with good land ... its a hell of an opening for a CE. We just will have to dance with some barbs for a couple hundred years is all.

Now I probably could have gone into greater detail and its absolutely a fact I only did this because of the Flood Plains ... which is something I glossed over with my handwaving about "good land".

2. IMO the real key to a successful CE is volume. You need to work a lot of cottages, and do so as soon as you can manage it. This normally means a high priority on Monarchy for me. Frequently it's the first "expensive" tech I research in a CE game (almost always unless I have a lot of early available). This start was screaming for a high priority on Monarchy since it provides no early boost, but does have lots of available, and lots of high cottage city sites available (including the capital obviously).

Prioritizing tech trading friendly techs can have a good pay off, but how can you be assured of trading for Monarchy in a timely fashion? How many turns are you prepared to live with low pop cities waiting for an AI to make it available?

I guess I am very comfortable tech trading and as a result never worry about what I'm going to get. Honestly even if I had prioritized Monarchy earlier I don't think I could have garrisoned up my capital much quicker without hurting the initial expansion. Ultimately with this quality of land my focus was on horizontal expansion as opposed to vertical expansion. I got Monarchy in 305BC this game ... I could have probably teched it myself maybe 30 turns earlier and certainly would have teched it myself within 30 turns if no one had it to trade but the AI always prioritizes it so there's rarely a need to tech it myself unless I'm pushing for a 1000BC HR ... which I only consider useful with less expandable land. I have played CEs where I get Bureaucracy up and running ultra early but I only do this when I am isolated or stuck with really poor land. In this case we are neither. The other thing is I whipped the hell out of my capital this game early to produce settlers and workers and whatnot which I would not have been doing if I was HR and trying to grow consistently. Its all a trade off. Grow up or out, hard to do both this early.

I won't disagree with what you're explicitly stating here. Maximizing your Bureaucratic capital is obviously a good idea. And it is going to be your best city during this timeframe (usually by far).

But in a broader sense it seems like you're suggesting that a CE capital needs to be a super science city that's going to drive your economy for much of the game. This isn't my experience. In a good CE you should have a few highly cottaged cities and possibly several other with some cottages. The percentage of your overall science coming from your capital should be going down as the game progresses.

What do you do with your capital in the end game? Do you pave it over with workshops? I think in many starts your CE capital will be a super science city until the day you win or lose. Not all starts, a brown capital does happen now and then, but in most green starts it only makes sense. Of course its percentage contribution goes down as time goes by but in green starts it is always guaranteed to have an academy + Oxford, and with a good start like this will more than likely have the most cottages and the most mature cottages. No other city can compare pre-emancipation. It's intuitively obvious that this capital on this map WILL be the best science city for the majority of the game even post Bureaucracy. I'm not trying to misdirect anyone, this is a fact. It cannot support our economy long term but it IS our economy for right now.

To accomplish that you can't just focus on developing your capital but need to think about the overall economy. Found your other high cottage cities as early as possible. Use HR to grow their populations ASAP so more cottages can be worked. Have enough workers to keep up with growing population (especially important for jungle cities).

This is the time of the game to lay the foundation for a strong mid-late game CE, and that means more than just the capital.

This is very important but not for THIS map in THIS timeframe. Perhaps if instead of the horses/marble city I had settled the FP city due south then this would be a relevant point but the simple fact is the jungle cities are too many worker turns away for HR to matter to them by 400AD. I mean in a way we ARE laying the foundation by cutting down those jungles and laying down cottages and whatnot but its still a long ways off. Now I won't deny that FP city due south should probably be developed sooner than I get around to it but again ... cutting off the AI was a bigger priority. Setting up the NE city was a bigger priority. The only thing I did that was questionable was setup shop on the horses/marble instead of that FP city and I did this mostly to get another strong production city down ... its debatable that this was useful compared to getting that FP city setup. I could see it either way really.

That said this period IS the weakest part of my CE. I get to Lib early enough and usually win with that and I'm sure that's good enough for Emperor but looking for Immortal/Deity I think you are on the right track here. I tend to focus too much on the liberalism race (because for emperor its more or less all that matters). In retrospect I didn't need that 2nd production city as TMIT already pointed out a clever diplomat could defend this entire game with virtually no army. Diplomacy though is my weakest trait. Yeah getting the 2nd FP city up, and getting it up early, would probably have pushed my tech rate over the edge and would likely start to pay off around 500-600AD.

I actually think GL is more valuable to a CE than an SE. Sure you get more /turn out of the free scientists when you're running Rep., but the real value of GL to a CE is in the extra scientist-flavored GPPs. A CE wants GSs for bulbing and academies, but they're hard to get with only 6 scientist GPPs per city.

Build GL in the city you've identified as your NE city. Follow up GL with NE. Run only the two library scientists along with the two free scientists. Avoid building other wonders and running other types of specialists for a while (even if you have the food). That gives 30 GPPs/turn, with a 93% chance of getting a GS. With reasonable luck you should be able to get a few GSs out of that city in a short time. Eventually you'll want to add other specialists and then just take your chances with what type of GP you get, but even then the GPPs from GL greatly increases the chances of getting more GSs.

The GL should not be built in your Bureaucratic capital however. You want to maximize the benefit of GL by building NE in that city and then running other scientists (and eventually other specialists). Your capital needs to work max cottages to benefit from Bureau, so you won't run specialists there for most of the game. Even after Bureau you won't want to ever build farms there to support more specialists so you're not going to get the max benefit from NE.

Actually this is one I disagree with. I have finished this game already and it was a boon NOT to have the GL in my NE city because by the time the NE city comes online the age of GSs is usually over. Getting it out in your capital lets you focus on pure GS production (I got out 3 pre-liberalism) and get them done in time to matter. Then late game all I want is GEs and GMs anyhow so having the GS points polluting my NE city kind of sucks. Honestly the only wonder I want in my NE is the NE itself ... although late game I usually find myself turning the NE city into the Stock Market city which also works out fairly well.

That said its not a huge deal to me either way. Late game GS's make nice academies when they do come so its not a huge deal to me if I get them. I honestly considered building it in my NE city and threw out the idea when I thought about how the GS's would land. I wanted to maximize my bulbing effort so I opted for short term GS production from the capital.

Finally, one rather significant omission from the round 2 goals: Found and start developing your HE city.

The HE city is rather important in a CE since you're not going to want to whip military in your developed cities. A strong HE city can take care of the bulk of your military needs, freeing up the lower cities to concentrate on infrastructure builds.

In fact I consider a strong HE city so important that I'm usually thinking about where it's going to go when I'm creating my first dotmaps.

I too consider the HE hugely important ... in fact its key in my SE strategy ... but without luck with the barbs or an early war many people won't have a 10xp unit at this point. I agree the HE should be on the list though ... but I know in my game (went space just for illustration purposes) I didn't actually build it until the 1500s when I pulled the GG from Facism. I don't want people confused or upset because they didn't get out an HE when the truth is ... at least on this map ... you don't necessarily need it.

 

[djvandrake]

The only thing I did that was questionable was setup shop on the horses/marble instead of that FP city and I did this mostly to get another strong production city down ... its debatable that this was useful compared to getting that FP city setup. I could see it either way really.

I don't see that as questionable at all, rather a downright necessity. Getting those ponies in my opinion is absolutely critical given this Civ's UU and the neighbors you're dealing with. To be honest I would have settled this city second or third and likely not blocked willem as effectively as you have.