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

[dorkynorky]

Well, my space race vic came in 1898, quite a few turns later than Feral's.

I had to waste some time defending from Pericles. What a deal, we met in mid 1300s and he was upset for my trading with Monty. He went WHEOOHRN then. Even though we got to pleased, he stayed the course and went to war with me in the mid 1600's for 10 turns and then took peace and we eventually ended up with a defense pact. Got to love it.

Also had to waste some time focusing on defense as Willie went WHEOOHRN and moved his stack over to my border. Over the last 300 years of the game he was there and went in and out of WHEOOHRN but never declared. At the game's end he had the greatest power rating but had stopped teching to go culture. He was about 50 turns from it at the end. I wish that he would have decided to get after Shaka/Monty/Stalin who had already declared on him twice before, but I guess that my power rating never got high enough to counter their combined rating enough to make a difference.

I got the GM for Sushis, but I couldn't get the GE until late after beelining Fusion. In the end my game was probably prolonged some because I happened to get a GS and GA so I went for the 4 corp Wall St and spent some time spreading corps that could have been spent on parts or perhaps speeding up my tech rate a bit.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how Feral got his space victory faster so I can become better at that.

 

[bobbyboy29]

1605 ad domination victory, score:174168. Not bad for a first shot at emperor!

Spoiler :

Basically my game was quite simple, Rexed hard, got 9 cities, laid down some cottages, snagging the Glib and using the capital as a GP farm, once i got COL the techrate exploded, thank you financial and organized! Got to lib so early i decided to take steel. Once lib was in the bag i went after my mainthreat willy, laying the smackdown on him and beat him there by ten turns. Mansa teched well but then got sallowed whole by shaka who was my only other threat but WAY backwards. Beat him and his three vassals solely with cannons, grens (never did bother with rifles or cavs, got too distracted ). Pulled a dirty trick to eliminate shaka's SOD: took a city, left it unprotected, let him move in as i lay in wait, then used cannons grens and knights to beat him down, took two turns to halve his power. I think I played the CE quite well, my capital and floodplains cities are great examples, although i cheated a little by running a hybrid to get to lib, using my capital as a GP farm. I still think it's bogus that the capital only had 1 resource!!! Anyway check out the save if you'd like, or think that i'm lying...

 

[TruckBoatTruck]

Question for feralminded (or anyone, really):

In the play-by-play, when trading old techs for cash, I noticed you were trading some Lib path techs. If I'm going for an ambitious bulb like you were, I tend to worry about doing that. So you were more or less certain that the people you were trading Phil or Paper to weren't going to run at Lib? Monarch player here, FWIW.

Excellent series, by the way.

 

[feralminded]

Question for feralminded (or anyone, really):

In the play-by-play, when trading old techs for cash, I noticed you were trading some Lib path techs. If I'm going for an ambitious bulb like you were, I tend to worry about doing that. So you were more or less certain that the people you were trading Phil or Paper to weren't going to run at Lib? Monarch player here, FWIW.

Excellent series, by the way.

The only trade last game I regretted was the Paper trade to Mansa for construction in 745AD. That one cost me Physics and was a mistake. The rest I'm not too concerned about but it largely is based on the date of the trades. Hard to make a hard/fast rule about this but in this specific game Willem and Mansa were the only threats and just keeping them just far enough behind is good enough.

 

[TruckBoatTruck]

The only trade last game I regretted was the Paper trade to Mansa for construction in 745AD. That one cost me Physics and was a mistake. The rest I'm not too concerned about but it largely is based on the date of the trades. Hard to make a hard/fast rule about this but in this specific game Willem and Mansa were the only threats and just keeping them just far enough behind is good enough.

Makes sense. I've had two recent games that were similar to this one in a lot of ways - pangaea-esque fractal, nice chokepoints leading to lots of land to fill out peacefully and cottage up - and I went for Lib->Steel both times. I rarely traded tech for cash, and looking at your approach, I would have had my Cannons much sooner that way. Good to know.

 

[espartaco]

920AD - Meet Vicky and Pericles. Trade Pericles Philosophy/CoL for Drama/Machinery/gold. Trade with vicky for ivory. Start on Optics.

How are you meeting other far-reaching civs without caravels (Optics)?

 

[EmperorFool]

I met both of them with a Work Boat before 1000BC, before meeting Stalin!

 

[espartaco]

I met both of them with a Work Boat before 1000BC, before meeting Stalin!

I should have open the save before I asked but I am just having a short break from my C# programming duties

 

[feralminded]

Yeah this was one of those "almost pangea" fractal maps.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Spoiler 1000BC

Any comments are welcomed.

Spoiler :

4000BC
Lovely looking start.
I really liked PaulisKhan's advice in post #12 so I moved the scout east to see what was there. Low and behold it's two silks that would both be in BFC if settled 1E. No-brainer now!
By the way, I thought a new colour scheme was in order

Spoiler :

3750BC
Guess what happened to my scout this turn? This slowed my exploration for a while but it's to be expected when you start with a useless scout.

Spoiler :

3725BC
Finish Mining. Onto BW. I can already see some nice sites.

Spoiler :

3425BC
Finish worker and start building warrior.

3175BC
Finally I meet someone. It's the Dutch. I finish BW and go Slavery right away while my worker builds the mine. Going for The Wheel.

Spoiler :

Due to the appearance of Copper I decided my Military Pump would go on the grass hill 3SE of the capital. Unless I spot a good site up NE or something. I'm worried about wasting the river tiles, and the pig could support a lot of mines by itself.

3000BC
Meet Montezuma. He appears to come from north west. Worker starts building second mine. First warrior is finished and is ready to explore again!
Start working on second worker, hoping to slave rush him.

Spoiler :

3875BC
Finish The Wheel. Start on Pottery, so I can build granaries while I grow my cities in between building workers/settlers. I rush the worker on this turn, and next turn let the overflow go into settler for 1 turn.

2725BC
Met Shaka

2550BC
Pottery discovered. Now researching AH to see if I find horse. About to build next city and start on copper mine.

Spoiler :

2250BC
Got AH. Now getting Writing

2050BC
OMFG I need a city between those gems!

Spoiler :

1925BC
Writing done. Onto IW because I just discovered a cluter of 3 gems down SW.

1850BC
Whoa Shaka and Monty both ask for OB on the same turn. I accept.

1525BC
Met Mansa Musa down south. I build the awesome gem city this turn. I have three workers down there to get the mine online asap.

Spoiler :

1450BC
Finally I get IW. Time to beeline Monarchy now.

1300BC
And I'm thinking I might even try for the Oracle.

1000BC
Sending my fourth settler down to block off Willem and secure a huge mass of land to myself.

Spoiler :

I'm a bit behind but better late than never eh?

By the way, have people already gotten lazy with spoilers? I'm still going here lol.

 

[feralminded]

Yeah sorry about the spoilers ... it seemed like most people had finished so I know I myself got lazy. Regardless your game looks to be pretty much perfectly on track ... that was basically the same approach I took only you took the better spot for copper.

 

[miked1991]

Is the next segment nearly ready?

 

[feralminded]

Yeah I just have to write it up. The final segment has no real financial direction since at that point it's entirely based on your own game but I'll write up what I did. I ended up with a late 1800's space victory but I know I got sloppy there in between 1400 and 1800. Overall it only reinforced how much I hate peaceful victories because they take so long ... or maybe its just because of the epic speed ... but its still a valid tactic so that's why I wanted to illustrate it.

 

[miked1991]

Yeah I just have to write it up. The final segment has no real financial direction since at that point it's entirely based on your own game but I'll write up what I did. I ended up with a late 1800's space victory but I know I got sloppy there in between 1400 and 1800. Overall it only reinforced how much I hate peaceful victories because they take so long ... or maybe its just because of the epic speed ... but its still a valid tactic so that's why I wanted to illustrate it.

I really need to learn more about the military victories. I can get to a point similar to in this game although not quite so strong, but I have great difficultly getting all the units built to win domination or conquest. Of course thats not the case in this game, and this one will follow more the line my games usually follow.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah fair enough. I am not sure what will be next but I'd like to focus more on the economies than game play at least for now. There's still TRE, EE, HE, Phi-Se, and maybe RE out there ... although I am dubious about how much of an economy any of those are besides Phi-SE. TRE is really not so much an economy as a Rexxing method and RE is ... well ... I'm not sure what it is. EE and HE's are not so much economies, at least not early game ... but are really ways to morph your economy mid-game. Also I'm not qualified to lead an emperor game for either of them so we'll see. As for non-economy based games I was thinking of a early warmonger game, a true Rexx game, and maybe an isolated start game. Perhaps a "surrounded" game is also not a bad idea.

EE comes into play as early as alphabet, same with HE, which builds wealth/research after the hammer multipliers. To paraphrase a top notch deity player on HE:

"It's not exactly cutting edge, but it's good for players who overbuild wonders, buildings, or even units, because the tradeoff for research is so obvious".

Commerce capitol, GP farm, mass workshop hammer cities is a pretty effective means of working HE, because the wealth you build can still be put through strong multipliers, and you can instantly produce a lot of units or important buildings.

EE is a bit different. Its returns are quite high but you won't get a lead very easily using it. Gwall and abusive expansion seem the order of the day with it, to spam courthouses and latter jails/IA/SB, where just having those buildings themselves is a high beaker return in terms of stolen tech. Military victories are obviously easier than culture/space with EE, diplo is about the same...maybe slightly harder than in standard games since steering the UN is trickier. A commerce capitol with bureaucracy and SY can make it pretty effective early on.

Edit: Never viewed TRE as a separate economy, but I guess in extremely favorable trade route situations it can take over as the dominant form of commerce income. That's not always easily attained, however.

 

[ajil]

I ended up scoring a diplomatic victory in 1872, 5 turns from winning via spaceship. Elizabeth built it, and shaka was huge with 2 vassals. Shaka voted for me bc we were friendly, and we were both so huge population wise that was all it took.

 

[feralminded]

Alright here's the final segment of my game. It took longer than I wanted but I got sloppy at the end ... I REALLY don't like space victories but its nice to get to the later techs ... I find my military victories make half of the tech tree irrelevant. Regardless here's how things played out.

Spoiler :

I prioritized getting my hands on my corporations first which meant teching Corpororation and then up the Replaceable Part like through Railroad. This kind of deferred me from Artillery which I could have started on a bit sooner than I did. Of course after Rocketry then you go down the refrigeration line to get superconductors and setup fast parts. Once both corps landed it was really a slaughter and I probably could have won a domination victory at my leisure. No real threats along the way although Pericles decided to DoW on me fairly late. That was easily handled by spamming battleships for a few turns and all I ended up losing was some seafood that I quickly replaced. Also about 7 turns from victory Willem pulled to within striking distance culturally but instead of invading him with my huge pile of tanks I just sent a pile of spies and perma-revolt his 3rd city which was sitting at 45k. Nothing too sexy about this win.

Anyhow here's a couple of snapshots.

Anyone ever seen desert rice before? What does it taste like?

Shortly after the magical desert rice we complete our ship.

7 turns from victory they radio in: "Houston we have a problem"

And here's the semi-non-violent solution

And finally we arrive on distant planets

Here's the play by play

Spoiler :

1405AD - GM born in Tarsus, settle him ... next one is 35 turns which will make me Sushi.
1415AD - Shaka takes another Mansa city, Mansa Capitulates to him. A bored shaka is a scary shaka. Rifling as soon as corp is done.
1420AD - Shaka demands I cancel my deals with mansa, his vassal?
1425AD - Corporation lands, switch to RP ... 4 turns. Sustaining an 80% slider now and about 900 . Pasagarde starts on the Kremlin, my island will have stone hooked up sooner than later which will help.
1435AD - Finish Oxford in Persepolis ... just shy of 1000 / turn now. Start on Bank. Won't be able to build Wall Street for a bit since I won't have 6 banks for maybe 20 turns.
1445AD - Finish RP, start on Rifling.
1465AD - Finish Rifling, start on chemistry. A couple of turns from having 6 banks.
1480AD - Finish Chemistry, start on Steam Power. Get Shaka and his minions to quit trading with Willem. Probably pisses willem off but what is he going to do about it?
1500AD - Tarsus starts on Wallstreet.
1510AD - Finish Steam, start on Steel. Everyone is now officially WFYABTA.
1535AD - Steel done, start on Railroad. Cannot wait for Mining Inc.
1555AD - Finish Kremlin in Pasagarde, start on DryDock.
1580AD - Finish Railroad, GM born ... saving for Sushi. Start Democracy. Found Mining Inc in Tarsus, that will help with Wall Street.
1595AD - Pericles gives me 640 and Military Science for Rifling. I must be falling behind on the tech lead.
1600AD - Finish Democracy, Revolt to US/FS/FM/FR/Emancipation.
1645AD - Finish Biology, start on Medicine. Wall Street is born, time to start cranking out mining inc execs.
1675AD - Finish Medicine, found Sushi. Start on Assembly Line.
1704AD - Finish Assembly Line, start on Facism. Spreading corporations like mad.
1710AD - Finish Facism, get my first GG who I will use to promote a unit so I can build HE and westpoint.
1720AD - Finish Electricity, go Refrigeration.
1732AD - Finish Refrigeration, start on superconductors. Corps almost completely spread, have most of the infrastructure complete.
1742AD - Trade Pericles Facism/biology for a bunch of gold and Combustion.
1750AD - Finish Superconductors, start on Artillery.
1758AD - Finish Artillery, start on Rocketry.
1764AD - GS born, saving for GA.
1767AD - Rocketry finishes, start on Radio.
1768AD - GM born, saving for GA.
1774AD - UN built, lovely. Me vs Pericles ... me by a landslide. Interesting.
1780AD - Finish Radio, start on industrialism. Need that aluminum.
1782AD - Switch to gold production for a couple of turns to rush the Eiffel tower.
1788AD - Found city between oil and sheep. Will found another on east coast since corps make them viable.
1790AD - Pass +1 Trade Routes resolution.
1792AD - Finish Eiffel Tower with about 4000 . Last wonder I'll build besides Apollo which is a few turns away.
1794AD - Found city due east of capital on east coast.
1796AD - Finish INdustrialism and find a bunch of aluminum. Start on Plastics. Pericles is pushing for a Culture victory but I don't think he will beat me.
1800AD - Apollo complete, 5 thrusters Queued up.
1806AD - Finish Plastics, start on Ecology.
1812AD - Trade pericles Industrialism for Fission. Probably my last tech trade.
1814AD - Vicky Capitulates to Pericles ... wasn't aware they were fighting. Everyone has a vassal but me.
1816AD - Finish Ecology, start on Satellites.
1818AD - 2/5 Thrusters done, Life support started. GM born, start first GA.
1822AD - 5/5 Thrusters done.
1824AD - Pericles/Vicky DoW on me ... they are probably going to take my little island which is relatively defenseless ... wont change anything. Mainland has about 20 tanks roaming around. Satellites finish, start on Composites. Start on Docking bay.
1828AD - Life support done.
1834AD - Finish Composites. Handled Pericles/Vicky with mass battleship spam. Queue up 5 casings. Start on Genetics.
1838AD - 1GA ends, start 2nd one. Make UN stop this war for me. Managed to get a GG out of it and only lost 1 Battleship.
1840AD - UN vote fails?!?! Oh well, only issue right now is their subs.
1841AD - Genetics done, start on computers. Start on stasis.
1842AD - Docking bay done.
1843AD - GE born, start Creative Constructions in Susa just for fun, will spread it to Shaka and friends.
1844AD - 1/5 casings done.
1845AD - 3/5 Casings done. Spreading CreatCon disease. Finish Computers, start on Fiber Optics. Won't miss the kremlin much.
1847AD - 5/5 casings done.
1848AD - They accept peace.
1849AD - GA ends, Finish Fiber optics, start on Fusion (final tech needed). Start on cockpit.
1852AD - Stasis done.
1854AD - Fusion done, both engines worked on.
1857AD - Finish Cockpit. 10 turns to launch.
1865AD - Global Warming turns a rice patty into a desert patty? Never seen rice grow in a desert.
1869AD - Launch!
1870AD - Going to be really close with Willem. Instead of plowing him under I decide to just spy attack his last city ... permanent revolution. He's been a nice guy this whole game and I don't want to show him just how bad our tech disparity is.
1875AD - I bet this is super annoying.
1877AD - I learn the Future will be better tomorrow.
1882AD - I make it to Alpha Centauri.

 

[Mogur]

Feral I could be wrong here, but on Epic legendary culture is 75k I believe. So really Willem's Cap wasnt even close with 7 turns left.

 

[feralminded]

hah ... well that might be true ... I obviously wouldn't know. I guess I was harrassing him for nothing.

 

[Mogur]

My game from 1000BC to 1000AD. Skipped the 400AD checkpoint since most are past it.

Spoiler :

Here's my empire at 1000BC.
North

South

After meeting Willem in ~1200BC I immediately set out to find where he is and do my best job of blocking.

Like so:

Take out the barb city and settle one more to complete block.

Was extremely close taking out that barb city. Willem actually killed 2 of the defenders and injured another the turn before I got there. Then he headed directly for the barb city just south of my capital. Again barely beat him there as he attacked first. But barbs are now gone. Sadly this left one of the gems unclaimed by any city.

Here is the diplo at this point:

Maybe I should make some friends right?

And techs:

I cant trade with Mansa because it will screw diplo with Willem and Shaka for worst ememy bs. Leaves me kinda stuck. Willem is my only AI border. He and Shaka are Buddhists. Going to join them when possible. Seems like the obvious move since Mansa founded Judaism, Monty founded Hinduism. Stalin is undecided.

Willem and Shaka DOW Mansa, Monty DOW on Willem. I join a fake war with Mansa at Willem's request. I kinda like this situation. Willem has Monty in SW to deal with and Mansa in the E. So Mansa and Monty have to come through Willem to get to me. I pretty much deny all requests from Mansa and Monty at this point and focus on keeping Willem and Shaka happy with me. Gotta say my diplomacy and tech trading are waaay under par for Emperor, but this map seemed to be pretty straight forward to me. Time will tell.

Decide to build the Parthenon after a monument in one of my Willem blocking cites for a few reasons.
1. Got Aestetics way before the AI and couldnt effectively trade it so I figure might as well try for its wonders.
2. Gold if I fail.
3. Culture for a blocking city.
4. Had marble.
5. Help my GP farm.
6. Deny to AI.
Thought this wonder was more than worth a try even in a CE. I end up getting it and later glad I did.

After blocking Willem I continue to spam settlers and workers everywhere I can to try and fill out land. At this point you cant even say Im running a CE, only working like 5-6 cottages in the Cap. I expanded too slowly and have only very small cities.

Lay down the GL and NE in my GP farm. City NE of Cap(fish pig marble copper city). Got my first GS in this city in 380BC for an early Academy. End up getting 4 GS and 1 GA before 900AD. GS went to: Academy, bulb Philo, bulb Education, bulb Lib. Pop a Great Artist the same turn Paper was done grrrrr. Usually would use a GA for an early Golden Age or save him for a later one but decide to settle this one in a Willem blocking city. The Great Artist pop at 5% odds is why Im glad I built the Parthenon. Popped out a GS 14 turns later to bulb the end of Education rather than the beginning.

Empire at 430AD:

Diplo:

Techs:

As you can see Ive met Pericles and Vicky. Both Hindu's along with Monty. Need to try and keep them as happy as possible. Considering this is my first try at Emperor coming straight from Prince, I think Im doing alright so far.

I start to focus more heavily on vertical growth and raising my happy cap. And perhaps even working some cottages lol. The 430AD pictures are just after a major civics change. Currently running HR, Buro, CS, DS, OR.

No problem getting Liberalism. Trying to decide what to take. Thought about trying for Physics but that meant SM. I had the GL and Parthenon powering my GP farm and did not want to obsolete them. Decided to delay SM for as long as possible and get Steel with Liberalism. Make a sidetract to Nationalism hoping for the Taj. Given the tech situation I think I can still tech/trade to chemistry before I take Lberalism.

Techs:

Diplo:

And some Empire pics:

City Screen:

Capital:

GP Farm:

I think the only reason Im in this right now is probably my best GP farm Ive ever had and the wonders Ive nabbed. Economy is far behind what it should be at this point. I settled a bunch of cities in questionable spots to try and max out hammers and cottages in each city. Hopefully this pays off later.

Have no army as of now and no plans to build one. Monty and Mansa hate Willem and war on and off. They also hate me but need to get through Willem first. Shaka is really quiet this game even though him and Mansa are both Annoyed at each other, he never declares. With so much war going on the tech rate is slow. Shouldnt be a problem to nab Steel for Liberalism.