Finally a winning position at emperor - Need some advice to get me over the line

The other key is to have enough pop to be the AP ruler. You have more land than Pacal - just spam missionaries to all your cities and you don't have to worry about the AP then.

 

In my experience if you take Steel from Lib on Emp then your going to win.

 

Well, Looks like this one should be wrapped up by tomorrow maybe - Pericles is already done and dusted, going after sury next.

I am just going to be razing cities from hereon as i cant be bothered defending them

BTW - i have lost on emperor after taking Steel from Lib but thats because i am still getting used to Emperor. For me the biggest difference from Monarch to emperor is the large SoD's that the AI's seem to have ...

 

Raze everyone to ashes but keep one city of the civ you liked the most (total genocide ain't human). Swarm the city workable cross w/ units and press F on them.
Press alt+enter till the time victory screen arrives.

 

Yes thats what i found when i moved up to emperor too. Immortal is even worse. Its because the AI gets massive discounts on its troop upgrades, so you fight like every unit they have ever built, which can be quite a lot

 

With steel already in, the 1-move army seems best to me. With more AI I'd be alert to other/diplo possiblities. In my last emperor game, I was researching MT/rifles path when Cyrus declared on me. No problem snatching two cities from him as MT comes in. But he bribes Charlamagne into DoWing me. No problem. Rush a third Cyrus city (w/acadamey) and force capitulation and war with Charlamagne whom he just bribed. Cyrus was working chemistry/steel ... So I immediately liberated that academy city back to Cyrus ... Naturally Charlamagne vassals to Tokugawa after rifles and steel are in ... You can have your cake and eat it too.

 

A quick update for anyone interested - 1625 AD. (No screenies sorry)

3 down 1 to go. Took Pericles first, kept one of his cities gifted the others back. Then DoW'ed Sury, he had a big army wich included Cuirassiers - tough target taking cities was easy but not holding them, i razed two cities.

Then Ceasar joins the fun by Dowing him and taking one of his cities, this was enough to get him to cap. (He hates my guts though one of the cities i razed was the dudes holy city )

How do i repay ceasar, i wait a couple of turns for my troops to heal (helped by medic III unit) and head over to the city ceasar took from my boy Sury , we DoW ceasar and it's a massacre, the dude does not even have cultural defenses to help him, and he had a massive stack defneding the city ...

After that Massacre Ceasar caps and now we are hungrily eyeing those Mayan lands ... The AP never got in the way

So it should be a win shortly. And the decisive factor definitely is having cannons, Cannons rock !!!

BTW - i am teching artillery now just to upgrade my cannons and make sure Pacal goes down fast.

 

Finally my first win on Emperor ...





Thats my 2nd highest score ever, and the highest score by a long way if you ignore all those Preat romps

Boy, Pacal did really hold out for a while, i think i razed around 4 of his cities and was about to take out a 5th before he finally capped, it was just crazy.

Is there a game mechanic that delays the AI from capping if he's the last one left?

 

Drafting is your friend. In the renaissance era, you should have 60+ units mobilized to attack/defend against the large stacks. Get your GT drafting center set up in combination with your HE unit-pump and that should be enough to take on even Shaka's SoDs.

 

Would you believe i've never drafted a single unit

Not that i dont know of it, i guess so far i have not really needed to, but thanks i guess that would have helped in the game i lost.

BTW - do you guys draft right across the empire or only in the GT city?

 

Almost only GT city but if time (or counterattack or, or or) is an issue other cities will go to war too.
It can be good in border cities that have the required culture percentage that you've just captured to get rid of unhappiness by sending the angry citizens fight their motherland

 

Re: drafting. It varies according to the available and surplus IMHO. Usually, its heavily focussed on the GT city for obvious reasons but, if I have a couple of other cities (eg. coastal ones where I'd only be working unimproved coastal tiles) that have a decent food surplus, then I'll quite happily trade working a few unimproved coastal tiles for example for a few extra military that I can use to . I agree with futurehermit: on the right map, drafting really can be your best friend.

 

Usually across the empire for one round, except in the biggest and best cities where it is not worthwhile. Then again in several small cities built to support additional drafting. These cities will specialise in whipping and drafting and are founded after Civil Service gives access to chain irrigation. They only need about +5 food and no resources are needed, so a few grassland and plains farms are enough. Granary, barracks and courthouse is the basic infrasructure and they are then used to simply turn food into hammers through drafting and whipping, averaging one of each every 10 turns.

That is a an economic and military strategy based on drafting muskets and later rifles to conquer the neighbours. It works well with Ottomans, Zara and Toku and with cannons can be made to work with just about any civ. I find that unless I can trade for the technology early that building Globe Theatre just slows down the drafting. A good Globe city (to grow one pop per turn at size 5 so a food surplus of 15 is needed) will not produce any more muskets / rifles than 3 or 4 small cities since they whip and draft 2 units every 10 turns and more initially. I find building 4 small cities is less disruptive than rushing the 6 theatres and Globe Theatre.

 

That's very unlikely to work because drafting a single unit eliminates 1 pop (unless >= Infantry) but generates 3.

I don't see how to draft angry faces away at all, no matter if it's a captured city or not.

 

Yeah, hard to draft unhappiness away. In a given 10-turn segment, I'll tend to draft once from every city, and probably 7-8 times from my GT one. Maybe if I need them I'll overlap the drafts from cities with extra happiness.

 

Yea, only after Infantry, thanks. Still, you could technically draft if the city will starve before.

Whipping away angry citizens is much better in any case.

 

I draft until my empire is ready to behead me as an emperor.

 

Seems weird though that the people are more upset about being given a military job, than being worked to death.