First Emperor Win

[Oddible]

So I finally crossed a new line in my civving ability - I've beat Emperor

A combination of decent starting point and healthy allies made it possible. That and the fact that I finally grokked several of the pieces necessary to make it happen.

1) Effective use of workers in early game
Had plenty of them, got things connected quickly and had enough roads to citizens to keep my economy in decent shape

2) City micromanagement.
I went for population. First time for me - in the past, I just let the AI deal with it. Instead I almost always moved citizens to higher food squares to get my cities big fast. When wars happened, I shuffled things over to production until I gained advantage.

BTW, at one point in this game I was at war with EVERYONE except one other civ. Best thing about it was that it was very early so only a few folks could reach me. Dern alliances.

Later game involved using some Engineers and Policemen to get certain things out of specific cities.

3) Massive diplomacy
I'm making this one a separate bullet point because it was essential. I won a Diplomatic win, then kept playing and beat everyone to the Space Ship too. Was massive at this point so could have gone for one of the painful obliteration wins but didn't. DO NOT DECLARE WARS! There are several ways to get the AI to declare - if you never declare a war, and especially, never declare a war when you have open treaties (gpt, lux, RoP, etc.) you'll be golden the whole game. Otherwise, you're gonna pay more for tech and every other diplo option.

4) Tech trading
Just trade. Work the broker angle - trade for what others don't have. Pay ANY price. NEVER HORDE - it just doesn't work - cuz the AI doesn't do it. If you trade for every little penny - trading a tech for 20g if you have to, its possible to have enough $$ to keep your tech at 90% through most of the game. (The beginning can be a bit rough and there will be times when it is necessary to bust it back to 0% and just buy techs for a while, but it is pretty straightforward to get into the right angles to trade to the top of the heap at several points in the tech tree). I think that tech trading is THE single most important aspect of winning at Emperor - though several other methods support making sure that good tech trading is possible.

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So there's just a few items to keep an eye on. I'm actually attaching the file because I think others who crush Monarch opponents and are struggling with Emperor will enjoy this game. I've bumped the AI aggressiveness down one notch (yeah, ok, whatever). There are some resource issues to deal with and you will have to work for it - so here goes...

Conquests Emperor Autosave 4000BC

Edit:

This one was random but I think it came out:

Ottoman
Standard
Continents 70% Water
(or maybe Archi 60%)
Age and climate somewhere in the middle.
Roaming Barbs
AI Less Aggressive
All victory conditions

Let me know how you do...

 

[satchel]

Congratulations oddible! I have been thinking about making the Monarch-Emperor jump myself. Reading your post is inspiring because everything you suggest is already part of the way I play. Well, everything except your micromanaging tips - this is, in fact, why I haven't moved up yet - I don't have patience for the kind of micromanaging the most advanced players engage in. I love reading Demi-god and higher succession games for ideas but it's hard for me to imagine myself doing that kind of micromanaging.

Anyhow, good job on your emperor win! What were the game conditions - civ, world-type, etc?

 

[juballs2001]

test yourself out on emperor a bit more, an prepare for the biggest jump in civ u have to make, emperor to diety, quite the jump and always a challenge

 

[Oddible]

This one was random but I think it came out:

Ottoman
Standard
Continents 70% Water
(or maybe Archi 60%)
Age and climate somewhere in the middle.
Roaming Barbs
AI Less Aggressive
All victory conditions

I used to feel this way about micromanagement. There are a lot of things that are just a carpal tunnel nightmare and I won't do (= not fun). But there are a bunch of things that I used to think were 'micromanagement' which actually are just proper use of an item. For instance, when there is a war, all military units are your first priority and you micro work every one of those suckas. But at peace, are you giving the same attention to workers and citizens? I read a great article on Advanced Forestry from the War Academy which blew my mind in terms of the depth of this game.

Last but definitely not least. The workers. I need to find out the specifics but at a certain stage of the game grassland is irrigateable for an extra food. This was a major change in my play style where I normally just mined green and irrigated brown. At Republic (which by the way I stayed in for the entirety of the game), I irrigated most grass to get my population up quick. Then made sure that every city was efficiently producing barely more food than necessary to stay at 12 until Sanitation.

The problem with not making the switch from one level to another as I'm seeing it - and recall from my Regent to Monarch, the tipping point becomes huge and earlier and earlier. Modern age is great the way several win conditions could all happen at once and so when every game is decided in the industrial or even middle ages, it makes me really want the game to stretch to Modern.

 

[viper275]

Congratulations! I remember my Emperor jump 1-1/2 months ago (I think mine was Iroquois, Archipelago 60%, temperate, normal, 4 billion. What you are saying is so true (especially the workers, you [for the most part] can't have to many.)

test yourself out on emperor a bit more, an prepare for the biggest jump in civ u have to make, emperor to diety, quite the jump and always a challenge

In Civ3Conquests, there is a level between Emperor and Deity (it's called Demigod.) That's still a big jump (AI gets a free settler at the start starting then.)

I might try playing that save...

 

[juballs2001]

Congratulations! I remember my Emperor jump 1-1/2 months ago (I think mine was Iroquois, Archipelago 60%, temperate, normal, 4 billion. What you are saying is so true (especially the workers, you [for the most part] can't have to many.)

In Civ3Conquests, there is a level between Emperor and Deity (it's called Demigod.) That's still a big jump (AI gets a free settler at the start starting then.)

I might try playing that save...

ya demigod, thats what i meant, my mistake

 

[JonathanValjean]

Good job, Oddible!

 

[HamaticBabylon]

Congratulation, sir!

 

[Aramazd]

Cogratulations

good luck on demigod