First shadow game - Emperor - Gilgamesh of Sumeria

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

You might want to provide us with shorter sessions. While I do not see too many mistakes, I think e.g. the Eridu disaster might have been avoided with more careful play without slowing the attack on Peter much. Generally the early game is much more important than the late game and thus discussing key decision points is more worthwhile in the early game. This offers more learning potential. Such moments would have been: Cyrus beginning to plot, maybe some difficult tech choices and trades, and the build up to the war.

Spoiler :

Noted. I realized this too and will be slower in the next game.

Yes, as this means 25% more units, and thus potentially an earlier attack.

Noted!

Unless you planned to attack Peter at this exact time your stack should probably have been in a (border) city, here clearly Eridu to be prepared, especially since you knew Cyrus was plotting but not on whom. Also one or two spears would probably have dealt with him? IMHO they are not too expensive and can be built preemptively.

I definitely realized a little late I needed to also build Spearmen. Luckily I did not waste any hammers on Archers as I never researched Archery.

Also you seem to have neglected to scout the Russian and Persian territory. The former would have been important so that you know what you are attacking and the latter to know where and when he might attack. For this you can send out individual units from your stack, as they have nothing better to do.

I actually did have some scouting guys ready, and while I foolishly did not put my stack in Eridu I was prepared enough to immediately take it back after getting Immortaled.

I do not believe you need MC right now. This only means Mansa will research faster, which is problematic as he probably is your main rival for Lib. What option were available, and did you do more trades?

I do have Silver though? I think Mansa is realistically my only trade partner, maybe Cyrus as well but Cyrus is also my first target.

Pricey. However I have too little information to judge.

I should have seen if I could get away with giving gold or not giving CoL for sure.

Show us the tech screen!

Will do in future shadow games.

Do not use Uruk for GP, unless you have a use for a GE. Lagash with both crabs (+8=4 specialists) and Kish (+9=4 specialists) with crabs and fish offer enough food for two good spots. Maybe add a few grassland farms there down the road. Petersburg also has enough food for a few specialists (+9= 4 specialists) when farming a grassland to irrigate the rice, You might want caste system to hire all these specialists (switch at the same time as bureau to minimize anarchy).

I might, might consider using GE for a GA so I can safely revolt into Bureau and CS. Thinking about it I don't anticipate this being a super long game so maybe MoM is not that useful.

For intermediate goals before Libbing MT, is the Music artist still available? Did anyone get Philo yet? (bulb?)

Believe all of those are still there.

Thank you so much for your tips!

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Quick question - how do I make sure GS will bulb Philo? Right now he will only bulb Compass

 

[Leason]

Quick question - how do I make sure GS will bulb Philo? Right now he will only bulb Compass

Do you have Meditation yet?

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Do you have Meditation yet?

I figured it out.

Spoiler Update: 1450 AD :

I won Lib at 1180 AD - it wasn't really close, especially since Mansa was prioritizing Economics over Lib.

I did a triple revolt into Bureau, Caste, and Pacifism - was this a mistake?

BK and Justin fought a mostly inconclusive war and then Peter peace-vassalled to Justin. I think only him and Mansa are the relevant threats, although I'm hoping to peace vassal Mansa.

Edit: Actually I’ll probably first sic Cavs on Mansa, why wait for him when I can cap him and have him tech for me sooner?

I managed to Cuir Cyrus and capitulate him. There is definitely room for improvement - in particular I slammed too many Cuirs at his best defended city and make things harder than I needed to.

When I get back I will Cav the world. Should be easy - don’t think any of my opponents even have guns yet.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Quick question - how do I make sure GS will bulb Philo?

Use the BUFFY tech screen. On the left there is a list of all great people and what they would bulb. Note that there are two bulb icons. One is what would be bulbed with your current techs and the other one what would be bulbed if you researched all techs you currently have queued up. The latter one is really helpful to check if you can research a tech without ruining a given bulb.

Spoiler :

This seems to go along well.

I did a triple revolt into Bureau, Caste, and Pacifism - was this a mistake?

Pacifism is definitely a golden age civic. With a spiritual civ you can get away with running it in peace-time, but else you should not. Caste is really good due to synergy with pacifism and rep. If you build up for a war, PS, slavery and theocracy are definitely better at this stage of the game.

In general a war is not to be taken lightly. It is better to focus all resources on a war to strike earlier into weaker defences.

When I get back I will Cav the world. Should be easy - don’t think any of my opponents even have guns yet.

Mansa and Joao are very close to Rifles, Justi and Peter are not that far away either. IMO you do not have the time to wait for cavs. If you do wait ~10 turns they will likely all have Rifles and your cavs will be useless. Either you press them now with cuirs (you seem to have about a dozen? That will be difficult.) or you will need to go further down the tree, e.g. to cannons (or tanks).

I think that in most cases going for cavs over cuirs is a trap, as it delays your attack. Both will do fine against medieval units and be shredded against Rifles, so Cavs provide little benefit for a huge delay (3 rather expensive techs).

 

[Plains-Cow]

I figured it out.

Spoiler Update: 1450 AD :

View attachment 751770
View attachment 751771
View attachment 751772

I won Lib at 1180 AD - it wasn't really close, especially since Mansa was prioritizing Economics over Lib.

I did a triple revolt into Bureau, Caste, and Pacifism - was this a mistake?

BK and Justin fought a mostly inconclusive war and then Peter peace-vassalled to Justin. I think only him and Mansa are the relevant threats, although I'm hoping to peace vassal Mansa.

Edit: Actually I’ll probably first sic Cavs on Mansa, why wait for him when I can cap him and have him tech for me sooner?

I managed to Cuir Cyrus and capitulate him. There is definitely room for improvement - in particular I slammed too many Cuirs at his best defended city and make things harder than I needed to.

When I get back I will Cav the world. Should be easy - don’t think any of my opponents even have guns yet.

Spoiler :

The Age of Cuirs is about to end in your game because rifles are about to arrive. Revolt out of Pacifism/Caste/Rep and into Theocracy/Slavery/Police State on the last turn of a Golden Age because you get DOUBLE GP points in a Golden Age. It's typically not worth it otherwise unless maybe if you have Parthenon and Philosophical. I would go Cannons, not Tanks. They will work with cuirs or rifles and can be used against cities with Infantry or even Tanks in a pinch as long as they have City Raider III promotions. If you're about to get rifles, I'd make a Globe Theater city (you have enough cities to build/whip theaters) in the highest food location I could spare and DRAFT every turn to build forces for the general war about to come.

 

[pmarc]

Also, should I maybe consider Knights as well, particularly since this is Emperor?

On high difficulty knights are not good (1) because the AI gets castles and pikes (Engineering) too fast as others have noted, but also (2) you can get Cuirassiers almost as fast by taking advantage of bulbing and tech trades.

On a lower difficulty game with Pangea or at least a continent with enough AI, you can go Horse Archers into Knights and it might work well enough. You could try it on Prince, Emperor might be a bit high for that.

 

[Gumbolt]

Not many units for 1450ad? You need a stack of 20-30+ units. Are you whipping units?

You skipped ahead far too quickly for any real advice here. 4 city break out is fine. Looks like map was pretty packed. I wonder if you had room for more cities as all the Ai had 7 or so cities come closer to 375bc..

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Not many units for 1450ad? You need a stack of 20-30+ units. Are you whipping units?

You skipped ahead far too quickly for any real advice here. 4 city break out is fine. Looks like map was pretty packed. I wonder if you had room for more cities as all the Ai had 7 or so cities come closer to 375bc..

I will try to be slower in the future. I settled 4 cities, took two from Peter with Cats (Peter was in my face so without that I would have only had 4), and then settled a 7th in a clams spot for a 7 city Cuir breakout.

I was whipping (and later drafting) very regularly, I just lost a lot of Cuirs because I didn’t execute as well as I could have.

I also had reinforcements about to come in and I was able to quickly cap Mansa before he could get Rifles. I also capped Justinian with Cannons (but I could have actually just used Cavs - will need to scout better in the future) and am well on my way to winning with Cannons now and will post the final date when done.

Thank you so much everyone @sampsa @Izuul @Plains-Cow @Fippy @Gumbolt @drewisfat and more for your help! I learned a TON both about gameplay and about how to do a CFC shadow game and this was my first ever real Emperor win that wasn’t reliant on cheesing with overpowered early game UUs.

Spoiler :

Some caveats of course were that 1) my capital turned out to be gorgeous (and moving to Silver was 100% the right choice because I needed the faster start more than the future scaling) and 2) Barbs were completely, utterly irrelevant in this game and barb management was a common source of my struggles. So I’ll definitely be continuing to post and learn here.

The map was really fun, it felt like the type of map they would setup for Noble’s Club.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I will try to be slower in the future. I settled 4 cities, took two from Peter with Cats (Peter was in my face so without that I would have only had 4), and then settled a 7th in a clams spot for a 7 city Cuir breakout.

I was whipping (and later drafting) very regularly, I just lost a lot of Cuirs because I didn’t execute as well as I could have.

I also had reinforcements about to come in and I was able to quickly cap Mansa before he could get Rifles. I also capped Justinian with Cannons (but I could have actually just used Cavs - will need to scout better in the future) and am well on my way to winning with Cannons now and will post the final date when done.

Thank you so much everyone @sampsa @Izuul @Plains-Cow @Fippy @Gumbolt @drewisfat and more for your help! I learned a TON both about gameplay and about how to do a CFC shadow game and this was my first ever real Emperor win that wasn’t reliant on cheesing with overpowered early game UUs.

Spoiler :

Some caveats of course were that 1) my capital turned out to be gorgeous (and moving to Silver was 100% the right choice because I needed the faster start more than the future scaling) and 2) Barbs were completely, utterly irrelevant in this game and barb management was a common source of my struggles. So I’ll definitely be continuing to post and learn here.

The map was really fun, it felt like the type of map they would setup for Noble’s Club.

Thank you for sharing it with us. I hope that next time you post more updates so we can see and learn together. It isn't that you're necessarily playing too fast; it's that your updates are so far apart that you might have other areas where critical improvement is needed but unknown and gets totally missed otherwise.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

One small question - for some reason 3 city Peter won’t cap to me. His message is “surely you must be joking”. Why?

 

[soundjata]

He thinks in terms of (cities you take + units you kill) / (cities he takes + units he kills) pretty much.
You need to increase this ratio.

 

[Plains-Cow]

One small question - for some reason 3 city Peter won’t cap to me. His message is “surely you must be joking”. Why?

Could be three things:

1) He's a vassal, and vassals will never cap unless free, though you said he was a vassal of Justinian who you've since capped. Has Peter peace vassaled to another AI without you seeing it?
2) You don't have enough war success against him (killing his units vs. having your units killed). You need to kill more of his units and lose as few of yours as possible.
3) This is more about peace vassals, but you don't touch at least 8 non-water land tiles of his with either you or your vassal's culture. See this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/land-target-and-manipulating-the-ai.561148/

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Could be three things:

1) He's a vassal, and vassals will never cap unless free, though you said he was a vassal of Justinian who you've since capped. Has Peter peace vassaled to another AI without you seeing it?
2) You don't have enough war success against him (killing his units vs. having your units killed). You need to kill more of his units and lose as few of yours as possible.
3) This is more about peace vassals, but you don't touch at least 8 non-water land tiles of his with either you or your vassal's culture. See this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/land-target-and-manipulating-the-ai.561148/

Probably 2), I just didn't "hurt" him enough. Didn't matter anyways because I won Domination after capping Joao (even Infantry couldn't save him)

Spoiler screenshots :

 

[floydmcw]

Thanks GtB for posting this, was a fun map.

Spoiler My game to T79 :

When scouting with my warrior I happened to be next to Peter's worker when it was 2 distant from the capital. (T11, I assume he finished it on T10 with EXP / Emperor bonuses.) So I stole it.

That helped me get my capital up quickly (seafood starts are slow, even with that help I didn't get second city till T39).

I just settled next to copper and chopped a bunch of vultures. Had never done a vulture rush. Finished off Peter T78, he had only 2 cities.

It's weird that Cyrus plotted on you, it's very rare for an Emperor AI to plot on T42. He left me alone in my game. (My immediate rush, which started with raxes in both cities, may have helped.)

One other thing, I didn't revolt to slavery right away. Uruk had great tiles to work and slow growth, I figured chopping would be enough.

 

[floydmcw]

Kind of silly but is there a better activation phrase than "yassip EAGin"? Love it so much.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Spoiler :

I just settled next to copper and chopped a bunch of vultures. Had never done a vulture rush. Finished off Peter T78, he had only 2 cities.

Did you settle an iceball city for that? I don't recall there ever being a source of copper in settleable territory. AFAIK, vulture rushes aren't really a thing, or at the very least they are basically just axe rushes, because Vultures are a tiny-at-best improvement from regular axes (because they have -25% melee bonus). I didn't axe rush because I want to practice Immortal/Deity level strategies and I know axe rushes are rarely viable at those levels.

It's weird that Cyrus plotted on you, it's very rare for an Emperor AI to plot on T42. He left me alone in my game. (My immediate rush, which started with raxes in both cities, may have helped.)

Persian neighbors are tricky, because (as one may have learned from AI Survivor's most recent season) while most AI need metal units to plot, the AI can plot with just Immortals (I think it has something to do with having at least two unit flags, Immortals have both "mounted" and "anti-archer" I think). So if I were going to get attacked T50 on Emperor it probably was going to be a Cyrus Immortal-dec.

One other thing, I didn't revolt to slavery right away. Uruk had great tiles to work and slow growth, I figured chopping would be enough.

I used early whipping pretty heavily because I wanted to save chops for Construction rush.

 

[floydmcw]

Spoiler :

Did you settle an iceball city for that? I don't recall there ever being a source of copper in settleable territory.

I settled 5 SE of the settler spawn position. Did Cyrus snipe it from you?

AFAIK, vulture rushes aren't really a thing, or at the very least they are basically just axe rushes, because Vultures are a tiny-at-best improvement from regular axes (because they have -25% melee bonus). I didn't axe rush because I want to practice Immortal/Deity level strategies and I know axe rushes are rarely viable at those levels.

The -25% melee is not a big deal if you rush the AI while they have archers. A 6-strength melee unlocked by Bronze Working is a super strong unit! I'd have no hesitation trying a Vulture rush on Immortal. Deity, I could not say.

Also I'm sure I could have improved on my Vulture rush. I was slow to get Eridu and its copper roaded (T50) and I attacked Peter before my vultures were ready, to nab another worker. In retrospect that probably made him build a lot of archers.

Persian neighbors are tricky, because (as one may have learned from AI Survivor's most recent season) while most AI need metal units to plot, the AI can plot with just Immortals (I think it has something to do with having at least two unit flags, Immortals have both "mounted" and "anti-archer" I think). So if I were going to get attacked T50 on Emperor it probably was going to be a Cyrus Immortal-dec.

Good to know and will definitely keep an eye on Cyrus in future games.

 

[Swejok]

I have also started this game. Struggling with emperor, so we will see how it goes. I have not read any of the above post/spoilers other than the first post and the post where the save file was.

/Swejok

 

[Swejok]

Turn 133. Got a great start! Will post a recap but a quick question - how do you hide text in "Spoiler" in this forum? Don't want to ruin something for those who are playing along.

/Swejok