First Win on Emperor. Now for the Second.

[Florian]

After six unsuccessful tries with Gandhi and Pericles, trying to finesse something, I broke out Hannibal and won my first game on Emperor level. Of course, it wasn't just the leader. I also got the change to start on a huge landmass with Shaka close by, and then the chance to deny him iron (he was already lacking bronze), which led to me rolling him up early and developing most of the continent by myself.

So I tried again, this time with Justinian, and that one just didn't go according to plan. I was on one side of a long semi-rectangular continent with a Protective leader (Mao) blocking up too much space to my east. I delayed my expansion to get Hinduism and Stonehenge (Justinian's early strengths seem to conflict with each other a little), and maybe that was a mistake. It probably cost me two city sites. But maybe it wasn't a mistake. My economy was in great shape. But with only three good cities, I started falling behind, and soon I deemed things unrecoverable.

This leads me to ask two questions:

1) Is it better to work the Spiritual angle or the Imperialistic angle early on with Justinian? Or in what situations is one better than the other? (I'm guessing that starting next to a Protective leader might be one of the times it's better to focus on the Imperialistic advantages).

2) I don't know if I can win at Emperor without a successful early war. This means it's very bad for me to start next to a Protective leader. What sorts of things would you try in my situation, either to get a strong position without an early war or to make an early war work against a Protective leader?

 

[Zanttu]

I delayed my expansion to get Hinduism and Stonehenge and maybe that was a mistake. It probably cost me two city sites. But maybe it wasn't a mistake. My economy was in great shape. But with only three good cities, I started falling behind, and soon I deemed things unrecoverable.

On emperor the AI is pretty fast in expanding. I consider REXing the most important thing on levels emperor+. Yes, you can do it without some kind of REX(see obsolete style for example), but IMO the easiest way to claim lots of land is to spam out settlers until you hit start losing money at 20-30% research. Especially with Impearialistic leader. You don't need any wonders/religions, you only need cities.

 

[r_rolo1]

I agree with Zanttu... IMHO Justinian is designed to be a war beast and that works better with more cities producing

 

[brades]

Justinian is best used by REXing at the beginning, prechop some of those forests. In a recent emperor game I randomly got justinian and won. Before 1 AD I had like 8 cities, 0% science slider, but I had built one key wonder - the pyramids. Eventually I was forced to transition my 8 peaceful city empire into a war machine, but thats how you win the game. I lost a lot of wonders I normally go for in that game, mainly the great library, but it was irrelavent because I had the most land and land is power. The thing you need to know on emperor is that you will probably never steamroll the AI and all your victories will probably be a few turns before an AI achieves whatever victory they are going for. In that justinian game I had to invade my northern neighbor to get a land access route to van oranje who was steamrolling to a culture victory. After wiping him out I then had to destroy Asoka's capital because he got his spaceship out before mine ( damn spies blew up 2 completed parts the turn before my launch). At some point you just have to say to yourself 'Im not going to lose this game no matter how tedious the end of it will be'.

 

[Florian]

Consensus so far is that Justinian should Rex instead of getting a religion and Stonehenge. But what if I were Gandhi and I were in that position, in danger of being crowded by a Protective Civ? Should I still Rex instead of getting religion and Stonehenge?

 

[Zanttu]

Consensus so far is that Justinian should Rex instead of getting a religion and Stonehenge. But what if I were Gandhi and I were in that position, in danger of being crowded by a Protective Civ? Should I still Rex instead of getting religion and Stonehenge?

Yes you should.