From King to Emperor - ouch

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

to start winning on emperor on above, player HAVE to change mentality of prince and below level games. no way around this. every move, every chop, every building have to make sense in the context of victory. not to mention wonders.

A two step mentality would be like this:

• Build relevant infrastructure if you don't have it, like if going for science victory, you want campuses in every city.
• Expand if the above if true, expansion can be by settlers and military, cities that have completed its infrastructure should build military units or settlers.

Obviously this is quite simple and ignore stuff like builders but it is a very simple gameplan that should pretty much guarantee victory against the ai.

 

[AlanC9]

Very early rushes are out: can't out-produce the AI, also have barbarians to get rid of.

Ancient or classical rushes are out: AI bee-lines to crossbows.

Not my experience. I've been able to hit the AI with swordsmen before they have crossbows, using the army I built to fight the barbs. Even if the AI gets crossbows during the war, by that time I've ground up most of their military.

 

[AriochIV]

One of the inherent issues with a Continents map is that if you start on a small continent, and the larger continent gets steamrolled by one civilization fairly early in the game, there's not very much you can do about it, even if you're killing it hard on your own continent. Pretty tough to mount a naval invasion of a larger civilization that's ahead of you in every rating.

 

[knighterrant81]

Okay, I'm finding early war impossible to win under most circumstances on Emperor.

You're going too slow. I'm almost certain of it. Build 3 Warriors and 3 Slingers. Upgrade them to Archers. You might want a few more units after this. This should be done by about turn 40 or 50. Once done with this, start building Chariots or Horsemen (the Chariots are for upgrading to Knights around turn 80 or so).

Very early rushes are out: can't out-produce the AI, also have barbarians to get rid of.

See my earlier post. This is plenty of units to take care of Barbs and rush down an AI.

Ancient or classical rushes are out: AI bee-lines to crossbows.

Again, this means you are going too slow.

Medieval or Renaissance out: if focusing on military, the AI will get an unassailable tech and culture lead. By this time the AI has 40 - 70 strength cities and encampments everywhere, meaning you get bombarded to death. AI spam and bonuses allows it to produce enough units to whittle you down regardless of tactics.

You should be far ahead in tech by the Renaissance. I can pretty much have my way with the AI any time after the Medieval era.

Warfare only becomes viable with artillery and balloons, so you can bombard cities safely. But by that time you are so far behind that you can't win the game anyway.

I really think you'd have more fun playing Prince. It is true that they've improved the AI a bit and now it favors ranged units, which means, yeah, sometimes you can't rush them down in the early game. Sometimes. However, if you are not too slow and you have Iron or Horses, you should be able to. If not, build up an economic lead instead and rush them with Knights or Musketmen.

 

[Tuvok694]

I've been able to hit the AI with swordsmen before they have crossbows

Congratulations! This is one of the many "fortunate" things mentioned in this thread that I never manage to do. If I go for science to have crossbows "early", my military is too weak and I get destroyed. If I build military to prevent being destroyed, my science is soon too far behind to be able to compete with the AI in any category.
I still cannot even win half of my games at emperor level.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Alright, very quickly; I'll explain why you (the audience, not anyone in particular) can't win. In order:

1. You don't learn from your mistakes. If you make a mistake, owe up to it. Nobody cares if you lose, but people do care when you make excuses."But I did everything right." No you didn't; otherwise you wouldn't have lost. And you will lose again if you don't find out what was wrong.

2. You gloss over turns, mashing "end turn" At the end of the day, this is a strategy game, and mashing end turn to get to stuff being finished is not the best way to play. Try to plan ahead and think about what to do next instead of plowing through. Do not suddenly play 100 turns all at once and be like "What do I do now?"

3 You are passive. You don't pay attention to the world around you. Now, we all know the notifications system is horrid and hard to keep up with, but when you fail to notice your City States are getting swallowed up or your nearby neighbor is becoming a huge menace, you will pay for it. The AI is dumb. If you get surprised by the AI, then you' just aren't paying attention. Be proactive in chasing victories.

4. You ignore military. Related to the above. Please stop it with the "I'm not going for a domination victory, I don't need to build any defense whatsoever." War is a part of the game, embrace it. If you won't, your neighbor probably will.

5. You build things at random. You should have a good idea of what to prioritize first. Wonders are expensive and carry a huge opportunity cost.

6. You don't play to your civ's strengths. This should be pretty clear; you can't just do the same thing every time.

7. You overplay your civ's abilities. On the other hand, playing as Scythia doesn't mean you have to build nothing but horsemen-- their civ abilities apply to all kinds of units. Sometimes horses are not a good idea.

8. You ignore the map. Some maps have lots of food and low production, other maps are faster, some maps are slower. Don't take this all for granted.

9. You speculate. Should you settle a spot that has 2 iron deposits when you have no iron elsewhere and good production, or this spot with no production but has a spot for a +6 campus? Don't even consider the later. Pipe dreams don't win games.

10. You don't use cards effectively. As it turns out, +50% increase in production is a big deal. Always swap out cards to the ones that are relevant to what you are doing and focus.

 

[knighterrant81]

Congratulations! This is one of the many "fortunate" things mentioned in this thread that I never manage to do. If I go for science to have crossbows "early", my military is too weak and I get destroyed. If I build military to prevent being destroyed, my science is soon too far behind to be able to compete with the AI in any category.
I still cannot even win half of my games at emperor level.

I think the balance changes over the past year or so have basically made the divide between military and science investment more clear. It used to be that you could mostly focus on Science and still do pretty well militarily. That's less true now. Yes, you can still invest in Science and stomp the AI with your military at the same time, and you can still do some pretty gross things with Science-focused Civs like Korea or Australia, but there are fewer maps where you can do this now than there were in past. Playing around with some Domination-focused early play, I've noticed that you get more payoff now with investing in your military specifically. Not that military was buffed or anything, just that improvements to the AI meant that you actually get a benefit to investing in these areas. Basically, it was too easy to invest in Science and dominate with a military before.

So, how do we adapt to that? The lesson of Gran Columbia is that Great Generals are really strong. You basically have 3 District investment paths at the start of the game - Religious (Holy Site), Scientific (Campus), and Military (Encampment). If you are planning on doing any aggressive early game moves, particularly if you've had trouble getting behind or thwarted by AI Crossbows or Walls, it means you're going way too slow. Stack up on military advantages, or just play peacefully.

• Play a militaristic Civ, like Rome or the Mongols.
• Beeline your strategic resource techs (Horseback Riding or Bronze Working)
• Build Encampments with the goal of getting a Great General. A few turns of Strategos looks much better right now than it ever has before.
• Your first builds should look something like this: Scout --> Builder --> Slinger (if needed) --> Settler --> 3 Slingers (total) --> 3 Warriors (total) --> 1 more unit (Slinger, Warrior, or Spearman depending on a lot of factors)
• You did slot in Agoge to build all those units, right? If you can avoid it, try not to build units without the right card slotted. Building units is really inefficient. That's why upgrading with gold is still pretty strong. Policy cards really help with that. This is also why an early Builder is strong - the improvements are nice, but the real benefit is the quick Inspiration boost towards Craftsmanship.
• If you lose the resource lottery, you need to change tacks. Switch focus to Science, and beeline a later timing push. Musketmen/Bombards are pretty good at catching the AI with its pants down. I think Knights are still okay but they are not as strong as they used to be.
• Realize that when you build a lot of units early, you've made an investment. The best way to use that investment is to knock heads. So go do that. Or don't build up as much of an army.
• Winning on higher difficulties is about being more efficient. What decisions are slowing you down? It only takes 3 techs to get to Iron Working. Iron/Swords Civs really benefit from a Mining --> Bronze Working beeline (that means you don't research anything else until you are done).