From King to Emperor - ouch

[ezzlar]

Well, if you do only settlers+military then you should secure expansion. And when expansion is there it´s just smooth sailing.

Things you might have to do: Capture unescorted settlers, specially if they are heading for a forward settling. Block of narrow passages to deny AI expansion. Shuffle troops around escorted AI settlers to deny settling on a good spot.

And of course: No construction of buildings, no districts, no scouts, no religion.

Pack cities together, makes defensive easier. When deciding the first cities make sure the yields in the first ring are decent. Also make sure the 2-3 first cities arent 4-5 spaces open grassland around since the AI usually swarms those cities.

 

[gozpel]

For taking enemy cities quickly, scout, 3 slingers with a builder in between, another warrior and slinger and warrior. And you're ready to go. Work on archery.

Hopefully on some productive tiles or you can forget it. By turn 30-40 you should have a standing army that can take out a civ. Or 2.

Especially with Nubia, my fav civ.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Are you building the slingers and then upgrading them to archers? Also, are you chopping?

 

[Tuvok694]

I go back to King. It's pointless, I am simply too stupid for this game.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Play Nubia. Build order: builder, slinger, settler, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger.

Get mining, then beeline archery. Use builder to get craftsmen for agoge.
Save money and upgrade slingers to pitati.
Then keep on building pitati.

Kill AI. Win.

You can't go wrong with this.

 

[ezzlar]

If he gets early rushed the builder or the slinger wont help him...

 

[Archon_Wing]

Can we like stop giving advice that's a step above like "just win the game"? It looks that simple because people are used to beating this and higher. If people can conquer all their neighbors and spam 30 cities, they wouldn't be asking questions lol. The only thing you're really doing is boasting about how easy the game is.

You won't get anywhere by following exactly what someone tells you to do, and picking certain only civs to cheese a map doesn't teach you anything or make you a better player. What happens when you don't have a neighbor, etc. Reroll the map?

In the end, you want to realize that the higher difficulty the game is, the more you will start out behind, but it doesn't matter because the AI struggles at beating the game. So yes, disrupting them in any manner (eg Spaceport sabotage) will help. In any case, it's perfectly fine to be behind, but you need to exploit what the AI doesn't. So the AI always focuses on Religion, you don't and enjoy the benefits. AI is slow at religion-- maybe you should take a shot at it. Try to pick the path of least resistance. And of course, war is good when they're lax on defense, but if you're struggling through rainforest/hills to get to someone, you're just setting up people to fail.

So anyhow, when you build something, ask yourself "why am I doing this?", if you're building something because it looks pretty or because you can't think of something else, you're creating waste-- get rid of it. In the early game, you just want the basics, expansion (either by settle or conquest), make your capital and early cities grow and produce, and focus culture to get a government. But this is an idea-- not a battle plan.

In the end, no text wall will make you get better. Play a game, post about it-- and don't want until the ADs to ask what's wrong. Mistakes in the beginning are the most fatal, and need to be nixed right away.

 

[Horizons]

I go back to King. It's pointless, I am simply too stupid for this game.

lol yes, exactly.

Well I think maybe I made a mistake by building a campus and a holy site (the latter for my prophet, playing as Arabia). I perhaps should just have used that time to build more units. I still think it's really brutal when you start out near multiple AIs, and is very stressful.

 

[Leucarum]

@Horizons Why not try some of the game of the month games? For example, https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/news-6otm57-announcement.642185/ was on Emperor as Maori. These have a lot of people explaining their opening strategy and replicating them may help you improve.

Otherwise why not play a game and post some screenshots of your empire at 1, 50, and 100 turns. People can give you advice on how they would have played differently and you can just reload to try it out.

It's not impossible to go up difficulty levels, and the folks here are helpful to a fault.

 

[MarigoldRan]

If he gets early rushed the builder or the slinger wont help him...

For Nubia, slingers will help him since Nubia builds slingers at +50% speed.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Can we like stop giving advice that's a step above like "just win the game"? It looks that simple because people are used to beating this and higher. If people can conquer all their neighbors and spam 30 cities, they wouldn't be asking questions lol. The only thing you're really doing is boasting about how easy the game is.

You won't get anywhere by following exactly what someone tells you to do, and picking certain only civs to cheese a map doesn't teach you anything or make you a better player. What happens when you don't have a neighbor, etc. Reroll the map?

In the end, you want to realize that the higher difficulty the game is, the more you will start out behind, but it doesn't matter because the AI struggles at beating the game. So yes, disrupting them in any manner (eg Spaceport sabotage) will help. In any case, it's perfectly fine to be behind, but you need to exploit what the AI doesn't. So the AI always focuses on Religion, you don't and enjoy the benefits. AI is slow at religion-- maybe you should take a shot at it. Try to pick the path of least resistance. And of course, war is good when they're lax on defense, but if you're struggling through rainforest/hills to get to someone, you're just setting up people to fail.

So anyhow, when you build something, ask yourself "why am I doing this?", if you're building something because it looks pretty or because you can't think of something else, you're creating waste-- get rid of it. In the early game, you just want the basics, expansion (either by settle or conquest), make your capital and early cities grow and produce, and focus culture to get a government. But this is an idea-- not a battle plan.

In the end, no text wall will make you get better. Play a game, post about it-- and don't want until the ADs to ask what's wrong. Mistakes in the beginning are the most fatal, and need to be nixed right away.

He's building Holy Sites. That's why he's losing. He needs to stop building buildings and build only settlers, military, and builders.

 

[Victoria]

The main mistake people make is building districts early, 1 is useful but more than 1 just slows you down.
Playing on phases really can help and here is a quick rundown on those phases How to maximize Science?

But also There is nothing wrong with playing on prince, it is still an enjoyable game.

 

[Archon_Wing]

He's building Holy Sites. That's why he's losing.

That is not why.

I mean you're right. The Holy Site shouldn't be built. But you are mistaking the symptom for the illness.

 

[Horizons]

@Horizons Why not try some of the game of the month games? For example, https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/news-6otm57-announcement.642185/ was on Emperor as Maori. These have a lot of people explaining their opening strategy and replicating them may help you improve.

Otherwise why not play a game and post some screenshots of your empire at 1, 50, and 100 turns. People can give you advice on how they would have played differently and you can just reload to try it out.

It's not impossible to go up difficulty levels, and the folks here are helpful to a fault.

Will do. I'm starting again as Shaka so there will be no early game distractions.

 

[Horizons]

Turn 52 and I feel this is already unwinnable. AI is storming ahead and the barb horsemen are sending me into retreat.

I've gone from comfortably beating King to feeling like a total idiot at Emperor. Not a nice feeling!

 

[MrRadar]

@Horizons
Just a few quick observations.
Reyna is definitely not the first governor to pick. Magnus is, Liang as possible alternative.
Don't build Encampments. Seriously, just don't. Especially at the start. And in this state of the game. No. Slot in Agoge and roll out some warriors and slingers.
You have 615 gold and you're hard building a monument. Why not just to buy it and build units in that city?
Plenty of space for you just to expand peacefully, you need a handful of troops for barb control and a bunch of settlers. Magnus with Provision, Government Plaza with Ancestral Hall and pump those settlers. Encampment here is a total, complete waste of production and time.

 

[Horizons]

@Horizons
Just a few quick observations.
Reyna is definitely not the first governor to pick. Magnus is, Liang as possible alternative.
Don't build Encampments. Seriously, just don't. Especially at the start. And in this state of the game. No. Slot in Agoge and roll out some warriors and slingers.
You have 615 gold and you're hard building a monument. Why not just to buy it and build units in that city?
Plenty of space for you just to expand peacefully, you need a handful of troops for barb control and a bunch of settlers. Magnus with Provision, Government Plaza with Ancestral Hall and pump those settlers. Encampment here is a total, complete waste of production and time.

Haha I thought as much! I wasn't thinking I will reload my 4000 BC save and start again!

 

[EgonSpengler]

Turn 52 and I feel this is already unwinnable. AI is storming ahead and the barb horsemen are sending me into retreat.

I've gone from comfortably beating King to feeling like a total idiot at Emperor. Not a nice feeling!

Spoiler :

1. Barb horsemen really blow. Bad luck, that.

2. This map is actually well-suited to a more laid-back strategy than I've been advocating earlier in this thread. It looks like you can stake a claim to that entire 'Iberian Peninsula' by settling a single city in the choke point, on the north side of the Mojave Desert, in the hex right above the marsh, 2 hexes south of the iron. It'll also grab those Pearls, later on.
2a. Speaking of which, the "Mojave Desert" tells you that Roosevelt is nearby. He's a land-grabbing pain in the *ahem* neck, so you need to be ready for that. Flip on the map overlay that shows Loyalty pressures and you'll see if he's close.

3. You didn't fully commit to an early war of aggression. If you were going for an early war strategy, you've wasted too much time. You should already have 4 Warriors and 4 Archers hammering Pasargadae, with more on the way. It might not be too late to conquer Persia, but you're behind the curve now. For reasons of #2 above, however, I'd skip it for now.
3a. An Encampment's a poor choice, whatever approach you're taking here. It's all but completed now, though, so don't ditch it on the last turn.

This is far from unwinnable. Your only major problem atm is whichever Barb camp is spawning those Horsemen. I'd find it and kill it asap. If it were me, I would forget the early war of conquest and swerve into building Settlers and claiming that whole peninsula. Build some military units to deal with those Barbs, then Settlers.

 

[Leucarum]

@Horizons
Just a few quick observations.
Reyna is definitely not the first governor to pick. Magnus is, Liang as possible alternative.
Don't build Encampments. Seriously, just don't. Especially at the start. And in this state of the game. No. Slot in Agoge and roll out some warriors and slingers.
You have 615 gold and you're hard building a monument. Why not just to buy it and build units in that city?
Plenty of space for you just to expand peacefully, you need a handful of troops for barb control and a bunch of settlers. Magnus with Provision, Government Plaza with Ancestral Hall and pump those settlers. Encampment here is a total, complete waste of production and time.

@Horizons - Definitely lots of nice city locations! It may feel like you are neglecting your cities by not building districts early, but the reason the AI is tougher on emperor is that it's extra cities early on have a snowball effect over time. Every city you make is another thing you can produce at the same time as well as more high-quality land claimed for later.

Placing the districts but switching production to something else is really good too. It locks in the cost of the district (which increases over time) so you can build it later more cheaply. Although it feels like a bug, that's how the designers intended it.

With the barbarians, horses are a pain, but prevention is better than the cure. If you can kill the scout, that will be much better than dealing with the attack. But if you do get spotted: Rather than attacking the horsemen, fortify your warriors on defensible terrain, make the barbarians suffer by attacking you. And getting archery is one of the most important things you can do. A couple of archers can stop most attacks dead in their tracks. You did the right thing by building slingers which you can upgrade into archers. And don't forget that you can use scouts to distract the enemy. They will try and attack the weakest target and that's usually your fast scouts. Keep them in sight but out of attack range and you can lure barbarians away from your cities giving you time to deal with the camp.

It's a bit more of an advanced point but it may be worth remembering that you can settle on top of a luxury or strategic resource and you'll get that resource for the city. Early on you can sell it to the AI and use the money to buy important infrastructure. But don't hoard money that you can use to buy builders, monuments, etc...

 

[ezzlar]

As others have said, wrong things: scout, slingers, the district, the monument and 2 builders.

3 warriors, 1 settler, warrior, 1 settler. Buy a builder or a settler. 1 slinger. 1 settler.

I think you get the overall picture.