From King to Emperor - ouch

[MarigoldRan]

Why do you only have 2 cities by turn 52? Just go slinger, builder, settler, builder, settler. You should have at least 3. Also, are you losing units to barbs?

 

[Casualty of war]

Here's hoping I can be less confrontational and more constructive.

Horizons, I probably would have settled on the Coffee or the Tea, probably the Tea. That free Beaker is great to have in your capitol but that hex is miserable to work. Plus you get the luxury to sell off to the first person you meet, even before Irrigation. This is the secret of how to afford ridiculous things in the Ancient Era, like your second Settler or emergency troops.

That bulbous peninsula is where you want Cyrus to settle, so his city flips to you by Loyalty pressure. You should have probably prioritized a spot with more Hammers and Food. Or, if the timing matched up right, the Iron I see.

Encampments aren't a bad District, if Culture is scarce, you want a Great General or it will make an Envoy pop in a City-State. If you're trying to rush Iron Working or beeline Terracotta Army, it's a fine choice.

Barb Horsemen are a pain, but they are also how you can tell where Horses are even before Animal Handling. If that camp is cranking out Horsemen, there's Horses within 3 hexes.

Cyrus has to be misdirected or proactively handled, because if you let him sneak declare on you his troops will run rings around you. If you put a walled city with an Encampment at the chokepoint of the continent then declare on him, he will charge so many troops to their doom. Pillaging pairadaeza (probably misspelled that) is great sport too.

If you don't mind, post the Turn 0 of a map (even the Zulu one) and let people show you where you can be by the end of the first Era or first hundred turns. No need to run it out to the end of the game.

 

[kb27787]

I'll say it again: coastal cities SUCK! Moving 2-3 tiles upstream would have given you a much stronger start (furs are great tiles!)

Need to beeline animal husbandry and archery and forget about sailing

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'll say it again: coastal cities SUCK! Moving 2-3 tiles upstream would have given you a much stronger start (furs are great tiles!)

Need to beeline animal husbandry and archery and forget about sailing

I agree, on that map, settling the capital at the headwaters of that short river (whose name I'm not going to try to type ) would put a 2nd coffee and a marble in range, eventually. Also the iron, but while you wouldn't have known that, I believe the only Resource that spawns at sea later in the game is the off-shore Oil. Because we know that Iron, Horses, Oil, and Uranium (am I forgetting something?) will spawn on land hexes, you're maximizing your odds of getting those Resources by maximizing the number of land hexes you can claim. (Shipwrecks also appear in sea hexes, but those don't need to be in your city radius to grab them.)

iirc, the only advantages to settling literally right on the coast are: You can build naval units without a Harbor; your Harbor can get the adjacency bonus for being next to your city hub; and you get the Inspiration for Sailing. None of those is really compelling to me, most of the time. Always keep an open mind, of course; there might be a time when a city bang-on the coastline will be just what you need, but most of the time, going upriver a little bit is going to be better.

 

[Horizons]

So you recommend settling right on luxuries? See how suptoptimal one can be at King and still win!

 

[EgonSpengler]

So you recommend settling right on luxuries?

Never say never, but I don't do that. You wouldn't get any of the tile yields if you settle right on top of it. In this case, you get a little extra Science and Culture from the Tea and Coffee. If you had to settle on a Luxury, I suppose the ones that provide Gold are the most disposable, but I still try to avoid it.

I'm not sure there's a lot of value to a Scout here. Since you reloaded the map, you already know your immediate surroundings, including the fact that there aren't any City-States that you need to rush to meet first. If it were me, I'd either go full-Orc Horde and crush Persia under my heel (e.g. nothing but Warriors and Slingers until Persia is completely conquered) or work to claim as much territory as quickly as possible (e.g. Settlers, and enough military to protect them from Barbarians). Myself, I would press my luck and try to do both. Ideally, Persia will get greedy and spend too much time building civilian units, and you can capture one of their Settlers - then you use that Settler to found a city right in that little choke point, just in case America comes south. Once Persia is gone, you'd have at least 3 cities, maybe 4 or 5, and incredible room to grow (which you'd have to do quickly - transition from full war to full land-grab). By the time you reached the Renaissance, you'd have 10 cities and could pretty much pick your Victory Condition (except Religious) and coast. Aside from the dearth of City-States, this appears to be a great start position.

 

[MrRadar]

So you recommend settling right on luxuries? See how suptoptimal one can be at King and still win!

You can be quite lax and still win on Deity

But my another two cents would be you reload again and resettle Ulundi, on the river, on that grassland between that fox and tea. This coast is very uninspiring and your current settle doesn't allow for a second city on the same river and it will have appalling production. But a city next to the fur and tea and two grassland hills would be much more attractive, you can work fur outright for faster growth and one more gold, second citizen will work that forest hill - much nicer, also sheep and more hills come in reasonable range, and the stone tile you'll be able to buy and chop later.

I'd go mad peaceful expansion here, because Persia is quite far and behind a natural water obstacle, with one tile isthmus access which is easy to block. Befriend him and turn into a trading partner
Scout first is ok, I think, maybe there will be goody huts and you can go other directions, but do get some more warriors. It seems barbs returned with a vengeance, be prepared to kill their scouts on sight and fogbust the surroundings.

 

[ezzlar]

When I settle on luxuries:

Early game, you get the lux without the need to waste precious builder charges.
When they need techs still a bit away (like irrigation)
When they compete against good district planning, since you can never build a district on a revealed lux resource.

When I avoid settling on resource:

High yields with improvement
Eurekas when building the the improvement

 

[knighterrant81]

Using standard settings, no mods, Gathering storm.

Can win comfortably on King under most circumstances (9 out of 10).

So tried Emperor. Yee-ikes. The difference in difficulty is absolutely enormous. The AI has unbelievable numbers of units and hems me right in with settlers left and right.

Any tips? Any good Youtube videos that specifically cover the process of going from King to Emperor?

Check my guide in my signature. Most of it is still applicable, although the new patch changed a lot of things. Mostly, just rebalancing though, so the guide generally applies. Industrial Zones are a lot better now, and are probably worth building, particularly on cities with lots of flat land next to rivers (which are, incidentally, where you might run into the most problems from low production). That way, you can surround them with Dams, Aqueducts, and the like.

Mostly, moving from King to Emperor is all about tightening up your early game so you can outpace the AI with more efficient play.

So you recommend settling right on luxuries? See how suptoptimal one can be at King and still win!

You settle on luxuries so that you can sell them to the AI more quickly. Selling them outweighs the tile yield. Of course, you can get both, but in this case it requires wasting time and resources better spent elsewhere.

I'd say its most applicable to settle luxuries with your second or third cities. You can do it with your capital too, but you won't have any AIs to trade with so you won't get an immediate benefit (immediate benefits in the early game are particularly strong). I agree with MrRadar - move your city inland so you can get those Hills in the first and second ring of your city. It still won't be great, but it is the best option you have in what looks like a mediocre start.

 

[Archon_Wing]

For those of you that have trouble winning on Emperor (or King or Immortal, really), I recorded a playthrough of an Emperor game until t109 (haven't finished). And no don't ask me why I'm playing this in the morning. This is my first real playthrough since the patch and quite a few things have changed plus CQUI doesn't work anymore.

Now since this is 109 turns in 51 minutes, I gave approximately zero damns about district placement and other management and also I really should have settled on the rice instead of wanting that irrigation boost.. I don't care, nobody's going to watch the whole video, and you don't need to do any of that to win anyways. Just make sure the buildings are in place.

BTW don't delay the plaza. Just put it down.

Yikes for IZs; I don't know how to place them.

Try to get your 2nd (and probably 3rd city) up as soon as you can. Don't do what I did and try to wait for Early Empire. This is almost always too slow. You need culture in all your cities (monuments or tiles that contain them) too; buy if you have to. Reserving 160g for a warrior for safety is good too. Also I didn't research Bronze Working and was unable to chop rainforest; that probably should have been fixed.

In this map, I went settler after builder because with the CS to the north and the mountain ranges, I didn't see many threats coming, especially with so much coast here preventing barbs from spawning.

With decent enough CS's, I think Amani should go first.

I'll also upload the map so you can try yourself.

I also built Audience Chamber (lol) as well as taking the wonder building pantheon because honestly I don't really care for Divine Spark anymore. The Artemis is also pretty dubious but it was around for so late!

Current goals involve building spearmen to upgrade to Impi Corps. Greece should probably die. I'm acutally #1 in science despite having a little less science than Scotland (I have more techs researched). And I just have 5 cities.

Spoiler :

Edit: Full game playlist has been uploaded here

 

[Casualty of war]

Thanks for this, Archon_Wing. I have 7 cities at Turn 100, but Scotland is going to be donating some cities real soon. He went from green smiles to declaring on me, while his anemic army of 3 Warriors and a Chariot was acting casual near my borders. Next turn is Mercenaries, for Knights and Corps. I have another neighbor who is about to go from green smiles to declaring on me, which will cost her her nation.

Archon_Wing is ahead of me in a lot of categories, and his capitol is much larger because of the Temple of Artemis. This map has all the possibilities in the world for every victory type. Play this map 10 times for a nice transition to Emperor.

Spoiler :

 

[Archon_Wing]

I've actually finished the game, though it would take a while to upload and I'm really not sure if anyone wants to watch 3+ hours of me playing civ. I'll still continue to post about it, though

This video goes from 109-129

It's basically more setup, and looking for an excuse to go to war if possible. Gorgo declared war on Rapa Nui, so that was my cue to go to war. I pretty much sic everyone on Gorgo. I upgrade my troops and get Printing for that combat boost and also some extra tourism. That Bi Sheng Engineer is great, though I would have not much like with GEs afterwards; no thank you Scotland.

Spoiler :

 

[riddleofsteel]

I'm just dipping my toe back in, after almost 5 months. Emperor is still a pretty brutal step up for me from King.

 

[Horizons]

So I'm still attempting this map (finding it really hard to rediscover my Civ6 mojo; maybe it's because I'm getting older and don't enjoy playing games so much )

I nailed down better city placement and building units but now I'm circa turn 200 and 12 technologies behind the leader. Did I over-neglect campuses? The Hungarians are pretty tough opponents. I did make a scientific alliance with Persia.

Anyone interested in seeing my latest save and/or receiving a save from 3960 BC to see if they can beat this? I am determined to find a way to beat this map without generating another.

 

[Horizons]

I don't have a hope in hell

 

[Horizons]

I think this is an unwinnable map and that makes me pretty sad. So, the only way to win at Emperor and above is to get a favourable map and steamroller/exploit the AI?

 

[MrRadar]

I think this is an unwinnable map and that makes me pretty sad. So, the only way to win at Emperor and above is to get a favourable map and steamroller/exploit the AI?

Nah, it is perfectly winnable. But it seems you still undersettle, I count only 6 (or 7?) your cities, although you could pack in some more in your territory. And your culture is far too low. Build more Theater districts. They will push you along the civics tree faster, allowing to use more efficient governments and more policy cards earlier.

 

[kb27787]

I don't have a hope in hell

Almost 300 turns and still 2 digit culture?
It's not really the number of cities per se, it's the output.... I'm sure you can get several times more culture from the same amount of cities if you had built theatre squares and gotten great works...

 

[Leucarum]

So I'm still attempting this map (finding it really hard to rediscover my Civ6 mojo; maybe it's because I'm getting older and don't enjoy playing games so much )

I nailed down better city placement and building units but now I'm circa turn 200 and 12 technologies behind the leader. Did I over-neglect campuses? The Hungarians are pretty tough opponents. I did make a scientific alliance with Persia.

Anyone interested in seeing my latest save and/or receiving a save from 3960 BC to see if they can beat this? I am determined to find a way to beat this map without generating another.

Why not post your early save?

 

[Horizons]

If anyone is kind enough to try out this game and give me some tips I'd be grateful. https://1drv.ms/u/s!Anm6Wj49-MgOhaoPgDoMVRZx98VodQ

I was soooo far behind because I neglected to build districts. But I thought you are meant to postpone districts until you have claimed land and have a good army to defend it with (and repel the early game barbarian assaults). I am confused