Going back to Emperor level

[noontide]

Hi,

I posted a deity game here a few days before and was made realized that I'm a far cry from playing on that level. So I followed the advice here and rolled an Emperor game, no hut and random event. Here are some saves.

In Save4, I went for Pantheon and Great Library and was able to chop for both. Next up I weighed the option of shooting for liberalism for the free tech or going for maceman and Trebuchet and start a war. I eventually opted for the first.

In Save7 at mid game, I lagged in tech and military force to a few civs and don't have a clear trajectory to victory.

My question is, was my decision in Save4 wrong? Is there anything else I can do differently at that point of game? In Save7 what should I do to improve?

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Tonny]

Looking at save 4 a few things stand out immediately. Not enough workers and working unimproved tiles. Only 5 cities at 560 AD is another problem.
I suggest you start all over again and play the first 50-100 turns with advice from others. Just post a starting save and screenshot and wait for tips and help.

 

[krikav]

Yes, really short turnsets are needed to aid. 5-10 turns between each update.
You seem to have a grasp of the big picture things, so whats missing in your games are probably a collection of small things that need to be improved.

 

[krikav]

Really I would want to have a much earlier save, and shorter turnsets, and what I need most is you planning and sharing your planning and thoughts behind all decisions. That will help give usefull feedback.
Abit hesitant to dive into your saves, because there are so many things that are wrong, and I'm not sure that this is a good way to give feedback but I'll give it a go, please take this the right way.

In save 4, you work 18 unimproved tiles, and alot of really good tiles are not being worked (such as gold).
You have NO whip anger in any city.
You have to few workers, and they are clustered together in one spot.
In short, your cities have too much population, since the extra population doesn't have worthwhile tiles to work.
You have to few workers, since they can't keep up with improving the land at the rate that the cities are growing.
This should be a clear indication that you should turn population into workers via the whip.


Lyons is a very bad city, since it has no food at all.
Probably you should have had two cities here, one to get the gold and the stone (while also reaching at least some floodplain/river grassland.
And another city reaching the sheep and the iron.
Food is super important.

As it is no, Lyons destiny is really to stay at population 1 and work the gold. Or possibly stay at pop3 and work 2 non-riverside cottages and the gold.
In any case, Lyons should NOT have all these buildings that you have built in it.
Walls is questionable.
Barracks? This city isn't going to build much of anything, and not units either.
Library? Perhaps to get culture and to get bonus while working the gold and cottages.
Monument? Either this or the library, not both, at least not for a long time.

It's 560 AD, and you have a academy and GLib in your capital, but you don't have a single cottage there.
3 floodplains are still unimproved.
It's important to get cottages down in the early game. At 560AD your capitals cottages should be close to mature towns.
This is probably another consequence of way to few workers.

A minor point is also that you have two surplus gold resources that you are not trading away for some resource you need.
Another minor point is that you are trading alot for techs that you have no need for. such as fishing.
In general, you should not trade for cheap techs, since the AIs will stop trading with you after they have seen you recieve a certain number of techs. And they see fishing and gunpowder as equal "one tech".

 

[noontide]

Ok I'm starting right away!

Turn 0: I moved my settler one step to the right to be on a river tile. Seeing I have France (50% plus for wonder construction) and flood plain, I want to shoot for Pyramid. So will tech BW first. Building a warrior for exploration.

30 turns in: tech-wise I went for Husbandry->Mining->BW. Since this is a replay I already knew how the map looks but I did exploration again like a new game. Since the capital is food rich I left my capital grow to full population before producing the first worker, will chop two settlers once the worker is out. Will first grab those two-gold/horse city spot then grab stone.

70 turns in: I thought about it, how much do I really want that stone, it's such a subpar position. So I went for a coastal city instead. Chopped/Whipped Oracle and chose Metal Casting as the free tech. sent the worker to mine the two golds since I'm running low on gold. Am I expanding too fast?

 

[Gumbolt]

I would restart. First build should nearly always be a worker. Hence why city 2 is about 10 turns late. Don't mind the 1E move for settler. You lose a turn to gain 2 flood plains and the cows. First techs. Mining/BW, then AH? You already have the corn to work.

Your original save.
Orleans maybe should of shared the cow with Paris. Farming flood plains can be okay but I normally cottage them.
Lyon is just a nothing city. Needed the sheep or to be settled elsewhere. Early cities normally need a food resource in inner ring.
Building and working cottages in your capital would of really helped too.

My main beef is that you built 5 cities and then pretty much sat tight and did nothing on your late game save. Your gameplay needs a lot of work.

 

[noontide]

I would restart. First build should nearly always be a worker. Hence why city 2 is about 10 turns late. Don't mind the 1E move for settler. You lose a turn to gain 2 flood plains and the cows. First techs. Mining/BW, then AH? You already have the corn to work.

Your original save.
Orleans maybe should of shared the cow with Paris. Farming flood plains can be okay but I normally cottage them.
Lyon is just a nothing city. Needed the sheep or to be settled elsewhere. Early cities normally need a food resource in inner ring.
Building and working cottages in your capital would of really helped too.

My main beef is that you built 5 cities and then pretty much sat tight and did nothing on your late game save. Your gameplay needs a lot of work.

The thing is, once I settled 4-5 cities I usually run out of place to add more cities. How much tile overlap is ideal?

 

[Gumbolt]

Just looked at the 2nd jpg.
How many workers do you have? 1?
Orleans 1W has 2 food tiles with 3f+
Rheims has no workable food resources. Takes time to remove jungle.
Lyons needs a worker for the sheep.

What tech did you take with Oracle?
Warriors should generally be fog busting early on.

There was plenty of land here you just stopped expanding and didn't develop the land. You need a plan to win games. By 1ad you should have some end game in mind.

I generally want at least 7-8 cities by 1ad. If I can't settle land I take it from the AI if I am boxed in.

 

[krikav]

Nice we are already starting to get some things:

"Seeing I have France (50% plus for wonder construction) and flood plain, I want to shoot for Pyramid" I think this is wrong.
Being IND doesn't automatically lead to building wonders, I don't see the connection with floodplains and pyramids either. In fact I think it's opposite, lots of floodplains increases utility of cottages, and hence lowers the utility of pyramids and representation.

"Since the capital is food rich I left my capital grow to full population before producing the first worker"
This is certainly a big mistake! You should always build a worker at pop1, right from turn 0.
Only exception is if you have a seafood start, which sometimes leads to workboat first being better.

Usual buildorder is worker-> 1-3 warriors -> settler @ pop3.

Looking at the T70 screenshot, you are still doing the same mistakes of working alot of unimproved land and not improving the tiles of your cities.
Whip away population into workers as soon as your cities start to work unimproved tiles!
2 workers per city is a normal guideline. Try to stick to that for now, and stop building wonders and buildings than granary for now.

 

[noontide]

Nice we are already starting to get some things:

"Seeing I have France (50% plus for wonder construction) and flood plain, I want to shoot for Pyramid" I think this is wrong.
Being IND doesn't automatically lead to building wonders, I don't see the connection with floodplains and pyramids either. In fact I think it's opposite, lots of floodplains increases utility of cottages, and hence lowers the utility of pyramids and representation.

"Since the capital is food rich I left my capital grow to full population before producing the first worker"
This is certainly a big mistake! You should always build a worker at pop1, right from turn 0.
Only exception is if you have a seafood start, which sometimes leads to workboat first being better.

Usual buildorder is worker-> 1-3 warriors -> settler @ pop3.

Looking at the T70 screenshot, you are still doing the same mistakes of working alot of unimproved land and not improving the tiles of your cities.
Whip away population into workers as soon as your cities start to work unimproved tiles!
2 workers per city is a normal guideline. Try to stick to that for now, and stop building wonders and buildings than granary for now.

Now, isn’t the idea of GP farm about building a lot of farms on flood plain to free up population for specialist? That’s why when I see flood plain I think of pyramid.

 

[Zavior]

GP farms do not need flood plains, any city with sufficient food resources is enough. As krikav said fp's are usually ideal for cottages, not farms. If you need to farm fp's to get food then the city might not have been that great in the first place.

 

[Gumbolt]

GP farm vs bureau capital? I can see why you made it a GP farm but at same time I think you sacrificed a great commerce city. That capital could of easily been churning out over 200+ beakers a turn with 100% science.

This map is also distracting due to al the gold resources and perhaps lack of food resources. Mixed with jungle making certain sites unattractive early on.

Ultimately lack of workers and not building an economy have cost you dearly here. I suspect this slowed down your science hugely. Maybe an HA attack on Sitting Bull would of been good here. Albeit he had copper and Dogsoldiers. Albeit they get no bonus vs mounted units.

 

[noontide]

Thanks guys, all great advices, it became clearly to me not having enough cities and workers is the key problem. I thus replayed the game yest again.This time I managed to set up 6 cities, and flipped one, so around early mid-game I had 7. In this playthrough I had the following thoughts/questions:

1. I still debated over GP farm vs village/town. This time I built cottages on flood plain instead, it turned out better. Now, in what scenario does GP farm has a clear advantage over cottage spam? Will it be hard to defend villages/towns at war?

2. at higher level, do people still shoot for Pantheon/GL? How important are they? Seeing the enabling techs are a dead end.

3. In this playthrough, essentially all AI ended up having Confucianism, I adopted it too so was on "Pleased" with my neighbors. However I already massed a sizeable army and seemed able to take out sitting bull. Will initiative a war with the same faith anger other AI? generally speaking, how do you get on the good side of AI on higher difficulties?

 

[sampsa]

1. I still debated over GP farm vs village/town. This time I built cottages on flood plain instead, it turned out better. Now, in what scenario does GP farm has a clear advantage over cottage spam? Will it be hard to defend villages/towns at war?

Cottages are good, because you can grow working them. Golden age doubles -points, so it makes a lot of sense to churn out GP during golden age being in caste+paci.

2. at higher level, do people still shoot for Pantheon/GL? How important are they? Seeing the enabling techs are a dead end.

Parthenon is not very good and I'm not a huge fan of GL either. Mainly because of my answer to question 1. Another reason is what you point out, the tech path is not leading to anything great (like Civil Service for bureau).

3. In this playthrough, essentially all AI ended up having Confucianism, I adopted it too so was on "Pleased" with my neighbors. However I already massed a sizeable army and seemed able to take out sitting bull. Will initiative a war with the same faith anger other AI? generally speaking, how do you get on the good side of AI on higher difficulties?

If they are pleased/friendly with someone you declare war on, you will suffer -1 penalty (-2 from Gandhi I think). With religion, open borders, resource trades, favorite civics and fair trade it's usually possible to get some AI to friendly (+10). You have to choose your friends, as it's pretty hard to get everyone to friendly...

 

[noontide]

I'm now far along the game, please see the latest save. Sitting Bull was leading but I managed to basically wiped him out with trebuchet and macemen, meanwhile shooting for Steel to upgrade to canon. Now the problem is Shaka is catching up and field an army maybe twice my size. I can grab Steel probably a few turns ahead of him and start attacking right away, tried it a few times basically I was able to wipe out his army but in the process deplete my army as well. But with more cities and faster growth speed I can't fend off his second wave later down the road. How do you deal with a runaway AI at this stage? Thanks.

 

[sampsa]

Shaka is not running away at all. Your play could be improved tremendously with a few simple things:

• WHIP. You can create units very quickly by whipping. Build something for one turn, whip next, rinse, repeat until you have capitulated everyone. Is very doable even from your current position
• CHOP. You have plenty of forests waiting to be chopped. 30 is a lot.
• TRADE. You are not trading for any resources. It's free resources+per turn just to be taken.

edit: maybe you should watch Lain's play to get some poor habits out of your system and introduce new ones https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiPHqnZ3mwIqtraltox6jg

 

[krikav]

Yes, please follow this very simple guideline:
Whenever your cities are growing such that they start to work unimproved tiles, WHIP a worker.

Now, this is a gross oversimplification, but this simple guideline will help you improve your game tremendeously.
You will start to have at least close to enough workers, and you will benefit from the awesome production of the whip, and you won't be working unimproved tiles.

 

[noontide]

Shaka is not running away at all. Your play could be improved tremendously with a few simple things:

• WHIP. You can create units very quickly by whipping. Build something for one turn, whip next, rinse, repeat until you have capitulated everyone. Is very doable even from your current position
• CHOP. You have plenty of forests waiting to be chopped. 30 is a lot.
• TRADE. You are not trading for any resources. It's free resources+per turn just to be taken.

edit: maybe you should watch Lain's play to get some poor habits out of your system and introduce new ones https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiPHqnZ3mwIqtraltox6jg

Thanks. On higher difficulties I often notice a kind of "tech burst" for lack of a better word, i.e. I check tech advancement of competing AIs every few turns, for a while I seem comfortable ahead, but round about I hit Liberalism, it often seems AIs can suddenly catch up and surpass me in 20-30 turns, why does that happens?

 

[noontide]

Yes, please follow this very simple guideline:
Whenever your cities are growing such that they start to work unimproved tiles, WHIP a worker.

Now, this is a gross oversimplification, but this simple guideline will help you improve your game tremendeously.
You will start to have at least close to enough workers, and you will benefit from the awesome production of the whip, and you won't be working unimproved tiles.

To whip population this late into the game though, meaning you have to run slavery through out?

 

[krikav]

To whip population this late into the game though, meaning you have to run slavery through out?

Sure thing, if that is what it takes to establish the habit, then go with that.
It's not that uncommon for me to stay in slavery for the entire game either.