Going back to Emperor

[noontide]

Hi guys,

So I started a new game on Emperor, draw Starlin. Please see the turn 0 save. In the beginning it seems really good starting point. Also attached is a save at turn 27. Below is my progress:

- I started to tech AH as I have a cow, then found out I have horse as well. Started with building a worker.
- Next up I teched BW, this is also why i chose to tech AH first as I already have mining. After the worker I built a warrior.
- Once I had BW I started to chop a Settler, and plans to settle next to the wheat.

Here are some problems I think I would have, or difficulties in choosing the path forward:

- After the settler I plan to chop work boat. I have plenty of food sources, including the wheat I'll grab, but I have no happiness source. I would problem reach happiness limit pretty soon.
- If I whip, what should I whip into, another settler? Then what? The closest happiness source I have is the gold to the east but even that seem a little too far.
- I'm tightly surrounded by aggressive AIs. Should I forgo expansion and go for HA rush with 2 cities? Or build the third cities and go for catapult? Even with catapult what should be my main units? I don't have copper (there is a copper to the east but a bit out of the way) or ivory.
- If I were to build a third city, should I settle it one tile east to the pig?
- In terms of tech, what should i go for after Fishery? i could go wheel->Cottage since I'm low on money resources, or I could beeline catapult. Again the problem is I don't have a valid main attacking unit.
-Since Starlin is industrial, should I go for Pyramid since I have stone and lots of food?

Thanks.

 

[sampsa]

Like I said before, question everything that you do. Settling in place is not an obvious play, it's pangaea and you don't start with fishing and the other -resource requires AH and is only 4. Honestly it's not a great starting spot, it's slow and clumsy. Inland starts are stronger, because they claim more land and block better. I moved towards the river, found wet wheat so for me moving to that direction is a good idea.

Spoiler :

Didn't want to risk killing seafood by settling on the stone, so went for the plains hill, leaving cows for another city. Worker will be out T14, so winning one turn already compared to SIP. Agri costs less than AH, so earlier BW for chops. Doesn't require fishing. Power tile is 51 and extra 1 from city center compared to cows 42 so this spot wins one per turn, too. Slightly less forest, but can't have everything. Having some desert or mountain tiles is completely inconsequential.

Will comment your T27 position later.

 

[lymond]

Hey NT - good to see you plugging away

First, a little piece of advice on the switch to slavery. Unless you have really good food and plan to whip your 4>2 whip your first settler, it is better to wait to switch until that first settler pops out and is on the move. Right now your food is rather low, and you are going to chop that settler out, so slavery is not urgent.

So far in this short game, things look fine. My one comment is that although you've done some fine scouting, I'd would keep the scout nearby for spawnbusting now.

First city between Wheat and Stone look good, so that both are in first ring. 1E of wheat, and city gets both floodplains. (although a fish city can go east of that much later)

- After the settler I plan to chop work boat. I have plenty of food sources, including the wheat I'll grab, but I have no happiness source. I would problem reach happiness limit pretty soon.

I question going fishing right now - more on that later. But happiness is not an issue at this point - I would not be overly concerned about that this early.

- If I whip, what should I whip into, another settler? Then what? The closest happiness source I have is the gold to the east but even that seem a little too far.

Seems like two disparate thoughts here. I don't think you need to whip the first settler here anyway. After it finishes a second worker would be nice, but I might grow first on a warrior, or just chop second worker first.

- I'm tightly surrounded by aggressive AIs. Should I forgo expansion and go for HA rush with 2 cities? Or build the third cities and go for catapult? Even with catapult what should be my main units? I don't have copper (there is a copper to the east but a bit out of the way) or ivory.

Two early to tell, but I'd be inclined to go HAs if anything. But at this level I think you can get to at least 3 or 4 cities here pretty fast before you consider an attack.

- If I were to build a third city, should I settle it one tile east to the pig?

1E or 1NE of pigs is good. You still need a little scouting to the NW ..maybe some copper? I don't think cow/copper is that far away.

- In terms of tech, what should i go for after Fishery? i could go wheel->Cottage since I'm low on money resources, or I could beeline catapult. Again the problem is I don't have a valid main attacking unit.

This could probably be played a bit differently by some - you may get differing opinions. But I might forgo Fishing in the short term for Agriculture>Masonry. With stone online you could go for some GW failgold,and start Mids somewhere. IND/Stone def means Mids for me.

-Since Starlin is industrial, should I go for Pyramid since I have stone and lots of food?

Absolutely

edit: good point by Sampsa though. I did not consider the starting position. Moving inland is always worth considering. Goes to show you that with these shadow games, get advice from Turn 0 can prove most helpful.

Basically, as you move up difficulty, you need to make tougher decisions on techs. Not always teching something just because something is there, factoring in all considerations as to starting position, starting techs and needs.

 

[krikav]

@noontide
Just wanted to chip and and say kudos for sticking to it and trying hard to improve your game!

 

[noontide]

Thanks everyone, for the prompt and enormously helpful tips.

So started again and moved to the plain/hill per Sampsa's suggestion. I went worker->warrior->Settler (chopped one forest), and for tech I went agriculture->bronze work. To save everyone the trouble of loading the save file I'm posting a screenshot here. Now the first settler is out, I want to settler where my warrior is standing. My questions are:

- I chose to tech wheel instead of AH because I figure in the first ring of the second city I can farm the flood plain first while waiting for AH, but teching Wheel first gives me the option to go Cottage next instead. The problem is the second city will probably not culture pop until a library is built there, so I'm not gonna have access to the stone and fish for a while. Is that a good spot then, if just a cow?

- Do i go for the third city, where am i gonna place it, next to the pig? Or do I grab the horse to HA rush a neighbor? Seeing Inca having copper worries me a bit. Granted this is Emperor not Immortal and Inca is not super aggressive, but I also have Mongolia and Aztec both a few paces away.

- This is a bit of more general question but, I usually follow the one work per city rule, or sometimes 1.5 workers per city, but I often run into the problem "having no meaningful thing to do" cause my tech is not catching up. E.g. what am I gonna do with the worker now since i don't have Cottage, or Masonry or Fishing? I often have a similar dilemma in building sequences, can't even build gold or science early on, do I just crack out warriors?

- Since last time I rubbed bunch of ppl the wrong way I went back to read older post yet again. I think what now slowly sinking in is that looks like on higher difficulty "Speed" is absolutely everything? I mean, everyone is telling me food and food and food, but I think what I didn't understand before is that it's more of a speed thing, building up population and whipping into armies? Since Civ III I'm always a builder, I like tall cities with wonders, nothing pleases me more if I have both Pyramid and Hanging Garden (I know, everyone says it's worthless) in one city (and if a forge even better) so I can run Representatives and cracking out Great Engineers one after another. Maybe my OCD (I also play a lot of Anno 1400 and City Skyline) is what's holding me back here?

 

[Fippy]

Speed question, yep you are right that it separates players in terms of skill.
Not just for this game thou
All strategy games can be won by something that you first have to build up, and then use.

Whipping armies (until you get better mass production tiles like 4-5h workshops), hmm i would say it's the easy part.
No magic in building an unit for a couple base hammers, and pressing the whip button. Regrow & repeat.
With overflow or chops coming into play as well, it can ofc be fine tuned.

We spend more time on reaching those units (and their unlocking techs) thou.
Why is food so important, quiet simply cos you need more population to gain either commerce, specialist slots or hammers for your cities.
Earlier cottages means better ones later, earlier or more scientists (as example) hired mean great peoples quicker, and so on.

Libraries are good examples.
90h can be tuff for weaker cities to gather, while double fish can reach size 6 and 3-pop whip rather easily.
Regrowth will also happen fast, and 2 scientists can be used. And now there will still be room to do more, as they cost only -4 food but double fish gives +10.

On the tech tree, there are certain paths to key military techs.
Most famous example: bulb Philo, 2x Edu, maybe Lib too and take Mil. Tradition for Cuirs.
Somebody who knows how to do that could be 30-40 turns faster, so they will also face weaker defenders and AIs.
Cuirs are mass whipped, AIs steamrolled, and only when satisfied with their army cities can recover

Higher difficulties add several challenges..
AIs get bonuses while our techs cost more.
They have more units, and diplo must be taken more seriously.
But otherwise, games could be played similar actually. Just that weak AIs will not require Cuirs..but you could.

 

[noontide]

I played some more. I feel like my third city should have been at a better location, with just one horse, it was growing slowly. The question is then where?

At this point, do I shoot for Mathematics->Construction while building Pyramid in my capital? The capital does not have a lot of production tiles. Thanks.

 

[Gumbolt]

4 cities by 1000bc seems a bit slow.

In this instance St Peters could of waited. You wanted blocker cities here. A city with the pigs directly south could of been nice. 3S or 3S1E.
I don't like St Peters location. I would of split up so I grabbed all 3 food resources with 2 cities. (This might delay stone.)
Horse city is okay but has no food resource nearby. (Not without IW.)
I wouldn't farm too many flood plains. Cottages are nice for economy.
I would be chopping ahead of building mines and road.
I can see no whip anger here.

Incans could be an issue here. You need to be gifting them resources asap.

I agree with Lymond some kind of rush could be useful here with Ai so close. You are late for an HA rush.

If you want happiness then mids but you would need a break out strategy? So pults and swords or HA.

825bc run through.

Spoiler 825bc run through, :

I did a quick run through to HA. I used monuments for border pops. Built 3 cities as above. Pig city 1SE of the pigs to stop Mongols building there. Built Oracle in cow/fish/clam city. Probably didn't need the monument here.

Whipped/chopped 10 HA by 900bc. Had 1 stables too as I ran out of builds. Capital fell 850bc with 1 HA lost. Quite a few HA retreated. His 2nd city fell 850bc. Lost 1 HA. 2 cities left. Would likely try to grab Alphabet from him for peace.

Need to focus on cottage now.

 

[noontide]

Yeah thanks Gumbolt, i really didn't like the second city placement so I replayed it again. After maybe four of five tries the attached screenshot is the final formation I settled with. With regard to the placement of St. Petersburg, if I move it one tile to the north I grab another fish, but then it means overlapping 6 tiles with my third city. I guess my question is what's the sort of rule of thumb about city tile overlapping? Is it always a priority to grab more resources, even if it means two cities are two tiles away?

I'll turn the farms into cottage as soon as the tech is online but i feel like I cannot really afford a fifth city at the moment?

 

[Gumbolt]

Why is your file size 11.7mb?

Much better once you grab that southern city first. I placed it 1W of yours to help with grassland cottages for capital.

Your placing of St Petersburg is not ideal as it kills off that second fish resource. Unless you are able to grab that gold site? This would be long term as it is not close to your main 4 cities. For me the cows/pigs were key to my 2nd/3rd city. If you want mids you go monument and upper fish city for your 3rd city. With a city 2S to grab the clam/fish. Whip monument at size 2.

Then a choice of HA/Cat/sword rush. Or rex to open land. You could try for a bulb on maths with library and try to grab construction from Oracle? You would still need IW as a trade.

You are building libraries everywhere. Not sure this is practical unless you are chopping. 90H is a big ask for size 1 cities. Granaries are normally more useful.

Set yourself an objective before playing. What are you trying to do? For an HA rush you don't need libraries. 3-4 cities and rush to HBR/archery.

Re 5th city. Your +9 gold a turn at 0% science. In theory you can afford it. You would then use cottages and specialists for science. Many on immortal rex to 6 cities by 1000bc if playing peaceful. Just don't lay cities for the sake of it.

My save attached. It's by no means perfect but gives you an idea.

 

[noontide]

yeah I chopped+whipped library in St. Petersberg. My thinking was since I don't have monument as a starting tech, maybe it's faster to tech writing directly and chop library. Again my whole being screaming against having two cities directly above/below each other two tiles away, with 6 tiles overlapping. Since Atzec has marble, is it realistic for me to grab Oracle? To place the southern city 1 west would make it lose access fresh water, is that a concern? Thanks.

 

[Gumbolt]

Any tile on river has fresh water? So many health resources here hardly a concern.

Erm I grabbed Oracle. If you beeline it why not? Which is why I skipped writing and a few other techs. I had a strategy.

AI don't always beeline wonders. They nearly always go Stonehenge before Oracle.

 

[noontide]

I studied your save file and am trying to figure out how you reach HA so quickly. In my screenshot attached, I just settled the third city, which tech should i go next? My biggest problem is, since HA is so expensive, it takes a good 20 turns to reach it, meanwhile all my cities have nothing to build. Should I go wheel-> cottage first and build Granary while I wait for HA tech? Thanks.

 

[Gumbolt]

Don't feel like you have to go route i did. It was an option

You want Novograd on river otherwise you need roads to connect resources.
Yes I struggled for some builds. I think my capital built 3 settlers in a row. 1-2 chops. You wanted to improve the cow before chopping. Same for pigs too. When I built my new city my worker went straight there to improve pigs. I had 2nd worker by time 3rd city was settled.

I also used myst and I built/whip monuments.

If you go pottery might help with getting some cottages up. Also allow you to build 1-2 granaries before whipping HA. Of course a risk in delaying Oracle. Only reason I went Oracle was i deemed monuments here useful given sea food. Of course if you build Oracle in fish/clam city you get the border pop anyway.

Teaching HBR can take a while.

Overall tell people what you want to do as a plan and you will get more informed advice. I think plan for 1st city site then get advice on each tech afterwards. Getting city placement and techs right is important.

 

[sampsa]

- I chose to tech wheel instead of AH because I figure in the first ring of the second city I can farm the flood plain first while waiting for AH, but teching Wheel first gives me the option to go Cottage next instead. The problem is the second city will probably not culture pop until a library is built there, so I'm not gonna have access to the stone and fish for a while. Is that a good spot then, if just a cow?

It was much better to go AH. The best visible tile is pigs, it's a great tile so you should aim to settle 2nd city there. Wheel-pottery is less urgent than food.

- Do i go for the third city, where am i gonna place it, next to the pig? Or do I grab the horse to HA rush a neighbor? Seeing Inca having copper worries me a bit. Granted this is Emperor not Immortal and Inca is not super aggressive, but I also have Mongolia and Aztec both a few paces away.

My advice is to settle good cities asap. If you don't have good cities to settle, think about attacking someone. You shouldn't worry very much about AI having metal.

- This is a bit of more general question but, I usually follow the one work per city rule, or sometimes 1.5 workers per city, but I often run into the problem "having no meaningful thing to do" cause my tech is not catching up. E.g. what am I gonna do with the worker now since i don't have Cottage, or Masonry or Fishing? I often have a similar dilemma in building sequences, can't even build gold or science early on, do I just crack out warriors?

1.5 workers per city is often too many. Depends how much you need to chop and cottage mostly. If you don't have anything reasonable to build, don't need warriors (or they are costing you ), put some into barracks, until you unlock a tech which allows you to build something better.

- Since last time I rubbed bunch of ppl the wrong way I went back to read older post yet again. I think what now slowly sinking in is that looks like on higher difficulty "Speed" is absolutely everything? I mean, everyone is telling me food and food and food, but I think what I didn't understand before is that it's more of a speed thing, building up population and whipping into armies? Since Civ III I'm always a builder, I like tall cities with wonders, nothing pleases me more if I have both Pyramid and Hanging Garden (I know, everyone says it's worthless) in one city (and if a forge even better) so I can run Representatives and cracking out Great Engineers one after another. Maybe my OCD (I also play a lot of Anno 1400 and City Skyline) is what's holding me back here?

Yes, being faster to reach something is better! Having more food is one way to achieve this.

Settling locations:

Spoiler :

2nd city should grab pigs, probably site A is better than site B since it doesn't waste a forest. Oh, I see that in your latest game you settled 1S of pigs. That's worse since you could be just insta-connected via river for +1 in each city.

3rd could go to take that plains cow, so site E/F, unless HC beats you to it. You have other good locations though, so maybe not worth it. Cow-stone should be spot C I think, because your current location kills the fish, which is a great tile later. The issue is of course no 1st ring food, but capital pops borders T51 (1T anarchy due to slavery). T53, because settler was moved for 2T. The original settler position, D, is also a good spot, later. I don't think the horse-spot is very good, because you don't have food PRE-IW.

On screenshots:

Spoiler :

Best way to take screenshots is just hitting PrtSc and the screenshot will be automatically in your My Games / Beyond the Sword / Screenshots -folder. This way they won't be 11,7MB big. Then "upload file" and so on.

Latest attempt comments:

Spoiler :

There are many small things that you could do better. Novgorod should be 1E for connection via river, that is +2 already. Starting with a worker in a new city is nearly always wrong. It's slow. It's better to grow and perhaps whip that worker size 2, if you really need it. A faster way to get more workers is just chopping/whipping them in capital.

Both your 2nd and 3rd cities have unimproved AH-tiles. This suggests going AH first was much better. Wheel in itself is not very useful.

On wonders:

Spoiler :

It is possible to go Oracle, but it wouldn't be my choice. There are many useful techs to go for and the religious line is a distraction from them. Pyramids with stone+IND is of course tempting. Note that if you go this way, you shouldn't be planning to HA-rush or something. You need to choose a plan and stick to it. I think many different paths lead to success, if you execute the plan well.

 

[sampsa]

T50

Spoiler :

Agri-BW-AH-wheel-pot-(myst?).

T38: Improve food. Chop. Need to queue-swap a lot in order to put chops into settlers/workers. Moscow will whip at size 4.

T50: Pottery is in, so starting to get build cottages and preparing to get granaries up. 5th worker out soon and will found 4th city to original settler spot. Perhaps chopping Mids there, if I go myst-masonry now. Another way would be just to go writing and forget wonders. For example catapult-attack is a sound idea.

I'm guessing the difference to your games is speed. Chop more, earlier. Get techs that allow your cities grow so you can whip, and later just grow to work more cottages.

 

[sampsa]

Again my whole being screaming against having two cities directly above/below each other two tiles away, with 6 tiles overlapping.

You need to just try to actively get thoughts like this out of your system. Overlapping is mostly good, especially overlap with capital, since both cities are able to use these tiles. It doesn't matter what the city will look like size 20, or even size 10. If the city is working good tiles size 4, it's a good city.

For example, placing 2nd city 1E of pigs, having 6-tile overlap with capital would be a decent idea. The reason why I didn't do that was because it would waste a forest, i.e. lose 20 early .

 

[krikav]

Yes, I can only agree with sampsa. These things are absolutely something you need to work on actively!


Making amends to, and saying farewel to faulty ideas that you have, is really what make you better at this game.
For a really really long time I had a compulsion to always settle all of my GPersons. The idea in mind that that is whats better "long term".
It was really inconcievable for me to bulb things, as that only gained me a fleeting advantage of a tech, but for the rest of the game deprived me of some small trickling gain.
I have managed to get on top of this urge (and many dozen other faulty ideas that where holding me back) and my gameplay has gained tremendeously.

Another very very common hinderance that many has (but I was fortunate enough to not have) is the aversion against chopping, the idea there is the same, forests provide many long term benefits, such as health for the city, possible later production bursts and eventually preserves/lumbermills and possibly national park.
Anyone who manages to say farewel to these ideas of long term cuteness/huge benefit and instead try to focus on the near time goals will have a boost in their play!


I still have some minor things I I do have problems with, for example I have a irrational preference of settling riverside for the levee. Something that I really really shouldn't even think about at the early game.
I still also place too much preference in aquiring freshwater for my cities.

 

[sampsa]

T75

Spoiler :

Played on a bit so you can compare the results of faster expansion.

Spoiler :

I am working 8 cottages already. Got fur from Joao, which helps a bit with the low -cap. Mids will resolve that issue in a few turns, when at math my army of workers will finish those chops and Mids is done. While I think Gumbolt is right in that 4 cities by 1000BC is rather low, here the only good spot that I missed was fish on the western coast. Not sure yet if I'll go to catapult war anyway, even if it feels strange after putting a lot into Mids. Well, at least the high -cap allows heavy whipping.

You can also see some mistakes in the screenshot - work boats to Rostov seafood are a bit late and horse was delayed a bit.