Going from Monarch to Emperor...help!

[DFulcher]

I've been playing on Monarch huge/epic for a long time and kicking butt. I've been way ahead in tech, economy, and strength towards the end of most of my games. I recently switched to Emperor difficulty and have been finding it, well...difficult. I usually end up on a continent with 2 other civs and by the time I get optics and discover the other continents I find that the other civs are way ahead.

Also, running a hybrid economy I find that there's a really hard balance between growth and research allocation. Even with modest growth I can only keep my research bar around 60% which causes me to fall behind quickly and I lose out on almost all the great wonders. I like to get to astronomy as quickly as possible so I have some trade fodder but I still lag behind most of the game.

Any suggestions for good early growth strategy without falling behind in research? Any other random suggestions for a huge map, epic timeframe game on Emperor? Thanks!

 

[budweiser]

I am moving up too. I play normal, standard emporer.

I would say stress cottages early to the point of researching pottery before you get any weapon techs. Well, maybe you need BW first if you have nothing but woods in you BFC and thus cannot put a cottage down anywhere. But if you find that its 1800BC and you dont have a single cottage, then you have gone wrong in most cases.

Aim for as many cottages as possible in your first few cites, they will really help your early tech rate.

 

[michmbk]

I'm moving up to emperor from monarch and am having reasonably good success. 60% tech for most of the game should be ok, as long as you're trading well and keeping up a strong military. Some of the things I've been doing a bit more on emperor include:

1. In terms of manually researching techs, I prioritize things that will either a) have an immediate benefit, like pottery, astro on a water-based map, CS with a cottaged capital, etc.. or b) will trade well, like Aesthetics or Biology. Both of these techs I find can be turned into a minimum on 3-4 other techs with solid trading. Often I'll tech 3-4 turns into alphabet, then trade aesthetics for alphabet, then for iron working, and perhaps something else. Or sometimes I'll wait a bit until someone gets currency, and extract some gold as well in those deals.

2. After Aesthetics, literature is cheap and quick and opens up two key wonders, HE and great library, both things I find very important. Again, why I think Aesthetics is a high priority.

3. Bulbing also helps for tech - get a few scientists out and you can bulb philo and half of education - makes lib much easier, and both philo and education are fantastic trade techs.

4. I typically ignore religion and often will ignore most early wonders. If there's one that makes sense, I'll prioritize that one only (i.e., mids or GW with stone). But I often will build very few wonders overall unless I have the right civ for it.

5. Early cottaging like Budweiser mentioned, and extra focus on city specialization. By the time I've settled 3-4 cities, I want to clearly have my first cottage city, my first production power and my first GP farm identified. Then try to maximize the value of each with your workers.

 

[budweiser]

I'll admit I still go for the early wonders. To me SH equals a free religion down the line, TGW means no barb worries and actually creates a giant thorn for the AIs ( I always snicker when I build that), Oracle is free monarchy/CoL or MC (and maybe a free religion) and the pyramids is almost an automatic win.

The problem is more limiting myself to just one. And early cottaging relieves a lot of the tech pressure that can make me strive for wonders.

 

[Kito]

I think the most important thing is don't be afraid to attack with a lot of weak units to a technological advanced civilization (zerg attack)...

 

[DFulcher]

Thanks everyone! Any more tips?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Although over the past year I've vaulted to immortal, for a long time my play was quite poor. Hell, the reason I'm probably not going to see deity anytime soon is that my micro sucks and I don't feel like planning things out .

But, back in the day I started a thread like this over in S & T:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=271411&highlight=birth+emperor

In short, expand quickly, make sure you're working improved tiles (especially food specials), and get to at least pottery/writing before you crash. You'll need something to lift the cap troubles ----> usually hereditary rule, sometimes pyramids.

Researching techs you can trade is a huge boon too. Even if you aren't tech leader, if you create trade tech circles you can field abusive crap like infantry vs muskets or rifles on emperor (even as you're behind 2 AIs), against AIs that are left in the cold.

 

[champ82]

I was doing terrible on emperor. Monarch was so easy and emperor...just...felt impossible.

Then I read this - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=307522

I won my next emperor game. I've lost a few since then but won another one (the other one was on Epic which makes it easier, but still.)

Emperor is tough man but you can do it.

 

[champ82]

Oh, another idea you may want to consider.

Try emperor on standard. 2 reasons.

1.) If you find your civilization is sucking it'll take less time to find this out. Don't get discouraged with each loss. Try to remember one thing you should have done better / differently. And maybe, in some instances, realize your luck might be better next time (my two games after my first emperor victory I bordered Hannibal and Shaka and then Shaka and Genghis...not sweet.)

2.) If and when you try Epic or Marathon again, it'll seem a lot easier.

 

[bob_x]

I've been playing on Monarch huge/epic for a long time and kicking butt. I've been way ahead in tech, economy, and strength towards the end of most of my games.

Well, what's the fun in playing under those circumstances? That's when I quite because I know I've won the game. The AI players never pull suprising come-from-behind victories.

The difficulty in emporer level is that the AI gets off to a much quicker start and tends to invade you with a massive army early in the game. Meanwhile, it's hard for the human to expand quickly because of higher maintenance costs. You can't really build more than three or four cities before you get Courhouses.