Having trouble with Emperor difficulty

Thanks for the posts guys. I've responded to your posts further below.

I'm such an idiot - I built harbours in my other cities but didn't have one in London! No wonder my gpt was so low. I've got my economy under control now. Currently +12 which sounds low but all will be explained...

Its now 1824 (turn 282). Russia backed off and I've just taken her capital (and wiped out her navy) with plenty of SotLs and Ironclads. I though I'd play to Liz's strengths. I'm spending almost 100gpt on units so that is why gold is a little lower than it could be. Russia had to go, she was too much of a threat.

I've improved on :c5science: - it's currently +390. Moscow is currently in resistance and I'm beelining for Research Labs so that should increase. However, I am still behind three other civs annoyingly. Rome is the runaway in this game now. The Netherlands only have a few cities but they are large with numerous wonders. And then there's Greece... They are now on the warpath (not with me yet but it's only a matter of time before the backstab).

My immediate plan is to use my navy to take Amsterdam as that city has a lot of wonders in and is close to Rome so is a good launching pad for later.

My primary concern is that Rome will win the game before I have had chance to attain a victory condition. I was thinking culture but that has taken a hit after building all those ships. It makes sense to go for domination, especially as the other civs capitals are all on the coast. However, there is a caveat to that - I know that some of them have armies that would wipe me off the planet from sheer numbers and the tech advantage.

Hopefully taking Amsterdam is the right move and then onto Rome before it's too late. I'm hoping Alexander will probably be too busy pumping out units to go for a victory condition. The research Labs should give me that boost through the remainder of the tech tree but I'm concerned that I am still behind in tech (4th place) even though I have the universities and public schools in place. Only Rome wants/can afford to sign Research Agreements. :nono:

Hopefully that is a good plan.


@The Pilgrim, there was one other Swedish city near the wine you referred to. It was early days when happiness was a problem - I was after the real prize, their capital. I guess I could settle there now but everyone has wine and I have a habit of primarily settling on new luxury resources :undecide: The only reason I eliminated Sweden was because I had not yet met any other civs. They were none the wiser whn I did meet them. :goodjob:

@black_kitten, I suppose the reason why I haven't settled in some of the locations you mentioned is because I like to settle on new resources, be that luxury or strategic, to maximise the gain from a city, build those cities up and then take cities from the AI to expand my empire (just the way I play). The truffles weren't an option as Monty had them - that was just off the screenshot. Thanks anyway. I settled Nottingham because of the citrus and its strategic location near the Russian and Greek capitals. I took your advice concerning the navy - those SotL really helped wipe out Russia's Caravels, Ironclads and Privateers :)

@RedRover57, I think beelining to Navigation is something I need to do more often. I always get sidetracked with something though and sometimes even miss the window of opportunity to use those SotLs. I've gone Liberty - Commerce - Order as I enjoy playing as a peaceful builder with a wide empire, focused on gold (in the late game).


Thanks all again for your help.
 
I've done it! I've finally won my first proper (i.e. default settings) emperor game. My previous two posts explained the game up to 1824. I won in the 1940s with a diplomatic victory in the end which surprised me as I was initially going to go domination, then culture, then domination again and then thought it would actually make the most sense to go diplomatic. And I didn't even open Patronage! It's weird how games can work out that way.

This game taught me to focus more than anything. And by focus I mean focus on Science otherwise you face falling behind in tech or - worse - getting crushed by the AI. I've learnt that it's also about getting the balance between religion, culture, food, number of cities/citizens, gold, happiness, military etc right. You can have it all but in moderation (at least until the end game! :king:)

Admittedly, I had a much easier game once I had secured my small continent in the early ADs - things are going to be much tougher in a game with three neighbours to deal with (although I did have numerous colonies later on). Building up a reasonable military appeared to deter aggressors and the tension was certainly high with Rome, The Netherlands and Russia.

My tech lead wasn't achieved until the late 1800s and I'm guessing a focused AI could have won in the 1900s on Immortal with no time for me to do anything about it militarily-speaking. Thing is, I struggled to get back on track with tech after having to deal with my neighbour early on.

How are you supposed to deal with your neighbour(s) and maintain a tech lead? (Bearing in mind that (1) to deal with your neighbours you have to concentrate on building units and neglecting science buildings and (2) in the late game, I am reasonably adept at maintaining a military built-up over time and maintaining a tech-lead).
 
Following on from my last post, has anyone got any tips for Immortal? I'd quite like to start my first Immortal game later today. Should I be sticking with the same general strategy used in Emperor but be aware that the AI will be more aggressive, have a larger tech lead and build almost all wonders?

EDIT: I'm also not sure if I will enjoy Immortal as I guess I'm going to feel rushed if I actually want to win a game. What is/are the realistic victory conditions? When does the AI typically achieve one?
 
Congrats on the emperor win.

I find the jump from emperor to immortal is pretty manageable. In terms of balancing military with tech, remember that defenders have a big innate advantage over attackers until dynamite. That means you can get away with an archer and 3-4 melee units depending on terrain and whatnot. Otherwise, focus on acquiring new cities (next to happiness resources. Try to settle outer cities on hills for clear garrison fire) and science.

Religion is great way into happiness if you can found one. If you aren't a civ with a religion ability (i.e. Byzantium, Maya, Ethiopia, Celts) and you didn't spawn next to a religious natural wonder, then you probably shouldn't bother. Stonehenge is not worth it.

Leave scouts parked next to neighbors' borders as outposts to see when they're mobilizing forces. In terms of offense, go for it if the terrain is favorable. Otherwise, you're gonna have a hard time. You'll almost guaranteed not to have a numbers advantage unless you're the runaway civ; the AI just puts them out too quickly. But that's okay, because the AI still sucks at warfare.

In general, don't even think about wonders unless you've got a great engineer or you're the first one to a tech (which you probably won't be).

Cultural victories are possible, but you've got to decide you're going for culture pretty early. For me, diplomatic and domination are the standard victories, and you should be able to win by turn 300 on normal speed if you focus. I actually don't know when the AI usually wins just because I quit all of my games before I win or lose. Haha.
 
Following on from my last post, has anyone got any tips for Immortal? I'd quite like to start my first Immortal game later today. Should I be sticking with the same general strategy used in Emperor but be aware that the AI will be more aggressive, have a larger tech lead and build almost all wonders?

EDIT: I'm also not sure if I will enjoy Immortal as I guess I'm going to feel rushed if I actually want to win a game. What is/are the realistic victory conditions? When does the AI typically achieve one?
Two key points:
Don't build wonders (duh, very original, I know :));
Manually micromanage your cities;

I'm not saying you can't build wonders at all at immortal, but building a strategy around any wonder would be a mistake, they are not reliable enough. Thus you'd better first learn to play without them (and it's more than possible).

As for dealing with neighbors, you're taking it to the extreme. For defense purposes only few units will be sufficient, you don't need to switch all cities to units spamming mode. Build/rush buy a little bunch and focus on science buildings like always. It allows you not only to maintain a decent literacy rate, but also to have an advanced and deadly army even if it's not large.
 
I'm trying another Emperor game first (which could last me a week or two) on an Archipelago map with only domination available as a VC to really play to Liz's strengths. I think an agressive game will do me good as I need to learn how to deal with runaway civs when the only viable option that is left is war. Furthermore, I like my games to drag into the 20th century so I've not got to worry about the AI achieving a VC before I've had enough fun.

Congrats on the emperor win.

I find the jump from emperor to immortal is pretty manageable. In terms of balancing military with tech, remember that defenders have a big innate advantage over attackers until dynamite. That means you can get away with an archer and 3-4 melee units depending on terrain and whatnot. Otherwise, focus on acquiring new cities (next to happiness resources. Try to settle outer cities on hills for clear garrison fire) and science.

Religion is great way into happiness if you can found one. If you aren't a civ with a religion ability (i.e. Byzantium, Maya, Ethiopia, Celts) and you didn't spawn next to a religious natural wonder, then you probably shouldn't bother. Stonehenge is not worth it.

Leave scouts parked next to neighbors' borders as outposts to see when they're mobilizing forces. In terms of offense, go for it if the terrain is favorable. Otherwise, you're gonna have a hard time. You'll almost guaranteed not to have a numbers advantage unless you're the runaway civ; the AI just puts them out too quickly. But that's okay, because the AI still sucks at warfare.

In general, don't even think about wonders unless you've got a great engineer or you're the first one to a tech (which you probably won't be).

Cultural victories are possible, but you've got to decide you're going for culture pretty early. For me, diplomatic and domination are the standard victories, and you should be able to win by turn 300 on normal speed if you focus. I actually don't know when the AI usually wins just because I quit all of my games before I win or lose. Haha.

Thanks. That's good to know that the jump is manageable. That's a good point about defence and something I need to remember early on.

You said that offence can be tough and I've had to back off with a large navy in my last emperor game because the AI had an even bigger one. I presume the usual advice follows - it's about quality not (just) quantity and that tech lead can be the difference between life and death. I've noticed that even the AI #1 in tech seems to leave his older, weaker, units lying around for a while.

However, this is where the catch 22 can come in - I'm behind in tech in the middle ages and cannot catch up for another century or two. By that time the AI I was targeting has upgraded their units which are now on par with mine but they have 3x as many. I see no viable option but to wait until the modern age or later when I am most comfortable with warfare but by that time an AI has achieved a VC or, if not, I will not have time to deal with the AIs I need to before 2050. :crazyeye:

I was thinking domination or diplomatic too. It's a good idea to go cultural if you have a good start and science is too much of a risk as it can take too long (and I have no interest in rushing). However, it makes strategic sense to go domination in almost all games in order to effectively stop the AI winning. And diplomatic seems like a fall-back VC. :) The only thing is I do not wish to win by T300 as I like to make the game last as long as possible, I'm hoping that this won't be too much of a problem on Immortal...

Two key points:
Don't build wonders (duh, very original, I know :));
Manually micromanage your cities;

I'm not saying you can't build wonders at all at immortal, but building a strategy around any wonder would be a mistake, they are not reliable enough. Thus you'd better first learn to play without them (and it's more than possible).

As for dealing with neighbors, you're taking it to the extreme. For defense purposes only few units will be sufficient, you don't need to switch all cities to units spamming mode. Build/rush buy a little bunch and focus on science buildings like always. It allows you not only to maintain a decent literacy rate, but also to have an advanced and deadly army even if it's not large.

Ahh, manually micromanaging cities... I'm going to be honest here, I will micromanage to the point where a city may be food focused, production focused etc but seldom take advantage of limiting growth and, perhaps most importantly, manually assigning specialists. I presume that I've got to do the latter in Immortal games (and would be advised to in Emperor), if only to boost my science which I have been struggling on until around 1850AD.

I'm good with the wonders now and have learnt that if I want to build them I need to lower the difficulty or face inevitable frustration. There are one or two I will go for when the odds are in my favour but wonders are a big gamble.

I understand that a few advanced units can defend against even a large army but I am struggling with building up a force for offence and still maintaining that tech lead (see the catch 22 (in bold) I've mentioned above.


Thanks both for your help.
 
i only quickly skimmed your posts since #35 but i was seeing you had gold problems (which you remedied with the crucial missing harbor in London, haha). but i was going to give you an option for getting some so that you could actually operate at -gpt. since you needed new units you shouldnt TOTALLY worry about operating at negative gpt. its manageable with the obvious choices like selling lux/resources but since GnK came out CSs can be great sources, particularly for military games. You can demand tribute from them for a few hundred gold. This of course has consequences though. Some CSs will reward you for dmanding that tribute, but be careful to see who is protecting them or who they are allied with. If you need an extra 5 units and can operate at -10 or -15 gpt, demanding tribute can give you an extra 15 or so turns to maintain a positive bank total.

Congrats on the win. One of my favorite improvements in the game is the CS changes. So many new options and quests for their uses. You can rig elections, bully them for money or a worker, accumulate the most faith/culture/tech, fund their projects temporarily, etc. to curry their favor. Diplomacy is becoming a much more fun victory condition now. I made a wide empire just using Austrias UA. It was a blast too.
 
Don't forget about spies in the midgame! The AI starts with big advantages (i.e., you are handicapped) such as extra units and techs, so they will outpace you for a few eras. However, spies can help even the score by stealing techs (let the AI do the time researching and then steal it from them). Likewise with wonders, which have the side benefit of telling you a tech the AI has (i.e., they built a wonder, so they must have that tech since it's a prereq, and that means you can steal it later and focus on researching other techs).
 
Micro management isn't as much work as it sounds. Its quite easy to just periodically flick through all your cities and see if the tiles you want worked are locked down. Once the tiles you want the city to work are being worked I tend to leave the city on production focus due to the extra production you get when the city grows (MadJinn as a post or video were he explains this). Keep an eye on your cities and reassign new pop as needed. Obviously if you want to make you GSci bulb a stupid large amount then microing your specs at the right time etc is more work but you get more from it.

I usually specialise cities a little (lots of gold a few production and the capital plus maybe another food rich city) so worker and citizen management is pretty obvious and pays off.
 
Ahh, manually micromanaging cities... I'm going to be honest here, I will micromanage to the point where a city may be food focused, production focused etc but seldom take advantage of limiting growth and, perhaps most importantly, manually assigning specialists. I presume that I've got to do the latter in Immortal games (and would be advised to in Emperor), if only to boost my science which I have been struggling on until around 1850AD.
It isn't as bad as it sounds indeed. Early game is when micromanaging is very important, because you need to build much stuff with limited resources. Therefore things like locking down production tiles while building settlers (you don't starve while doing that) or locking down food tiles otherwise save a decent amount of turns and make catching up race a bit easier. Because at early stages it's all about catching up. When your cities grow larger switching between food focus and production focus based on happiness and importance of certain buildings is usually enough.
As for specialists, all you need to do is to staff cultural buildings if you play for culture and science buildings (universities - definitely, public schools and research labs if you get there) otherwise once they're completed. With faith purchasing enabled and nerf to 'free' GP you shouldn't even bother to generate other GP naturally.

I understand that a few advanced units can defend against even a large army but I am struggling with building up a force for offence and still maintaining that tech lead (see the catch 22 (in bold) I've mentioned above.
Actually, a few units can be sufficient for defense, but a few advanced units can be sufficient for offense. :) As I said, you don't need a very large army, you can't match AI anyways. But you can have a better army. And that requires science focus. After several shots and getting a 'feel' for this level you'll find the right balance.
 
About army composition - try this when you reach Industrial:

3x Gatling Guns
4x Artillery
2x Lancers
1/2x Muskets or Riflemen

If it doesn't work, add more to get better feel of firepower.
 
Thanks for all the advice everyone! I'm going to carry on with my current Emperor game and practice keeping up with tech, micromanaging cities and waging war with a few advanced units.

I'm already at war with almost everyone as they were not happy with my rapid expansion of colonies (it's an Archipelago map which will play to Liz's strengths). I was going to bully my nearest city state neighbour but they are now at war with me so may have to take that one step further but bullying is something I will take on board as I haven't done it yet being the nice, friendly civ I am. :p

Spies - I even get an extra one to boot! I find that they are effective initially for stealing tech as the AI doesn't have constabularies/police stations/special agents. I find that later it is very hard to level your spies up as you can only effectively use them to rig elections and coups. Although, hopefully by that point, I will be #1 in tech and can use them for counter-espionage.

Micromanaging - I didn't think to check on my city every time it grows. How stupid. That's the perfect time to look as a new citizen will be assigned to work a tile/be a specialist. That makes micromanaging much more manageable. :)

Tech - In my current game I'm just about to finish building universities in 3 out of my 8 cities (the other 5 are too small at the moment). I beelined to Education after discovering Iron (which is very sparse so is going to make the early game interesting) and am pleased to announce that I am currently #1 in tech! I will make sure those specialists are assigned. I've settled a GS on tundra near my capital so that has provided a decent boost.

War - My current game only has Domination as a VC to force me to practice this. As I only play as England using a powerful navy with a small land-based invasion force seems like the way to go. For now, I'm settling on resources and defending. The AI hates me and I've only got a few units (8th place, out of 8 civs) so I'm taking a chance but now my science is in order I'm going to build up my forces for defence and then get an invasion force underway. I prefer Industrial+ warfare but I really need to practice now and take advantage of England's medieval supremacy too.


I'll post again on how things go in this 'training' game and when I feel confident enough to try Immortal then maybe I'll have to start a new thread titled: "Having trouble with Immortal difficulty" ;)

Random question: I play CiV for fun but also like a reasonable challenge. Emperor seems to be providing that whereas King only occasionally did. Do you guys still have fun on Immortal games? I know that's a subjective question (and slightly off-topic) but I'm curious as I may find that after trying out Immortal that it's not for me as, simply put, it's just not fun (I've already had to give up most wonders on Emperor!)
 
How are you supposed to deal with your neighbour(s) and maintain a tech lead? (Bearing in mind that (1) to deal with your neighbours you have to concentrate on building units and neglecting science buildings and (2) in the late game, I am reasonably adept at maintaining a military built-up over time and maintaining a tech-lead).

Well first off there are only 3 'Science' buildings you really NEED: Library, University, and NC. You can delay Pub.Schools and even skip R.Labs.

To give yourself time to build those you need to take advantage of the Three Ts of Combat: Tactics, Terrain and Trade. Yes Trading is a key aspect of wartime even in the real world. Its how the US colonies managed to get supplied during the Revolutionary War and I'm sure there are many other examples but thats the only specific one that comes to mind atm.

Tactics:
  • Conserve units. This is the most important part of war. It doesn't matter how well you're entrenched or that you can buy endless reinforcements. If you keep grinding them like cheap beef, you're doing it wrong. I advise 3 Ranged and 2-3 Melee units for each war-front.
  • Use the Melee to block the movement of the enemy but don't attack. Instead use your archers to weaken then enemy and if they have a sliver of HP and you feel they don't have reinforcements hiding in the Fog of War, finish them off.
  • Keep to rough terrain and heal often. Again, the less time you spend replacing your army, the more time you can spend building those science buildings/growing your cities.

Terrain:
  • Build your cities near each other. If your defensive army has to slog a marathon through rough terrain to get to and from each city, you might as well not have that army at all.
  • Building your cities on Hills and behind rivers makes them much harder to take. I know this is obvious but I'll remind you nonetheless.
  • Leaving rough terrain near the edges of you lands can serve as a buffer from sneak attacks as it gives you a turn or two before their army can properly enter you land.

Trade:
  • You shouldn't be at war with everyone... if you are you're either a dick or a BAMF. Find your enemies' enemies and make friends. Just because your land is surrounded doesn't mean you can't arrange for outside funding.
  • Rush buy and extra Archer or two to supplement your forces and don't waste the hammers.

If you want to go on the offensive, you need two things. 4-6 Melee Units with an effective strength equal to at least 60% of the defending city's Strength and at least 3 Siege units. That should be enough to take early cities.
 
You need to build more cities. If you start on a river, plant them up river, one after another. You have no gold because you have no trade route income because if you have like 4 cities 15 tiles apart from each other.
 
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