Help Emperor Suleiman

Malchar

Prince
Joined
Jun 28, 2009
Messages
527
Location
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Lately, I've been playing on emperor difficulty, and it has been going pretty good. My most recent game is with Suleiman because I wanted to try a philosophical leader. However, I've run into a bit of a problem because I'm playing on a huge map with 13 AI leaders. I failed to make a sufficiently large expansion in the beginning, and now I'm suffering the consequences. Also, I didn't even go for any of the wonders, but I don't blame that for my current failures.

I know that my situation isn't too bad. I have military parity (knights/musketmen) with the other backwards nations, including Montezuma/Gilgamesh whom I have a shared border with. Since I am the aggressor, I managed to get slightly more units and the advantage of surprise. The leader AIs have approximately riflemen and airships, so I'll have to do some catching up before a war with them. The only real military problem is that I am completely behind with my navy. Basically, I had to forgo any advances there in order to catch up with the land-based army.

Taking a look at the map specifically, Gilgamesh made Montezuma into a colony (I guess), and then I attacked them to take over Bad-Tibiria, Shuruppak, Nibru, Ur, and Cherokee. My only Iron is from the recently conquered cities, so my initial attack force was all trebs and maces. I started making knights once I got the iron, and then janissaries once the appropriate technologies were finished.

Khmer ninja declared on me (possible d pact with gilgamesh?), but he hasn't sent anything more than his ships. Then again, those ships will dominate my coastlines until I get astro, which will immediately unlock frigates.

My current plan is to take over as much of Aztec/Sumer as possible while staying friendly with the leaders (especially Egypt). Then, I lay down infrastructure everywhere setting up for state property + representation/caste system for teching and production and try to catch up to the leaders, possibly picking off some other weaklings along the way.

I am playing the game with Better BUG AI. I have attached the save and also a worldbuilder save so you can run it without the mod that I'm using. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or criticisms if anyone would be so kind as to check it out.
 

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Overall a huge map where you have sat back too much. You are way behind on techs. Liberalism should of been and gone by 1100-1300ad. If the Egyptians don't get a cultural win it will be another Ai winning by space or diplomation.

You are over 20 turns off rifles and thats not good when at war with 3 AI. Why are you playing a better AI mod when you are so far back? I am guessing for a huge map you wanted 1000-1500+ sciences beakers a turn around this date.

Playing on emperor not rushing an Ai is a weak start. Sorry this is very negative. Reroll really.
 
Had a quick peak at world builder. General tech over view below. Time to start a new game!!

Spoiler :

You are about 20 or so techs behind the tech leader who has infantry and is close to artilery and is building factories. I don't see how you are ever going to catch up a monster like hannibal with 23+ cities who is financial.

 
I should mention the world builder save was at 1720ad and your save said 1010ad. So perhaps it was changed in translation. Maybe a marathan game converted to normal speed?

Even so Hannibal and the other Ai will be hard to take out and stop from winning.
 
Nah, the speed is supposed to be normal, the name of the save is just messed up. My main problem was that I had a bad start because I kind of forgot that it was a huge map. Also, I'm not very good at the philo economy yet, especially early. I have played it through to where I get rifles and communism and have taken over the aztec land.

Here is what has happened to me since the save:
Spoiler :
It's possible to make peace with Khmer who immediately vassals to Egypt. Shaka does a naval invasion of the eastern landmass, but it's easily defended and can make peace for a few gold. Gilgamesh invades from the west with a few cavalry and has captured Shuruppak, but I have rifles/cannons now so I can easily recapture it in a few turns.


Perhaps the best way to victory is a perm alliance with Egypt :D

Edit: One question for next time I have is about markets. Do you ever build them just to be able to have merchants in a specialist economy? I would think that it's better to just wait and go into caste system. Anyway, my main problem with expansion was a failure to overcome the unfortunate geography of the map. I always feel like I'm screwed unless I have access to bronze. If I wait and go for iron, then I've put off writing for too long and my research collapses. Then again, if I have no metal, the barbarians eat me alive. Horse just seems insufficient. The alternative would have been archery, which I usually do not get early. Should I be getting archery most of the time?
 
Hm, I almost never get Archery on Immortal. IF you spawnbust well enough with Warriors, Chariots are usually sufficient. In fact they're usually better at taking out archers and preventing them from pillaging your tiles.

If Axemen or Spearmen are showing up, then it's a symptom of you having too much land to bust (a blessing/curse), or not enough busting going on. Remember that AI's being near will likely 100% eliminate barbarian activity from that direction.

Re: Markets

If I'm desperate for extra happiness I'll build them. They're a pretty expensive building. Normally Caste is the best way to run Merchants, yup. Later on in the modern/industrial era you'll probably have grocers anyway for the health bonus, and you'll also get 2 merchant slots from that too.
 
My other problem is that with islands or other prohibitive terrain, it's really hard to attack people. It's a huge pain to have to simultaneously invest in navy and a normal military just to be able to attack someone. Even if I just use a few galleys to ferry troops over, it takes too long. In the end, if I start on an island that's too small, I'm left busting at the seams. The other situation is where my neighbors are centuries ahead of me and the AI I want to attack is on another island.
 
You could build forts across the land mass? Sea units can enter forts.

I still think you are fighting among the third world countries to later come across the industrial world. Normal speed and wars is not a good thing.

How to catch the far off tech leader? If you can trade with the local AI maybe. You could also beg techs off the bigger AI.

Still be interesting to see how you fair and if you can pull off a victory.
 
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