Help me Conquer Emperor Playthrough

[bdubbs]

Hey everyone, just reinstalled the game after some time away. Last I left off I'd had one emp victory and struggled in many ways off this difficulty. Since I have no reason not to play slow anyway I thought it would be fun to start a thread, see if anyone wants to play along or drop some knowledge on me as I go and improve my play a bit.

For a leader I chose Elizabeth for her strong traits, map type Pangea, normal speed, no huts / no events.

The first game I rolled looks like a pretty good start:

Personally I cant think of any reason not to SiP here and chose to move my warrior onto the gold which revealed

Spoiler :

Spices, 2nd ring FP and riverside grassland

Will take the first 5 turns later tonight.

 

[SittinDown]

Nice start.

SIP is decent.

Might want to consider NW... see below.

What are you going to research first? Argri seems like an obvious choice.
What are you going to build first? Worker is usually the right call.

Spoiler NW reasons :

• Liz is Financial, so grabbing extra river tiles in the capital is nice.
• Settling NW, lets you keep the Corn / Clam / 2 Gold site, and still use the stone for another city, and leaves the river more open to the south for another city.

Protip:

• Settling a PH Stone means the city center is a 2 3 1 tile, instead of 2/1/1. This can be a huge benefit, especially in the capital, because you can get a worker out in 10 turns instead of 15.

 

[bdubbs]

@SittinDown good advice, in this situation though settling the ph stone doesn't work because I'd be giving up both food resources and both golds, but I'll keep that in mind. I definitely have it in mind to start with a worker and tech ag first. I'm about to take my turns now, ill take a look at the start again and consider your advice about settling my cap 1NW

 

[bdubbs]

T1-10

Decided to take your advice @SittinDown and try the NW settle mainly to open up room to settle south. The big trade off is losing the stone and a fresh water lake in the cap, but I don't think that will be a huge loss considering the cap has 4 obvious tiles to work before it would start working water tiles.

T5

Spoiler :

Met Toku who appears to be coming from the West

T6

Spoiler :

Met Pericles who seems to be settled somewhere North

T10

Spoiler :

Have uncovered a little bit of the surrounding land in the North/NW. Haven't uncovered any good food resources or any obvious sites to settle.

So my rough idea of a plan going forward is something like this

Spoiler :

No techs seem to be of immediate need, and on this difficulty the 2 gold tiles should give me a pretty substantial early tech advantage. I'm leaning towards teching BW and then AH to reveal metals and horses, but I'm not sure I see any reason to switch to slavery right away because the cap isn't the kind of city I'm looking to whip. Seems like a standard size 3 settler working the corn and 2 gold mines is the right play. As of the moment my best bet looks like settling south in the FP area, but we'll see what else I uncover as the game progresses. If I can get a library and lighthouse in the cap I can grow it to size 6 and work both golds and run 2 scientists down the line. Being the first to alpha and back filling techs seems like it will probably be an option as well.

I'll make another turn set sometime tomorrow, as I go on the sets will get smaller but for now there's not a lot going on as my cap pumps out its first worker.

 

[Anysense]

At size 3 working both golds London will have just +1 surplus, i.e. it can't grow without sharing one of the golds. Besides, you need at least 1 warrior before you start on a settler. I think size 4 settler after 2 warriors would be optimal. You can't rely on emperor AI to take care of barbs for you. It may happen, but not necessarily.

 

[SittinDown]

@SittinDown good advice, in this situation though settling the ph stone doesn't work because I'd be giving up both food resources and both golds, but I'll keep that in mind

Good! Yes, the PHS would be a bad site for the capital, I think you made the right call. (I just brought it up because it was something I didn't know when I was playing at Emperor).

 

[Jarno]

No reason to research AH right now. If there's no copper available, you could consider going through archery for barb defence, however I doubt whether this is necessary on Emp. You might do just fine with warriors alone. First city should be 3S or 3S1W, farm the FP's for food surplus so it can work the gold; capitol can grow more easily that way. With 2 gold you could consider going Oracle, chop it using the SW forests. Focus on exploring that region, jungle north is not very appealing (maybe settle 3N for claiming the dye and working some shared cottages?)

 

[SittinDown]

Keep exploring. North jungle is not that good - you probably won't find horses up in the Jungle, and you aren't lucky enough to see Ivory up there either yet.

Get a warrior out and explore South West and South East. 2nd city will probably want to head towards the FP's along the river. Don't worry so much about library / lighthouse yet until you get your spawn busters out and a couple of cities. The gold and rivers and financial gives enough commerce, you won't fall behind in tech.

 

[sampsa]

I dislike settling 1NW quite a lot. Loses turn, loses forest, corn improved 2T later. For me, the only reasonable alternative to SIP is 1W, on the gold. Loses a strong (but -negative) tile yes, but +1+2 on city center is awesomeness. Corn improved 1T earlier. Takes a while until SIP catches up with that, and we are aware of the snowball effect of a fast start. Intuitively hard to say which one is better, but for me the choice would be between those two options.

BW is a great tech because it allows chopping. Early on, those hammers really matter a lot and allow a fast expansion. The better it is to expand rapidly the better land you have available. Here it is rather clear that there will be strong sites available due to floodplains (which is also the direction you should have scouted, not the jungle). AH is a rather weak tech, because all it does is let you improve some tiles and reveals horse. You have no reason to go for it unless you discover a site that needs it. Instead you can go straight for stronger techs like pottery (cottages, granaries), writing (OB for religion spread and relations, libraries), alphabet (tech trades, build), math (power chops), monarchy (unlimited to work many cottages) and so on.

You rarely need to take special precautions against barbs on emperor. Fogbust where necessary, let them spawn and possibly come towards you from a direction that you can handle (i.e. where they are not able to pillage your improvements). Warriors fortified on correct tiles gets you far.

 

[Anysense]

I only want to stress how important it is to make your second city very productive early on. Particularly when your capital works double gold but is a bit low on production. That should be a city with very good food in the first ring and a worker must be ready to start improving that food upon settling.

 

[SittinDown]

I dislike settling 1NW quite a lot. Loses turn, loses forest, corn improved 2T later. For me, the only reasonable alternative to SIP is 1W, on the gold. Loses a strong (but -negative) tile yes, but +1+2 on city center is awesomeness. Corn improved 1T earlier. Takes a while until SIP catches up with that, and we are aware of the snowball effect of a fast start. Intuitively hard to say which one is better, but for me the choice would be between those two options.
.

Nice perspective. I never think to settle on gold, but you make a strong case. ...my thinking is still caught in the trap of 'best ultimate capital' as opposed 'fastest start'.

 

[sampsa]

I only want to stress how important it is to make your second city very productive early on. Particularly when your capital works double gold but is a bit low on production. That should be a city with very good food in the first ring and a worker must be ready to start improving that food upon settling.

In general, I fully agree with this. However, there are some exceptions and here might be one.

T33 screenshot

Spoiler :

2 good tiles (corn, gold) in capital, extra on city center so obvious for me to go settler @size2. Instantly connected 2nd city which wins even when working an "unimproved" tile (not sure if fps should really count as unimproved, 31 is decent). Likely chop+whip a worker size 2 (this wins some vs slowbuild). 1st worker busy chopping settlers. Maybe I'll try to oracle something big like CS, since going towards monarchy seems good anyway and losing oracle is not a disaster.

SIP and settler @size3 seems to lead to something like T39 unconnected 2nd city, here I might have 3 connected cities on the same turn.

 

[bdubbs]

Cool thanks for all the responses.

@sampsa it would probably have never occurred to me to settle on the gold because of my skill level but you're right that in this particular situation with the gold on the PH that this is a huge early boost to the cap. The one idea I'm trying to keep in mind to improve my play is that turns are the most valuable resource, so after I play out the game I think I'll play through it a second time settling the gold so I can get a feel for the difference. You're also right that I wish I scouted towards the FPs first. For some reason I thought there was going to be coast just beyond them.

@Jarno You're right that AH isn't necessary right now, my thinking at the time was more that I didn't see any techs that stood out as must have's right now and thought it might be beneficial to reveal horses

@Anysense all sounds like good advice. I'll be keeping both tidbits in mind when I look to build that first settler and expand.

@SittinDown I definitely need to explore the other areas around my cap better because that's where it seems like the better land is.

 

[Fippy]

Settling on gold gets "easier" if we calculate the true value of not doing so

Working the tile gives 9c and 3h, but it's misleading.
We can substract 1h and 2c for using it as city tile instead, and 1c for the river (every tile we would work instead will be river).
And another commerce for FIN, assuming we would work a cottage instead.

So now we only have 2h and 5c left, not too spectacular..would we even want that tile compared to something with food?
Nopes, settling on gold always wins even long term.

 

[bdubbs]

T10-25

Spoiler :

The north and west is covered with jungle so I brought my warrior back SW. Scouted some good land and got chased to the SE of my cap by a bear.

I met Charlemagne who came from the north on T14, currently have my espionage points on Toku. Worker came out T16, improved the corn and moved for the gold. City worked the improved corn as soon as it was available and a FP when it hit size 2. Currently working the corn and gold as I hit size 3 next turn, but my warrior is a turn behind.

Currently teching the wheel because I'll need it eventually.

My current dilemma is how to proceed with getting my first settler out. I have two options I can 1 chop at size 3, or chop / whip at size 4. I quickly played through both scenarios and both got the settler out on T38. The chop / whip at size 4 results in an extra warrior to go fogbust and about 13 extra hammers on top of that, and also includes a turn of anarchy while I switch into slavery, but also brings the city down to size 2 which leaves several turns to grow back to size 3.

I'm not sure how to weigh those benefits with the trade off of going down to size 2. If I want to grow I can't work either gold tile. There's an extra turn between when the warrior comes out and the cap would hit size 4 so if I put it into a work boat + the overflow from the whip I could work the corn / gold until the WB comes out.

Staying size 3 seems to simplify things a bit. Settler comes out T38 and I can move straight to a worker and send my current worker to improve tiles for city 2.

SS as of turn 25

Spoiler :

as you can see I'm currently thinking the best spot for city 2 is on the fresh water plains tile to the south which would leave room for a nice city on the riverside wine.

 

[bdubbs]

@Fippy what you're saying makes perfect sense and I can see why settling on a PH gold stood out in this situation when you break it down like that. Is it really so common to find these types of situations where settling the gold is more beneficial than working it though?

@sampsa now that I'm closer to your turn count I checked out your SS and it's really amazing how big a difference settling on the gold made for you. It looks like you got your first settler out 9-10 turns faster than I will be able to get mine out and you already have another one half built up. It doesn't look like you sacrificed much if any tech to do it either. Now I really want to try this map having settled on the gold lol

 

[sampsa]

I think there is definitely no shame in starting again. You are trying to learn here and if you feel some other path was better you could just go back and take it. "Everything I know about Civ was learned through reloading." -shakabrade

Anysense made a good point earlier about working two golds halting your growth in capital. This makes me more prone to settle on gold if we have many of them. Also, when you have access to scientists, value of a gold tile is greatly diminished. It does create more than a scientist generates , but the latter also generates -points which are worth a huge amount of . All this should put some perspective on the true value of a gold tile. Overrated, I say.

 

[SittinDown]

Yeah, don't penalize yourself because of my bad advice

-points which are worth a huge amount of .

Especially since the leader is PHI.

 

[bdubbs]

Makes sense. @sampsa I was able to replicate your first 33 turns easily enough. I'll play a few turns ahead and do a write up

 

[bdubbs]

Took the gold settle game to turn 38

Spoiler :

Decided to settle the wine first. In this game I found the edge of Toku's borders and I felt like if I didn't settle it first I might lose it. I 2 chopped the second settler which comes out on the next turn and got lucky and had 1 forest regrow 1N of the cap. Here's current situation

Spoiler :

And here's what I have in mind for what to do next.

Spoiler :

Take advantage of my extra forest with a 2 chop settler to claim the blue site.

1 pop whip a worker in York and put overflow into a warrior.

Settle the red site now, and follow the same plan as york, growing on a warrior then moving to a worker for a 2>1 whip and hope the other civs help me with fog busting.

For tech I'm thinking myst after writing so I can hook up the copper more quickly. The oracle is definitely in play but I'm not sure what I'd target for my free tech. I'll need AH for settling the cows site and I'll need to send a worker with that settler because the site is practically useless otherwise.

As of the moment I feel like I have room for about 6 good cities until I'm ready to move into the northern jungle, which could be contested by then. So I have to do some more scouting north so I have a better idea of how much I'm going to be able to expand peacefully.

Edit: I played forward a few turns and there were a few barb archers hanging out near the cows so expanding without building up any defense isn't going to be an option. Looks like I should probably build a warrior in the cap and use the worker to improve a tile in one of my FP cities. When it comes to cities that are mainly working FPs is it better to farm them for the bonus food or go right into cottages?