Help with emperor conquest please.

[R3d]

Hi, I've been lurking the forums for about a year now and have progressed from prince to emperor level with alot of good advice from forum posters. At the moment I'm most interested in deciding on the best leader for my play style. I used to be a wonder hog/SE type of player using Stalin of Russia (Ind/Agg). I would win all my games through space race or conquest with a small number of cities and many settled priests for superior production. At emperor level, I find wonderspamming to be a bit more of a gambit, I dont like gambits. I have since learned the power of cottages and currently play most of my games as Hannibal (Fin/Cha).

Im looking for advice on a conquest type of victory with the least amount of cities possible while keeping moderate tech parity. I dont like building any wonders, but I want my 5 cities to be highly specialized. My strategy with Hannibal has been a beauracracy capital with all available tiles cottaged (even plains hills/plains), a hammer city for troop production, a GP/wallstreet city running and settling merchants for 100% science which saves me from building modifiers in my capital. These three cities are my greatest priority and are the first ones settled. GP farm will run scientists first for an academy in capital. Subsequent cities are usually a mix of cottages/hammers/spy specialists/science infrastucture.

I think Shaka (Exp/Agg) or Joao II (Exp/Imp) might be better leaders for my style, that is a small number of, large, highly specialized cities (5 cities on small map for oxford) aimed at a conquest victory - raze almost every captured city and be able to raise an army with a major hammer city, support an army/ maintain 100% science with a merchant gp farm and keep tech pace with a cottaged capital under beauracracy and 2 cottage/hammer cities for extra science/spies/defenders. If i build only one wonder, it will be a shot at the great wall. I think expansive/war trait/hereditary rule might be a better way to pull this off consistantly although financial may be best and just dont realize it. Any feedback or tips / advice is much appreciated.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You don't need expansion traits if you're constraining yourself to 5 cities on a small map. You might as well play liz or something. Cottages + philosophy for faster bulbs.

Why raze cities though? You can win conquest off of capitulations also. If you must raze everything get a really good production city set up with heroic epic, produce a lot of units, hit renaissance or industrial tech lead, then mass upgrade + keep building and you should have a large number of rifles, cavalry, or cannons. Try to get a globe theater city set up too so that you can draft along with what you build. Other than that just run a GP farm (which can be the GT city ultimately) for a faster tech rate and cottage up for bureaucracy. Your final city can be anything...hammers, cottages, or more specs depending on your terrain/ultimate traits.

If you HAVE to play that "style", that is. You could just try to read a good approach based on the map too though. That does make winning higher levels easier.

Also, welcome to the forums

 

[andreasb]

I also tried to find the ultimate leader for my style, but came to realize that it wasn't really an optimal solution. Different maps and settings require different strategies, and different strategies have synergies with different leaders.

If I play random maps, I always play random leader. If I choose a map/settings manually, I have a set of different leaders that I choose from (if not random). An example is that I often play Wilhem (Dutch, FIN/CRE with great UU/UB for naval maps) on any map where there is lots of water and naval warfare is crucial.

 

[R3d]

Thanks for the advive TheMeInTeam. The few victories I have gotten have happened as you described, that is catching up in tech at renaissance and winning with rifles a few cannons and supporting city revolts, if i have ivory ill start my campaigns earlier with cats. I have problems with nationhood though as switching out of beauracracy hits my research hard, although that does give me a good mind to play Isabella (Exp/Spi) for draft switching, she starts with mysticism too for a a shrined capital and completely centralized gold and science production, although then i really couldn't raze alot of cities as the gold would be coming out of my pockets.

I dont mind vassalizing the ais, but i like to keep my empire as small as possible in my almost always war games and I fear vassals gaining their freedom again through land and pop if i let them live. The problem I face when taking and not razing cities is the immediate need to defend those cities, and the drain on my economy/research.

I usually do try to play to the map as much as possible with early city placement, but i hate moving the palace and will regenerate the map for a good cottaged or coastal capital if im Fin. I almost always play pangaea, small or standard, medium or high sea level, pressed or solid coasts. At higher sea levels, even on pangaea, a navy can be very helpful especially early blockades and watching the enemy city shrink away

There are usually 3 food resources around the start point on most maps and 1 of them will go the capital and the other two will go to a gp farm, often through overlap. I dont mind overlap with my type of Gp farm as settled merchants add 1 food. I read that some people think Liz's traits dont synergize well to a pure se/ce eco, but I think they synergize perfectly as a heavy gold merchant farm with phi and a beauracracy capital with fin at 100% science, especially on smaller maps where your not cottaging or running specialists in every city. Otherwise you would need to build twice as many science and gold multipliers.

I was thinking expansive might be plausable because as I see it, at max pop under Hrule, 5 cities with the expansive trait is almost like a "get another size 10 city free" card.

Also thanks for the greets and the chance to vent some frustration, moving from monarch to emperor is like night and day for me.