[R&F] How to switch to Emperor?

[Question]

You must be doing something wrong. I’ve been able to play and win completely peaceful games on Emperor, and I’m decent, but not as good as a lot of the people on these forums.

But the moment I meet an AI civ on emperor they instantly dislike me with a -3 unknown modifier and refuse delegations. This never happens on prince.

On King the modifier is -1 i think, not sure.

 

[EditorRex]

King difficuly became too easy for me, so I decided to try Emperor a few times. It feels like there should one or even two more difficuly levels in between.

1. First of all, if I don't beeline archery, I just loose my nearby city to my neighbour. There were no exceptions. The small bonus enemy warriors have is enough to make my slingers useless and my warriors are just plain weaker. And if I don't have pastures nearby, then I don't get craftsmanship insipiration.
2. Btw, being near Monty or Gilgamesh = starting another game, because I will not survive this.
3. Couple of times I just got 2 barbarian horsemen and a mounter archer near my city at turn 10. Restarted.
4. I am behind in everything. One time I just quit after notification saying that Brazil got Classical Republic while I was still researching Early Empire. I was playing Rome, by the way.
5. And I don't get a chance to do something to catch up: I am usually stuck with 4 cities, which is simply bad. One time I tried to attack my neighbout in medieval era and I could not even advance into the enemy territory due to ridiculous amount of units.

I have read a lot of threads here about how people start the game but I don't get how they do this. Like making settler-builder first - I will just be rushed by 6 warriors in this case.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I agree with you about the difference between King and Emperor being much bigger than the differences between any of the lower levels. Because the AI and the Barbs behave differently and have new substantial advantages, not just incremental ones, it does feel as if any strategy you honed on the lower levels has to be rethought for Emperor on up. I've had several Vanilla wins on Emperor and one on Immortal, but none on Deity. These higher levels are quite different. I'd rather see the lower levels be more like the higher levels but incrementally easier, so that you can follow essentially the same strategies at each level, but just have to play a more perfect game to excel at the high levels. While I agree with you about the level difference being too much, I also agree with some of the advice you've already received from other players -- Emperor is not impossible, just different and more challenging. I also disagree strongly with those who have said that higher levels are somehow flawed. Think of it this way: The real game is Deity and there are good players who defeat the game on Deity just about every time they play. Any level below that is slightly easier. But don't think any of us have done anything special by winning at Immortal or Emperor, and especially not at King or Prince.

Regarding strategy advice, I do recommend developing Archery relatively early, though not necessarily with a beeline. I research Animal Husbandry, Mining, Pottery and then Archery in most starts. But I speed up Archery by getting the early Eureka for having a slinger kill a Barbarian. Usually I have a warrior injure a Barbarian unit and then bring up the slinger for the kill just to get the Eureka. You can often get the Inspiration from taking a Barb settlement while doing this. And while you're at it, get the Eureka for killing three barbs. There are several reasonable build orders. You might find the thread here on R&F build orders interesting.

I do agree with several people who have commented on the annoyance of lousy starting diplomatic relations with most AI on the higher levels. I understand that these are challenging levels, but it spoils all the nuances of the diplomatic traits if they are just going to start out disliking you. It would be better if more of the hostility were triggered by specific actions, as opposed to things you cannot possibly have done early in the game (building ships, spreading your religion to Congo, having less cavalry than Ghenghis Khan before he discovers Horseback riding, etc.) The modifiers for hostile diplomatic relations ought to be put on an era delay, except for AI Civs that are generally ancient era warmongers.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Sell something to the AI and rush-buy a settler in the Ancient era. Big help.

 

[Gehennas]

I just finished this game with Scientific victory (turn 302). After removing Kongo and America everything became much easier. Thank you all for my first victory on Emperor.
While there were no immediate threats, I done some experimenting and even founded a religion on turn 150 or so. Probably this was a good decision, because Japan was spreading Buddhism aggresively and was aiming for religious victory. Korea was my only contender in science: actually Korea was ahead in science till the end of the game, but my production was much better.

 

[Esperr]

1. Most games start with beelining campus or archery. Most BO go something like scout slinger builder slinger just so you can upgrade to archers. Once you get bows online your perfectly safe.
2.again, archers, and in gils case hes really easy to befriend early. For monty just dont snag lux you dont need. If hes within 10 tiles, your pretty much going to have to kill him.
3.those games are lame. They are winnable, but its just not fun.
4.you will be behind for a while on paper, but the A.i doesnt beeline like a human does. They dont knight rush or campus spam.
5.4 citys is bad news bears. One true constant is that in a lot of games its best just to fight your way out of a box. Hence the whole "game ends on turn 50 syndrome". IIRC the A.i starts with less settlers on emp, so its almost more difficult then IMM because there are less citys to take.

 

[Gehennas]

Now I played this map again, optimized my game a little bit and tried some of the advice provided by i_imperator. This time I won on turn 266, so it's something, but there is still a room for improvement.

What bothers me about diplomacy is the fact that some of the civilizations will certainly dislike you on higher difficulties (like Trajan and Cleo as the most obvious). Also, joint wars are just absurd - AI is too eager to accept them.

 

[Archaelicos]

I have also struggled at Emperor. In the last game I played, Rome's capital spawned within 10 tiles of mine, and Rome promptly settled a city right between. I immediately began building military units when I saw how close they were. I was at war within a few turns and surrounded by 5 warriors. The ONLY REASON I didn't lose the game before turn 20 is that barbarians attacked Trajan from the back and he inexplicably didn't finish me off. My capital was beaten and ripe for the taking, he had 3 warriors with enough health to win, but a barbarian horseman hit him from behind, and he turned all of his warriors around to attack it, losing one in the process. I finished a warrior built that turn, killed another, and he probably STILL could have finished my cap with his last one, but he ran. I then went FULL ON SCORCHED EARTH MOTHER fudgER and raised a gigantic military and took him out. It was agonizingly slow, and I probably blew 50 turns screwing around with JUST getting back on my feet from that. When I finally finished Rome off, Scotland and India DOW me, I held them off, then 2 more. I spent the entire game fending off attackers, but after Rome it was actually pretty easy, I expanded where I could, got about 6-8 decent cities going, popped out another 3-4 late game. I was going science but I ended up winning culture before I even got a spaceport up. I hadn't even realized I was even in the running for it.

I also played an Emperor game as Korea that was similar except I was endlessly harassed by barbarians FOREVER. They actually took two cities at one point, I was down to my capital. France got one back, then I DOWed to get it back from them. But once I stabilized and could defend myself, I poured on the science and cruised to an easy, lazy victory.

It's those first 50-100 turns that are murder, and I feel like I'm not only behind but getting further and further behind. if I can't find room to establish about 6 good cities, I need to conquer them. And more often than not, I've got no choice but to conquer, there's rarely room for more than 2-3 cities beyond my capital.

I'm not yet winning consistently, I've had to restart my Wilhelminia game a few times. My early wars just ... don't go well. I don't really understand well enough how all the bonuses and stuff work, like flanking, support, etc. I need to read up. The game is hard enough at that level that you can't just screw around and win easily. or at least, I can't.

 

[Archaelicos]

But the moment I meet an AI civ on emperor they instantly dislike me with a -3 unknown modifier and refuse delegations. This never happens on prince.

On King the modifier is -1 i think, not sure.

This never happens to me. Most Civs I meet, I can send delegation right away, I usually do open borders right away if I can, and if I've got 100 gold to spare, I give it to them. That usually offsets almost all the negatives. I also look at who is nearby and adjust strategy to appeal to them. If Scandinavia is around, I prioritize galleys. Sometimes just 1 is enough to impress them; 2 almost always is. And I'll eventually use them to circumnavigate and score some golden age points.

What I find maddening about the diplomacy is how easily friendly civs turn on you. BUt, if you just wait them out for 10 turns, they almost always take peace without conditions. Hell, even unfriendly civs often do.

 

[Archaelicos]

Emperor build order - sorry to machine gun post!

I usually go Scout and then Slinger, but if I've got 3 tiles I can improve, I might switch to Builder instead. I don't really have a set build order beyond a scout first. About the only time I don't do scout first is if I'm found by another civ/barbs before it finishes building (even then I'll usually just finish it), or if I can farm 3 wheat/rice in my starting tiles. Otherwise, I try to get the slinger out, ideally 3-4 before archery. And then I mostly follow the tech lead based on what eurekas I can pop. I've also learned that with a lot of Civs, getting ships out earlier is better than I thought. I've ignored navy in most civ games but for some reason I just do better if I can get the 2 galleys out. The problem is I end up finding lots of good coastal settlement locations and building to many harbors, which makes it hard to get great merchants later.

 

[Esperr]

Now I played this map again, optimized my game a little bit and tried some of the advice provided by i_imperator. This time I won on turn 266, so it's something, but there is still a room for improvement.

What bothers me about diplomacy is the fact that some of the civilizations will certainly dislike you on higher difficulties (like Trajan and Cleo as the most obvious). Also, joint wars are just absurd - AI is too eager to accept them.

Dust off the ole civ IV cheeseball guide and joint war somebody else first. With your combined power you look to hard to DOW to the A.I.