I Know This Will Probably Get Old and Repetititve - But I Need More Expert Tips for Playing Emperor

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

So basically I've tried a whole new approach at my Emperor start.

Began playing India, Continent, Warm, Normal, 60% water. It's my favourite layout. 8 random civs.

In this game so far (I won't post pics but just a general summary because I'm rather lazy, but still need advice), I was very lucky. Very lucky because there were two food boni near my capital, which I built on the shoreline. Besides there was another food bonus around, for my second city.

The second strike of luck was just unbelievable. It has been more than a decade since I stopped playing it and I've never seen this happening recently, but an SGL emerged just after I researched Writing because I was beelining for Republic. I was very very happy, this meant I was capable of rush building the Colossus in my capital the next turn, then switch yet again to settler production.

Two settler pumps. Unfortunately, continent was a bit crowded so expansion phase ended a bit early, was scared about the Spanish to the north, but managed to appease them, trade with them, sign ROP with them and now they're polite towards me. Don't expect them to attack me anytime soon.

Anyway, so now I got some four city rings, two of them with still propsective gains. Am now in early middle ages, the English to the south got in a long war with the Russians, so I dowed, sent settlers to empty spaces, so far I'm going to take York and already taken four other cities. In London managed to capture Great Wall.

First focused on building swords, then med infantry, and now the dreaded Elephants. Don't mind a GA happening now, in fact I need it. Building also KT in Delhi, so I can get all the extra military I need.

The reason? Once I'm done with the English, I'm going to buildup a little, then turn on the Maya who are my biggest rivals and threat to the East. Will expand my third and fourth rings if I manage to succesfully take their cities. But for now, just finishing my business with the English and building up my forces.

Thanks to advice and tips from this forum and my own experience, I'm kicking out a fairly successful gameplay at Emperor, I'm even doing good with a tech parity with other civs. In fact, I believe I'm doing far well, for an Emperor.

Also micromanaging all workers, continuously expanding my military. 20% lux to appease citizens, but will get back to 10% once I manage to end war with the English.

This save uses Flintlock mod! So far I'm satisfied with Flintlock mod and will keep using it.

If you want, and if you could give me advice like with my previous Egypt Emperor game, and also comment on my progress I would be quite satisfied, happy and grateful . Any advice on how to tackle the Maya is also welcome.

 

[justanick]

The second strike of luck was just unbelievable. It has been more than a decade since I stopped playing it and I've never seen this happening recently, but an SGL emerged just after I researched Writing because I was beelining for Republic. I was very very happy, this meant I was capable of rush building the Colossus in my capital the next turn, then switch yet again to settler production.

If you get a SGL that early there is only one proper use: Build the pyramids. This boosts your growth fantastically as it did with the Zulu in your game as egypt.

Your amount of workers is way too low. By the time the average size of your towns has reached 4 you should have 2 workers per town. So that is about 40 or more.

You have 4 warriors, 11 pikemen and 14 spearmean and building more. As India you should have none of those. Your elephants make all other buildable units essentially obsolete.

Also you have gone to war way too early. As rule of thumb you should first settle all available land and then wait 40+ turns before starting a war. You started you GA way too early. You want your cities at size 12 as soon as reasonably possible and with all those food boni for your inner 7+1 cities growth can happen fast.

Naval exploration is something you are lacking in. Also you want ports for importing luxuries.

You should have libraries in all important cities. They are cheap and increase research by 50%. Temples and cathedrals are no priority.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

I gotta say this is my best Emperor game so far. My best.

I captured tons of slaves, so I saved myself the hassle of building too many workers yet. Will wait for Steam Power.

Stomped the English and the Maya in three wars. Have five complete rings around my capital, also enjoy tech parity with the most advanced civs.

This is starting to feel like Monarch, really. Now all I gotta do is send my 50+ elephants to the north, to destroy Isabella, grab her saltpeter, her furs, and her wonder. This is doable.

But overall my top performing Emperor game so far. Thanks for the tips. Now I'll stop posting this kind of thread, lol.

EDIT - as for naval exploration, managed to sneak in a Caravel into Roman waters. Communication and map trading was good, got a very good world map and will not share it. Managed to import tons of luxuries, now my lux slider is 0%. But will not build a real navy at this stage.

 

[justanick]

I captured tons of slaves, so I saved myself the hassle of building too many workers yet.

This is doing it in the wrong order. On large maps you need 40+ workers while still BC. Growing your population and giving it properly improved tiles by using workers has a high return on investment. War can hardly ever compete with that.

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Here is an example of a small map and by turn 100 - 550 BC there are 31 industrious workers, 72 population points and thus at 21 city tiles an average population size of 3.42. This is how the phase of early republic can look like.

Getting the most out of your land is way more important than military expansion and getting half speed slaves. Once your cities have grown to their potential, the production is high and you can build up a powerful military in a relative small number of turns while also starting to develop a tech lead over AIs even before the first war has started.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

I'll settle for 1 worker per town in late middle ages, except for two for the capital. The land was already mostly improved, with the exception of certain corrupt former English towns surrounded by jungle, but yeah. That's the right balance.

 

[justanick]

I'll settle for 1 worker per town in late middle ages, except for two for the capital. The land was already mostly improved, with the exception of certain corrupt former English towns surrounded by jungle, but yeah. That's the right balance.

It only seem to suffice because of slow grow. If you double the growth, then you (more or less) double the need for workers. And the signifikant amount of jungle creates additional need for workers. Clearing jungle is a bit expensive, but going for enough workers to do it at a reasonable pace usually pays of reasonably soon. Swamp and jungle are not easy in the short run, but in the long run they are top terrain. Use it.

In or before the late middle age going back down to 1 worker per town is fine. Joining workers for the growth to size 12 is a standard procedure. As early as reasonably possible, and certainly before turn 150, you want more than 80% of tiles in your territory to be fully improved in terms of middle age technology.

Once railroads can be built, you will again need more workers. But as this happens after the first couple of wars, those workers can be built outside of your most productive towns.

 

[alfa156]

At beginning build order - warrior/scout, warrior, settler, warrior, worker. Nothing else till 10+ cities. First 40 turn 10% research on writing/iron/mysticism. Collect gold to upgrade all warrior to swordsman and first ai rush. Make pease with ai after capture capital and get all ai tech. Kill remaining towns and continue war with other ai. Never in active war with more than 1 ai. If ai attack u - sell everything to other ai to fight each other. Never have lower than 1 worker per city. If in pease 2 per city. In last peaceful game i have 38 cities and 102 worker, just 20 military units. When build aqueduct/hospital join workers to town till 12/20.... In towns far away to capital - corrupted cities build just workers, buy other improvements like market/harbor on 2nd turn of production.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

So my real second attempt at Emperor, as Gandhi of the Indians, ends this way:

I crushed everybody on my continent except for Alexander, whom I befriended.

In 1700-1800 in late industrial age switched to Commie, got an income boost and botloads of free units, managed to create a modern military with 220 inf and 30 tanks.

Late war with the Russians to the south who were a pain in the ass anyway. 40+ artillery stacks in stack bombardment shell their metros, turning everything into rubble and reducing their cities to 2 size. Cities that defect get razed, and I sent my settlers at the rubble. Truly, a war of extermination. Cathy is wiped out with marginal Greek help.

By this time there is only me, Alexander, and my biggest rival Osman who wiped out Rome and the Carthaginians.
Build the UN, but since Cathy still lives, delay election. The Greeks steal all my wonders, even the Internet, but I manage to build 7 spaceship parts together with Osman who builds 5.

Osman has enough points for a civ wide cultural victory. I get nervous. But despite surpassing 130k culture, nothing happens? I guess it's because of C3X or maybe because Osman has already built the spaceship parts.

Got 5 MGL's, one rushes the Apollo Program, the others build armies.

I try a Diplomatic. victory. No success at two attempts.

By this time Osman stabs me in the back. I decide to punish him for his transgression and his insolence, and after making enough saves, nuke him with my 7 nukes.

... The result is MAD. Osman replies by nuking me 5 times. Ouch.

I could probably revert to an earlier save, but I decide to retire. 4755 points on Emperor, Gandhi the Magnificent.

So ends my first real attempt at braving, and conquering the scene on Emperor.

My verdict? Emperor is a great, tough, but still very fun challenge. I still prefer playing on Monarch, but I guess Emperor and Deity break the ice sometimes if I want a new, real challenge.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

In 1700-1800 in late industrial age switched to Commie, got an income boost and botloads of free units, managed to create a modern military with 220 inf and 30 tanks.

This may be a silly question, since I've only played as high as Monarch, but wouldn't more Tanks be better than more Infantry? If I'm doing the math right - 90 shields for an Inf, 100 for a Tank - you could have, say, 100 Tanks and 142 Inf. Or 150 Tanks & 87 Inf. I.e., more offense while still having enough defense. I'm more a Spaceship guy than a warmonger - I actually could stand more war practice - but once I get Motorized Transport I start cranking out Tanks & only enough Inf to hold things down at home.

 

[alfa156]

Attack is the best defence. At least 2:1 units. I use 10attack- cavalry, 10artilery+2deffence for attack. After capture town move 5 workers+ other 5 defence units. Sacrifice weak units on plains to kill later ai elite units. The best war tactics - capture 1 town, wait all ai attack ai unit, kill in your territory, after ai stop attacks it's your time to finish him. He will have 2-3 defenders + 1-2 weak attack units per town.

 

[tjs282]

To get a Civ-wide Culture win requires the winner to have at least twice as much Culture as the first runner-up. So on a Large map, Osman can't win at 130K, if anyone else already has >65K.

But since the build-priorities and growth-rates will be similar for all AI Civs, an AI can really only win Culturally if they manage to conquer a large landmass early on in the game.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

Hi, thanks for giving me the news on cultural victory. So I can really stand calm.

I'll probably try reverting to some of my earlier saves to see if I can lauch the spaceship ahead.

As for INF, I just like using it. Garrisoning strategic resources and hotspots with it.

By the time the AI can field Mechanized INF your tanks won't be so useful in attack. I know I had some of my tanks become elite nad one even created a leader, I used the MGL to rush Apollo Program. Most of my tanks however just went *poof*. But INF retains its usefulness in attritional defense, and also to guard your massive artillery stack, artillery pounding and stack bombardment is what makes the difference between victory and defeat on higher levels in later eras.

 

[tjs282]

I'd have to agree with WJ on Tanks vs Infs. If you're conquering -- especially under Republic -- you don't want to be fighting attritional, defensive warfare, you want to be taking AI-towns as quickly as possible, so that means fast units, and lots of them.

So, sure, in the initial stages of a war, bring your stacks of Inf-guarded Arty to your border(s) to whittle down the incoming, making them easier to kill (and get your promotions), but once you begin moving into enemy territory, you don't want to bring your entire Arty-stack along, because that will really slow you down.

Instead, for each town you want to attack next turn, you bring just enough Arty (unless going up against MechInfs in Metros, 10 Arty is probably already overkill) across the border/ into range to redline all the expected defenders, along with a couple of Infs to guard the fired guns over the next interturn, and about twice as many Tanks as you expect garrisons, to be sure of killing them all in one turn. Once the town(s) falls, then you can throw all your remaining spare units into it/them, from your side of the border.

So you don't really need many Infs in the attack-stack. Unless it has Bombers or Arty of its own, the Civ3 AI will generally avoid attacking a tall stack of bombard-units which has, say, 2-3 high-D-value units (or an Army) guarding it. If the AI has Bombers, put some Flaks in that stack as well, and you're golden.

And if you have Bombers, then you don't need Arty, and you won't need nearly as many Tanks per town either...

 

[Spoonwood]

By the time the AI can field Mechanized INF your tanks won't be so useful in attack

This doesn't happen in my games.

You don't need to shell a city down to size 2 to capture it. Also, settlers can change border to pick up conquering pace, especially once you have artillery proper (I don't use combat engineers before that).

 

[justanick]

By the time the AI can field Mechanized INF your tanks won't be so useful in attack.

They will still be useful. If you have the military academy and the pentagon, then you can field an army with 4 tanks. This means 16 to 20 HP, a defence value of 16 and and attack value of 32. Armies are thus extremely powerful. They allow you to take cities without bombarding them and they are rarely ever attacked by AI in the open field. In freshly captured cities it can be different.

I also agree with strongly deprioritizing infantry. Prior to tanks they have their purpose, but with tanks it is unwise to build any additional infantry. Tanks defend almost as good as infantry, so they make decent reserve defenders. And prior to tanks cavalry is better for attacking. Using an enormous amount of infantry is not rational. But if you want do it for roleplay/realism, that is of course fine.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

They will still be useful. If you have the military academy and the pentagon, then you can field an army with 4 tanks.

Wow. I hadn't even thought about that because I've never gotten the Pentagon.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

In my last attempt as Gandhi, I got the Pentagon, Heroic Epic and Academy. And I got two tank and infantry armies with 4 guys in each.

Tanks still have a tough tough time against Mechs and Tow. And on Emperor, despite it being like 1820 AD, the stronger AI's already have these.

So Arty pounding is life and death.

I agree I shouldn't carry more Arty, and that perhaps 40 is excessive. That said I always use arty esp if enemy is strong and advanced, but in this game I was just roleplaying a sort of total war, being totalitarian and whatnot, the sort of meat grinding that was common in Europe between 1914-1945. All of that had a sort of rolepaying purpose, lol.

But using arty is essential.

So I replayed the save, this time without doing anything stupid. Got my first victory on Emperor, 5525 points, Gandhi the Magnificent. Spaceship victory. Osman built 7 parts. Ouch that was close.

IIRC, it was like 1920 AD or what. AI gets too fast at higher levels, I think this might need and still can be tweaked.

My verdict: I stayed with Republic until Replaceable Parts, but changed to Commie. My income greatly increased, Corruption went radically down.

While I think Republic is useful up to mid-Industrial age, the SPHQ increasing my OCN to 60 in large map, being able to support a 300 man army for free, wiping out corruption and getting a productivity and military police boni in Commie are priceless.

Commie is a very strong government and is esp. suited to very large civs stretching their OCN (I had like 72 cities), besides that I only pay 1gp support and never ever get to use the luxury slider. And also spying was much better and easier.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

Also, I disagree: Infantry defends better than Tanks. Their defense value (10) is higher than Tanks. So you want INF escorting your arty, defending your cities and resources, defending your main stacks and absorbing enemy attacks, just like you did with rifles and muskets previously. It's better to lose infantry to an enemy attack than your prized tanks, who you need attacking all the time.

 

[Lanzelot]

Sure, a handful of Infs for protecting your stack is useful on Emperor. But 200?!? Any war would probably go much quicker and with less war weariness, if you had 200 Tanks and 10 Infs instead of 200 Infs and 40 Tanks...

 

[justanick]

Also, I disagree: Infantry defends better than Tanks.

Sure they do. But it hardly ever matters. Having instead a unit that is useful at things that matters does matter. An army of tanks is not attacked anyway, so why bother with adding slow defenders to them? Having more than 30 infantry is simply wasteful in almost all circumstances and more then 10 is already quite much.

So you want INF escorting your arty, defending your cities and resources, defending your main stacks and absorbing enemy attacks, just like you did with rifles and muskets previously.

To be clear: I donnot do that. An army of cavalry is hardly ever attacked. I may build slightly less than 10 muskets at max, skip rifles due to their additional tech requirement and then replace the muskets with infantry because getting replaceable parts is very high priority, and be it just for faster workers.

It's better to lose infantry to an enemy attack than your prized tanks, who you need attacking all the time.

That while apparently true is essentially wrong. Tanks are almost as cheap as infantry. If instead of 220 inf and 30 tanks you have 10 inf and (220-10)*90/100+30=219 tanks, then tanks will not be in short supply and the war will be over much much sooner. Speed matters as does the attack value.

In my last attempt as Gandhi, I got the Pentagon, Heroic Epic and Academy. And I got two tank and infantry armies with 4 guys in each.

Tanks still have a tough tough time against Mechs and Tow.

It only means that you need more tank armies. You can maintain 1 army for every 4 towns. So if you have 72 metros, then you can have 18 tank armies. Use artillery (stationed within your borders) to reduce enemies to 1 HP, and then use the blitz of your tanks to get promoted to elite by winning two battles in the same turn. Soon you have tons of elite. Those elite can win battles against other units reduced to 1 HP to promote to elite*. Those MGL can be used to create armies en masse. Once you have enough armies you can stop remaining within your borders and start offensive warfare.

A mech inf fortified in a metro with civil defence on a hill has 25%+100%+50%+50%=225% defence bonus and thus a defence value of 18*3.25=58.5. A tank army attacking it would on average take a loss of 4*58.5/32=7.3125 HP for winning against a veteran and 5*58.5/32=9.14 HP for winning against elite. This still leaves a good chunk of 16 to 20 HP per army.

While I think Republic is useful up to mid-Industrial age, the SPHQ increasing my OCN to 60 in large map,

That is technically not true. OCN stays the same, Nopt is increased. OCN on large maps is 28, not 20 as on standard. Emperor, large map, commercial civ, FP+SPHC+courthouse+policestation results in Nopt=221.2 This enables you to have 221 cities with a rank corruption of no more than 25% and thus a corruption of no more then 31.25%. On large maps and only emperor communism can be quite powerful. At Sid however it is possible for communism to reach a point where average corruption exceeds 50%, at least on huge maps. Then communism can have worse average corruption than republic due to an extreme amount of towns.

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This is a guide about how corruption works in Conquests. It's slightly different than how it used to work in PTW and vanilla Civ3. The information that follows was discovered by extensive testing and contributions by numerous members of the Civ3 community, including Aeson, DaviddesJ, Nor Me...

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Commie is a very strong government and is esp. suited to very large civs stretching their OCN (I had like 72 cities), besides that I only pay 1gp support and never ever get to use the luxury slider. And also spying was much better and easier.

Yes, that can be quite true in some circumstances. Also being commercial can mix well with communism as they 3 extra commerce in metros alleviate the lack of the commerce bonus a bit. And being religious also favours the switch to commie.

But that does not necessitate for it to have been the right choice. For a republic emperor, large map, commercial civ, FP+courthouse+policestation results in Nopt=52.64. So you can have about 53 cities with an average corruption of about 30% and the other 19 would have about 70%, maybe slightly less. But let us just stay with (53*0.3+19*0.7)/72= 40.556% average corruption while communism with the SPHQ results in about 0.25/4+36/(2*221.2)=14.39% corruption. After corruption that is about 2.5*(1-0.40556)=1.486 base commerce for republic vs. 1.5*(1-0.1439)=1.284 as commie. So in terms of research republic likely still performs better. It needs an unfavourable wartime environment to change that.