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

[Lanzelot]

As for the AI paying for stuff, wel, I can imagine that on Deity they would start doing so. No luck on Emperor, though.

There is one exception to what I said above, which works exceptionally well on the lower difficulty levels, Chieftain to Regent: "Lord Emsworth Deals". However, for the GOTM these are banned as an exploit. (For the HOF, they are allowed, iirc. Spoonwood will be able to confirm this.)
Basically they work like this:

• In deal A, you gift the AI all your gpt, and tie it to something that can easily be terminated. Like a military alliance against another civ you are about to extinguish, or a lux resource they are sending to you.
• In deal B, you buy back your own gpt from the AI, e.g. by selling them dozens of techs.
• Do the same with many other AIs
• Then end all the "A deals", e.g. by taking the last town of the civ, against which you have signed all those MAs.
• And voila: you are no longer sending the AIs your gpt, but they are still "returning" it to you...
  Check out some of the HOF games by Spoonwood or Lord Emsworth for an illustration of the power of this mechanism. I think in one of his games, Lord Emsworth got several thousand gpt from the AI, by repeatedly applying that trick (first multiplying his own gpt, then multiplying the multiplied gpt, etc....)

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

What time period are we talking about here? Could be that you are "preparing too long" and let the AI build too many units, before you attack?! If you aim for a military victory right from the start, the game should be over by 400 AD, and I don't think the AI is capable of building 100 units by 400 AD on Emperor.

In my experience so far on Emperor, the Celts, Russians, Spanish and Ottomans build huge stacks. Now with Flintlock mod this seems negatively offset, they seem to focus on building too much arty, but they still build a lot of offensive units.

And it starts pretty early. Am playing slowly and carefully a Korea Emperor game, Celts are my main enemy. Celts came with tons of trebs, cats, even some cannon. They also came before and later during Middle Age with horsie and archer stacks in the big numbers, now however they're building stronger units.

Also in my previous Gandhi Emperor game the Russians had built a 30+ art stack and a huge mech stack. I reduced their mech stack by attrition, captured their arty and used against them. Sweet. But the AI stacks are no laughing matter by the time you reach Emperor.

 

[Spoonwood]

I tried it on Monarch, but iirc, the amount of gpt you can get from them is mediocre at best. Also, on higher levels, sometimes I am lucky and the AI manages to research an industrial tech for me, that I can then trade, but no such luck on Monarch. I have played games, where I had to research the entire industrial age on my own, and the AI didn't contribute a single tech...
I think the AI simply grows too slowly, if it doesn't get at least 20% or even 30% discount on the food required for the next citizen. (And it's not smart enough to join workers to cities to get them big quickly.)
In the ancient age and early middle age, you can usually get some techs from the AI even on let's say Monarch of Regent, but by the end of the middle age, you are on your own. (Except for the freebees of the scientific tribes.)

It's more the free settler (or settlers) than anything else. The discount does something, but I think it's more the earlier founding of cities.

 

[Spoonwood]

Chieftain to Regent: "Lord Emsworth Deals". However, for the GOTM these are banned as an exploit. (For the HOF, they are allowed, iirc. Spoonwood will be able to confirm this.)

The type of "lord emsworth deals" that Lord Emsworth did on Chieftain are not legal in the HoF. The example you gave also would not be legal for the HoF (see "giving the AI more gpt..." section at the bottom of the page). They both put free money into the international economy. That's specifically disallowed.

What does end up legal though lies in setting up a trade route, trading for luxuries (or resources) + hard goods with gpt, and then disconnecting your trade route IF you only take gpt that the AI has. The AI will take the reputation hit, since they have the responsibility to supply resources under all conditions, and need a trade route. I have said that could described as a type of Lord Emsworth deal, since he advocated for such. BUT, you can only take whatever the AI has. If you double dip, that's a slip, and you've broken the rules.

As another example of what would be illegal, easier to setup than military alliances and selling techs, you can't, according to HoF rules (and XOTM competitions), pay something like 100 gpt for spices to an AI with no surplus gpt available for trade (legal so far). Then the AI has all those spices and may have 100 surplus gpt. So, the next part of a deal like Lord Emsworth was doing would have the AI pay that 100 gpt for your lump sum of gold (legal so far... the amount of gold you need depends on AI aggression level). Then you trade more gpt for say wines and that gold (legal). Then you disconnect your trade route (now it's illegal!). The illegality slips in, because you end up accepting more gpt than the AI can afford. It puts free money into the international economy.

Now, again you COULD do something like pay 1800 gold for 100 gpt from an AI that has surplus gold WITH no gpt going to it from you. Then pay 200 gpt for wines + that 1800 gold from the AI. Then disconnect your trade network. That's perfectly legal. But, will Chieftain to Regent AIs have any gpt available without you supplying any to them? Yea, good luck with that. Additionally, you end up having fewer roads, or needing to pay massive numbers of workers unit support, so much so that just having roads everywhere ends up likely more profitable Chieftain to Regent. Now, at Sid, for sure, not having roads in 8 tiles, and a half dozen or so workers to road a tile next to your capital is much less than what you can get from the AIs, once they have gpt. Probably also at Demigod and Deity (though selling tech that you research for gpt is much more viable at this level... and waiting for AIs to research technologies may slow down the tech pace). But, at level between Chieftain and Regent such a scheme would end up a waste of time.

 

[justanick]

Would this not also work on Monarch? I often run into this where the AI has no money or anything else to trade, and I basically just ignore them until they do. Would it be better to gift this stuff more often?

In principal it also works on monarch or regent. If AI has 40 cities of size 10+ with markets, then it likely has ample gtp. But the lower the difficulty setting, the longer AI takes to get there. And if you have to help AI by improving its tiles with your own workers you may be better off to just conquer their territory directly. It better to rely on your own territory than on extracting value out of territory controlled by AI.

Gifting AI all techs of the ancient age can make sense. It is cheap and you want AI to have the commerce bonus. AI is more likely to choose republic over monarchy if it has ample luxuries. So selling them for a token price helps, too.