Is it possible to win this game? ( Emperor)

[ghiron]

Julius grabs early Buddhism shrine and just runs away with the game, winning all the tech races and popping GP's all over place and not warring with anyone, EVER, until late 1400s While I am left ruing my decision to decline DOW on Bismarck early game despite the insistence of other civs and proceed to defend the incoming attacks of just about all of them during the game whilst Julius booms like crazy .


I grab a good chunk of land by stomping Tokugawa and after repelling waves of attacks and finally getting up my Oxford and having 7k gold to burn on research I start to climb the score table at a rapid rate. I got defensive pact with Kubai Khan and it worked like a treat when Genghis DOW-ed me and he started burning his cities down but then Julius DOW-ed Kubai Khan and at the moment has the whole map at his mercy with Artillery by the start of 1500s.

So the question being should I go back hundreds of years in my game or is it possible to tackle Julius as things stand ?

 

[ghiron]

I think I found a way. I can get Alexander to DOW on Julius If I pay through my nose. I'll go back to like 1440-ish and start amassing troops like crazy and gear as much as I can towards production and bribe Alex as soon as I have steel and use whatever gold I have left to upgrade my cats to cannons and hit Julius, hopefully our combined efforts will pull Julius down a notch. Not a sure thing with Julius having a monster of an army and Louis & Genghis waiting to bounce on me but worth a try.

 

[Gumbolt]

It's asking me to insert a cd. That threw me. Off to find the cd.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah Romans have a few more techs than you. Not so good. You have Rifles which is a good thing. You seem to have loads of cottages everywhere. Also loads of forest left. 3-4 cottages missing in the capital.

You have lots of cities where the food resources are not in the inner ring. This might of slowed growth early on.

You clearly love your buildings. I suspect more wealth and less buildings and cottages elsewhere might of been better for me.

Wow no academy in your capital??? Throwing away 80 science a turn!!! Big mistake on a financial leader.

So where to go here?? You can't whip the cities heavily as you have little or no cottages. Of course on Marathan with cannons maybe you can make your rifles enable you to take out a few of the backward AI's. Perhaps some drafting but you lack happiness. You could always run the culture slider to compensate here. You have enough size 10+ cities.

Not saying war will win this game but you could use more land.

 

[ghiron]

I have popped 2 GP-s during the game, Both were prophets to get holy cities, possibly one should have been great scientist, I agree but at least it kept me busy building missionaries

In terms of buildings yes .. a lot , I especially like monasteries I love to build high end commerce cities. Although scrolling through my cities I don't see a lot of waste. Edo has a library because before I realized how sweet of a location it was for a production city I planned it as a commerce city. Kumbi Saleh has rudimentary 2 health because of aqueduct but at one point I think I needed it but I can now recoup hammers by chopping down the forests. Kagoshima again planned as a commerce city but since production cities are needed it will become just that.

My logic being that monasteries & libraries pay off quite fast when you have about 40 base commerce. Universities i squeezed out just to get Oxford and Banks I only build in Holy cities & capitol or once I decide to build Wall Street. Markets & Grocer, again Holy Cities & Capitol for sure but other than that they are tricky since they are directly linked to city growth with their and bonuses. If I have at least 3 resources and it means I can work 3 extra grassland tiles I usually build them. Same goes for production cities although typing this I realize I shouldn't bother with them in production cities since they get nothing out of +% gold if they pump units all the time.

More land would have been nice, especially Saxon.. big big big mistake letting JC have it. 4 Happy & Health resources he didn't have to trade for, played a big part in his boom I think. Initially I backed off of it because it was a hilltop barb city and I was too busy taking Tokugawa's land and once I got around to it I was expecting attack from one of the Khan's or Louis from that side.

Anyways, made some changes to gear up for a war with JC and attached a save as things stand once Kenghis DOW-s me, things between JC and Kubai turn sour because of DP Kubai has to DOW Kenghis and JC proceeds to DOW on Kubai . I will wait until I have steel then I whip and chop out as much cannons as possible and attack hopefully with Alexander when JC's troops are deep in Kubai's terriotory.

 

[Gumbolt]

wow only 2 great people??? 2 scientists in one city would of really helped for a great scientist. By this date I would of expected 6-7 great people. Not even sure where your great people farm is? I suspect you have not built one.

No academy has cost you several thousand beakers. 80 a turn now? How many more beakers over 100+ turns? This could be worth 1-2 techs.

Lemme look at save.

 

[Gumbolt]

Get all your pults/mace/phants in a stack near the AI border. Upgrades to cannons is good. You could run wealth in a few cities to help maintain your gold level around 4k.

You don't need 3 defenders per city. Overkill. Once you are closer to steel start to draft rifles.

You want about 10-20 cannons and maybe 20-30+ rifles. Let's hope Rome is not close to infantry. It's hard to tell what techs Rome does have. Maybe a weaker target might of been better first. The challenge of Rome sounds more fun.

Overall form up your units in one location and focus on whipping/drafting units. You will need cannons for Rome.

 

[ghiron]

Went to world editor and saw that the answer to the title is well .. NO. Even if I whip about 50% of my population away I still have slim chance at best at eating some of JC-s land and Louis has 15-20 rifles at my capitol as soon as I move out anyways. Time to delete my 100+ saves of this game and start a new one This time I will try to get more GP-s, even if I don't have an ideal spot for it like this game I just run 2 scientist at some cities. Also I will ease up on buildings a bit and expand a bit smarter.

 

[Gumbolt]

Took a peek in world builder. Yep you would need a massive stack to take on the Romans. The French could back stab you too.

None of this should really of happened if you got the start right. 7-8 great people. Looks like you got beaten to liberalism too. Ackkk.

By picking a map type with no sea you effectively selected a large map size.

To be fair your start is hardly food rich. The second city choice was pretty hard as only sharing the cows gave you a food resource. I think 2 cities and a axe rush was way here.

You had so many units scattered this game that would of slowed you down tech wise. I often have 1 unit a city and one main stack. One big stack normally distracts the Ai.

Try a Pangea map with less war crazy AI.

 

[pigswill]

No tech trading? Why?