I wouldn’t say it goes against the explicit design goals. It’s just unorthodox. In any case I rarely see the AI take two policy branches from the same era.
G
Is my game already ruined at turn 160? / Tips agains the Mongol Horde on Emperor
- Thread starter StevenV
- Start date
I wouldn’t say it goes against the explicit design goals. It’s just unorthodox. In any case I rarely see the AI take two policy branches from the same era.
G
Deadstarre
Expert
Apologies to OP. He just wanted advice and all I could tell him is that he's screwed in that game, then I unwittingly insult his play choices, and hijack his thread to a debate on AI policy selection. he doesnt deserve all of this and im certain he is a lovely person =)
Here's the most important point to take away from the rest of my post: it's DEBATABLE.
1.
War weariness reduction is great, especially because it affects your supply cap. Not being hit with massive production penalties is already better than anything imperialism offers. War weariness will accumulate no matter how well you're doing.
The extra supply is alright.
City conquest bonus is obviously great, so are the kill bonuses.
And free units saves you thousands of hammers.
What does imperialism offer that's so great?
Puppet production? I've had a puppet that had every source of unhappiness except boredom start building a museum as its first building. To be completed in ~30 turns. When it was missing basic things like library, aqueduct, etc. One thing I don't see many people arguing is that you usually annex as soon as you can.
Free factory? They aren't that great in my opinion. Full authority gives you somewhat comparable production, everywhere.
Farm and plantation boost? Between GP improvements, resources, villages and specialists, I don't find myself working too many farms. Even fewer plantations.
Science and culture from military buildings and forst? Authority kill bonuses are at least equal, at least on standard sized maps.
Upgrade cost reduction is good. Authority has road cost reduction and small unit maintenance reduction to compete.
Gold on conquest is solid I guess. Is it better than science and culture though? Debatable.
Ocean science is situational. Pretty much irrelevant if you aren't coastal.
Monopoly bonuses, same story. If you have 10% culture monopoly, that's solid. If you have citrus, it's a joke.
Naval movement and sight boost? Even if you are coastal, that's a tiny tiny thing. Against humans it would be a much bigger deal.
Faster general birth? I've very rarily had a shortage of generals, even considering you can use them to steal resources for more monopolies.
Constabulary happiness is solid. So is authority's garrison happiness.
Production scaler, meh. Authority gives you completely free units. Not that you should be building many. You should be nursing your original army who's stacking promotion after promotion.
2.
There are other reasons to delay artistry.
For example, I'm currently in the middle of a cultural game with France, where I went authority, then statecraft, mainly to help fight Germany's CS ambitions. Germany was the clear runaway as early as classical, in part due to neighboring Venice (or maybe just random luck).
Statecraft paid off, I've managed to pass CS sanctions on the 2nd session, and nuke down Germany's proposal to repeal it every single session after that.
There's a little something for cultural victory in statecraft too.
Artistry was next, for obvious reasons. I don't think rationalism (and slightly faster internet) makes up for everything artistry gives for a CV.
That's just one example.
3.
No, obviously I'm not certain, but I didn't feel like it was a bad choice in retrospect. No one else went tradition in that game, so I got Hanging Gardens too (this was several version ago). Had only one neighbor, who was peaceful, and a solid chunk of land for 7 cities. What's better for a huge boom than progress + tradition?
The monstrous faith is the best part of fealty as far as I'm concerned, and I didn't have a religion in that game.
Statecraft is situational. I was cut off on a peninsula, and didn't meet most city states until much later. The quest reward boost is the best part of statecraft I think (if you're peaceful that is), and I was missing out on that.
Artistry is solid for a science boom too, but better than tradition? Debatable.
Tradition is heavily underrated in my opinion.
1.
War weariness reduction is great, especially because it affects your supply cap. Not being hit with massive production penalties is already better than anything imperialism offers. War weariness will accumulate no matter how well you're doing.
The extra supply is alright.
City conquest bonus is obviously great, so are the kill bonuses.
And free units saves you thousands of hammers.
What does imperialism offer that's so great?
Puppet production? I've had a puppet that had every source of unhappiness except boredom start building a museum as its first building. To be completed in ~30 turns. When it was missing basic things like library, aqueduct, etc. One thing I don't see many people arguing is that you usually annex as soon as you can.
Free factory? They aren't that great in my opinion. Full authority gives you somewhat comparable production, everywhere.
Farm and plantation boost? Between GP improvements, resources, villages and specialists, I don't find myself working too many farms. Even fewer plantations.
Science and culture from military buildings and forst? Authority kill bonuses are at least equal, at least on standard sized maps.
Upgrade cost reduction is good. Authority has road cost reduction and small unit maintenance reduction to compete.
Gold on conquest is solid I guess. Is it better than science and culture though? Debatable.
Ocean science is situational. Pretty much irrelevant if you aren't coastal.
Monopoly bonuses, same story. If you have 10% culture monopoly, that's solid. If you have citrus, it's a joke.
Naval movement and sight boost? Even if you are coastal, that's a tiny tiny thing. Against humans it would be a much bigger deal.
Faster general birth? I've very rarily had a shortage of generals, even considering you can use them to steal resources for more monopolies.
Constabulary happiness is solid. So is authority's garrison happiness.
Production scaler, meh. Authority gives you completely free units. Not that you should be building many. You should be nursing your original army who's stacking promotion after promotion.
2.
There are other reasons to delay artistry.
For example, I'm currently in the middle of a cultural game with France, where I went authority, then statecraft, mainly to help fight Germany's CS ambitions. Germany was the clear runaway as early as classical, in part due to neighboring Venice (or maybe just random luck).
Statecraft paid off, I've managed to pass CS sanctions on the 2nd session, and nuke down Germany's proposal to repeal it every single session after that.
There's a little something for cultural victory in statecraft too.
Artistry was next, for obvious reasons. I don't think rationalism (and slightly faster internet) makes up for everything artistry gives for a CV.
That's just one example.
3.
No, obviously I'm not certain, but I didn't feel like it was a bad choice in retrospect. No one else went tradition in that game, so I got Hanging Gardens too (this was several version ago). Had only one neighbor, who was peaceful, and a solid chunk of land for 7 cities. What's better for a huge boom than progress + tradition?
The monstrous faith is the best part of fealty as far as I'm concerned, and I didn't have a religion in that game.
Statecraft is situational. I was cut off on a peninsula, and didn't meet most city states until much later. The quest reward boost is the best part of statecraft I think (if you're peaceful that is), and I was missing out on that.
Artistry is solid for a science boom too, but better than tradition? Debatable.
Tradition is heavily underrated in my opinion.
@StevenV
1) 5 Tradition, 2 Progress??? Yes your game is over. And with such pick it is over in any possible situation, do not blame poor Genghis for that;D
2) If you're Inca - you should build your cities on Mountains, it gives you lots of free yields. Both Cusco and Tiwanku should have been built on Mountains.
3) In your particular game you could have played Tradition+Artistry and win via Tourism. You do not need to war Mongolia at all and you do not need to liberate those City-States at all. With Tradition and Inca you get HUGE defensive bonus, no way he can beat you, you really need 5-6 units do defend any amount stupid mongols
1) 5 Tradition, 2 Progress??? Yes your game is over. And with such pick it is over in any possible situation, do not blame poor Genghis for that;D
2) If you're Inca - you should build your cities on Mountains, it gives you lots of free yields. Both Cusco and Tiwanku should have been built on Mountains.
3) In your particular game you could have played Tradition+Artistry and win via Tourism. You do not need to war Mongolia at all and you do not need to liberate those City-States at all. With Tradition and Inca you get HUGE defensive bonus, no way he can beat you, you really need 5-6 units do defend any amount stupid mongols
Wow, lots of reply, thanks for that. I am trying to answer them.
Communitas maptype
Standard mapsize / 10 civ, 16 citystates
Just a few turns and game will be over but a different way than anyone would expect. Due to my pretty low supply cup, I started to build armories and castles for defense. I got Himeji also, which is even better than before with his +1 supply/city. In addition I also found one city for the plus supply...
Meantime I went to discover the world with caravels. Well, I found a much more fearsome enemy: GREECE. He had two vassal: Rome and Iroquois!!! and 10-12 city state alliance. Good bye diplo win.
At this point I did not see the usefulness of war with Mongols. Actually, we became quite friendly to each other. We had DoF, RA, DP and one time he gave me a luxury for free...
And now, around turn 220 Greece is influental over 5/6 civ. Mongol is the only one remaining but just for a few turns (they at 98%)
Weird is I don't know how he was able to produce such amount of tourism so early, without any support from tourism producing religious building
Policy:
Many of them are wondering why to choose 2 ancient policy branch. Well, it served me pretty well in recent games. Ie: my last game was an easy win on king with ottomans using full authority and some progress. It is especially strong when you have 6+ cites. Just try it
Communitas maptype
Standard mapsize / 10 civ, 16 citystates
Just a few turns and game will be over but a different way than anyone would expect. Due to my pretty low supply cup, I started to build armories and castles for defense. I got Himeji also, which is even better than before with his +1 supply/city. In addition I also found one city for the plus supply...
Meantime I went to discover the world with caravels. Well, I found a much more fearsome enemy: GREECE. He had two vassal: Rome and Iroquois!!! and 10-12 city state alliance. Good bye diplo win.
At this point I did not see the usefulness of war with Mongols. Actually, we became quite friendly to each other. We had DoF, RA, DP and one time he gave me a luxury for free...
And now, around turn 220 Greece is influental over 5/6 civ. Mongol is the only one remaining but just for a few turns (they at 98%)
Weird is I don't know how he was able to produce such amount of tourism so early, without any support from tourism producing religious building
Policy:
Many of them are wondering why to choose 2 ancient policy branch. Well, it served me pretty well in recent games. Ie: my last game was an easy win on king with ottomans using full authority and some progress. It is especially strong when you have 6+ cites. Just try it
Last edited:
Moi Magnus
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2015
- Messages
- 1,867
Wow, lots of reply, thanks for that. I am trying to answer them.
Communitas maptype
Standard mapsize / 10 civ, 16 citystates
Just a few turns and game will be over but a different way than anyone would expect. Due to my pretty low supply cup, I started to build armories and castles for defense. I got Himeji also, which is even better than before with his +1 supply/city. In addition I also found one city for the plus supply...
Meantime I went to discover the world with caravels. Well, I found a much more fearsome enemy: GREECE. He had two vassal: Rome and Iroquois!!! and 10-12 city state alliance. Good bye diplo win.
At this point I did not see the usefulness of war with Mongols. Actually, we became quite friendly to each other. We had DoF, RA, DP and one time he gave me a luxury for free...
And now, around turn 220 Greece is influental over 5/6 civ. Mongol is the only one remaining but just for a few turns (they at 98%)
Weird is I don't know how he was able to produce such amount of tourism so early, without any support from tourism producing religious building
Policy:
Many of them are wondering why to choose 2 ancient policy branch. Well, it served me pretty well in recent games. Ie: my last game was an easy win on king with ottomans using full authority and some progress. It is especially strong when you have 6+ cites. Just try it
On influence:
Do not forget that in order to win by culture victory, you also need an ideology, so you probably have some time before the defeat
Note that it is "quite easy" to win by culture victory in Greece position: most of the civs are crushed (so easy to influence), and the other competing civ is a warmonger with probably too much cities and boredom compared to its culture output.
On policies:
Yes, tradition -> progress can be potent, but only if you already have a way to win. Ancient era trees only help your devellopment, but don't directly help you to win. In most situations, one of the medieval era trees would have been better than a second ancient era tree:
+ Fealty give you a LOT of happiness. This increase of city strength + The reduction of boredom + Some help to fight religion division => Quite good for wide.
+ Statecraft is very good, even if you don't want the diplomatic victory (but you need to have at least 2-3 CS neaby)
+ Artistry work well with tradition, and really help culture victory. Its probably the less polyvalent medieval tree, but I'm sure people more skilled than me can do something out of it for other victories than CV.
Just no. It does not. I mean at all. Forget about this.
Think of this from a point of "how am i going to win this game" view. If you simply calculate the yield that you get from each policy - you'll see that any medeival policy tree gives more than any ancient
Deadstarre
Expert
does this apply to industrial vs ancient as well? @Amask made some good points about why imperialism can often suck compared to authority. I've never done it, but i think if you start down the right side of the authority tree in industrial era the bonuses are going to be nice and quick, and you're going to wind up with an enormous amount of free powerful units.
Here is the save files: (original situation - turn 164, and current situation - turn 242)
version is 2nd/February
To be honest i've never ever played Imperialism. Not even a single game in more than two years. It just does not feel right or strong. The only reason to play it for me is when you play small map domination. Or maybe if you are @ElliotS. Otherwise both Industry and rationalism are just better in everything. With Industry you have tons of money and production to buy/upgrade units and with rationalism you are just ahead in tech and have better units
Based on my experience I partly disagree with you:
A) In this current game I agree that the 2nd policy on progress (Organization) wasn't a good choice. However adopting progress as my 4th policy (tradition opener, Sovereignty, Justice) gave me enough instant science for almost two free tech. -> These two free tech allowed me to build a wonder (Oracle I think). This wonder also give me quite much science and culture (500 for both). So overall I won 3-4 free tech and 500 culture for the cost of one extra policy.
B) in my previous game (12/15 version) where I played as the Ottomans I also pick some progress policy beside full authority. The version is important because that time you got the culture costs of future Policies reduction with Expertise. As a result, during the game, slowly you will got the extra policy back. In addition, you will always have +10%
Production towards buildings. In this case I cannot write down such a clear benefit, but when you have 14 cities I am pretty sure that Organization (Cities earn +10
Food and 
Culture when they construct Buildings, scaling with Era.) and Expertise (+10% Production towards buildings. Culture costs of future Policies reduced by 5%.) had huge positive effect.
Deadstarre
Expert
same here, except maybe I tried it once and regretted it horribly. I was hoping you could defend it lmao
Deadstarre
Expert
the last time Imperialism was discussed its defenders showed up to make mention that it has a role. Sure, they said, that role isnt for every game but it has SOME role, and since the AI generally does fine with it, as a tree it is fine. I still disagree with their premise (Like Owlbebach I think it basically has no role) but even conceding that for a moment, it hadn't previously occurred to me the role its supposed to have could be overshadowed by Authority in many scenarios. I dont even think Amask mentioned Authority 'heal on kill', which helps keep the mounted/tank units going and going like energizer bunnies
this is like unintended consequence coming out of a QOL improvement that was made for Progress, but i have to agree its a neat trick =)
this is like unintended consequence coming out of a QOL improvement that was made for Progress, but i have to agree its a neat trick =)
I don't see a Feb 2nd version.
Tried Feb 1st, automatic installer, keep crashing when I try to load your saves, with or without EUI.
Anyway, if it's long past the point where you still care, that's fine with me.
Thanks for the try. Actually, I already lost that game. Greece won with Culture around T270.
However, I re-started the very same game and tried to listen for the tips I got here.
I'll post some screenshot once I will be in the same turn as in the OP. Just for curiosity
Hi, i know it is a relatively old topic but I have some updates and I thought somebody may find it useful:
I listened many of your advice and also re-think my strategy. Result is attached
So what I've done differently:
- I built shrine instead of monument and focusing faith to get Earth Mother for my salt
- Did not mix ancient policy. I used tradition only
- Settle on mountain
- Built up army early on
- and most importantly I was super aggressive against Genghis. Whenever he DoW against someone else, I DoW Genghis
However, I was also lucky that he did not settle his 1st city next to Lake Victoria so he reduced the area of possible settling places by his own.
I listened many of your advice and also re-think my strategy. Result is attached
So what I've done differently:
- I built shrine instead of monument and focusing faith to get Earth Mother for my salt
- Did not mix ancient policy. I used tradition only
- Settle on mountain
- Built up army early on
- and most importantly I was super aggressive against Genghis. Whenever he DoW against someone else, I DoW Genghis
However, I was also lucky that he did not settle his 1st city next to Lake Victoria so he reduced the area of possible settling places by his own.
