Jumping from Monarch to Emperor

[NickyH]

I personally think it hurts too much to have anarchy two times unless I'm religious, so three times sounds horrible to me.

But if you decide to change, and you've never tried Communism before, I think you should give it a go. It's an interesting experience, and I believe the extra troop support and the waste/corruption system makes it a better government than Monarchy. If you go Commie and haven't done so before, you should know that the Secret Police HQ is necessary to get the full benefits of the government.

 

[Spoonwood]

If you want a space race victory stick with The Republic.

 

[Aegis]

My first Anarchy was only 3 turns and the second was 6-7 turns (I forget which).

I think I am going to stick with the Republic and wage small, disruptive wars with the Byzantines, my biggest competitor.

If I were to go the Domination/Elimination route, Communism sounds like the best.

 

[capnvonbaron]

LoL... epic Feel free to post pictures. After all, 1 pic = 1000 words and some such.

Try to minimize switching gov'ts. Every 6 turns you spend in anarchy is a tech you lose in the race, and potentially dozens of units as well. IIWY, I'd have just stayed in Monarchy until you were done with your expansion into the Jap homeland, and maybe switched to Democracy for the space race if the monarchy was hurting science/production too much. But you're in Republic now, best to stay with it. Its a strong gov't overall and one of the favorites of the forum members. From here on out it sounds like you have control of your continent, and likely the world since you've been able to spawn bad relations among the others on continent 2. If you feel the Byzi's are going to be too big of an issue, bribe everyone on the continent to DoW them and make sure to send some units over for point defense. Otherwise, completely thumbs-up . Being the aggressor makes things better and funner, no??

EDIT: ah crap, didn;t see all these posts on page 2. Whoopsee

 

[Aegis]

Does Civ3 Conquests have a folder that saves image files to when you hit the Print Screen button? Or do I have to do the old Print Screen - Paste into Microsoft Paint, trick?

Thanks. =o)

 

[capnvonbaron]

Does Civ3 Conquests have a folder that saves image files to when you hit the Print Screen button? Or do I have to do the old Print Screen - Paste into Microsoft Paint, trick?

MS Paint is the simplest. There is no default screenshot function in Civ3, unfortunately. There are, however, some programs out there that allow for multiple screen captures... but for just one or two, they probably aren't worth it.

 

[Aegis]

Thanks. I'll try to post various screen shots throughout history sometime tonight.

 

[WarLust]

Just a few more suggestions on Emporer that I have learned and done myself:

1). I do min research on a second tier tech until I find other civs to trade 1st tiers (if I start with Alphabet, then I start Writing at 10 or 20%. Once I start Philosophy, I go full blast, waiting a few turns to sell Writing.) Most 2nd tier techs can't be researched at the beginning faster than 50 turns, so its in your best interest to min research and collect gpt.

If you don't have Alphabet, research a second tier tech that you can trade to others, or research The Wheel since only Japan gets this tech at the start.

2). I almost always go for The Great Library. Yea, yeah I know, the article says not to, but when I really try for it, I get it 9/10 times. I will take Philosophy first, then trade for CoL. That way I can sell just one of those techs and get some lower techs and still have the Republic path open only to me since they will have to research the other. At this time I research Literature max with a prebuild for TGL, usually Palace.

3). Keep track of happiness - no really! Use the lux slider if you have to. Keep as many people working as possible.

4). If you get TGL, make sure you can put it in an isolated city within your empire (preferably not your capital and hopefully on a coast) and before you research Eduacation in the MA, gift the city to a civ that you feel you can take over in the future. As you know, once you reach Education from knowing two civs that have it, your TGL becomes obsolete. Your tech pace will still be much slower than the AI so you will want another leap of techs later. Once you know someone has Communism, Steam Power, and Nationalism, retake the city with TGL to catch back up. This is done in Sid games, so whats good for Sid is good for Emp.

5). If you don't get TGL, no big deal. Set research at 0, adjust lux for happiness, create one scientist to create min research. Buy techs from other civs while you use your gpt and stash to upgrade units, build infrastructure, and increase unit support.

6). If a civ has a lot of gold and you want it to upgrade units, offer him gpt. Act as a bank and give him interest back at the end - they love that!

6). Lastly, keep your reputation intact. Don't go to war unless your trade agreements are finished. Keeping your reputation intact will look good in several ways: 1). You will be less likely attacked especially since you are trading with your neighbors, 2). You can buy techs for as long as you keep your reputation, and 3). You will dramatically increase your chances winning a Diplomatic Victory.

Ayway, just some helpful tidbits that helped me get through Emperor.

 

[Jokeslayer]

4). If you get TGL, make sure you can put it in an isolated city within your empire (preferably not your capital and hopefully on a coast) and before you research Eduacation in the MA, gift the city to a civ that you feel you can take over in the future. As you know, once you reach Education from knowing two civs that have it, your TGL becomes obsolete. Your tech pace will still be much slower than the AI so you will want another leap of techs later.

I can usually be out researching the emperor AIs by the mid to late middle ages (something like I get Astro/Banking while they're getting Gunpowder, then buy or pointy-stick gunpowder and beat them back up the bottom half). The Great Library Elevator is nice (and fun), but it's a huge crutch (not to mention the chance you may get spanked because you have spears against AI cavs)

 

[eldar]

Typically at Emperor I can beat AIs out of the ancient era - as others have pointed out, judicious choice of the right techs is often the way to go, to get trades.

E.g. Writing, which I hold off trading until at least two other 2nd-tier techs are out there (usually IW & Mysticism), or until another AI learns it themselves. I don't let myself panic that I've not got The Wheel, Masonry, etc.!

Another great one for a monopoly is Currency; once they have the option of Currency or Construction, the AIs will nearly always go for Construction. You'll maybe get two learn it the same turn, or within a few turns of each other, and because Currency is cheaper you'll get it about the same time. An easy trade.

WRT the Republic slingshot - I never count on the AIs researching CoL. By and large, they don't. It's a great monopoly tech, and will usually get you to parity. So I just go balls-out for the full slingshot at max research. Unless I'm on a map that promotes a particularly fast tech pace, or an expansionist civ gets lucky with a hut, I'll get it. I'd say my success rate at Emperor is around 80%.

Where the slowdown begins is the early Medieval, where the AIs will have bigger cities quicker and can support bigger a military and have cash spare for research. Whilst you're struggling to throw up Libraries and Markets to boost your economy, they're just ploughing ahead. This is where a lot of players tend to throw up their arms in disgust and give up. (It's where I got stuck for a long while!)

However at this point, you should be thinking of a serious campaign. You've probably already fought a couple of brush wars with Archers, maybe even scoring a moral victory or two. (The exception is if you're missing both key resources; in which case, you've probably built a ton of Archers and gone after a nearby AI with one or the other or both.) Keeping building Horses (preferred) or Swords (if you have to) and go whack a neighbour; it doesn't matter if they're the most powerful, if they're next door, they're a legitimate target. They're still an AI and can't fight a military campaign properly. Use alliances to keep them occupied on more than one front.

Next, I just concentrate on getting to Chivalry for Knights ASAP (unless I'm missing Iron or Horses and the nearest source is a long way away, esp on Archi maps where it may be on an island I can't hook up until Astronomy or Navigation - in which case I beeline Invention). Feudalism, Monotheism, Chivalry. If you are able to trade to get them, do so. With Knights, it should be possible to expand your territory enough to negate the AI advantage.

Now start to look for ways to claw back techs. See if you can broker advantageous deals with backwards civs first. Then go for techs often ignored by the AI: Printing Press is great, Banking (AIs will go for Astronomy), Chemistry, Economics (an AI with PP and Banking will go after Democracy first...), ToG (AIs will go for Magnetism).

Some games can be won with Knights. Some might require Cavalry. Some, there'll be that annoying AI or two on the other side of the map who keep learning new stuff and who resist your attempt to gang up on them and expand their territory at the expense of your allies. They'll probably get Rifles, so you'll need to keep pushing on to Artillery (killing Rifles with Cavs alone is also okay, mind, as long as you have a LOT of Cavs). Or maybe you're playing a tech game and need to keep fast researchers/Sci AIs in the game. However once you hit the front, you should nearly always stay ahead.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Everything eldar wrote is golden. Only one thing I'd differ on:

Keeping building Horses (preferred) or Swords (if you have to) and go whack a neighbour

I still think swords are preferrable when mixed with horses. So many times my horses are not up to completely killing things, stalling the offensive, when sword do it... especially when you use both to their advantage.

Attack fortified spearmen with horses first. More times than not the horseman will take damage and retreat, although it will sometimes score a luck victory. However, a damaged spearman dies very quickly to a sword IME. Even pikemen, when dropped down a couple of HP, struggle against vet swords. This way, you have a lot higher survival rate of units, and your campaign is not as likely to grind to a halt.

In addition, unescorted horsemen are a target. Pile them under swords and they tend to get to the target intact. Campaigns may go slightly slower, but early gov'ts are less prone to WW when managed right and troop-deaths won't be as high, negating that segment of WW.

The last strategy is the flats and hills divvy. Many times I'll have a stack of horses ready to gallop through flatlands at a high pace, and start an attack on AI hilly/mountainy/foresty areas with sword stacks and maybe just a few horses to crack open those stubborn towns on hills. After a few turns and a few cities, usually taken with some losses, the stacks converge, heal, and continue onwards. This is especially convenient if the AI has any roads built.

I play by almost all victory conditions by the caveman method. I don't have any fun MM'ing my cities so that every shield is taken advantage of, every specialist is put to good use, and keeping cities out of riots, except for very early in the game when I only have 4 or 5 cities. I blame my short attention span. After the 5th city is up, I hire gov'ners to do it all for me. I then just build as many units as I can and whomp on the AI throughout the game, stealing their workers, gold, and eventually cities and techs. This acts to keep any of the AI from getting too far ahead (or even ahead at all!) in most cases. It may not net me a high score, but its almost always effective and I have more fun with it.

 

[eldar]

Trouble with escorting horses is that the escorts can't keep up, and the main reason for using horses is lost - i.e. their speed to target, and ability to attack from outside cultural boundaries. In the long run you will have much more success splitting your forces into a "fast" stack - hitting deep, soft, targets - and a "slow" stack to crack the hard cities (with artillery in tow) or to trek across jungles, hills, mountains, etc.

Personally I prefer a "one-size-fits-all" plan of attack when I have horses available, and mixed arms when I only have iron.

 

[capnvonbaron]

a difference might be in vanilla too... 'pults are teh suck. I'd still vote the main advantage for horses is the withdrawl potential, counter-attack against things like archers and warriors, and their upgrade value. In many cases on the fringes, I don't much care about "hitting from outside culture boundaries" because the AI often can't rush or relocate defenders there anyways in the early game. I always have trouble with AI counter-attacking horse stacks when they go deep, thus the horse stacks alone die off too much and just can't form adequate garrisons. The result is a stalled offensive.

In the case of mixing, your full-health slow units can wander on after conquering a town, while the horses and one or two damaged swords take a turn or two to heal... then they can catch up with the stack of slow movers and be minimally exposed to AI counter-attack, while the swords left behind act as garrison and eventually reinforcement (once the resisters are quelled). Use the horsemen to absorb the damage, and use the sword-stack to act as the death-blow hammer against the weakened defenses.

Later in the game it changes some when the AI builds more roads, gets more money, and can front more, increasingly tougher defense troops; but thats when you get yourself some knight deathstacks

 

[Spoonwood]

The early medieval really goes fine tech-wise if you go (Monotheism)-Theology-Education. I don't know how many standard *Deity* level maps I've played with 7 scientific opponets (and as scientific myself) where I've gotten Theology in like 20 or so turns and still gotten there first, or only one tribe got to it before me, so I could buy the last part of it and trade for the lower half. My Deity Zulu SS game went fine in the early middle ages. The middle and later middle ages comes as a different story. Going Feudalism first in the middle ages means you've researched the most likely tech the AIs will research first (according to DaveMcW's list *and* I bet if we sampled 1000 or so games it would come as the first medieval tech researched by the AIs in those games in over 900 of them... at least). So, it comes as no surprise that one might struggle with research with such a path. If you want a conquest or domination game, beeling to Chivalry for knights earlier might make great sense. But, in terms of tech research it simply doesn't.

 

[eldar]

True but Feudalism is the one tech the AIs will not give up for anything. If you have 3 Scis and they all get Feudalism then you can probably snag it for Republic, but otherwise I tend to find it's the one time I'd rather research it myself as it's such a powerful gateway tech I'd rather not get to the point where I have Monotheism and still can't buy Feudalism. Even worse, the AIs research Feud, Mono, and Eng between them whilst I'm struggling to Mono and get really stuck. If I'm going to struggle towards a first-tier MA tech, it'll be Feudalism every time. Then Eng or Mono depending on my resources.

 

[Jokeslayer]

Next, I just concentrate on getting to Chivalry for Knights ASAP (unless I'm missing Iron or Horses and the nearest source is a long way away, esp on Archi maps where it may be on an island I can't hook up until Astronomy or Navigation - in which case I beeline Invention). Feudalism, Monotheism, Chivalry. If you are able to trade to get them, do so. With Knights, it should be possible to expand your territory enough to negate the AI advantage.

Now start to look for ways to claw back techs. See if you can broker advantageous deals with backwards civs first. Then go for techs often ignored by the AI: Printing Press is great, Banking (AIs will go for Astronomy), Chemistry, Economics (an AI with PP and Banking will go after Democracy first...), ToG (AIs will go for Magnetism).

I usually just go straight to Education-Astro-Banking (sometimes reversing the last two, if I'm not too bothered about rushing to Copernicus). Usually I'm bringing in those two while the best AIs are on Gunpowder, sometimes Chemistry.

 

[eldar]

Astronomy is no good to you if the best unit you can transport overseas is an archer. Plus there are two techs to get before you can research Education, neither of which are much use (on their own) to anyone except in a 20K game.

 

[Jokeslayer]

Astronomy is no good to you if the best unit you can transport overseas is an archer. Plus there are two techs to get before you can research Education, neither of which are much use (on their own) to anyone except in a 20K game.

Well, with Education you can build universities. Plus if you get those as monoploy techs, you can possibly get SGLs (small chance, admittedly) and get trading opportunities. Even techs you don't need are good for where they can get you.

 

[Spoonwood]

Monotheism can work out as useful in a game where you have a luxury poor situation (e.g. 80% archipelago). The Sistine Chapel can also help here. Researching them also helps pick up the tech pace... though maybe that's not the techs "on their own."

 

[capnvonbaron]

Just going by games back when I used to still build the GLib (not long ago, really )... Two known AI would almost *always* know Education before they knew gunpowder. 90% of the time, the last tech I got for free from the GLib (besides education, of course)was Invention. That says something, IMO.

For me, that is the logic behind taking the lower tech path. Also, I like having gunpowder in case any civs get wiley, and it means I can get to military trad. that much quicker to really put the AI at unease. If I'm playing for culture, the top path certainly makes a little more sense... any other scenario usually the bottom path makes the most sense to me, starting with engineering and letting the AI do Feudalism. Really, in most cases I'll prebuild for the wonders on the top tier so it doesn't matter if I get them first as much as if I get them in a timely manner from the AI. Spawning GLs can help with that too.