King to Emperor Advice.

[Mozzington]

Hello all,

I wonder if anybody would be kind enough to offer me some advice on making the step up from King to Emperor. In particular I wondered if there are perhaps some lets play videos that might be suitable?

I can beat King with no troubles at all. However on my first emperor game Egypt really ran away with it and I had trouble fighting against their sheer numbers.

Thank you.

 

[The Pilgrim]

There are plenty of Let's plays in the appropriate section. So many I assume most have lost the count of different game settings. I think buzzdowan recorded emperor LP, however I didn't have a chance to watch it so cannot really recommend. But I can recommend Wainy's channel. Don't let the fact these are deity games intimidate you. He puts great effort into explaining everything he does and the thinking process behind his decisions. For sure there are many other LP's for emperor/immortal difficulty. You'll have to browse and find what you're looking for.

It's very hard to give advice without knowing where you get wrong. So if you have game you're struggling with just post a save file or screenshots with commentary and people will try to help you.

 

[joncnunn]

That is unusual.
The King to Emperor step is very tiny compared to both Prince to King & Emperor to Immortal.

Its usually the same tactics only the AI has more gold you can get selling useless stuff to them.

Also very unusual for Egypt to have a strong army; in the hands of the AI, they often focus on wonders and end up among the first civs to lose their capital (to another AI)

Standard tactic against mini carpets of doom :
Retreat into your territory:
Best ranged unit inside your border city; Additional ranged units behind that city.
Melee units nearby to screen as needed.

After their attacking units are wiped out, you can then take the offensive.

 

[Mozzington]

Thanks for the replies. I will check those videos out tonight.

Yes, I was surprised by Rameses too. Usually like you say, he's the first to fall really which is why I panicked and thought if Rameses plays like this on Emperor then I had better get some advice from you guys.

I couldn't believe it. He'd got fighters by the early 1800's. Took me till mid 1800's to get them. He basically tore me apart and instead of attacking my frontier cities he launched a naval invasion through the back door which I was completely unexpecting. He then took the French city of Orleans from me which I had recently captured and started to pinch me from my East (Orleans) and the West (frontier cities on his border).

He culture bombed my borders which stole my Citadel and kept bombarding my units with Fighters. The citadel would then take their health too. It was hopeless.

 

[Brichals]

That is unusual.
Its usually the same tactics only the AI has more gold you can get selling useless stuff to them.

Came here to say this.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Let's put it this way: emperor is the first level where AI begins to be... hmmm... present. And as much as I agree there is barely any difference between emperor and king, it implies the player does right things on king. Then he'll not notice any difference moving up. The questing is what happens if he doesn't do right things and got away with it just b/c on king the AI still wasn't present.
1800AD for fighters is not early. It's an ok time. And the fact the OP hasn't out-teched AI by then suggests he did quite a few things wrong.

 

[Mozzington]

Hi,

To give you a little bit more information I ended up "land grabbing" and setting up three early cities from the North of the continent all the way to the South (small map).

This meant I was expanding into Napoleons lands which of course he was not happy about but I had no choice. These were the best city locations available. So anyway I ended up with Napoleon on my East and Egypt on my West.

I believe he bribed Egypt into war with me early on. This went on for a long time. Constantly declarations of war by both sides at the same time. I'd hold back and pick all his units off one by one no problems while I concentrated on doing the things I wanted to do - ie, build Mauseloum Hal as I had stone and marble, GL for science and HG. This meant I wasn't able to concentrate on military units to take them out early.

Also, I was playing as Arabia and as it was us three on the continent I had nobody to sell my resources too!

Anyhow, I beelined for cannons after the above and once I had this and muskets/rifles I stormed Paris and Orleans leaving Napoleon with one city. From there I moved these troops over to my West and was about to attack Rameses when he did the old culture bomb trick against my citadel (which I have not seen before) and this basically screwed me. I did not have enough units.

Having had this game from day one it is not until this previous weekend I have really started to play it. Hated it initially and have been playing 4 ever since. However, gave it a second chance and have been nailing it this past Easter weekend. Now I am really into it.

 

[Mozzington]

PS. Perhaps I went wrong in prioritising wonders and not just taking them out early instead?

 

[The Pilgrim]

PS. Perhaps I went wrong in prioritising wonders and not just taking them out early instead?

Yep. You see, 90% of the time it comes down to this. People who're used to wonder spam struggle when climbing up in difficulties. The situation was pretty clear: Napoleon from one side - you know for sure he'll attack. Ramesses from another - you stole all of his wonders he has such an unhealthy passion about so he was about to attack you as well. Build units, conquer wonders. Arabia has a very nice UU. Not only this increases your winning chances but also increases the chances for much smoother transition towards the next difficulty level.

Don't let one game discourage you. On top of everything you probably ran out of luck a bit too. It's rather unfortunate to be Arabia on continents and not be able to trade due to craziness of your neighbors. In such cases you should rush to Astronomy and sail to find better trading buddies.

 

[Mozzington]

Yeah thanks for that. I think I'll try again tonight and concentrate on my military which is not a strategy I am used to tbh. I guess a beeline to iron working then? Then what, cannons?

In regards Arabias UU - are you referring to the camel archer? Is this a good unit? I have never actually used it. I believe it replaced the knight? I assume it's a ranged unit.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The higher the difficulty the more aggressive you should be. Living in peace with AI becomes harder since due to level bonuses they have bigger military and see in your weakness an opportunity to make themselves even stronger. Let them do that and get warmongering penalties but be prepared to counterattack. Usually it's not a problem after they stupidly suicide all of their units into yours. Peaceful games are possible but not very common. Depends mostly on the map and mix of civs in the game.

Arabian camel archer is a range unit indeed. They are stronger than keshiks but have only 3 movement points. Still they are very good as they can stay out of range and not to take damage. You move them forward one hex, shoot and retreat. You can also upgrade chariot archers and horsemen to camels. Although be aware that horsemen lose promotions with upgrade while chariot archers don't.
Good luck tonight!

 

[Mozzington]

Looking forward to it! Will report back with my findings tonight. Thanks for your help.

 

[Mozzington]

I have never really bothered with any early era mounted units in the past. Are they decent enough to use to take cities?

Edit: I have always just though of them for harrassing tactics - pillaging and cavalry etc.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I have never really bothered with any early era mounted units in the past. Are they decent enough to use to take cities?

Edit: I have always just though of them for harrassing tactics - pillaging and cavalry etc.

Are they decent? Well, keshiks are the best units in game with no competition. Camels aren't as powerful but still very solid. They cannot take cities so you need to bring melee unit/horseman for capturing. With keshiks you definitely want to bring a horse and not melee, melee will slow you down too much. With camels it doesn't matter since melee will catch up while camels reduce city defense. In early game (cities bombarding capability is low) I usually use scouts as melee though, to avoid losing more time in rough terrain. Before capturing city with scout you have to reduce it's defense to zero, otherwise your scout might not survive. As cities become stronger scouts are replaced by horsemen or swordsmen/pikemen if I'm short on horses. Which frankly is rare.
Songhai and Siamese UU's are not range units thus can take cities and you need nothing but them. Lots of them. Although siamese elephants are relatively slow (2mp) they have enormous combat strength and thrash pretty much everything in their era and more.
Bottom line: while basic knight suck big time, all knight based UU's are very very good and come just in the right time. Therefore they are very popular in domination games.

You're welcome and keep us posted about your progress.

 

[Mozzington]

LoL,

I can't do it.

I just cannot keep enough units alive to take London.

Same thing again, spotted England to my East and found what I considered to be a good second city site fort Medina which would also isolate Elizabeth. Set my defensive units up, had to declare war early to stop her settlers.

Built some horseman and they quickly died. Recently hooked up that newly discovered iron and sent a couple of swords / horsemen in and same thing happened. She got me from her city, from the sea, from land. Left me with a couple of archers...see image.



I think it's time I went back to basics and got some help from the beginning. I've enclosed another screen shot, this time of Medina.



Also, please find attached save game.

I think I might know what you are going to say. Why build library and NC? Should have pumped more units instead?

If you could perhaps take a look at lend me some of your expertise?

 

[Fluffball]

From a quick look at your screenshot the thing that stands out is that you are bonbarding London while there are still English units in the field.
You obviously can't do anything about the unit garrisoned in the city but you should aim to remove all enemy units from the area before bombarding a city. Exposing your units to the bombardment from a city and 2 archers will wipe them out very quickly as you have realised.

In the situation you have there i would have aimed to suck out the archers away from London to destroy them first before moving into English territory and particularly in range of London and if you couldn't bait them out then i would have sent horses around the back of the small mountain range to take out that archer at least before moving in to take London.

A bit of knowledge helps you manipulate a situation to your advantage also.e.g. the AI will almost always attack your weakest unit so you can send in a melee unit with a small amount of damage, fortify it in the (what appears to be) hills/forest next to the cows and you can be certain London and its garrisoned archer would attack that every turn, ignoring everything else if those units are fully healed or at least have higher hp.
If you had a unit with medic stationed next to it also it would heal 2 hp/turn and likely only receive 2 damage per turn, 1 from the archer and one from the city due to being fortified in the hill/forest.

That would still leave the pikeman in the water so you could have a melee unit station on the coast which it would never attack and if it did land you could anihilate it in one turn through bombardment from your archers and finish it off with your melee unit on the coast.
Worst case scenario would be that your coastal unit would become the main target for bombardment next turn due to it losing health but it should survive and allow you to pull it back out of range the next turn.

 

[Mozzington]

Hi,

Think I am doing a lot better in my most recent game as America.

Don't really know what I did differently. Got an early DOW x 2 from Russia and just sat back and took out her units until I got cannon and minutemen. Has done the trick nicely.

I don't seem to be good as the early aggresor though.

 

[joncnunn]

From the top screen shot; your using way too few units to take out a major city.

I would suggest 3 ranged units and 2 melee units before coming in range of London.

 

[apocalypse105]

The higher the difficulty the more aggressive you should be. Living in peace with AI becomes harder since due to level bonuses they have bigger military and see in your weakness an opportunity to make themselves even stronger. Let them do that and get warmongering penalties but be prepared to counterattack. Usually it's not a problem after they stupidly suicide all of their units into yours. Peaceful games are possible but not very common. Depends mostly on the map and mix of civs in the game.

Arabian camel archer is a range unit indeed. They are stronger than keshiks but have only 3 movement points. Still they are very good as they can stay out of range and not to take damage. You move them forward one hex, shoot and retreat. You can also upgrade chariot archers and horsemen to camels. Although be aware that horsemen lose promotions with upgrade while chariot archers don't.
Good luck tonight!

Research agreement's can beat the AI bonusses I won a sciencie victory just with 4 cities rationalisme and porcelain tower Only did go to war once.

However I can say I have lost a lot of game's because I didn't timed my research agreement's well

 

[The Pilgrim]

Research agreement's can beat the AI bonusses I won a sciencie victory just with 4 cities rationalisme and porcelain tower Only did go to war once.

Nobody questions RA's power. However the games where are no wars or very few wars take place are rare. You need the right map and right opponents. Those who will not backstabb you as soon as opportunity present itself and break RA's.