Lessons learned beating Emperor

[feralminded]

I've been working on a hard/fast rule list for a while but I got lazy over the holidays. I've actually got a few Immortal wins now but don't consider myself a solid Immortal player at all. That said I was hoping to share some of my experiences since I went from Noble->Emperor in about a month it was a pretty painful process with A LOT of changes needed in my play. Hopefully I can help people without misguiding them here but certainly I encourage people to add their own experiences. I can't claim that these things apply to higher levels (I've already made adjustments to get my wins on Immortal and I imagine Deity is even more contrived). That said I do now feel a lot more comfortable on Emperor and have to say its kind of a "fun" difficulty level now for me because I do have some options while still having the AI be good enough not to be too easy (which makes it not fun). Immortal so far has been more pain than pleasure. That said no doubt the higher you go up the difficulty levels the less options you truly have.

Anyhow here's a few of the things that had to change for me on my way to Emperor. These are in no particular order and again I encourage people to add their own if I miss anything or correct me if I misinform.

(Updated for formatting and to include community info)

City placement/Resources/Rexxing

1. Food Resources: The major ones are Wheat, Rice, Corn, Bananas, Pigs, Sheep, Fish, Crabs, and Clams. The minor ones are Sugar, Deer, Spices, Cows, Whale, Floodplains, and inland lakes next to a city with a lighthouse. Farmed grasslands are an absolute last resort pre-biology. Anything that doesn't produce 3 food or more isn't a food resource. Note that Calendar resources can and should be farmed if possible before you tech Calendar.
   
2. City Placement: Every city needs a major early food resource of some kind and ideally would have a minor one or a second major one. Unless there's a resource you truly need there or you really feel it's critically imperative to cut off the AI with that city it's generally not worth building there. If you have to wait for Biology to feed a city you're wasting your settler and hurting your empire through extra maintenance costs. Your goal is to have at least 4 extra food early to either work specialists or production tiles. Obviously more is better but don't kill yourself trying to get 5 food resources in your BFC. Often times its better to spawn two smaller cities than one mega city.
   
3. Inner City Ring: If you must have a resource for a city to grow then you should put it in one of the 8 tiles adjacent to the city unless you're CRE. If you can manage to get your critical resources in the 8 ring of your first 3 expansion cities then you can avoid teching Mysticism until later which is a nice boost.
   
4. River Tiles: Improve river tiles first when there's a choice. Why put a mine on a hill out in no-man's land when you can improve the hill next to that river. Every commerce counts.
   
5. Gold/Gems: An early (first couple of cities) Gold or Gems resource is the sign of an incredibly powerful start. Not only are they very easy to improve but they more or less double your early tech rate once improved.
   
6. Connecting Resources: Only military resources NEED to be hooked up by roads immediately and you only need one of each until you are looking to trade. Happiness resources come next. Food/Health resources are usually last. Unless you are at or near health cap don't waste time building a road to some Corn when you could be building a cottage or a mine or improving a resource of any kind or connecting your cities.
   
7. Chopping Strategy: Chopping forests is a key speed boost in your early cities to get out critical infrastructure, wonders, workers, and settlers. That said don't chop foolishly or else you may be giving up a some free health bonuses and what will eventually become a production resource on par with mines/workshops. If you need to mass produce units for a meaningful rush or chop out a wonder certainly don't hesitate. Otherwise its generally wise to avoid chopping a forest in a mature city until you need to develop the tile.
   
8. Mines: These are the most basic improvement in the game. They add +2 and add an additional when you build a railroad over them. Additionally every turn they are worked there is a very small % chance they will randomly spawn a new mine based resource.
   
9. Lumbermills: These are on par with mines when you get them (replaceable parts) except instead of being able to pop a random resource you get .5 from the forest and can be built anywhere there's a forest. This makes them a suitable replacement for a mine on any forest hills you have left by the time you can build them. Lumbermills also allow a forest tile to yield +1 if it is riverside (normally they don't do this) meaning a lumbermill on a hill next to a river actually has better yields than a mine on the same hill. Don't use this as an excuse to avoid mining those hills if you need them earlier that Replaceable parts, but it is nice to know.
   
10. Workshops: These are often misused or misunderstood. They trade one for one . There are four bonuses to workshops available. Guilds, Chemistry, and Caste system add +1 each. State Property adds +1 . Once you've secured two of these bonuses workshops become useful and should be considered based on the city's needs. If you have three or all four they are very powerful. Workshops are generally not very useful if you have 0 or only 1 of those bonuses ... that's the key to using them well.
    
11. Windmills: These add one and one to a hill tile. They have 3 possible bonuses. Replaceable Parts adds 1 to a windmill. Electricity adds 1 to a windmill. Environmentalism adds 2 to a windmill. Windmills are clearly worse than mines until Replaceable Parts unless you really need the food. Then windmills have a slight advantage (trade 1 for 1 and 1 until Railroads when Mines take it back (2 > 1 and 1 :commerce). Finally at electricity windmills again take a minor lead unless you specifically need the production of the mine. If under Environmentalism windmills have clearly incredible yields overall. Generally speaking if you need the it's safe to keep a mine on a hill until electricity. After that its usually better just to go with windmills in non-production cities. Production cities should probably be left mined up though since they get multiplicative yields out of the mines' base .
    
12. Watermills: These add 1 to a riverside tile. With replaceable parts they add another . Electricity gives them 2 (in addition to the 1 for riverside they already had). State Property adds 1 to their yield. Because riverside tiles are so valuable generally you won't find watermills very useful (at least on grassland) until both Replaceable Parts and Electricity are teched. Under State Property they should be considered nearly everywhere they can go as their yields are extremely high. They turn riverside plains tiles into 2, 3, 3 super tiles. Under SP they can also make riverside desert and ice tiles fairly productive.
    
13. Unimproved Tiles: Generally if any city has the population to work an unimproved tile then that city has the population to whip out a building or maybe a worker to improve those tiles instead. Working unimproved tiles is a sign that you either don't have enough workers or need to be whipping out units or infrastructure.
    
14. Overlapping BFC: Generally this is not as bad an idea as it seems for certain strategies. Again as long as you can guarantee each city has enough food you can use weaker neighbor cities to grow cottages for your larger more important cities. Even once past that phase the weaker city can still serve as a functional source of EPs and Gold. Late game trade routes easily pay for a moderate sized city's maintenance and then some and EPs are a direct function of your quantity of cities.
    
15. Overexpansion: I t's OK to over expand if you are getting quality land. An early territory lead can easily be turned into a game dominating lead later on. There's really no threat from falling behind in the early game since even archers/spears/axes will successfully defend your cities for a long time.
    
16. Trade Network: Whenever possible have new cities connected to your trade network before founding them. This gets their trade routes up immediately which mitigates some of the financial strain pre-courthouse.
    
17. Seaside Cities: Unless you have a special sea-based Unique Building or Wonder, need a production port for a naval war, or if there's a food resource it's not always the best idea to settle on the ocean, at least not early. Coast and Ocean tiles are average at best even with a lighthouse. Later cities are less sensitive to this since there are more Trade Routes available and Harbors and Custom's House's can add a large amount of commerce.

Building/City Layout

1. Critical Infrastructure: The important early infrastructure for a city are Monument (non CRE), Granary, Forge, and Courthouse (only optional under communism, but still valuable). Border cities should probably build Libraries early and Theatres late as well. Ideally for every city you'll whip/chop out that monument (if not CRE), then Granary, then Forge, then Courthouse. Until those are in place your city isn't really a city, it's an economic sinkhole. Of course that's the ideal situation and there's plenty of times you won't have that luxury.
   
2. Barracks/Walls: You don't need a barracks or wall in every city. In fact unless you are Celtic its fairly safe to never build a wall until necessary (SoD approaching, just whip it out as they're super cheap). Only build Barracks in cities that will be producing units much of the game unless you're Aggressive and/or are looking at Nationhood.
   
3. Factory/Coal Plant: Any city that gets a factory should get an immediate coal plant or hydro plant if you have plastics and a river. I know the TGD is appealing but its MANY MANY turns after you could have had that coal plant operational and not worth the wait. Never, ever, consider Nuclear power as that "very low" chance for meltdown seems to happen all too often.
   
4. Apostolic Palace: Once the AP goes down get those temples and monasteries up. Each building is like employing an engineer except with all of the other benefits and no food requirement.
   
5. Super Cities: The only three cities that are really worth planning for long-term are the Super Science City (Oxford city), Financial Capital (Stock market city, Corporate home, and ideally home of a religion but not strictly necessary), and Military city (Heroic epic). Of course if you have the opportunity to build an independent GP farm go for it but in a pinch the Financial or Science city can serve as a ghetto GP farm in a pinch.

Warmongering/Defense

1. The Rush: The rush is no longer a guaranteed strategy. If you have a close neighbor and you have a very powerful early UU suitable for rushing then perhaps it should be considered. That said if your only rush option is the huge pile of axes then you really need to make sure that's your best option.
   
2. Adjacent Forests/Jungles: You should always chop down all forests and jungles adjacent to border cities. Don't give enemy SOD any help.
   
3. Defending Barbarians: You need to have either Archers, Metal, or Horses by 2000BC, 1500BC the latest, or else you are rolling the dice against the Barbarians. They will have archers around 2500BC and they will cross your borders around 1500BC (anyone know the exact dates for Emperor?)
   
4. Defending Seafood: If you have seafood you need to be ready to deal with Barbarian Galleys by 500BC. Either have galleys of your own ready or have the coast completely covered so none can spawn.
   
5. Escorts: You cannot safely send blind settlers anywhere outside of your borders. You either need a full time escort or a fogbusting strategy that will protect them while they get to their destination.
   
6. Military Advantage: The earliest you can expect a military technological advantage (without a UU) is typically Cuirassers. If you cannot win a war at equal or lower level technology then this is the soonest you should plan on conquest.
   
7. Choice of Advantages: For Renaissance era military advantage you have three basic options: Cuirassers + spies (eventually becoming Calvary + Rifles), Cannons + muskets/maces/pikes (eventually becoming Cannons + Rifles), or just Rifles (eventually becoming Cannons + rifles). You decide what suits you but the Cuirassers are the fastest followed closely by the cannons with rifles being the slowest. Pick what path you are going to go for early so you can prepare (Cuirassers need a ton of spies and EPs for your target but can very quickly conquer all backwards AIs, Rifles need a serious investment in research but can give you an unbreakable military advantage if you quickly draft up your army as soon as you pop this tech, Cannons require a standard army SoD before you get them but will handily dominate all AI's until they get Rifling).
   
8. Stack Defense: This becomes important and specific counters are very important. Don't send out a stack of doom filled with CR3 Maces and nothing else if the enemy has knights or crossbows. Elephants or Pikes/spearmen promoted to formation, Maces/axes or Crossbows with Shock, and Archers/Longbows with Guerilla are all very strong stack defenders. When stack defending against equal or stronger units you absolutely require specialization.
   
9. Terrain Use: I know it seems obvious but so many people fail to move effectively with their units. If an enemy SoD is coming at one of your cities with a hill next to it park a couple of guerilla longbows on that hill if you can spare them. The AI will either sacrifice 5+ units taking the hill which is a net gain for you or just avoid the hill and take the low ground opening them up for savage counterattacks. Your offensive stacks should always be moving through forests or jungles or hills and whenever possible exposing themselves only across rivers.
   
10. Fight Dirty: If you're in an early war sacrifice a fast unit to deny the enemy their Copper ... game over. If you have a UU like a Keshik or Impi you should almost never have to buy a worker. If you can't take an enemy city but they have a hill or forested hill next to them its still worth DoWing on them and parking some archers and a spear on that hill.
    
11. Upgrading Units: Outdated units are rarely worth upgrading. Unless they have several promotions they are better served in one of three positions: Serving garrison duty in the interior, as sacrificial units in your SoD (assuming they're technology is still relevant), or helping your happiness cap if you are running Hereditary Rule. If a unit cannot fill one of those three roles its usually best just to "retire" them.
    
12. The War Elephant: This is in a way an extra Unique Unit (unless you're unfortunate enough to be Khmer). If you have the very rare Ivory it is possible to leverage that into a very strong military advantage. If you are lucky enough to find it then it's usually worth leveraging through a construction beeline. A shock elephant will literally run over anything in its path until Feudalism ... you won't even need catapults. If you have slightly backwards neighbor you can make a big land grab with even just a handful of these supported by some city defenders and a medic.

Technology

1. Worker Techs: At the beginning of the game you ideally need to be able to work a tile immediately when your worker pops out. This means you may need to research Agriculture, Hunting, Fishing, or Animal Husbandry out the door.
   
2. Bronze Working: Once you have your food (and your starting techs may do this for you) the typical goal is Bronze Working so that you can chop your way out of the hole you start in.
   
3. Early Tech Strategy: Unless you have a very specific strategy in mind the early tech strategy is get the worker techs you need (this is based on the resources immediately available), get archery if you have no metal or horses, maybe get mysticism if you feel you really need it, and then head to Writing. If you want The Great Lighthouse you may need to get Sailing/Masonry before you go Writing. If you are CE you need Pottery before writing as well. Regardless of what you do you need either Pottery or Animal Husbandry to tech Writing.
   
4. Aethetics or Alphabet: Once you go Writing you can choose either Aethetics or Alphabet and aggressively trade from there. If you go Aesthetics you will need to trade for Alphabet at some point although on higher levels often most if not all of the AI's will have Alphabet so you can always trade with them. Remember as long as one party has Alphabet you can tech trade.
   
5. Skippable Techs: For early techs you usually don't need Meditation for some time (unless you are planning to bulb philosophy but that's only usually relevant if you have Stonehenge). You can often skip Hunting/Archery entirely if you have metal and don't have deer/fur/elephants. Its even possible to delay Alphabet for quite some time if all the AI's have it already (it unlocks Currency which you may or may not need early).
   
6. Over Trading: Do NOT trade for techs you will not use or trade away. There is a diplomacy hit from being too advanced in some AI's eyes as well as a hit trading with people's worst enemies. Techs like Hunting, Archery, Monotheism, Theology, Drama, Music, Divine Right, Aesthetics, Literature, and Military Science/Tradition are all sometimes optional. Even if you wind up needing one of these techs much later its usually so fast to tech or so cheap to trade for its not a big deal.
   
7. Bulbing Education: Any way you slice it you want to have a Great Scientist to tech most of Education for you. If you are Phi you can stop reading now. For everyone else if you land the Great Library this can usually be your second scientist. If you don't then odds are you may need to run some Caste System to get the scientist as desired or simply save your first scientist.
   
8. Bulbing Anything: Do not be afraid to bulb with your GPs, even the late ones. If they can get you even halfway to a decent tech its usually worth it. If they can't get you a decent tech then either they can help you get a decent tech later or can make you a very useful Golden Age.
   
9. Critical Techs For CE: Civil Service for Bureaucracy, Liberalism for Free Speech (although don't immediately jump unless you have a lot of towns outside of your Capital), Printing Press for the big commerce jump, and Democracy for Emancipation/Universal Sufferage.
   
10. Critical Techs For SE: Writing (for library), Literature (for the Great Library), and Biology (only if you are planning to run late game SE ... hybrids don't care as much).
    
11. Liberalism: As discussed in the Warmongering section once you win the Liberalism race you have the opportunity to achieve a military technological advantage. If you want Cuirassers you will need to have traded for music and will take Nationalism with Liberalism. From there you need Military Tradition and Gunpowder (which you can sometimes trade for). If you want Cannons you need to trade for engineering and ideally tech or trade for Gunpowder so you can pop Chemistry with Liberalism and Steel is next. If not you may need to use liberalism on gunpowder and then tech your way through Chemistry manually. In any case Steel is next after Chemistry. To get rifling you use Liberalism to get Printing Press and then manually tech Replaceable parts (requires Banking which can be hard to trade for) and trade for Gunpowder if possible. If you don't desire a military advantage you can choose to go Printing Press (or chemistry if there) to try and beeline your way up through Scientific Method (usually for early Biology in an SE) or Nationalism to beeline up to Democracy (you now need Printing Press and Constitution to get there).

Wonders

1. Stonehenge: This is usually not worth it unless you start with Mysticism and/or you're Industrious and/or you have a Monument UB and/or you're Charismatic. Ok so there's plenty of times it's worth it, but not necessarily ALWAYS. The early Prophet is nice but Mysticism is a tech that is fairly easy to delay with forethought so be certain you NEED this wonder when investing for it.
   
2. Oracle: This is only useful for very specific slingshots. That said to get it you are giving up any chance at a power-rexx or early rush campaign. Sometimes it's still worth it but under most circumstances you're better off heading to writing.
   
3. The Great Wall: This is only useful if you are interested in an EE or are playing on large maps and/or marathon pace. The AI doesn't necessarily rush this one so if you're IND and have stone you may be able to pick it up really cheap (its like a chop away) but otherwise the hammers are usually better spent on settlers/workers/units.
   
4. Building Early Wonders: If you want to build cheap early wonders like Stonehenge, Oracle, Great Wall, you should beeline right from the start and use forests chops/mines to build them. Delaying to get unnecessary techs or connect that quarry might cost you the wonder on Emperor.
   
5. The Pyramids: These are only useful if you are going for an SE. Even then on Emperor you better have stone and/or be IND. Otherwise those hammers make a whole lot of settlers/workers/units. It takes 500 hammers to build this wonder. A whip is 30 and a chop is 20. Its not pretty without stone and/or IND.
   
6. The Great Lighthouse: This might just be the most powerful early wonder as it allows you to Rexx well beyond normal financial limits. That said you have to go early Sailing/Masonry and have to build most of your cities on the coast to get use out of it and if you aren't IND its a very slow wonder to produce. Regardless this is the only wonder that's strong in virtually any economy.
   
7. The Great Library: It is almost always worth going for this but its not the end of the world if you miss it. On Emperor you really can't screw around if you want it. Sometimes you can get away with teching through Civil Service before going Literature but to be safe it's not a horrible idea to get Code of Laws and switch immediately for it. Even so if you are not IND and don't have a GE and don't have Marble this is a very expensive wonder. Without any of those it's still possible and usually profitable, just save 2-3 forests specifically for it.
   
8. Taj Mahal: If you aren't spiritual or SE then the Taj Mahal is a very nice way to make the big civic switch over that usually comes around that time (Free Speech, Universal Sufferage, Emancipation, Free Religion). However don't run out and tech nationalism just to get the Taj ... it's nice but not that nice and the AI almost always goes for Nationalism early so its easy to trade for if you need it later.
   
9. Other Wonders: Most other wonders are fairly optional and thus only build them IF they are cheap for you (IND/resource) OR your strategy requires them.

General Tips

1. Workers: Most players do not build enough workers. Getting cities online faster is turns saved in the long run and nothing helps that like tile improvements. You should never have to work an unimproved tile except perhaps when a city is first starting up.
   
2. Wasting Worker Turns: Some players over-improve land. Generally speaking you only need a tile or two more improved than the size of the city. A size 6 city does not need 15 improved tiles.
   
3. Land: Repeat this mantra: Land is Power. Land is Power. Land is Power.
   
4. Religion: Repeat this mantra: I do not need to found a religion. I do not need to found a religion. I do not need to found a religion.
   
5. Slavery: It's the best thing to ever happen to humanity (at least in civilization). Unless you're Phi or Spi it's probably the only Labor civic you need to run until you have to go Emancipation. Don't ignore Caste system if you need those specialists but for at least the early part of the game it's all about killing population to produce anything you need ASAP. Oh and Serfdom is a cruel joke ... run it if the AI is too easy for you.
   
6. Early Scientist: Generally speaking as soon as you build your first library (presumably in your SSC/captial), you will want to start working 2 scientists ... under virtually any economy. Great Scientists are just critically important.
   
7. Hereditary Rule: Unless you are going Rep via Pyramids Hereditary Rule is a very powerful civic. Early game happiness is a far larger concern than health, specially with how much whipping you will need to be doing. HR puts those early units to good use and facilitates nearly unlimited whipping and warmongering. Do not let a happy cap keep a city down, specially if its your SSC or Financial city where more population is almost always equal to more research or money.
   
8. Over Paving: Whenever possible avoid putting a road on an unimproved tile next to a forest. Roads halve the chance a forest will grow onto an unimproved tile and growing a forest there can be looked at as free or depending on your needs.
   
9. FocusAs cliche as it sounds focus is key. If any action you are taking does not further your current cause then it's wasted turns/hammers.

Edit Notes:
1/7/09 - Added Bananas as a primary food source.
1/8/09 - Added unit upgrading tip to Military Section (thanks Artichoker, Skallagrimson, and gcm4738)
1/9/09 - Added note about Elephants in Military Section (from another thread)
1/11/09 - Added note about early wonders and clarified Pyramids note (thanks Invy)
1/13/09 - Integrated many of CivCorpse's recommendations as well as the result of the Forest debate.

 

[Loki Strikes]

Very good tips on the most part, I have just a few comments(I am just beginning to win emperor consistently myself so take this with a grain of salt if you so choose)

1. An intelligent and effective REX can easily alleviate the need for war for an entire game, I find if I am #1 in land the game is usually won

2. Early rushes are no longer reliable, but are still effective if you have no intention of taking cities, worker stealing and choking can work(allowing you to grab some axes/cats later and finish them)

3. I find the most helpful thing that I can do, is to expand as fast as possible and fix my economy later, if I have not crashed my economy, im not REXing fast enough.

4. Hence because of this depending on when my economy I go to either aesthetics or alphabet. If I have a reasonable tech rate I grab alphabet and back fill with that, if I am slow, I grab aesthetics and backfill with that. If I have alphabet, I research aesthetics next and grab Parth, Zeus, and SP if I can(mainly for AI denial/I like parth <3) and hold a monopoly till I am fairly certain I have the parth, great library is a great boon and I try to get this, but not needed

5. A good fogbusting line to a new city can alleviate the need for settler/worker escorts.

6. ALWAYS HAVE A ROAD NETWORK IN PLACE FOR A NEW CITY, this allows for instant trade routes, which cuts maintenance.

7. ABUSE HEREDITARY RULE, I like having 15 pop+ cities as early as possible for trade route increase which lets me REX even more.

8. For my cities in the tundra with deer + fish and nothing else, I whip them all game long, if the land sucks, just whip.

9. Don't work unimproved tiles, waste of pop, whip it

10. Fight the AI on the ground of your choosing, if you gotta fight, fight, and fight to win (If I end up fighting a war, I usually just go for a domination victory because I will have ridiculous amounts of land = ridiculous production = ridiculous army + human warmongering ability = domination victory)

 

[_invy_]

Great tips there.

- I used to love building and would lumbermill all the forests and windmill and watermill everything and run environmentalism. I now realize that trees are meant to be cut down and turned into weapons, Environmentalism is rarely useful, mines are better than windmills for 99% of the game, and watermills are only useful with communism and even then only in production cities.

-You might want to keep some plain forest (1F 2P) actually in your production cities for looooong times for that extra hammer and lumbermill them later. Watermills are useful if you want more hammers. You might wanna replace that plain forest with watermill later on, if the forest is at the riverside.

Another tip, I think I didn't see it:

-Use lighbulbs with Great People for expensive techs, favorites: Philosophy, Bearucracy, Theocracy, Paper, Education..

-Assign 2 Scientist specialist as soon as possible, build Academy with first Great Scientist, lighbulb (most often) techs with other GP.

-Hate coastal cities, average commerce. low production, you always lack hammers to build ships? If the city has atleast one food resoruce (ie Fish) build few Workshops. With 2-3 food resources and workshops around these cities have excellent production.

 

[Tacgnol]

Great advice, although the comment about gold/gems in your first city making it easy mode isn't helping my self esteem

The one thing I have a problem with is your comment about mills, yes environmentalism is horrible but mills can be useful. Watermills are generally worth building in those low-production grassland cities with a river running through half the tiles in their BFC, you know the ones I mean, where it takes 200 turns to build an observatory. Windmills aren't worth using if you have the food to support a mine, but if not I'd rather have a windmill giving me a gold (eventually 3 or 4 for fin) and eventually a hammer and leave a grassland tile open for a watermill or cottage than farm the grassland and get 2 hammers, later on 3 out of the mine. Also, lumbermills, particularly on plains, are a very nice boost to any production city, and can make otherwise hammer-poor cities into industrial powerhouses. If the forest is on a hill it gets the axe, if its in the way of irrigation it gets the axe, if its in a cottage city it gets the axe, if I don't have the food to work it it gets the axe, but 3 hammers from a railroaded lumbermill in the late game is very nice.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Keeping plains forests depends on priorities. If chopping it means beating a neighbor early on or getting an important wonder, chop it.

Otherwise, save it. Pre-biology plains tiles are very sub-par to work, and a lumber mill will make the tile function as a mine. Better yet, every 2 is good for a health, and once you reach the cap every 2 forests in that city means an extra food. If you're not using them for anything else that's pressing, saving them can definitely be worth it.

With rails they're 1F4H - slightly better than a grass hill mine due to the health, so why not?

 

[comatosedragon]

These seem like some pretty solid tips. I will refer back to this post as I continue my own trek from noble to emperor.

 

[Babibo]

Very good tips indeed.

Concerning mills, I have to disagree, since I use them a lot post replaceable parts. I had written something about it on this thread :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7305107&postcount=10

I add that even without state property, most mines should be turned to windmills while some farms are turned to watermills after replaceable parts.

After biology, however, I'll consider using mines if I'm not in state property.

 

[feralminded]

Oh no doubt watermills have uses but I personally used to use them everywhere which I've learned is out of line for anything but a river production city under SP (those river production SP cities though ARE amazing surrounded by watermills). What I've found now is that if a city has bad production then I just let it have bad production and cottage up everything and whip out the buildings I need. Even a city with bad production is a fine city if its working 5+ towns.

As for lumbermills I've learned that short term advantages > long term advantages. I do like the .5 and indeed with rails and a mill they are awesome tiles but more often than not the 20 or 30 are worth much more to me when the city is being born. Indeed plains forests are worth thinking about though I personally tend to just cottage them up anyhow as long as its only a couple of plains.

I did forget the most important point though which I believe someone else on these forums has in their signature.
"Land is power. Land is power. Land is power"

Just keep repeating that to yourself and every chance you get to take more land means you are growing in power. On emperor and above you simply cannot win with equal amounts of land ... the AI's unfair modifiers just overwhelm you ... its all about having more than them. Every chance you get to take land is a chance to win.

 

[gcm4738]

Great post! Thanks feralminded. I've made some tough progress on moving from Noble to winning sometimes at Monarch in the last few months, and I still have a lot to learn, but what you're saying here makes a lot of sense to me and I haven't seen anything similar in the War Academy... Have I missed it? Could be a really good start to a "Prince to Emperor BtS" guide. Following these tips and knowing the basics of diplo should be able to get people to Monarch-competetive fairly quickly.

It seems to me that winning up to about Prince or so is about learning to use all the various techniques available (chopping, whipping, city placement and rex order, no wasted hammers, etc etc) - and also about learning the "human warmongering" ability lesson you mention. I thought moving up was just about getting better (more efficient/less waste) at this, but while this helps, a big lesson I'm learning is that your options toward a winning strategy path are reduced and narrowed as you move up from Prince - as you say. e.g. On Prince If I've got a near neighbour and I want to take him out I can. 99% of the time. No matter what my traits/his traits or my UU/his UU, etc. It may *cost* more, it may not be the optimal strategy, but usually taking out an opponent/taking their land, etc. pays off and it's always doable. Not so as I'm moving up. Ok - yeah you probably still *can* always take that opponent out, but you really have to weigh the cost, because the fact that it is not the *optimal* strategy really hurts! I guess what I'm trying to say is that you really have to work to leverage your advantages as you move up.

Also - some maps are just stinkers. I guess this seems obvious, but I really feel it now in a way I didn't before. I'm not talking about ending up with some kind of tundra/desert/mountain type start (which I did in a game recently!) It's the little things. As you say - gold or a grassland/gems tile (!) in your captial BFC - with a food resource so you can work it! - it's huge. Massive. Not just the "ooo! isn't that nice!" that it was before.

Agree with everything you've got so far here - am really looking to see what some others say, as this is really filling a needed gap IMHO. Most of the strategy articles here are either at the beginner - which is great. Or telling me how I can gain an extra 68.9 hammers by running caste system/enviromentalism and flipping back to state property/facism by razing all my own lumbermills (except the ones on hills) the turn before I build the Taj. (But only on a fractal Deity duel match - playing as Isabella). What?

I think there's a lot of players out here like me who probably need to be told that if you've got *a* winning strategy on noble. Great. Now you can forget that - or at least separate it into its individual bits and know when you can use some of them and when you've got to do something else. Is an early rush combined with taking CoL off the Oracle something you do *every* game? Not anymore. If you've got adequate land to expand without an axe rush, no early agg neighbour, you're not industrious and you've got stone but not marble - you'd better rethink your strategy and do something else. Simple I know, but took (is taking! ) a long time to sink into this thick skull.

Somethings I heartily agree with

If you have seafood and like it you will need to start building at least 2 galleys by 0AD.

Nearly fell off my chair laughing at that one! Oh yeah - and start building triremes as soon as you can... because those galleys don't hold up that long and even triremes fall to massive barb galley madness sometimes.

Every city needs a food resource of some kind

Oh yes. Another one learned through sad experience. And not just that, but wheat (+2) is better than rice (+1) and fish (+2) is better than clams (+1) etc. etc. It makes a difference now. The plantation resource bonuses are even more lopsided. Sugar - meh... Dye - ooooo!!!

And whipping unimproved tiles is almost always the right choice.

Great stuff - thanks again for this and for others who add to it.

edit: Oh and one other thing from personal experience. Be wary of jungle. Yes there's good resources there. Yes it's green underneath. Plan double the number of workers or more to clear it! Don't settle it until you have to for expansion or blocking reasons. If you can go elsewhere first then do that.

And agree with Loki on the rex thing - chop/whip settlers, chop/whip workers. Get 4-6 cities up and going asap. This can't be overstated

 

[feralminded]

I could format this into a War Academy article including everything people include and categorizing/formatting them if people would like that ... but since I'm fairly new here I feel like maybe someone more formal than me should be doing it. I mean I don't mind doing the work if enough people think its a worthy cause but I just had seen a lot of recent posts about people trying to move up and I had been pondering making this thread anyhow so that's why I put it up.

 

[feralminded]

That said I would like to add that Sugar and to a lesser extent spices are in fact a very nice minor food resources ... kind of like Cattle/Whales or those lakes next to cities with lighthouses. However you should always strive to land at least one major early food source (and water if your resource requires it) per city (pigs, sheep, wheat, rice, corn, deer, fish, clam, crab, or 3+ floodplains). You need cities to be able to grow fast early and have at least 4 extra food to either run a couple specialists or work production tiles. Honestly its not a horrible city which has a major food resource and a minor next to it ... you definitely don't need 3 major food resources that most people seem to think you need. I'd say two major food resources or 1 + 2 minor ones is enough to run a strong city for 75% of the game. That said I guess my overall point is when looking to lay down a city the single most important thing to consider is food. I see a lot of new players (and I too used to do this) who settle next to some iron and maybe some dye with only plains and grassland farms to feed it. Until biology that's a wasted settler and a bunch of wasted maintenance trying to get that city online. It won't produce a unit for a long long time.

 

[pigswill]

@feralminded: What's with the "I'm fairly new here.. someone more formal" nonsense?

 

[Diamondeye]

- The rush is no longer a solid strategy. Rushing without a close neighbor AND a very strong early UU (Immortal, War Chariot, Quechua and *maybe* Skirmishers ... others come too slow) is only possible if you give up most early wonders and some early Rexx land. Also forget about the rush if they're protective ... it's rarely worth it. Without any of the above you can count on your first war being post-construction and quite possibly not until Military Tradition or even Rifling.

Not true. Wars and rushes will be harder, sure, but if you have the production, it can easily be done. I would say, the rush is no longer an "allways doable".

- Gold or Gems in the first city is probably the most broken start possible. They become less important as the game goes on but landing them in those first couple cities is almost an instant win.

An early commerce boost helps alot, yes. Perhaps it takes Emperor to truly appreciate this early bonus, but it ofc helps no matter the level.

- Every city needs a food resource of some kind (a few floodplains count). If you have to wait for Biology to feed a city you're wasting your settler.

True. And again, I think most people realize this before emperor, but it is a solid rule nonetheless.

- Lakes next to coasts are minor food resources of their own and should be considered when dropping that settler down. 3, 2 (3 for fin) from an unimproved tile is pretty awesome for the first half of the game.

The tile is improved (Lighthouse) - it cannot be further improved. But true, early game, it is a good tile to work.

- I used to love building and would lumbermill all the forests and windmill and watermill everything and run environmentalism. I now realize that trees are meant to be cut down and turned into weapons, Environmentalism is rarely useful, mines are better than windmills for 99% of the game, and watermills are only useful with communism and even then only in production cities.

Very true. The potential of production earlygame far outweights what minor bonuses the lategame improvement on the forests account for.

- You can almost never have enough workers and most of the time you just don't have enough. Getting cities online faster is turns saved in the long run and nothing helps that like tile improvements.

One of the most important things!

- Settlers require escorts. Yes this slows down the Rexx but otherwise its 50/50 they won't make it to their destination.

You've been lucky up to Emperor if you are not doing this. I would say Settlers need either an escort or a preplaced defender that fogbusts the entire way from start to city spot.

- You need to either have metal, horses, archers, or the Great Wall by ~2000BC or else you are rolling the dice on your survival. 1500BC at the latest.

... No love for archers? Mass archers and fogbust can do the trick. But on a real landy map, this is true.

- Slavery is the best thing to ever happen to humanity. Unless you're Phi or Spi it's probably the only civic you should run until you have to go Emancipation and if you get the Kremlin you should consider running it late as well. A late game city with Kremlin and Bio'd food resources as well as late game happiness resources can effectively crank out insane amounts of troops through slavery abuse.

Slavery is good, yes. But use other civics aswell. HR and Bureaucracy are immensely powerful aswell.

- For the most part you can forget about Stonehenge and the Oracle. It's possible to get them but rarely worth it. If you want 'Mids or The Great Lighthouse you really need to start planning on it from turn 1.

True.

- Coal plants are awesome. I used to exclusively build TGD but now I've realized this was silly. Sure get the three gorges if you can but by the time you can tech plastics and actually finish that monster the game will be mostly over one way or another. It's rarely worth waiting for it, just build those coal mines as soon as you finish your factory and suck up the pollution.

Yeah... If pushing for military or something else that demands production galore.

- Stack defenders are completely necessary. Some percentage of the troops you send with your SoD will have to be there with no intention of actually attacking.

True! Stack composition is a skill you need at Emp+

- If you have seafood and like it you will need to start building at least 2 galleys by 0AD.

Triremes.

- I used to always disable tech brokering because I hated the idea of the AI's doing it with my hard earned techs ... now I abuse it myself. About 20% of my technology trades are made through brokering. Trade techs as aggressively as you can. AI's are constantly changing what techs they are willing to trade so its worth checking the foreign tech screen every couple of turns. You will NEVER get parity on your trades ... its ok ... you take what you can get.

Also agree, trading things around can help you keeping your coffers filled and techrate at 100%.

- Alphabet is the most important early tech. You want to get it ASAP so you can start the tech trading process. If you can land it early enough you will be able to easily trade it for everything you're missing an then some.

Or trade for it... Aesth + something small often is enough. And you can trade that round, the AI will often leave Aesth if you have it.

- Don't waste too much time once you get alphabet before heading for Literature or else you will miss the great library. You can tech trade for parity most of the way ... you don't need to the be the first to get most of those techs.

You sound as if GLib is a must. It isn't.

- I've given up on founding religions or even much caring about them beyond for political reasons and for monasteries in my SSC.

Very clever, and very true.

- Your first spare population in a city should be immediately whipped into a monument.

True most of the time. I guess you are assuming not-creative aswell

- Golden ages are for civic switching. The Taj Mahal is your free ride to Free Religion/Free Speech/Emancipation/Universal Sufferage with a cherry on the top.

Not purely for switching. They are a huge eco boost. But the other thing certainly helps.

- Combat is the only advantage I actually have against the AI (they outproduce and out tech me). To not leverage this advantage is to lose.

They vote for you. They vassalize to you. They are idiots when going for Space. And they have no idea about warfare. That's 4 advantages. Use em well.

 

[Bleys]

Good thread. I have actually given this some thought recently, since I am trying to push past Emperor into Immortal. So heres a couple others for your list, I call em "the little things".

-Always mine the hill next to the river FIRST. That single commerce it generates is actually important.

-Try to tech a turn into stuff you want to trade from the AIs. This makes them more likely to let it go, and cheaper.

-Learn to come from behind. You will almost never take the lead on Emperor much before Rifling. However, if you are still finding yourself in first place before Lib, move up to Immortal, Emperor is too easy for you.

-Since you will be coming from behind, figure out where its going to be. A Wonder, a Civic, a GP popping, a specific Tech that opens up a new Building or Unit, it can be any of those or a combination of them all, but you should know where the "push" is going to come from.

I had some more, I will post them as I think of them.

 

[gcm4738]

Yes yes yes! Good stuff

Always mine the hill next to the river FIRST. That single commerce it generates is actually important

Great example of the little things - I wish I'd remembered to add this one! Not putting cities 1 tile away from ocean (ocean tiles cannot be improved by lighthouse, etc). And building road networks in anticipation of settlement - another good one. Use of workers in general - clearing jungle and putting road into a plantation resource prior to calendar so that it's finished just as calendar comes up and you've got two workers paired up (I love to do this) to start in on the plantation just after. Making sure you've got sailing/rivers/roads so that all cities benefit from your copper mine as soon as it's built.

Learn to come from behind

Another HUGE one. How many times did I think I was not doing it right because I was middle of the pack score-wise! (Ok - well sometimes I *wasn't* doing it right... ) But I really had to get over the hangup of being p.o'd about not being in first all the time!

Maybe the diplo thing needs more of a nod here... Know thy enemy. I got toasted in the AI Shizuka "monarch students" game because I underestimated the threat from J Caesar. That was it. You've gotta know something about how different AI's are going to behave.

 

[MkLh]

- I used to always disable tech brokering because I hated the idea of the AI's doing it with my hard earned techs ... now I abuse it myself. About 20% of my technology trades are made through brokering. Trade techs as aggressively as you can. AI's are constantly changing what techs they are willing to trade so its worth checking the foreign tech screen every couple of turns. You will NEVER get parity on your trades ... its ok ... you take what you can get.

IMO trading for old, cheap and less useful techs is rarely worth it even if you get 10 techs for one. Too many tech trades leads to "you're too advanced" -restrictions, and giving out strong military or economic techs may create monsters... Also "you have traded with our worst enemies" - diplo penalty is very severe and must be noted. I don't usually trade any techs with overseas civs until I know all civs and their worst enemies there. Tech trading is very important, but you should carefully think when to trade techs and to whom.

 

[feralminded]

Not true. Wars and rushes will be harder, sure, but if you have the production, it can easily be done. I would say, the rush is no longer an "allways doable".

I didn't say the rush was impossible, I was only saying it isn't solid. Pre-emperor on anything but islands maps I simply ALWAYS rushed and it more or less ALWAYS worked. While certainly possible at emperor and I have won emperor games with successful early rushes it isn't a guarantee anymore and often times even if successful you've taken a much more difficult path to victory when you could have simply power-rexxed and played the political game to a much easier victory. I guess my (poorly communicated) point is that if you were one of those players like me who worked up to emperor on the back of a warmongering stint you need to rethink your strategy at the higher levels.

The tile is improved (Lighthouse) - it cannot be further improved. But true, early game, it is a good tile to work.

Yeah but the lighthouse also improves all of your sea tiles. I'm assuming people have built next to the sea for a seafood resource ... the little lake is just the icing on the cake. I'm not sure I would build a lighthouse very early if for some reason I had a city next to an ocean without seafood unless for some reason there were several inland lake tiles. Even still that sounds like a fairly weak city.

You've been lucky up to Emperor if you are not doing this. I would say Settlers need either an escort or a preplaced defender that fogbusts the entire way from start to city spot.

Good point ... I typically go the fogbusting route for my first settler but I kind of consider fogbusters escorts in that its a dedicated unit helping your settler get wherever he's going. I should clarify this though.

... No love for archers? Mass archers and fogbust can do the trick. But on a real landy map, this is true.

Archers are in my list.

Slavery is good, yes. But use other civics aswell. HR and Bureaucracy are immensely powerful aswell.

I should clarify this to say Labor Civics. Obviously you will want to use many of the other types of civics and there's definitely times to use Caste as well ... but *most* of the time slavery can take you all of the way to Emancipation and it will be beneficial.

Yeah... If pushing for military or something else that demands production galore.

I should clarify ... build coal plants in any city you would normally build a factory in ... don't wait around for TGD and definitely don't wait around or even consider a nuke plant.

Triremes.

I find that if I wait for Triremes I've already been pillages to all hell. Now I just build a couple of galleys early and defend until I can get them. I should add triremes in the note as well though.

Or trade for it... Aesth + something small often is enough. And you can trade that round, the AI will often leave Aesth if you have it.

This is a good point, I'll edit it.

You sound as if GLib is a must. It isn't.

This is very true ... that said I would argue that if you can get it ... it's almost always worth it since worst case it gets you a couple of techs that are easy trade bait since the AI's rarely get them and don't much benefit from them. Sure if you're not Ind or don't have Marble its worth thinking about avoiding the issue but in most games I'd say it's definitely worth it. 8 GS points per turn and 6 (or 12 for SE) beakers for hundreds of turns is fairly impressive.

They vote for you. They vassalize to you. They are idiots when going for Space. And they have no idea about warfare. That's 4 advantages. Use em well.

lol ... I suppose you are right but warfare is the one where its most obvious to me.

 

[Soirana]

- The rush is no longer a solid strategy. Rushing without a close neighbor AND a very strong early UU (Immortal, War Chariot, Quechua and *maybe* Skirmishers ... others come too slow) is only possible if you give up most early wonders and some early Rexx land. Also forget about the rush if they're protective ... it's rarely worth it. Without any of the above you can count on your first war being post-construction and quite possibly not until Military Tradition or even Rifling.

It is solid strategy give correct situation. That is you rush if you need it.
Regular axes from barracks usually get job done.
Wonders... Well, yes. But again if you do serious REX you won't shoot them too. Land. Seriously i miss point. You get your land. Who cares if that was empty wilderness or dead civilization?

- You need to either have metal, horses, archers, or the Great Wall by ~2000BC or else you are rolling the dice on your survival. 1500BC at the latest.

On islands you might get away with wariors doing fogbust for quite long.

- For the most part you can forget about Stonehenge and the Oracle. It's possible to get them but rarely worth it. If you want 'Mids or The Great Lighthouse you really need to start planning on it from turn 1.

Oracle is nice and doable and worth on Emperor. Mids usually are decided by stone. (or industrious trait)

- Coal plants are awesome. I used to exclusively build TGD but now I've realized this was silly. Sure get the three gorges if you can but by the time you can tech plastics and actually finish that monster the game will be mostly over one way or another. It's rarely worth waiting for it, just build those coal mines as soon as you finish your factory and suck up the pollution.

Would like to argue, but since i have no idea what that dam does....

- Stack defenders are completely necessary. Some percentage of the troops you send with your SoD will have to be there with no intention of actually attacking.

Why? After good siege lonbows/xbows/pikes can be fine attackers. Only AI seperates units into attackers/defenders, humans should look at least to combat percentage.

- If you have seafood and like it you will need to start building at least 2 galleys by 0AD.

Might be better fogbust coast. There are cheaper units than galleys.

- Alphabet is the most important early tech. You want to get it ASAP so you can start the tech trading process. If you can land it early enough you will be able to easily trade it for everything you're missing an then some.

Well, if you start with multiple gems may be... About Emperor aesthetics highly raises in value.

- Your first spare population in a city should be immediately whipped into a monument.

Early on may be, later on probably no.
Monument can be chopped, which in general is faster. Your secondary production center might provide missionarry, so you take hammers where they are plentiful to place where you need them.
In caste running artist for short period will give you border pop.
Creative theaters are cheaper than monuments (IIRC)

- Golden ages are for civic switching. The Taj Mahal is your free ride to Free Religion/Free Speech/Emancipation/Universal Sufferage with a cherry on the top.

For me GA is boost in gold and hammers, switch is the cherry. It depends on victory you pursue spaceship builders are probably best to use them towards the end, than warmongers considerably earlier.

 

[KingMorgan]

Good thread.

Oracale OR stonehenge is perfectly viable, even for non IND leaders, both is a little harder.

Build at least 3 cottages in your capitial before 1500BC, work them as well.

Beeline Civil Service, if possible make sure it;s in before 1AD.

Warriors v Barbs is perfectly acceptable with good fogbusting, (map dependant though).

6 cities are all you need, so take a mega REX strat with a pinch of salt.

 

[Bleys]

IMO trading for old, cheap and less useful techs is rarely worth it even if you get 10 techs for one. Too many tech trades leads to "you're too advanced" -restrictions, and giving out strong military or economic techs may create monsters... Also "you have traded with our worst enemies" - diplo penalty is very severe and must be noted. I don't usually trade any techs with overseas civs until I know all civs and their worst enemies there. Tech trading is very important, but you should carefully think when to trade techs and to whom.

Great point MkLh. I never worried about WFYBTA before I started playing Emperor, now, I am conscious of it, but still dont have good trade discipline. Rustens example of not even having Archery at 1700 AD is a prime example of trade discipline.

Another one I thought of is about workers, which gmc reminded me of:

-Dont waste worker turns over-improving your cities early. Improve a couple tiles more than your happy-cap, and move your workers to the next city. So often I see novices' games where they have every tile in their first 2 cities improved, and are working many unimproved tiles in cities 3-6. If you cant grow to 10 pop, dont improve 10 tiles. This is especially true of improvements you plan on eventually, but dont need now, like workshops and watermills.