Lessons learned beating Emperor

[Bleys]

futurehermit (the CFCer who has "Land is power. Land is power. Land is power." in his sig) posted this gem on another thread. He was giving Rush-pointers to a novice, but it certainly applies all the way up to Emp and beyond IMHO.

-Don't divert from your goal. Don't try to squeeze in a wonder. Don't build fancy buildings that you don't need yet. Don't go settling other cities. Focus on your objective.

As I said in that thread, my way of doing this is to ask myself if I have a solid strategic reason to build something or research something, and if I dont, I skip it. This is exactly what people mean by "Focus".

 

[feralminded]

This is all good stuff. I am actually working on a formatted and pretty version and am incorporating as much of this as I can. That said I do have to prefix it with the fact that for the purposes of the document I obviously have to go with the 80/20 rule ... I won't be able to describe what to do in the 20 ... only the 80. That said I am certain there will still be contention on some things which is always good. In a healthy debate all sides win.

 

[bestbrian]

I would also like to add that is critical to get resource-revealing techs out as early as possible. Find your copper/iron/horses ASAP; that will define your whole early game pattern of settlement.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Iron working isn't a big priority for me unless:

1) Have no copper
2) Playing China (needed for CKNs)
3) Jungle to chop

Otherwise, you can usually conquer it before you need to build cannons/frigates or pikes. Maces can be built with copper. Knights and crossbows aren't must have units.

 

[Skallagrimson]

- 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.

I'm very anti-chop because it's a very tiny reward relative to what you do to your health cap. You don't get any relief from health issues until the VERY late game, and the conventional wisdom that you have to chop away all your health seems to me to be counterintuitive to the OTHER fact of high-level games, that a true "rush" is out of the question.

That doesn't mean I lumbermill every tree, but I do see trees that are generally valuable as a health resource as well as a mid-game hammer supplement.

Trees facing a likely enemy approach to your border cities, obviously it's a security measure to chop. Don't give the AI any defensive bonuses you don't have to give them. If you could flatten hills like in Civ2 I'd do that as well, butcha can't.

Also a true Great Science City needs chopped so you can lay out the cottages, and a true GP farm needs chopped for farms. But other cities with trees in other places (without a military reason to clear the 8-box), my knee-jerk is to keep an even number of those health bonuses where they are. Higher growth cap, faster unit builds, more power.

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

I've taken to a habit of placing single-move escorts at waypoints where they can pull double duty as fogbusters and settler escorts. That first settler really just has to worry about animals, and within your borders that's not a threat. Outside your borders all you really need is some fog-busted tiles to prevent the spawn. Right directly outside of that range, the settler joins the escort and proceeds to the build location. It shaves a few travel turns off of a march with the escort all the way back from the city center.

If I'm escorting with chariots or HAs they just go out together.

- 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.

Huge advice here. Delaying axemen or at a minimum chariots, is suicide.

- 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.

Well the anger due to no emancipation will give you 4 unhappies to whip right out the gate, so, enjoy those size 8 cities when everyone else has size 20.

- 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.

I hate the unhealth but the TGD gives you unhealth from the power anyway, so yeah, might as well take the bad medicine now rather than later. And save those GEs for something more key like Space Elevator, or devote the IW city to something like the Internet.

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

I've gotten by with caravels, but with frigates high on the to-do list at about that time. Better yet, ironclads.

- 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.

I agree until I get a tech lead. Then I bite the bullet on most trades (although some backfill with "safe" tradeable techs is okay) until I can nab 'em for free via the Internet.

- 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.

I agree. In fact sometimes I've delayed thinking "I've got marble, so that's not a big hurry" and found the AIs were saving up their GE for it, so, marble schmarble.

I can still win without GL, but not with anything approaching a high score or a finish time worthy of bragging rights. It just becomes a brute force slog from then on.

 

[Bleys]

In fact sometimes I've delayed thinking "I've got marble, so that's not a big hurry" and found the AIs were saving up their GE for it, so, marble schmarble.

I can still win without GL, but not with anything approaching a high score or a finish time worthy of bragging rights. It just becomes a brute force slog from then on.

The GL is a wonder I almost always get, marble or no, because I like teching Aesthetics for trading. Seems a shame to ignore one of the biggest benefits that tech opens up, and Lit has extra goodies too.

But the biggest reason I like the GL is that it allows me to skip running Caste. I can get away with the GL scientists, plus the Library 2, and the Engineer and/or Priest in my GP farm, no need to go into Caste. Without the GL, you are more likely to have to run a chunk of Caste to get the GP you need to bulb. Bulb-n-Trade is the quickest way to catch up techs.

 

[bestbrian]

I'm a very big fan of the Great Library (as well as the Great Lighthouse, on the appropriate maps), but I've found that the AI dosen't seem to value it all that much. It seems to be something I can put off for a wee bit, and not miss out on.

 

[_invy_]

Didn't see this one yet:

Its straightforward, yet new players are missing this.

-Use windows of oportunity to attack neighbours, ie. military tech leads:
1. if you have metals (Sword, Axe) and Ai is stuck with archers
2. if you tech Macemen/Xbows before AI
3. Muskets/Knights and CANNONS!!! this one is huge, just playing the game, cannons are demolishing Sitting Bull //produce Cannons, draft Muskets
4.Riflemen, draft and attack
5.Infantry/Artillery..
6.Tanks

These windows can be short, so use them well on high levels.

-Keep units in large stack(s), they will live much longer, and you have better chance to decimate AI's large stack.

-Keep navies in stacks also

-Frigates, Ships of the Lines are excellent for bombarding, in same turn you can land your troups and bombard AI's defense. Fast and efficient.

 

[Tacgnol]

Your left out the biggest advantage of all - Flight. Infantry and bombers can take out tanks and airships.

 

[feralminded]

ok I made major revisions to the first post for formatting and to include community suggestions. Again feel free to take issue with anything put up ... I am not married to anything here merely trying to write up something that can hopefully help out in 80% of situations. Keep that 80/20 rule in mind when making your suggestions.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Unless you have a special sea-based UB or if there's a food resource it's usually wasteful to settle adjacent to the ocean. Coast and Ocean tiles are average at best even with a lighthouse.

- unless you built the great lighthouse

 

[_invy_]

Your left out the biggest advantage of all - Flight. Infantry and bombers can take out tanks and airships.

True, I don't use Planes.. almost never so I didn't think of it. Airships are good units it seems, AI uses them well.

Unless you have a special sea-based UB or if there's a food resource it's usually wasteful to settle adjacent to the ocean. Coast and Ocean tiles are average at best even with a lighthouse.

- unless you built the great lighthouse

No its not a waste, almost never. These cities will pay itself of and bring profit as they grow, it just takes time. Trade Routes are enough to pay of maintance (especially intercontinental), free unit support is bonus and gold coins from sea tiles is profit.. and you can multiply it with science//commerce building.
Tip should be to settle eventually those tiles, earlier the better, so the city can grow big .

 

[vicawoo]

Coastal cities don't get more trade routes

- unless you built the great lighthouse

They don't get trade bonuses until harbors and custom houses.

It might be an interesting question to figure out how many sea tiles in the BFC would warrant not settling 1 tile away.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Your left out the biggest advantage of all - Flight. Infantry and bombers can take out tanks and airships.

Flight is much more gimped by parity than infantry arty or even just industrialism. So much fighter interception...and that definitely favors the defender, not the attacker.

 

[Dirk1302]

One thing i seldom see mentioned is the benefit of binary research and i don't mean for rounding purposes. You just get far more beakers if you set research to 0% after researching all the things you absolutely need including writing. Once you have some libraries up set the slider to 100% for a lot of turns researching at decifit helped by the accumulated gold.

You can stretch this idea further by keeping research at 0% waiting for your first academy, then raise the slider to100% for 75% benefit (lib + academy). This is up to judgement, sometimes you just need certain things before you ever get that academy but you get the idea: go research when you have multipliers, otherwise accumulate cash waiting for these multipliers.

Btw, i agreed with all the points mentioned in the OP . Very well thought out post.

 

[feralminded]

No its not a waste, almost never. These cities will pay itself of and bring profit as they grow, it just takes time. Trade Routes are enough to pay of maintance (especially intercontinental), free unit support is bonus and gold coins from sea tiles is profit.. and you can multiply it with science//commerce building.
Tip should be to settle eventually those tiles, earlier the better, so the city can grow big .

I spoke about the great lighthouse in the wonders section. That said ocean cities without food resources ARE comparatively weak to cities with half decent land. A plain grassland can be 2 | 7 | 1 or even 4 which can yield you 6 , 2 from an SE scientist. The best a plain ocean tile can ever be is 2 | 1 | 1 or 2 for coast and that's assuming statues. Those aren't even remotely comparable. Early game and ONLY if you are FIN I can sometimes make the case for those coast tiles to boost research but even still building a city near water without some food being there really is a waste if you have other land based options because you've basically declared 30-40% of your BFC as sub-par tiles. Honestly even when playing Hannibal (my latest favorite) my capitals which are by the water even with seafood are usually significantly inferior to my inland capitals where I can build 8+ cottages. The issue is limited real estate with the seaside cities and having to split the remaining tiles between production and commerce. Its much harder to make a dominant city with only 10-12ish workable tiles as opposed to 20. If there's seafood or even whales or oil late game out there sure ... your 10-12 workable tiles get bumped up and you can make more of the land tiles you have ... but without anything out there in the blue you usually have a better spot to put that city. Its all about making the most of those tiles.

 

[gcm4738]

Really good stuff now fm... One question:

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.

Why is this?

I've learned a lot here! My early game is really quite strong, my mid game not so much and my end game is kind of weak.

I'd like to see some similar advice on when to decide on victory conditions. Any late game tactics would be useful too. I never know whether to go for say Robotics for Mech Infantry or the Internet. I don't really know how to use spies (what's with the cuirassers + spy strategy - how does that work?) or espionage points effectively (switch to weight 1 on primary military target asap?). I had a game recently where part of my strategy was to keep Charlemagne sweet (shared religion, etc.) so we could trade techs back and forth, whatever he was techings, I did something else and then went for the trade... Until he started stealing everything! Everytime I'd get something I could swap with him - he'd rip it off the next turn! How do I stop this mid-game? Put spies in every city?

I know there are some late game resources like Oil and Aluminum that are critical - but how critical? What about corporations? Worth saving a GP for? How and when do I go for the kill? I know Combustion is big for transports and destroyers - just like astronomy is for galleons. These are big mid-late game military techs (assuming probable naval invasion if planned). And what's the deal with muskets? I've never really used them offensively - they didn't seem to be any better than a decently promoted maceman. Am I missing something?

Maybe some other things (sorry if I missed any of these - it's early here and I'm a bit blurry-eyed...) Overall strategy:i.e. Have one - at all times! know what techs you're going for, who threatens you and what you're trying to build. Tailor it to your specific leader traits: "play your leader", the map (type/resources/neighbours - "play the map!" probably the best advice after "land is power") and make allowances for your UU and UB (prioritise research towards them, but don't go crazy beelining for rifling starting in 1000 BC so you can get redcoats).

I also like the "be prepared to play from behind" - for a lot of the game. Be prepared to defend. Send units to borders cities. You don't need 8 longbowmen in your capital (unless required for happiness under HR). Put them in your border cities. Also - I think at all times in the game you should be prepared for war. This means - knowing who you would attack next (you may never do - but always have a "primary target" in mind) or who is most likely to attack you (check WHEOOHRN regularly). Keep your "mobile army" SoD together in one city ready to go to wherever it's needed - even if this is for defense - don't have it dispersed all over so that you have to gather it if you're attacked. Group naval units similarly as someone else mentioned. I always forget this and have boats all over the place. Make sure and load explorers onto your caravels before you take off so you can scout out rivals territory. Half the time I send 'em off empty cause I'm too lazy to have an explorer ready to go... Maybe someone else has got a better idea but I like to have 1 unit in a city (unless more reqd for happiness), unless it's a border city where I will have 2-4 decent defenders, and then everyone else in one location ready to go, preferably in the military production city assuming this is centrally located for defense.

Also - when you talk about Bronze Working you mention chopping, but BW gives you 3 huge things early on: ability to chop, ability to whip (switch to Slavery as you say) and your first critical military resource location. That's why it's a big deal. I know you mention all of these in various places, but I thought it was worth pointing out, because it's so critical to early game strategy. When you hit BW have workers poised in place to start chopping, switch to slav and start whipping, have workers ready to go and hook it up asap to all cities - have a settler ready to go found a copper city if it doesn't pop in your borders. If you don't have it... better have horses and/or start looking for iron asap - maybe both!

Oh and about...

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 need 15 improved tiles.

Obviously should read "does not", but more importantly (again may seem kind of basic) what I like to do is have a "zero growth" setup and a "maximum growth" setup for tiles for each city early on. If you've got room under happy cap - grow at max rate (most of the time) while whipping, etc. When you get to happy cap, switch city around to "max production" which may involve moving pop away from improved food resource to improved production or (less often) commerce resource - so those tiles should be improved as well - i.e. if you have to move a pop away from bread and onto a plains hill to avoid the happy cap - make sure you've got it mined. Again, seems kind of basic, but it does required some planning and forethought. Also it sometimes involves running a city in starvation for a while - but not enough to lose the pop point. If you have a city at happy cap size 6 with say 39/60 food required to pop to 7 which you don't want yet, run it at -1F (starvation) on a 4 hammer tile for 20 turns until you can get that happy resource hooked up, trade for it, build a unit, or whatever.

And on...

You just get far more beakers if you set research to 0% after researching all the things you absolutely need including writing. Once you have some libraries up set the slider to 100% for a lot of turns researching at decifit helped by the accumulated gold.

I don't do a lot of this - which isn't to say it's not a good idea, however what I do do now is go to 0% science periodically for the purposes of military upgrade. Might be worth sacrificing a few turns of research to get all your archers to longbows, axes to maces or whatever. Don't spend the money carrying outdated units that you'll never use. Obviously the usual caveats apply here, but I find myself doing a lot more: stopping research to build up gold, upgrading units (higher promoted, in border cities first) and sometimes deleting old units. Keep that army a lean, mean fighting machine - not an overbloated, outdated, expensive bunch of underpromoted troops scattered everywhere but where you need 'em.

 

[Bleys]

. . . what I like to do is have a "zero growth" setup and a "maximum growth" setup for tiles for each city early on. If you've got room under happy cap - grow at max rate (most of the time) while whipping, etc.

There is no problem with having a few extra tiles to swap too for whatever reason. You always want a few extra tiles developed.

But quite often, I see newer players who have 16 tiles in their capitol improved and it can only grow to size 6. Not only that, they have 3 workers busy improving those last couple.

Heck, this can even be taken a step further. I rarely build roads to my health resources early. That corn 2 tiles from the Cap just doesnt need a road until I need the health. I often wont hook up that 2nd Ivory or Gold either. Sure, I develop the tile, but no road, so no AIs can come demanding them. Workers are precious early in the game. Wasted turns on unnecessary roads or improvements you wont use until State Property have no place in the early game on Emperor+.

EDIT: One other thing gcm, you asked about getting Temples and Monasteries up ASAP when the AP is built, that is because no matter who builds it, all buildings in that religion get +2 hammers, for all players.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Unless you have a special sea-based UB or if there's a food resource it's usually wasteful to settle adjacent to the ocean. Coast and Ocean tiles are average at best even with a lighthouse.

- unless you built the great lighthouse

Or if you're Willem. Or if it's Continents and most of your mid-game battles will be at sea. (ONE ship producer is optimal? Are you sure...?)

 

[Skallagrimson]

Flight is much more gimped by parity than infantry arty or even just industrialism. So much fighter interception...and that definitely favors the defender, not the attacker.

Techer AIs are beelining Artillery (antitanks can intercept--DID on me last night, much to my chagrin) and Rocketry, so even if they lack flight they can make air attacks expensive. Not to mention destroyers parked in a coastal city with the built-in "Ship SAM" technique. One way to adapt to it is to rebase damaged air units away from the front and swap in fresh ones, to keep bombardment at a maximum.