Lost my mojo in Emperor

[AnthonyIII]

Hey,

I've recently moved up to Emperor and I've won my first 4 games. I've played as the Romans, the Dutch, the Celts and the Iroquois. It's been quite easy and I've won all games between 1000AD-1400AD. I decided to play two more games at Emperor to make sure theese 4 games where not luck, before moving to Deity. However, last night I fired up a game as Scandinavia and find myself in a bit of trouble. It's tiny pangea, oppponents are France, Zululand and England. It's around 1000AD and France is left with 3 cities on some island, Zululand has 5 and I can take them out when I want. The thing is since I've completely neglected the English, they've grown quite big and have cavalry, rifleman and are in the Industrial age. I decided to wait with the attack on them until I had the Berserk, but against rifleman and cavalry they're getting slaughtered. I've never played as Scandinavia before, so I guess I though the berserk came earlier than it did. I would be very thankfull if someone could have a look at my save and give me some tips on how to take enough english cities to reach domination. The task just seem a bit overwhelming with all their troops. I've got mostly Medieval Infantery, Swordsmen, Berserks and Pikemen. Maybe this will be my first modern era war? Also, because they're annoyed or furious with me, can't remember, I can't tech trade a lot with them. Not with the french or the zulus either, since they're pretty much done for.

EDIT: I was a bit tired when I started to play this game, maybe that's why I've played so poor.

 

[CommandoBob]

I can't look at the save at work, so take this with a grain of salt.

Since England is ahead of you in tech, with Rifles and Cavalry, I would not fight an offensive war in their territory at the moment. They can attack better than you can defend. And, since you can't see into their cities, you don't what they can attack you with or how to prepare for it.

I would fight a defensive war on my home turf. Then you can see what units they have. But it won't be easy.

Get France and Zulu to sign an MA vs. England. Offer them gold per turn to make sure they stay in the fight. They might even do something helpful, like invade England. At least they won't be trading with England.

You need to lure English units into your territory (but not too far!), weaken them with catapults, trebuchets and cannons and then attack them with Berserks and such. You will probably need to tease the English with alternating undefended interior cities (outside of Cavalry range). When they head for city A, move in some defenders and evacuate city B. Pick off any stragglers and strongly defend any exposed units. Kill their Cavalry first; they are the bigger threat with their movement of 3 but also weaker since they defend with only 3, too.

This is unnerving the first time you try it because you see everything the AI is throwing at you. However, with planning and patience you will able to blunt the English attack, wear down their military and regain the offensive.

 

[AnthonyIII]

Thanks, CommandoBob, I'll try fighting them on my own ground. I hope I can take out those cavalries... Patience will indeed be needed!

 

[PaperBeetle]

Sounds like you are a bit behind the curve if you only recently got Invention in 1000ad, but the real issue is how long have England been industrial, how fast are they researching, and crucially, how fast can you get to Replaceable Parts? Once you get infantries and artillery, you should be able to win any war at emperor, and you should be able to do so in a pretty safe fashion as long as the AI doesn't have Flight or oil.
As CBob says, you let the AI march their weakly-defending cavs into your territory, you redline the lot of them with your artilleries, and then you massacre them with berserks / infantries / cavs, with virtually no losses. Crucial is controlling the AI's approach into your territory such that no AI units can run out of the fog and reach one of your towns in a single turn. Try the following techniques...
1) plant forests inside your own borders to slow up those inbound cavs.
2) use your artillery to smash the road network inside the AI territory, again to waste the movement points of cavs trying to get at your cities.
3) use Armies to block off areas - the AI won't attack them if they are fully healed and have def > 2.
4) don't bother defending your towns; as we agreed, nothing is going to get far enough to capture them.
5) don't block up the whole border with your units, or the AI will have to actually attack you, instead of running into the killing zone you have chosen.

 

[AnthonyIII]

I got invention around 850AD, and I'm ahead of France and Zululand, but it's true - I haven't really had any research strategy like I've had in the games I've won. Don't know how long England has been Industrial, but they have 1778 breakers and are now researching communism. I'll try both your tips, but the thing is, my border will be very hard to defend because this map has played out a little strange. I guess I should have gone after England first, before taking on the zulus and the french. Except from the northern coast, I've got all the soutern, western and eastern coastlines, and Englands cities are kind of in the middle of the pangea, surrounded by me. This would've be great if I was the one with the superior units, then I could go at them from several points, but now I have to defend along this huge border... Anyhow, very good tips, even if I lose this game, very good tips for later games!

Edit:I'm not ahead of France, they've got Theology. Replaceable parts seems far away, since I don't have anyone to trade with...

 

[vmxa]

How do you know what they are researching or how many beakers they have? Anyway no need to be concerned about RP, you need to put a serious whacking on them long, before you get that far in the tech tree.

 

[AnthonyIII]

I opened up the savegame in C3MT, a savegame editor to check since PaperBeetle asked. Maybe he needed that info to make an evaluation! Started a game with Japan, wacked England off the map with swords in 200AD, muhahaha. Revenge is sweet... Need to get back into this game tomorrow, though.

 

[vmxa]

First thing I see is you are doing Chem in 48 turns at 10%. May as well drop it to zero and use 1 scientist. In fact I would not research at all at this stage.

Ouch I drop to zero as you only make 10 beakers. Ouch again as I go to Chartes to make a beakerhead and see you have the Gov running things. The game plays poorly as we all agree, so why would I want to let it run my empire?

While I am here I see we are making a pike. You have no barracks and we only get one shield. So unless you plan on rushing it it will take 30 turns. If you were playing AWE on a large map I could go along with making units in this type of town, but probably it would be a treb.

I note that we have a free granary, so you either built or captured the Pyramids. I hope captured.

Dropping back to the empire view I see at a glance a bunch of regular units. I see a flogging coming, 40 lashes with a wet noodle on this one. To me you do not want to make units without a barracks, other than the first few.

Of course there are exceptions such as AW and certain situations. Units win or lose with that extra HP. How many fights does the AI loss using regulars, many many many. Lets not copy a bad pracice.

Like I mentioned at the start MP units can be regulars as long as they are not going to be fighting and will not be upgraded.

F1 says you make 348 and lose 224 to corruption. Not much left. 14 for maint and 29 support. Not a lot to be done about corruption, at least not right now. I see in F3 you have a leader. I hope it has not been laying about for long.

FYI, you cannot get another MGL in C3C, if you have any type of leader. So as long as you expect to be fighting, you do not want to sit on leaders. Want to use it for the next unit coming soon, create the army and let the army sit.

29 for troops is quite low for me, so I am fine with that. The maint seem low, so what I am left with is the income is insufficient. Need to boost it and the supprt. In the main at this stage both come from the same thing. Get more towns and get towns up to cities size.

Man I really expect to have too few workers, but 5 is insane. 28 towns and 5 workers and 10 slaves, so call it 10 workers. Need 40 about now. The AI is lame on doing working task, but look at London and Nottingham and that is about what all your core should look like. Roads on all tiles.

No rivers in the core makes slow growth and less income. Not much you do onthat one.

No horses, the one I see is way up by Avignon and is not in your borders and has no road. You knew early that England had horses pretty close to you, that would have been my target. Even recently you could have drop a settler on the hill by the horses next to Hastings.

I am loathed to expand out in a streached out manner going up the coast. Here you had compelling reason to not go that route. 1) horses nearby 2) England near you and needed to be contained.

I have no real experience with tiny maps, so I do not really know how they play out. I would think that the Vikes would not be a great civ for a tiny pan map. Tiny maps can be won very quickly with a nation that has an early quick UU. Montie can really smack down those close civs by spamming out JW's.

Fighting farway France was not going to help you and giving Liz a free hand makes it easier for her. I say not help, as those towns will produce nothing and need workers and defenders.

Stavanger has a temple at size 3 and crap land? Big waste for you knew you had poor holdings and would have to fight.

Hareid has a barracks, but is making a lib? What is 50% of 1 anyway? You know you are in a fight for your life, right?

I just realized you have GW, I hope you captured that.

Bergen has a hand build granary and cannot grow past size 6. These builds are like breaking your leg and then entering a foot race. At least it is when you add in using the gov.

I see you did in fact capture those wonders, phew had me scared.

I see what drew you to France you got greedy and wanted all those wonders. They can be gotten later, now you are stretched too much.

Looks like about 26 units going up and a couple of trebs.

22 pikes, 21 spears, 7 warriors, 2 archers and 3 swords. That is a lot of junk. I could live with the pikes, if they were all vets or elites. 43 defenders is crazy, unless you have plenty of attackers. You don't.

1 cat and 2 trebs is going to make life hard on those defenders as pikes are not worth a lot vs cavs and rifles.

Spears are just promotion fodder for Liz.

You have 6 AC, 13 MDI 8 zerks. Most of your units are not vets. The worse part is the distribution. Many units are in safe towns on the coast. The towns right next to LIz and fronting your core are all very weak. Most have 2 units and most do not even have defenders ( mean pikes). Mean time you have 5 towns behind them with 4 or more units.

These are not good units, but will at least force Liz to use some forces to take the towns. You should have 3-4 trebs in those towns on Englands border in their south. All AC's should be on the line.

The spreading out is putting a strain on your defenses. I am not a fan of zerks as they are worth nothing, unless they get in the first attack. Basically dead meat in the open and on defense. I would not send that zerk army out with out pikes in tow.

Cavs can attack it and can kill it. Worse it has only 11hp when at full health. Ac's armies would be better an then the zerks would travel with pikes at the same speed.

Ac armies will not be attacked by cavs or MDI or rifles, unless damaged and move 3 as and army. So you now have a slower and less defendable army and weaker AC's attacking.

Better with AC army and Zerks attacking as they are 6 attack. The AC army would be attacking with a boost to their.

You can still do this, but need to focus you offense and defense where they will do the most good. Not losing the good towns and killing units, with reduced losses.

Here an AC army could be used to cover an attacking stack or you could have AC army cover the Zerk army. Using the AC army in limited attacks to keep it green or high yellow.

I would go around and turn off the gov, switch most of the builds to wealth. Some making workers and some trebs and those with a rax making troops, well zerks.

Strip down towns that are going to be problems with happiness, after reducing their MP's and making them enter the war.

Maybe disbad some of the crappier units, if they are in places that are safe.

I did not look at the taks and locations of the workers, but I usually find they are not being used in the most useful task. Gang them up to the extent that you can.

 

[vmxa]

I opened up the savegame in C3MT, a savegame editor to check since PaperBeetle asked. Maybe he needed that info to make an evaluation! Started a game with Japan, wacked England off the map with swords in 200AD, muhahaha. Revenge is sweet... Need to get back into this game tomorrow, though.

I figured it was some sort of hacking tool. As you did not have knowledge of IA techs. In a real hard game I may track tech breakthroughs and be able to figure how many beakers they get a turn using a spreadsheet.

That only lets me calculate what beakers they have on their current project and it is fairly close. If they are too far ahead, I do not know when they get a breakthrough, unless they start a wonder from it.

 

[AnthonyIII]

Thanks a lot vmva, great walkthorugh mate! I was smiling as I was reading because you're absolutely right, I've played out this one quite bad so far. I'll try to respond to your post as best I can.

You're right about science, should put it off for a while and run scientists. I've done that from time to time earlier in the game as well. I think the reason for the gov running a lot of cities is because if they don't cities riot, because I can't afford putting my lux slider up enough. This is because when I started this game I never researched at 10%, only sometimes and did mistake of not going 100% or 10%. I underestimated emperor level, because it's been so easy the the first 4 times, but I see now I have to have a plan early on to win. I've had that the games I've won. On this game in 1010AD, you're right a lot of cities are building units they should
nt this is because my war with France is just over. So I haven't really taken a good look on things in the french cities myself yet.

I also agree that barracks should be built in most unit making cities, but this game played out very different than my others and I found myself very early beeing declared on by France and Zululand. I was also beeing boxed in by England and Zululand as you can see, after just 6 cities. When dow'ed so early I quit building workers and had to push out units. Again, I did not intend to fight so early. It's been AW since. Also, Zululand's expansion was very strange, normally I would expect their cities to be close to eachother, but after I took their core I suddenly find out that their new capital is up between french and english cities, and they've got four more cities far away top south-north. So I could not take them out, but went to take out France, however you're right about it maybe beeing a mistake since they were so far away. Anyway, 1:They had lots of wonders. 2:They had only soears and archers and three:they were already furious with me so I could not get them in on an english war or trade with them. I guess I should have razed the french cities instead of keepng them to avoid my borders beeing so stretched? Dod not know about the leader thing, will build army asap. I was saving it for a berserk army, but they've almost already obsolete against the riflemen so...

More towns - should I fill up the french land with more cities? I guess that's the only place there are room for more. Yeah, no rivers... Not the best start. yes, I knew England had horses but again, because on my early war with the zulus I had to focuse on that. The more you're writing it seems more and more like I should have gone for England first and maybe made early peace with the zulus. I don't have time to write much more, but I was also surprised with how weak the berserk army was. I've never played as Scandinavia but that's why I did it, I wanted a different challenge. Your later tips are very good and allthough I will try to make I'm doubting I can pull this off. Would it be better to sign peace with England, build military like crazy and then take them on in the 1400-1500AD? Or will they have tanks then? Again, thanks a lot for your info, I'll try my best at this.

 

[vmxa]

I would say no real need to put up towns there right now, unless it can be done safely or the game is going to take longer than I suspect. Mainly you are going to have to hurt Liz and when you do the rest won't matter.

 

[AnthonyIII]

Thanks, vmxa - legend!

 

[darski]

Thanks, vmaxa - legend!

I second that one!