[C3C] Monarch to Emperor... how difficult!

[Duxer]

Good afternoon guys.
As you can read from the title i am actually stuck on monarch difficulty... emperor level is totally different in terms of difficulty.
The big difference i experience is even on the beginnig, where i have to rush for luxuries, even if quite distant from capital. Moreover, despite my efforts (buying and exchanging techs) i am always far behind AI science progress.
I also keep receiving war declarations, no way to deal with their armies. What can i do? This is seriously frustrating rather than challenging.

I would be very grateful if you can give me some clear tips.
Thank you in advance.

 

[justanick]

A little bit more context would help. A meaningful way to do this is to supply screenshots or a savegame from around turn 100 which equals 550 BC.

Maybe you should not rush for luxuries. Using republic and the luxury slider is a well established approach.

One thing may need to learn is the importance of diplomacy and its intricacies. You do need embassies. You should think ahead and shape which wars will occur. While an AI is busy fighting another AI it will likely not declare war on you. Agitate the AIs to fight each other, so you can prosper in relative peace. Relative peace often means formal war, but fighting on the side that is winning and doing in way that will exhaust the AI, not you.

Maybe the most important piece of advise for any higher difficulty setting is: Donnot panic. Often thing seems more dire than they really are.

 

[CKS]

You might ease into emperor by playing a civ that starts with alphabet on an archipelago map. This will both protect you from invasions and give you the opportunity to make early contacts. You can then work on your diplomatic game in relative safety. You can get used to the differences between monarch and emperor more gradually - this will sort of step you halfway in between. Then expand to different situations.

Emperor is a pretty big step from monarch. I'd read or reread some articles in the war academy on empire management and research/trading. Monarch to Emperor: The Great Leap tells you what you have to do, though not really how to do it, but the discussion about the article fleshes out a lot of things.

For me, inadequate micromanagement and not enough workers were the biggest issue. Actually, I'm not sure micromanagement was the issue so much as management - I still don't micromanage very much. But improving the tiles I'm working and not improving the tiles I'm not working was a big step in the right direction.

 

[tjs282]

Hi Duxer,

A long time ago, a CFC-er called @Ision wrote an article/ started a thread on exactly this topic. Did you read that already?

I also found this thread, started by @Tappara, asking for the same advice.

Another CFC-er called @walletta started various threads, asking for advice and documenting his progress from (Monarch to) Emperor to Demigod (to Klutz) to Deity. You might find some of that helpful as well.

And tootling my own horn a little, I also participated in several (Monarch to) Emp-level Succession Games, and started a thread (a long time ago, but lost interest in keeping it updated) documenting my first couple of solo (Small-mapsize, all-Random) Emperor-games (all linked in my signature, below).

Spoiler My main lessons learned :

Be focussed with research. Emperor-AIs will initially tend to out-settle (and hence out-research) you in the early Ancient Age, but will under-build Workers and not optimise their land-use against the Despot-penalty (e.g. irrigating ordinary Grassland, getting zero food-increase). So you can start catching up quickly by going for Republic as fast as possible, switching govs, and then researching, trading for (or stealing!) the rest of the AA techs (let the AI research Iron-Working, Wheel, etc.). Tech-pace in the Middle Age will then slow down as the AI gets distracted by all the shiny shiny (but optional) Wonder-techs, while you can beeline for Gunpowder/MilTrad (if going for a 'warring' VC: Conquest or Domination) or Gravity/Magnetism (if going for a 'science' VC: Diplo or Space).

(I still have a very poor grasp on Culture-VCs, so won't comment on those.)

Prioritise Settling town-sites with freshwater access wherever possible (so you don't need a 'Duct to get to Pop7+), and don't be afraid to plant your (early) towns closer together than the AI tends to: aim for CxxC vs. Cxx(x)xxC. Rationale: Since a town can't work all 20 tiles in its FatCross until you reach Sanitation/ Hospitals (early Industrial), it makes no sense during the early game to Settle with wide gaps between your towns; so plan to work 10-12 tiles per town instead.

Planting at CxxC also allows you to shift foot-units around beween neighbouring towns within a single turn, so you may not need so many mil-units to defend your borders effectively. If the game goes to the Industrial Age or later, 'intermediate' towns can always be shrunk down and abandoned at that point if necessary (just make sure to avoid building anything important — like your FP — in such a town!)

Build mostly units in the Ancient Age. Each new town in the early game should be built for/ assigned to a specific purpose (building Settlers, or Workers, or military, or ships), and initially have only 1 or (at most) 2 buildings in each, according to that chosen purpose (Settlers/Workers = Gran, land-units = Barracks, ships = Harbour).

One of those 'needed' buildings might have to be a Courthouse or a Duct. If a town will need a Courthouse to become useful, building that first will speed up building everything else. If a Pop6 town needs a Duct for further growth, aim to have finished building that 2 turns before the food-box is full (1 turn before would waste food, because food/growth is calculated before shields are added to the current building).

Later on, Libs can be put up in high-commerce (river, coastal) towns; and once you have access to 3 or more Lux-resources, Markets are (much!) more cost-effective than Temples at keeping your peeps happy (NB a non-Scientific Lib also gives more Culture per shield than a non-Religious Temple; it's >2x as much if your Civ is Scientific).

Each town should have at least one Worker to improve its tiles, and Workers should usually improve the 'strongest' tiles first (those which give at least 2 FPT + 1 SPT). Based on the town's intended purpose, aim to improve and work tiles such that you get a net-positive food harvest (up to the town's max. pop) with minimally wasteful shield-outputs, e.g.
— for 10-15-shield units, aim for 5 SPT
— for 20-shield units, aim for 7 SPT
— for Settlers, aim for 5-6 SPT (combined with 3-4 FPT) or 7-8 SPT (ideally combined with 5 FPT: the 4-turn "Settler-factory"!)
— for other 30-40-shield units, aim for 8 or 10 SPT, etc.
...this reduces the need for micromanaging your towns' production within a single growth cycle (which can get tedious), but without wasting your citizens' efforts.

Installing a helper-program, such as CivAssistII or CRpMapSuite, is invaluable for helping to keep track of potential (tech-)trades, and other things happening across your empire (like the AI dropping off a stack of units near a poorly guarded town!).

 

[justanick]

Emperor-AIs will initially tend to out-settle (and hence out-research) you in the early Ancient Age,

Mostly they simply pick free techs from villages and trade among themselves. Most of the boni of AI apply in the ancient age most and to lesser degree later.

so plan to work 10-12 tiles per town instead.

11 to 13 may be wiser. Donnot forget to count in the city tile. Also donnot forget the value of coastal tiles. They bring you good commerce, but they donnot need to be improved by workers, that usually cost 2 gtp as a republic.

Later lesser towns can be dissolved in favour of hospitals. But those are really more the finer details. They can be ignored and you can still beat Emperor and above.

 

[Duxer]

Thanks for your replies.
Naturally before opening a new thread i read some old posts as well as general strategies and tips, but nothing seemed to work!
I started a new game as aztecs, focusing on science and military, bearing in mind also to improve all city tiles. I used peace treaty go get free techs and i re-declared war on the same turn to keep him under pressure.
Here attached there is a screenshot of the game and the game save itself, feel free to add more tips if you want.

 

[tjs282]

I used peace treaty go get free techs and i re-declared war on the same turn to keep him under pressure.

Unless you're planning to be constantly at war with someone/everyone for the entire game, then you should generally try to avoid doing this.

AFAIK, once 'officially' signed, a peace treaty counts as a 20-turn deal, so obtaining one in return for hard goods (extorted techs), and then immediately breaking it, will also instantly destroy your trade reputation, making it much harder to trade (peacefully) in the future -- not only with the AI-leader you stiffed, but also with every AI-leader he knows or meets later.

 

[jarred!]

Make sure you have a reason for what you're building, not every town needs every building.
From the pictures it looks like you need some more workers. Generally, one worker per town is cited as the approximate number of workers you'll want in the early game. Focus on improving you core's tiles, the less corrupt a town will be, the more important it is that it's always working improved times. Your city spacing is very loose which makes defending more difficult, although it's generally better to be on offense than defense so you can deal direct damage to the enemy's economy. You'll have tiles in your territory that will never be in a city's Big Fat Cross (21 tiles surrounding a city +city center), and other tiles that will be in BFCs but you won't be able to use until you can build hospitals. This is inefficient, and you could plan to place towns, that you will later abandon, to fill these gaps temporarily.
It's useful to think about how you want to win each game, starting early on, so you can better plan your strategies and reach victory faster, or at all!

 

[justanick]

You should aim to build settlers(and later workers) earlier. Donnot let your towns grow that much. Settle instead, preferably (much) tighter than your screens indicate. This means that you have fewer citizens that need to be kept calm.

With more towns you can get a higher total food surplus, which tends to be rather limited during despotism. Also you get more free unit support. In total your research output will be increased by a focus on food and commerce. You should complete the research on republic as early as possible. By turn 100 - 550 BC you should have entered Republic, so pending many details you should leave despotism some turns before that, whenever republic is completed.

Early on you need to focus on quantity, not quality. Mere 3/3 warriors do suffice. Much later on barracks and then some proper 4/4 units of say Swordsmen can be built, but that should probably happen when you are a republic already.

Leaving Despotism is your number one priority. Once you are a republic things will be very different. Then you cannot afford large quanites of units and still need many workers. It is tricky balance then.

 

[Jivilov]

Agitate the AIs to fight each other, so you can prosper in relative peace.

So how can you "agitate" them? My experience has been that they won't attack another AI at my initiative unless I attack first, then get them to join a Military Alliance against the target. Or are you referring to a Trade Embargo? Otherwise don't see any way to directly influence their actions against each other. Thanks.

 

[justanick]

So how can you "agitate" them? My experience has been that they won't attack another AI at my initiative unless I attack first, then get them to join a Military Alliance against the target.

Mostly by making them join a military alliance against a civ you are at war with. So that can necessitate to declare war first. An actual attack however is not necessitated. It just lowers the price by a more or less marginal degree and also helps to boost relations while the enemy is a common enemy. As this is just a temporary boost it should not be overvalued.

There also are indirect means. AI is eager to wage war. So you may need to ensure that it is less eager to wage war against you than against another enemy. If you pay some decent sized gtp to an AI, then it will not be very eager to wage war against you. Also having an embassy is rather crucial.

Please be aware that there are times when you want AI to declare war on you. Declaring war comes at a price, so better let someone else pay that price.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ai-attitude.44999/

 

[Jivilov]

"An actual attack however is not necessitated." Interesting. Hadn't though of that. Thanks for the tip and link to AI attitudes!