Monarch too easy, Emperor too hard...

[Shirastro]

As you might have guessed from the title, im having some issues with climbing up the Emperor difficulty.
I can say that i pretty much "beaten" monarch since i win >90% of my games, and the only time i lose is when i have a really crappy start or when i just don`t focus enough and make stupid mistakes.
IMO the biggest problem for me is the fact that i learned all the "basic" stuff there is about this game. I know how to expand fast, how to keep up my economy, what techs to prioritize, when to go to war and when not. I can dance the diplo dance with no problem and use the AI like puppets....
..but no matter how well i play, emperor is one hard nut to crack.
Now, don`t get me wrong, i did beat emperor more than once, but it was usually because i had really good starts or just dumb luck throughout the game. Even than it was a close call, lunching my spaceship just couple of turns before the AI, or taking that culture city just before that AI wins cultural victory.

There are several "scary" scenarios which keep repeating.
Either im on a different land mass and by the time i reach the other continent one of the AI (who had a great start) has pretty much conquered/vasalized all the others and because of that has a huge empire, huge army, huge economy and thus really strong late game.
Or the game consists mostly of kinda peaceful really good AIs, who keep tech trading like mad and constantly having a tech lead over me. You know, your usual Mansa, Williem and Zara holding hands and just go on research bonanza. If i even stop for a second to focus on my military, instead of a pure economy/research, they just get a ridiculous tech advantage, and it`s only a matter of time before one of them wins space or cultural.

I know this is all a bit to vague, but im really not sure, what aspect of my game i need to improve.
Is it my macro, by learning how to influence the flow of the game better? Or my micro, and manage my cities/empire better in order to get most benefit.



Bonus, completely unrelated question for TMIT (didn`t want to make a whole new thread for this ....
Y U NO post videos on YT for so long?!

 

[mintegar]

Kinda in the same boat.. I think Emp is the difficulty where you have to start doing non-obvious plays.
Bulbing gets stronger because the AI keeps up in research, and you can trade one tech around for multiples of its value.
Bribe AI into wars, to prevent religion lovefests.

Put up early Academy, early Oxford. Set up GP Farm with NE.
Have dedicated military city with HE. Use Nationalism/drafting, as soon as you get Rifling an army can be raised quickly with little cost. Consider building a Globe Theatre draft city.

Also there are fancy tricks like worker stealing, choking AIs or gifting crap cities to get Diplo bonuses.

 

[Um the Muse]

You might want to try posting a sample game, complete with screenshots and breaks for reflection. I know that that helped me in the one game that I've posted so far. It's easier to see the issues that way. Otherwise, you get a lot of "it depends on the game" type of answers.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I personally have very good Macro, but weak Micro. So you don't need infinite Micro to beat anything, you just need to know the timing of doing things. Like getting wonders that are good means you need to start chopping them a whole hell of a lot earlier. Post a save of a game and I will show you what you did wrong.

 

[NetGear]

I don't think emperor games do all that much different aside from few more extra bonus ais get. its not minor like jump to prince, but its not a significant milestone like jump to monarch is either iirc. i dont really know the hard numbers on what ai bonuses are. but they feel similar to me.

probably just need to tighten up your tech racing and invasion timing. window is probably narrower and it just needs more polish if your failing to meet them.

But it does start to help paying attention to diplo at this point in your play level if you haven't been doing that already. i was honestly really bad at diplo before this point. but to be fair i didnt see much point in it because there wasnt huge repercussion that i couldn't handle. Thats more of a wall for beginning of immortal/ end emperor phase imo though.

 

[cseanny]

Imo it's not difficult to out tech the AI on Emperor (bulbing or not).....that changes dramatically on Immortal +.

I'd have to say I think the number one problem people have, or perhaps a better way to say it is, the number one thing people neglect is generating GP and bulbing. Settling is great!!, especially when playing an isolated start (hopefully Mids are possible) or just a nice way of mixing things up.................

But in general, imo, it's very important to use GAs in conjunction with Pacifism, Caste, and a Religion to quickly generate GS which will allow you to rapidly leap ahead to a superior military tech which you leverage to gain huge amounts of land. Non Industrious leaders with marble can always get TGL/NE up in a city (preferably the Capital) before or shortly after 1AD. By this point I've already produced at least one GS for Philo, and often times already have an Academy too.

The point is......regardless what type of economy you choose to run......do use GAs, Pacifism, and Caste! At a minimum I'd say it's best to bulb Philo, Paper, Education (1x), and Liberalism. If you're gonna be one short it's best to delay an Academy. Typical benchmarks for me are Liberalism in the 300-500 AD range and then veer off to Curs or Rifling. Imo Curs work better for a food heavy economy and Rifling works better with more cottages. You can typically get 25-30 Curs right at 1000 AD and Rifles some turns later.

Then once again, after Liberalism get Nationalism, build the Taj Mahal and during that golden age switch to the appropriate civics again to maximize GP so you can bulb PP, Chemistry, and SM. If your Philosophical you should have enough GP to double bulb all of SM. This lets you get Communism right around 1200 AD. I guess I'm diverging a bit here because everyone likes different tech paths

The point is bulbing will allow you to reach YOUR key techs a lot sooner which will do nothing but strengthen your overall game. Remember, it doesn't take much, nor does it even take a lot of actual per turn to reach any of these benchmarks. You can achieve these results with nothing more than building research/wealth and running a few scientist from time to time.

So yea, be sure you don't skimp on GPP!!

 

[Heathcliff]

My tips is to use two units. There are two overpowered units in this game, why not use them.
They are Horse Archers and Cuirasseirs. They are good because you get them before the AI can get counters. Attack with horse archers before lowbows and cuirasseirs before rifles.
But you need math, alphabet and currency before you attack, otherwise you cant support more than 4 cities.

It's a good idea to formulate a grand strategy for the game, before you even start. Like the one above. Otherwise it's easy to get into the trap where you just build crappy improvements and time just fly by.

 

[JustBen]

There are several "scary" scenarios which keep repeating.
Either im on a different land mass and by the time i reach the other continent one of the AI (who had a great start) has pretty much conquered/vasalized all the others and because of that has a huge empire, huge army, huge economy and thus really strong late game.
Or the game consists mostly of kinda peaceful really good AIs, who keep tech trading like mad and constantly having a tech lead over me.

I agree with NetGear. Emperor starts to punish you for weak diplo, and what you describe are endgame symptoms of passive diplo. Check out http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/diplo_victory_notes.php if you haven't before. Installing BUG or BULL is a lot less tedious than learning how to watch for war mobilization manually.

If we're right about the diplo troubles, I recommend a one city challenge to practice. You can't win them all, but you should be fairly comfortable protecting yourself with 1 warrior and the trade screen. Some players even get their first Emp/Imm wins by OCC space.

 

[stimpyhoek]

I think the main difference is (compared to monarch)

1/ they steal all the land

2/ ai armies r massive

3/ if mansa is there he will have nukes before u get axemen

i just managed the leap tho

main advice is, if u go to war, u go full out

no keeping a couple nice city for tech

no messing around getting this or that building

a half hearted war is certain death

 

[Unconventional]

I am in the same boat. At first I won a couple of Emperor games but now I almost always lose. I think the problem is I don't exactly know what tech would have a trade bait, what should I get that AI neglects so that I can do back filling. For example I've never had Liberalism around 300-500 AD as cseanny said. My earliest lib date was 1040 AD. I think it's because of my poor early GPP production. Usually there are so many things to deal with so I can't do anything but assign a couple of scientists. It's again related to not knowing what techs AIs prefer to research and what techs they value. Sometimes I start researching a tech that AIs lack so that I can get a couple of techs in return. But while I'm half way done, I see that some AI already got it so other AIs treat it not as a valuble monopoly tech but as a cheaper tech. As a result they don't give me any valuable techs. What might be the problem here? What should I do?

 

[stimpyhoek]

heres a tip

stop thinking

get engineering

i know the best advice falls on deaf ears

ppl wanna know how to get lib by 1ad etc

if u get engineering u have EVERYTHING u need to wipe
out a couple of u neighbours

 

[ahcos]

@stimpyhoek: Sorry, but that's certainly bs. All you need to take out AT LEAST one neighbour on Emperor are Axemen. If you go all out on Axes and have Copper, this also works on Immortal frequently. It's much more reasonable to tech towards either Cuirassiers or Steel (cannons) and attack then, although some people might disagree here it's not a strong move to salvage medieval war before you're constantly beating Immortal difficulty, in other words: until you at least half way know what you're doing.

On topic:

Chopping enough? Enough workers? Clear gameplan? Great People soon enough? Are you constantly selling small techs for gold? Are you using failgold? Are you confident in your diplomacy skills? You don't automate workers? You know what siege is and how to use it? You have constantly 6+ cities @ 1AD? You don't wonderwhore, but rather focus on your economy and to grab as much land peacefully as possible? Building worker first? You know how to techtrade? Know what civics do? Do you frequently use slavery to hurry production?

If you can answer all these questions with "yes", then either you're screwing up on purpose or we certainly need a savegame from you to see where you're messing up. If you can't answer all these question with "yes", you should improve on those topics. Don't get me wrong, but as a wild guess i'd say you don't build enough workers and don't chop enough, and you chose the wrong tile improvements That seems to be the problem of most people struggling with Emperor/Immortal.

I know that Monarch -> Emperor is quite a leap at first, but if you're following some basics it's a difficulty that's beatable with little effort.

 

[Mylene]

Even very good players can fail on continents, if there is 1 AI taking everything
Most common mistake besides what Ahcos pointed out, is grabbing too much land.
If you have a good Capi and~5 cities around it, there rarely are good reasons for being greedy and settling more.

While you build more settlers (and workers), cities could grow, get ready for great poeples, build important wonders and so on. I know wonder building is considered bad here often, but i usually disagree *if* you pick good wonders.
Pyras for example are easily worth more than ~3 additional, average cities.

 

[ahcos]

Pyras for example are easily worth more than ~3 additional, average cities.

If those 3 average cities ensure you another 5 average cities i'd disagree http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SoMQ9mtvYE My favourite "Let's play" from TMIT. A good watch.
After all, all the land you're taking from the AI won't have to be conquered.

For people who are reading this, be aware that Mylene is playing Deity almost exclusivly, and on that difficulty it's usually more reasonable to stay small and focus on other things earlier - mostly because staying small is what you will do anyway, either because you get boxed in very early or because there simply isn't enough "good"/contributing land to grab nearby. And expanding far can kill you with maintenance, not even mentioning the "close borders" tention and alot of other stuff..

In other words, the higher the difficulty, the better staying small will be. But expanding alot is certainly something that is worth doing on lower difficulties. You will learn with the time that all you actually need are ~5-6 good/average cities to whip out an army. But Deity gameplay is certainly alot different from Emperor, so learn REX (Rapid EXpansion) strategies, they're always a useful technique as you'll learn to balance expansion with economy.

Not to mention that the AI loves to settle cities in the worst possible spot ... a good reason to take the land from the AI

 

[cseanny]

Pyras for example are easily worth more than ~3 additional, average cities.

Definitely agree here. You get to power ahead in research and have access to powerful civics and when it's time to start whipping PS + forge = 45H per whip is crazy strong.

After all, all the land you're taking from the AI won't have to be conquered.

Unless your playing Marathon, then Imo (at least on Immortal +) you'll conquer a lot more land in the long run by doing everything faster. Unless the land is just massively open (and even then 6-8 is still enough) then 6-8 cities is more than enough to attack with 45-50 Cuirs very shortly after 1000 AD (Forge, PS, Slavery is sick!).

 

[Mylene]

I think it depends Ahcos, even on lower difficulties staying smaller can be more efficient.
Some spots are worth settling quick, but often in games from newer players (asking for advice) you can see dot maps with cities marked that have no food (or maybe cows at best), rather far away..or maybe a fish in 2nd ring (and nothing else ~~).
Often seems to me they want their settling phase completed, then switch to "economy".
I had big trouble improving, when i still played this way

 

[cseanny]

Obviously a lot has to do with the map, resources, land available, and where the AIs are. For me, any kind of Pangea favors quick Cuirs and early domination, whereas in semi isolation or only 1 or 2 AI's around everything changes. I can definitely see a mad 15-20 city REX then just cottage spam in conjunction with corporations to be really huge and powerful. On the lower levels I think early HA wars kinda acts like REX anyways, then just go from there.

 

[vranasm]

not wanting to make this even more confusing then it already is... but have to say that last few months I very strongly think about the rex as much as you can versus stay small for deep beelines and have yet to find good answer.

There is one difference between "really high levels" and "low levels"... it's called city maintenance ;-).
On Monarch for having 5 cities is like Deity 3 cities, so if Deity player says stay at 3 cities for deep beelines, it can actually mean 5 cities for Monarch since the maintenance is same.

The lower you are the quicker the city pays back the initial investment.
It's true that if you go heavy rex you can find troubles having big enough cities at right size at right point.

Right yesterday I took 1 of the goldey_lackys maps with double gems at start, which plays at monarch and no problems with rex, having currency, music like 500 BC and 8 cities with Oracle CS at ~T70.
Problem was that I couldn't start the GA for like 10 turns and even then I started it too soon since only capital was big enough to milk it a bit (had col, pac of course).

The position was of course totally dominant, but still not sure the right answer for the question .

Watching/playing SGOTMs in the not so far past and analyzing a bit the positions it seems that for Emperor the magical number is 7 self settled cities .

 

[Um the Muse]

I think research costs are wildly different, too. If so, that means you can afford losing more science to maintenance on lower difficulties for that reason, too.

 

[Mylene]

@Vran it's usually not maintance stopping me on Deity.
Barbs, and pressure keeping up with wonders/teching.
I know i know, wonders... But GLH, or Pyras, or going towards literature..hard giving up any advantages like stone/marble on Deity.