Need military help on Emperor Difficulty...

[SlyDerg]

I'm playing as the Egyptians on Emporer difficulty, and am way behind on the tech curve. I'm on a standard map, standard rules, stuck on a continent with only the Romans. They have legions whereas my best unit are chariots. I can crank out chariots in vast quantities, but I can barely put a dent in their defenses (I've thrown three veteran chariots at one spearman and managed to do no damage and elevate it a level). Also, there is no iron in my territory and I can see no way to deprive the Romans of either their horses or iron (it's deep in their territory). Also, the roman archers and legionaires are plowing through my defenses (spearmen) like butter. I did manage to take out a couple Roman units, so I'm in a Golden Age. What the hell can I do?
This is the first time I played Emporer, and I expected to face a much tougher opponent (I'm used to strategic resource depravation and overwhelm with a billion horsemen on Monarch), but this is just slaughter.

 

[Hurricane]

You are in trouble. Small islands are extremely difficult on the higher levels, since the AI players get such a large benefit on research that you have no way of keeping up. With nobody to trade with, you can be sure of falling behind.

My advice is to make peace with the Romans at all costs. You need each other to have even a small chance of keeping up with the other civs in the world. Trade as much as you can with the romans, buy techs if you can afford it (have taxes at 100%).

Crank out triremes and build the Great Lighthouse if you can, and explore as much as you can. Rush over ocean squares to find new land. Your only way of keeping up is to find the other civs first. This way you get the map/comm-trade advantage and may have a chance to get even with techs. Only after you have found most of the other civs should you destroy the Romans.

 

[SlyDerg]

That's what I've been trying. The other civs are at least half way through the medieval age by now, the lighthouse has long since been built and there's deep water surrounding the island for as far as I can see (3 spaces). The kind of concessions I'd have to give the Romans (by the time they'll talk to me again, they'll most likely have 2 prime cities, and be bearing down on a few others and demand an huge amount for peace) would utterly cripple me, by putting me even farther from the iron and taking away money production and luxuries.

 

[eighty]

I would try Emperor level with greeks on a large map and pangea. This way you get to build hoplites with a D of 3 early on no matter what your resource is like. Usually though, without iron, you are dead. On a large map with continents instead of island you may actually get to play for awhile and meet other civs to trade with. Having an elevated defense in the form of hoplites will give you time to cope with the emperor level. Just my humble opinion.

Oh yeah: personally I think walls become very important on emperor. They are cheap to build, have no maintenance, and boost the defense of primitive cities considerably. :tank:

 

[JFL_Dragon]

Hi Slyderg

I moved up to Emporer last week and this week I moved to deity. Ive only played 2 games on emporer and won them both with domination, so here goes my limited advice.

First go for an early war if possible and then get peace ASAP. The tech rate/build rate is 80% for the AI. Buy all your techs as they get cheaper the longer you wait. You can catch up fairly quickly using this method.

If you are playing at this level and have Monarch experience you should know what to do from here. In one of my games I didnt get iron either for a long-time but it didnt matter once i got some gunpowder

Cheers

JFL_Dragon