RFC on Emperor Level

[zhou_mu]

Having played almost all civs on Emperor difficulty (v1.181, which is the “vanilla version” with BtS installed), I hereby humbly draw the conclusion that:

Easy: victory achievable with multiple strategies
Medium: victory achievable with a fairly linear strategy
Hard: narrow victory achievable only with luck
Impossible: victory unachievable or achievable using cheat (WB or switching from a previous Civ)

Easy:
Carthage
Germany
Netherlands
Portugal
Inca: Try to avoid the Conqueror’s event using a fishing boat, or else, prepare a large army of catapults and foot soldiers.

Russia: I beelined for optics and was first to circumnavigate and trigger the Conqueror’s Event. By end game, I killed China (who declared war on me!) with outdated equipment and loads of nuclear missiles. But those were just for fun.

Turkey: Go optics as above.

Medium
Greece: Send your phalanx to India and raze Delhi to the ground.

Persia: Initial Babylonian declaration of war imperative. Get Code of Laws and Currency asap. Must not stop conquering.

Arabia: Must focus on the expedition westwards, and push fast with no casualties. Don’t get carried away (ie. coveting Constantinople and Rome – though I did capture them after the first two objectives being met) and you’ll be fine. In my game, I built the Spiral Minaret, the University of Sankore, 5 holy shrines, and was able to remain Solid and No. 1 in tech by end game. I was also the first to circumnavigate and the first to discover liberalism. The entire world was Islam except for East Asia, Russia (who was Jewish), England, and the New World – I could probably go for any victory I wished - The most fulfilling campaign indeed.

Vikings: Squat on London, and later, on Amsterdam.

Spain: Squat on Lisbon, kill France (and probably Netherlands) mid-game, blockade England. Don’t vassalize the Aztecs or Incas.

France: Squat on Amsterdam, raze Frankfurt (or whatever it’s called) and found Constance. Don’t be too late to Colonize Quebec, to gain copper for the Statue of Liberty.

Aztecs: You can’t sit and wait for 1910 to get to the Industrial era. You must steal (using courthouses and Great Spies) your way to it. The quickest route would be Astronomy – Scientific method.

Mongolia: Rush kill China, settler spam, Caste. Easy if you do it right.

Hard:
Egypt: Require luck gaining the first Great Engineer (must build Pyramids first) used to rush build the Great Lighthouse. Two Great Artists required to bulb aesthetics, and culture bomb.

Rome: Rush Carthage and Greece. Save gold until libraries are built. I was lucky to meet India’s scout and traded everything for Mathematics, then beeline for Construction. Send a galley to the English coast, and build settlers (when appropriate) before the costly infrastructure (aqueducts and amphitheaters). I was able to meet the second objective on the very required turn.

Mali: After several tries I finally made the first objective. It requires rushing a market, spawning a Great Merchant and sending it to Lisbon via a galley asap, and a LOT of luck. (Since the independent states – Byzantine – love to spawn Great Merchants and are abundantly rich), you need 3000+ gold to win (I got around 3300). Also, contrary to the guides, don’t bother with settling North Africa initially. Focus on getting your core area developed first. Afterwards, settle as you want, spawn more Great Merchants, and don’t bother getting Guilds or Banking (I won with only 16800 gold).

Impossible:
India: you’ll never make it to 5 religions, the farthest I got was 4, notwithstanding leaving a overstretched empire unguarded and unstable.
The safe way to attain 2 historical goals is to go for 3 religions (Confucianism). Rush China with 2 warriors, keep them at a distance and level them up along the silk road fighting barbarians. Lure and kill the archer from Beijing with your first properly promoted warrior (1-2 stars, luck required), and capture Beijing with both warriors.
Beeline for construction and rush build the Great Wall. In my game, my empire collapsed soon afterwards, but was soon regained using chariots. I made No. 1 in population in 1200 with 6 cities (I was lucky enough to trigger the herbal test quest) and a very close population margin (22,000) against my main rival, the wretched Greeks, who built every wonder that generates great people and are way ahead in tech and score (I’ll see how they fare later against the Turks).

Babylonia: It’s quite evident that it’s impossible on Emperor, the research costs are too high. I went on a killing spree and achieved Conquest Victory (shown errorly as Historical Victory) instead. Capture Beijing as the Indian strategy. Just keep churning out Bowmen and later, Axmen.

Ethiopia: You’ll never meet the first objective save capturing Egypt’s rich, gorgeous and productive capital in 5-7 moves, which is impossible unless you start off with Egypt and strip yourself of all defenses…even then you will only win against the AI (which receives Christianity for free at a given time) barely in time.
In my game I was lucky to have Christianity founded in Buhen (Eygpt) which I then captured with my swords man. I was lucky to be in 3rd place for a moment in history. I settled all of sub-Saharan Africa save for Mali afterwards. I collapsed Mali with my Oromos along with the Turks. The Arabs who were furious with me collapsed and I was able to claim their capital via World Congress. I attained the last two historical goals, and achieved cultural victory in the 1960’s.

Maya: You’ll never meet the first two objectives no matter what you do or where you build your capital. You’re never research Calendar in time even if you start off as Hammy and destroy every civ around you. I give up.

 

[The Immortal]

As Arabs, third goal is rather annoying, although it seems not to be hard due to unlimited time for its completion. It's strongly recommended to make as many vassals as possible. In my last game, almost ALL civs were running dat theocracy (except my vassals cuz I was able to force them to change civics and religion). I finished the 3rd goal in 1987, missionaries often failed in spreading.

 

[zhou_mu]

Aha, third goal of Arabs may be achieved by gifting missionaries to states who have open border agreements with you. On a side note: this is essential to achieving the Khmer HUV, but for the Arabs, Islam spreads with conquest( careful not to spread other religions in your territory, as it will lower your Islam percentage), and I had everybody except Russia and USA converted to Islam.

 

[zhou_mu]

Maya (emperor 1.181 finished) (can't believe I made it)

Use Egypt initially, build capital 2 spaces East of Pre-warjet(you need the port for a gally to conquer Japan), beline for animal husbandry, then sailing, then bronze working. Keep building war chariots, and conquer bablylon (should be your second production center). Raize cities of civs in the following order: India, greece, rome, carthage, and (in the meantime) Japan (you need a gally and 2 veteren chariots), China(need lots and lots of war chariots: 7+), you can save puny persia and ethiopia for last.

The goal is to destroy any civ that is capable of building the Oracle. After all that is done, commence self-destruct sequence: destroy improvements, kill population, grant indepence to cities, delete veteren units, etc, and switch to Maya. Egypt should collapse within a few turns.

Once you are Maya, beline for mathematics, bulb calender with Oracle, and the rest should be easy.