Schooling the AI (Emperor Edition)

[Grashopa]

Yeah I had to switch off OR to free religion early so I could keep those two trading with me. I traded for feudalism, guilds, SM, constitution, and corporation. Its quite convenient to have AIs that will trade like that.

And that was 4 golden ages - Taj early then 3 back to back ending just before I launched.

 

[Grashopa]

Also bulbed 4 great scientists along the space path for another 4 turns of research. And that was pacifism I switched off of not OR, once sushi was in everyone was running something like 15 scientists.

 

[Grashopa]

And I was sick the days I was playing this. I kept playing a bunch of turns then stopping and coming back to it - I must have spent an hour trying to remember where I was each time, another hour admiring all my hammers and beakers after I made changes.

 

[Snaaty]

for doing this rusten

 

[Negator_UK]

Thanks for the demo Rusten.

I tried your technique on a map I'd lost before and came much closer to winning, but still got ganged-out in the end.

Did you trade a lot with Mansa? Curious because your BPT is lower than mine yet you were so much faster. Think I too had 3000+ from 1550/1600 and onwards

Any chance of a post that shows what this looks like ? I'm getting over 1000 bpt sooner than I used to but still waaaaay of THAT figure !

 

[Grashopa]

I picked up a 15+ food sushi in my game around 1150 AD. Spread that around and then run scientists under Rep in all of your cities. With library + university + observatory you get 75% more beakers... I had about 180 beakers in each city under a golden age or about 4500 beakers from 1500 AD until the end.

Rusten went State Property which cuts maintenance then wealth and research building with just workshops. Enough green and you can get about 90 base hammers + multipliers.. My iron works city was doing over 300 hammers into research for example.

 

[yanner39]

I picked up a 15+ food sushi in my game around 1150 AD. Spread that around and then run scientists under Rep in all of your cities. With library + university + observatory you get 75% more beakers... I had about 180 beakers in each city under a golden age or about 4500 beakers from 1500 AD until the end.

Rusten went State Property which cuts maintenance then wealth and research building with just workshops. Enough green and you can get about 90 base hammers + multipliers.. My iron works city was doing over 300 hammers into research for example.

I don't know what's more amazing, getting +4500 beakers or getting Sid Sushi's at 1150AD.

I really do suck in comparison to some of you.

 

[yanner39]

@Rusten

Wondering what your thoughts are on an early Civil Service and hence early bureau switch? You've clearly demonstrated how building Wealth/Research is pretty powerful with suped up workshops.

Say you beeline Monarchy, then CoL and then try and get CS in the BCs. With a cottaged-up capital, growing it under HR, an academy, Library and bureau, one city could be fuelling alot of the research before 1AD.

Would it be worth it to even delay key techs like Alphabet and Currency?

I've tried doing this and it seems to work ok but I have trouble sometimes comparing situations.

 

[cbucks]

Moar like this please!

 

[cseanny]

I'm curious what's faster:
Cats+Swords/Axes
or
Just CKN's.

I vote neither. Since we're talking Emperor level you should easily be able to HA kill your entire land mass from 3-4 initial cities > expand while running mass culture and win via Domination (land/population) very very early (guessing 300-500 AD).

 

[frippy72]

Rusten still can't believe you get 63bpt on turn 79. I know the importance of bpt is often overrated for importance, crucial bulbs and timing bursts of research are important too. But still, your micro and efficiency(with the rest of the best players) must be so precise to be able to have this good of an empire at this point. Even the improvements on your tiles look great.

p.s. I heard you say before that you were 'allergic to cottages' lol. What changed?

 

[Rusten]

Rusten still can't believe you get 63bpt on turn 79. I know the importance of bpt is often overrated for importance, crucial bulbs and timing bursts of research are important too. But still, your micro and efficiency(with the rest of the best players) must be so precise to be able to have this good of an empire at this point. Even the improvements on your tiles look great.

p.s. I heard you say before that you were 'allergic to cottages' lol. What changed?

They still make me a bit queasy. I didn't make cottages here outside of the capital (except where there was no fresh water) and that thing is a law unto itself as bureaucracy is such a powerful civic.

But in general I did tweak (or perhaps evolve) my playstyle a bit at some point and started using a few more cottages here and there. Main difference was a focus to make a few big cities already in the BCs other than the capital. Whipping is not so great on 10+ pop as you need so much food to grow back thus you don't want farms. As I started playing games on lower difficulty levels with more space to expand and in particular multiplayer (pitboss games) I realized the power of growing to your happy/health cap in the better city locations. But even then something like a grassland hill is far more valuable than a grassland cottage.

I feel the benefit of growing to your happy/health cap is often ignored which is why I made a point out of showcasing it here. Posters tend to just focus on their number of cities when it is really the population number that counts.