Schooling the AI (Emperor Edition)

[Rusten]

Ready to play some Civ 4 again and what better motivation to finish my games than to post here.

Not playing deity this time around. It's been done many times by me and others so the novelty is off, but more importantly I want to debunk some myths about the game. Oftentimes when responding to threads I am met with responses such as "maybe this is best on deity, but I don't find it to be the case on 'x' difficulty level". This can be true to some extent, and it's a very healthy question to ask, so let's find out!

Is SE actually better with the Pyramids or not on a lower difficulty? Is bulbing worth it compared to settling? And much more. To keep my choices transparent I will try to play at a slow pace.

Hoping for good discussion despite civ 5 being out. With the difficulty level being something almost everyone feels comfortable playing it should be possible. How would you play out the same position? Shadow and compare!

I will be playing other difficulties than emperor too, but if there's little interest there will probably only be this one edition. Hopefully this can be instructional for people trying to move up. Analysing deity games is not that useful for learning how to beat emperor/immortal.

I'll take map/minor settings requests. Be fast though, I'll probably boot up a save tonight.

 

[lymond]

I think you will find that CIV 5 will have very little impact on the discussion. Rock on!

 

[ABigCivFan]

Is SE actually better with the Pyramids or not on a lower difficulty? Is bulbing worth it compared to settling?

Yes, a SE is better with the Pyramids than a SE without. Not much need for bulbing and many more Axeman/Swords/chariots below immortal

 

[Benginal]

I'll be following this.

I agree with ABigCivFan that the more specialists you plan on running the better the pyramids are and I'm not quite sure if this is what you're interested in.

The thing I've found working up the levels is that running more specialist becomes a better play ... or at least I think I've found that out, . At the lower levels, cottage spamming will always work. Whereas at the higher levels, cottages are too weak early compared to the AIs, either that or I'm not using them well.

 

[Rusten]

It was a rhetorical question for now. Just an example.

If I were to answer it would be that you should simply transition earlier, but this is already derailing the thread. The purpose was to discuss actual games and situations that arise in those selected games -- not general theory. This is not a thread about SE or the Pyramids.

Edit: Or rather, to use these games to help establish what works best on the selected difficulty level if possible. Games (what's optimal) varies of course, but hopefully there will be some clues.

 

[Rusten]

To keep things as tight as possible the goal for this one will be space victory.

Random leader (Mao).
China starts with agriculture and mining.

Settling on the SE sugar seems obvious.

 

[Benginal]

Settling on the sugar is certainly a good idea. I'm interested in north though, which is conveniently the only way the warrior has to go. I say move the warrior north and keep an eye out for gems. If we find something good settling 2N is a possibility. I doubt we'll find anything to be good enough to waste a turn for though since 1SE is going to be an awesome city.

Too bad about the leader, I'm not a big fan of Mao, but given we're gunning for a space race we might end up with a smaller army where Protective could be useful? If the rest of our land is this good, I'd be content to just bottle up with as many cities as the initial land grab allows us. I'm interested to see if a mass war followed with a much larger empire will have a faster launch time. Is this the kind of variety you were looking for Rusten?

 

[Rusten]

Yes, I'm looking for the fastest launch possible. I don't expect to play perfectly. I haven't played in a long time and don't have *that* much experience on emperor. I will need some help here.

You are right about sending the warrior north. When settling you decide where you want to settle and then send the warrior somewhere that could make you change your mind. No point in looking at tiles we'll get in our BFC anyway.

I'm actually pretty happy with randoming Mao. He won't bias the game that much. There's not much use for protective, but perhaps some high level drill units with a tech advantage can prove helpful. The less hammers spent on military the more science.

 

[kossin]

Seems to be in the middle of the jungle belt. There could always be some lucky gems somewhere around...? In any case, 4 grass hills and plenty of food should make this pretty fun.

 

[pi-r8]

On the lower levels, it usually works best to just expand as fast as possible, since the maintenance costs are a lot less severe. Forget the pyramids and just spam cottages all over the place.

 

[Rusten]

First few turns are not so eventful (especially with huts and events off), but I wanted to start things off.

Move warrior north as decided and find grassland cows. Quickly considered settling 2N, but find it's not worth it. The +1 food from the get go and being able to settle on turn 0 should be more than enough. It also grants me some extra forests.

Settling reveals ivory.

Spoiler :

Warrior proceeds to scout north/NE where it runs into a HRE scout.

Spoiler :

And then a Roosevelt scout.

Spoiler :

What's been done:
Worked food tiles while growing and building a warrior. It should be easy to replicate.
Tech went BW (want to whip here with all the food) -> hunting * -> AH (horses).

* Could've went immediate AH, but hunting first gains some beakers. It's needed for the ivory later and allows archery. Usually I would not go for archery, but given the abundance of resources revealed already I imagine I have less copper/horses nearby. I find it typical to not have a strategic resource until iron in this climate.

Look at the map (big overview):

Spoiler :

Closer:

Spoiler :

Located in a corner it should be fairly easy to spawnbust with warriors if cities are settled close by, but there's a lot of room for barbarians to the north and I'm looking at that stone which would leave me spread thin so I'm thinking archery may be the best way to go anyway.

1st settler will be whipped for 2 pop after 3 turns of production and the city will go NE of the cow.

Judging by where I met the scouts and the shape of the land I imagine Roosevelt is to my east/SE and HRE to my east/NE.

Pyramids looks likely here seeing as there's no competition for the stone and my first 2 cities have great food surplus.

 

[Benginal]

Random
Why is it that the warrior sometimes starts on a tile next to the settler and sometimes two tiles away?

Relevant
Tech path I'd for BW first for whipping. Then I'd probably go wheel and pottery and count on warriors to bust fog. Writing up next for scientist specialists. If there's fish south fishing might fit in there somewhere. If Kossin's right, which he probably is, IW is probably good to get soon for Jungle chopping and Iron.

Cottages on sugar? What do you guys think? Is it more valuable to have the sugar for trading?

Edit: Whoa dang, there's a round up already!

 

[babar]

I don't expect to play perfectly. I haven't played in a long time and don't have *that* much experience on emperor. I will need some help here.

I will be following, especially since I suggested only the other day that you are out of your depth below deity . I can't shadow unfortunately because my computer doesn't seem to be compatible with anything.

 

[Rusten]

Another thing I'm not used to is not having huts on. Usually I get either some gold or a tech. Here I'll have neither, and while this is a good start (high food and with hills) it does not have that much commerce initially. Have to be careful not to crash my economy too much.

Any thoughts on build order for the coming turns? Being expansive promotes early granary, but I have more food than my happy cap can handle anyway, so there's no rush with a granary IMO. Might be better to go straight to writing (library)?

Even the fish is at sea, so it only brings in 1 commerce. Perhaps fishing is needed to work the lake for city #2.

Edit: If it comes to it I guess riverside cottages in the capital will bail me out. Maybe it's better to run the scientists in city #2 as it has less quality tiles.

I will be following, especially since I suggested only the other day that you are out of your depth below deity . I can't shadow unfortunately because my computer doesn't seem to be compatible with anything.

I didn't mean to single you out. It's just a recurring thing from years back so I thought it was about time to do something like this.

 

[kossin]

Seeing as beakers is the limiting factor here (great food, great hammers) and that you do not have TW, consider placing city #2 by the S pig to get an instant connection. However that city does not seem to have a second tile to improve right away so maybe not.

 

[Grashopa]

Nishant just taught me a little about going for space, so I'll shadow this and try to learn how not to go for domination.

 

[Rusten]

Nishant just taught me a little about going for space, so I'll shadow this and try to learn how not to go for domination.

Great.

Word on shadows -- try not to post beyond where I am in my game.

 

[babar]

Seeing as beakers is the limiting factor here (great food, great hammers) and that you do not have TW, consider placing city #2 by the S pig to get an instant connection. However that city does not seem to have a second tile to improve right away so maybe not.

A typical rookie deity mistake on emperor . Expand towards the stone. Your beakers will be fiiine. I'm not entirely serious here; commerce is a problem, but emperor might be surprisingly lenient with maintenance costs and barbs (as long as you watch out for wolves/panthers killing your unescorted settlers).

 

[Benginal]

To Turn 44:

Spoiler :

1. Explored a little bit with my initial warrior who now has 5XP.
2. Research went BW, AH, Writing.
3. Beijing built Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Settler (2 pop whip), Warrior, about to start Library.
4. Settled Shanghai 5N of Beijing. I picked the spot for it's immediate usefulness. I've got cows, fish, forests, and hills. It doesn't block off a lot of land but I want a good city early and other places require IW.
5. Shanghai built warrior, about to start Library.

I plan on running some scientists and building some cottages. I want to settle that east site with the Horses and Gems. I'll probably lose it to Charlemagne, but that would be a good third city.

Our continent looks big. I've found Charlemagne's borders but I still have no idea where Hammurabi's hanging out.

The save's attached.

 

[kossin]

A typical rookie deity mistake on emperor . Expand towards the stone. Your beakers will be fiiine. I'm not entirely serious here; commerce is a problem, but emperor might be surprisingly lenient with maintenance costs and barbs (as long as you watch out for wolves/panthers killing your unescorted settlers).

Smaller maintenance just means earlier REX. Early beakers are always very good.