Some personnal tips for climbing from monarch to emperor

Hi.

My intention is certainly not to provide a fullproof method to win at emperor, I'm personnaly far from this goal ! I just wanted to share some of the tricks I understood which enabled some emperor victories.

1. My favorite leader is Washington : easy to play because of his traits (bonuses in and , easy unit promotions...). My last victory was with Gandhi. My point is : don't hesitate to play LOTS of different leaders, you'll learn from all of them. And don't beleive the ones who say "this leader sucks, this one is great...". They just don't know how to play them well, or they are so strong at Civ that their advices can't help you.
   One more thing on this point : if you play a new leader, or one you haven't played for a while, spend some time in the CivPedia at the start of the game : notice which units/buildings have production bonuses (these are the ones you should hurry, for bonuses), try to figure out which science path you should choose to beeline their advantages or level their weaknesses... And if you really don't know how to play them, read some DRKossin report, or some MadScientist RPC, they are great articles you'll learn much from.
2. About early rush : I loved the Sisiutil articles about Early Rush and SOD Composition, they are great to learn how combat works in Civ4. But what you have to learn in Emperor and above is that you can't decide at the beginning of the game what you'll do (well, that is, if you're not MadScientist or some other crazy deity beater of this sort ). The map tells you what you can and cannot do.
   For example, in my last 20 games or so, the RNG NEVER gave me copper any tile nearer 25 tiles from my capital. And in my last game, I had to hurry just to get ONE iron ressource ! Bloody RNG . So much for early rushing Julius Caesar !
   One rush that is quite easy to accomplish is the Riffle rush : after I learned how to beeline Liberalism, it was just a couple of techs away to get Riffles, and you generally came up far ahead in this competition, outdating about any unit pre-gunpowder (even those bastard Pretorians ).
   What you have to do is build a few defensive units, and be nice to your neighbours (which is not allways possible, especially if you are near Shaka, Genghis or Tokugawa ).
3. About Wonders : being metal depreived in my last game, I had much time to build wonders. I managed to build GW (more on this later), the Pyramids, and even Stonehenge if I remember correctly (I had a stone source nearby). Once again, don't build them automatically, but use your terrain advantages. The ones saying "Pyramids is a must", or "Stonhenge is useless" must not be trusted : build what you need, or what is cheap for you. And if you fail, well, you'll get money, so it's not THAT bad !
4. About Great Wall : this can be very good in some situations, and it fitted very well in my last game : no metal, so it helped defend against Barbs, and an early Great Spy that boosts your economy : settle him, and beeline Alphabet, to steal techs from your friends . I love that. I was able to beeline important techs, and get the others by trading OR stealing (about 50% each). I even got a second great spy before my first Great Scientist, for the Scotland Yard boost.
5. About Binary Science : this made me win a level all by itself. At first, I thought I would have to make lots of calculations to figure out how many turns I had to be 0% or 100%. But it's far simpler : allways run 100%. When you reach 0, go to 0%, and count how many gold you need for the fullfiling of the next tech. Press Alt-M for a reminder, and wait for the alert (or check regularly). This helps you getting rid of roundabout losses which are very expensive at the beginning of the game.
6. About late war : in 1500, I was attacked by both JC from the north, and Saladin from the south (after I got rid of Wang Kon and the silly Hannibal !) My frontier was very large, but I had riffls allready, so I could defend myself. After getting peace, I built a huge army of tanks to fight my own war. Funny thing : I had to reload several times (still learning, so no !!) before I understood that declaring war doesn't force you to attack first ! Each time I wanted to take one of Sal' cities, he fought back by taking one of mines . So I declared war, and waited for his stack (esay to move your army with railroads !). When he had exhausted all his forces, it was easy to fight back and take a dozen cities .
   Mind you, this works only with silly AI ! Human players are not all THAT dumb !
7. About Map : continent is great to learn how to deal with distant foes : I won a space race against Joao, with just one or two turns of margin ! I even had to sabotage Joao's project, and was lucky my THIRD attempt worked (the first two spies where caught hands in the honeypot ).

Voila ! I hope this can help a few players. Once again, I'm not a expert, just a emperor learning player.

\bye

 

Good tips! Though I'm remembering that Binary Science has been obsolete since BTS came or something. Could someone verify on this?

 

The idea of binary research in pre-BTS was to cope with the rounding down to the first integer, I think, and yes, this seems unnecessary at the moment.

But there was another good reason for binary research: accumulating gold until science multipliers were built, then switching to 100% science. In the long run, better returns are gained this way. Usually, binary research is a good practice for when building libs in your main science cities, or when building Oxford in your SSC.

 

Good summary of some key lessons. I've been experiencing many of these at a lower intensity on Monarch.

 

Binary research is well and alive in BTS. You just need to plan it out with research multipliers i.e. library, Academy, Oxford, etc.

 

I am playing BTS. I think I remember from before I you take out someones capitol it destroys there space ship. Is this still true? Or could I have just imaged this one?

 

You should run scientists when accumlating gold. Beeline techs that AI dont have and trade for other techs.

 

The only other use for binary research is as a placeholder. So you basically shut off science for a few turns. Often times, I'll do that as I'm researching, say, Machinery. So I go for a few turns, putting a pittance of beakers in. Then, oh, Charlemagne gets it. Now I can trade for it, and switch to something else, and I've "lost" less research into it (assuming he doesn't have the cash to make up the difference, etc...)

It can be useful in that regards. Or in the "Oh crap, I got DoWed on. Now let's use this money I saved up to upgrade a bunch of people to riflemen so I don't get destroyed".

The move from Monarch to Emp is not that tough. You just need to refine things. Learn the diplomacy - and pay attention! Some games, stay out of a religion if you have to, and know where to be prepared. Give in to demands if you have to, or, know that you're strong enough when you don't. If you know how to play the diplomacy game, then it goes a lot smoother.

 

As it was said above - binary research is good for accumulating the gold or for further multiplayers. Also it's good for the following situation: when science is at 0%, AIs research some tech (e.g., Alphabet). When their Alphabets are ready you will have a little researching discount for this tech. So, science at 0% and then at 100% is nice in many situations.

Also, I would advise to replay some moment at the game. The beginning or an important war...Yes, you will know the map and the neibghours, but eventaully you will see which desicion is nearly best at that moment.

Usually try to make 1-2 great people asap. This is very vitally at diety.