Just wanted to start up a discussion with other people who can consistently
win on Monarch, but are struggling with Emperor.
After trying five or six times, I just had a fairly successful game, and
want to share my experience for others to discuss. Feel free to do the same.
I'd like to keep the discussion centered on things that work on Emperor
level, though, since lots of the strategies that work well on lower levels,
don't.
First, Civ choice: I'm actually using Ghandi, though I may switch to Asoka
in the future, as I didn't get as much use out of Industrious on Emperor as
I did on Monarch, though the cheap forges are still useful. I think the
AI gets a sizable production bonus on Emperor, because as an Industrious
civ I routinely built nearly every wonder on Monarch, but on Emperor I've
been struggling to get just a handful.
Anyway, the choice of the Indians is due to a new strategy of mine which
relies on the fact that they are the only civ with Mining and Mysticism.
I used to agonize about whether to found a religion or beeline for chop-
rushing. On Monarch, you can do both, but with the barbarians turning
aggressive 250 years earlier on Emperor, it's substantially tougher, since
you need to research archery and whip out defensive units too, all in a
shorter time frame.
However, with Mysticism and Mining for free, it's still doable, and there
is an additional benefit of having Mysticism at the start: you can put
shields into Stonehenge from the start, instead of having to chose
between building something less useful, or building a worker and hoping
your starting location and your other free tech (Aggriculture, Hunting, etc)
actually allow him to do something useful.
The Fast Worker is also a bit of a bonus. The other UUs commit you to
fighting a war at a crucial time in the game, or forgoing their usefulness.
And it's hard to know in advance when you will want to fight. But the
Fast Worker is always useful, even if the boost to speed is slight (roughly
10% or so, saving on average one turn moving per ten turns building).
So I found my city, start building stonehenge, and researching Polytheism.
Delhi founds Hinduism, starts researching Bronze Working, and switches to
producing a Fast Worker at size 3, which makes the Fast Worker appear
two turns after Bronze Working is discovered. How convenient!
I chop rush a Settler, and another Fast Worker to develop my capital city
while the other worker moves to the new city. I research Archery, then
techs for the resources in range (Aggriculture, Fishing, Animal Husbandry,
etc) while Delhi finishes Stonehenge, then whips out three Archers as
barbarians will be an issue soon.
While this is going on, my second city chop rushes a Settler and two Fast
Worker, giving me an extra one to concentrate on roads linking cities and
resources.
I build additional cities by chain chop rushing: the first thing any city builds
is a chop-rushed Settler and a Fast Worker, using the Fast Worker produced
by the last city. That worker then sticks around and develops the city
afterwards. I find this "one Settler at a time" chop rush strategy allows older
cities to develop well, and produces an expansion speed that is just about
right for Emperor. (On Monarch and lower levels, I'd produce two Settlers
in my second city, and maintain a "two Settler at a time" chop rush strategy,
but maintenance appears to be more expensive on Emperor too)
I try both Pyramids and the Oracle, but get narrowly beaten to both, despite
chopping the remaining trees to help.
I'm lucky that I'm in a good location, on a continent with two competitors,
both far enough away that I can build the inner ring cities in their direction
without interference, then concentrate on the inner ring on the far side from
them at my leisure. There's also room for two more distant cities on the
far side, and Catherine in nice enough to raze the Barbarian city there,
making room for me to settle.
Another thing that went my way is that Isabella grabbed Buddhism and
Judaism, so the Russians and Americans on my continent were religion free.
Maintenance is a bit of a problem, with my science rate dropping as low as
30% due to the large number of cities I've staked off. But I know that's
temporary and spam missionaries to the Russians and Americans, making
them both quite friendly, and also solving all my financial problems once
the Great Prophet from Stonehenge appears.
I have a nice sized, well developed, 80% researching empire now, and am
sitting pretty about third place in the score. I start working on my
somewhat neglected army. Washington founds Confucianism and switches,
marking himself as my next target. Catherine also gets a bit upset with
him, and declares war. After letting her decimate his standing armies,
I declare war several turns later when she asks, despite not having nearly
the number of troops I like to have for a war.
I manage to take New York, and am knocking on the door of Atlanta, when
Catherine suddenly makes peace, and a small counterattack by the Americans
convinces me that my meagre force outside Atlanta probably won't be able
to hold out long enough to take it, so I make peace too.
I continue developing and building my army; I should discuss my development
strategy a bit. I have lots of health resources, and like to get Guilds
fairly early, and build granaries and aqueducts when necessary, so health
is generally not a problem. On Emperor, I've become a big fan of Hereditary
Rule while at peace, using the army that you need anyway to deter attacks to
make my cities superhappy. This allows cities all across my empire to grow
quite large, as opposed to Representation which only helps 5 cities, and not
as much. I tend to switch to Representation when my army is out in the field
fighting, to keep my 5 best cities happy, so they can produce reinforcements.
Once I have a reasonably sized army, I let the Americans have it, quickly
rolling through Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Washington, and then having enough
left to manage to split my forces and take Chicago and Boston, wiping out the
Americans. I'll note I like taking the capital ASAP when possible, despite
the fact that it is twice as heavily defended. First, it has the maximum
possible effect on reducing both the enemy's production, and also eliminates
the largest source of culture, pushing the borders back noticeably and
allowing a quick advance towards secondary cities, while wimpy cities can
easily be mopped up later (after a period of peace, if necessary). The key
to wars in Civ 4 seems to be to keep them quick.
Anyway, elsewhere in the world, Napolean, Caesar, and Gengis Khan are getting
restless. Napoleon notices my slightly overextended state, and takes Boston,
but I'm able to retake it with not too much effort. The AI is really bad at
putting enough troops on a continent to actually establish much of a beachhead,
and Napoleon gives up on the war 15 or so turns later, after not even attempting
a second landing.
Factories are discovered soon, so I become peaceful for a while as I build them
and other improvements; I've moved to first place now with my sizable land base
and am now running State Property. After the factories are in place, I start
building tanks and artillery.
I'm about to declare war on Catherine, when Napoleon declares war AGAIN, but
doesn't land any troops. I pay the Malinese, who are on the same continent
with him, 800 gold to declare war on him, then wait a few turns to make sure
he is too busy too attack me. When no fleets come my way, I move onward with
my war against Catherine.
I'm using a few Modern Armor with collateral damage upgrades, maybe 15 normal
Tanks, a handful of artillery, and 15 catapults I still have around, but thinks
still go fast. After using the cats to get rid of the defense bonus and one or
two artillery to soften up the Mechanized Infantry, two cities fall almost
immediately, and Moscow falls shortly after the two armies converge on it.
The rest of Catherine's cities, with the exception of two remote islands I
didn't bother with, are now mine.
That leaves me in a strong position in the late 1890s, with a continent to myself.
Now thinking about how to end the game ... (space race is off). But anyway, I'm
happy with my first Emporer game where I didn't get by butt handed to me by the
AI.
win on Monarch, but are struggling with Emperor.
After trying five or six times, I just had a fairly successful game, and
want to share my experience for others to discuss. Feel free to do the same.
I'd like to keep the discussion centered on things that work on Emperor
level, though, since lots of the strategies that work well on lower levels,
don't.
First, Civ choice: I'm actually using Ghandi, though I may switch to Asoka
in the future, as I didn't get as much use out of Industrious on Emperor as
I did on Monarch, though the cheap forges are still useful. I think the
AI gets a sizable production bonus on Emperor, because as an Industrious
civ I routinely built nearly every wonder on Monarch, but on Emperor I've
been struggling to get just a handful.
Anyway, the choice of the Indians is due to a new strategy of mine which
relies on the fact that they are the only civ with Mining and Mysticism.
I used to agonize about whether to found a religion or beeline for chop-
rushing. On Monarch, you can do both, but with the barbarians turning
aggressive 250 years earlier on Emperor, it's substantially tougher, since
you need to research archery and whip out defensive units too, all in a
shorter time frame.
However, with Mysticism and Mining for free, it's still doable, and there
is an additional benefit of having Mysticism at the start: you can put
shields into Stonehenge from the start, instead of having to chose
between building something less useful, or building a worker and hoping
your starting location and your other free tech (Aggriculture, Hunting, etc)
actually allow him to do something useful.
The Fast Worker is also a bit of a bonus. The other UUs commit you to
fighting a war at a crucial time in the game, or forgoing their usefulness.
And it's hard to know in advance when you will want to fight. But the
Fast Worker is always useful, even if the boost to speed is slight (roughly
10% or so, saving on average one turn moving per ten turns building).
So I found my city, start building stonehenge, and researching Polytheism.
Delhi founds Hinduism, starts researching Bronze Working, and switches to
producing a Fast Worker at size 3, which makes the Fast Worker appear
two turns after Bronze Working is discovered. How convenient!
I chop rush a Settler, and another Fast Worker to develop my capital city
while the other worker moves to the new city. I research Archery, then
techs for the resources in range (Aggriculture, Fishing, Animal Husbandry,
etc) while Delhi finishes Stonehenge, then whips out three Archers as
barbarians will be an issue soon.
While this is going on, my second city chop rushes a Settler and two Fast
Worker, giving me an extra one to concentrate on roads linking cities and
resources.
I build additional cities by chain chop rushing: the first thing any city builds
is a chop-rushed Settler and a Fast Worker, using the Fast Worker produced
by the last city. That worker then sticks around and develops the city
afterwards. I find this "one Settler at a time" chop rush strategy allows older
cities to develop well, and produces an expansion speed that is just about
right for Emperor. (On Monarch and lower levels, I'd produce two Settlers
in my second city, and maintain a "two Settler at a time" chop rush strategy,
but maintenance appears to be more expensive on Emperor too)
I try both Pyramids and the Oracle, but get narrowly beaten to both, despite
chopping the remaining trees to help.
I'm lucky that I'm in a good location, on a continent with two competitors,
both far enough away that I can build the inner ring cities in their direction
without interference, then concentrate on the inner ring on the far side from
them at my leisure. There's also room for two more distant cities on the
far side, and Catherine in nice enough to raze the Barbarian city there,
making room for me to settle.
Another thing that went my way is that Isabella grabbed Buddhism and
Judaism, so the Russians and Americans on my continent were religion free.
Maintenance is a bit of a problem, with my science rate dropping as low as
30% due to the large number of cities I've staked off. But I know that's
temporary and spam missionaries to the Russians and Americans, making
them both quite friendly, and also solving all my financial problems once
the Great Prophet from Stonehenge appears.
I have a nice sized, well developed, 80% researching empire now, and am
sitting pretty about third place in the score. I start working on my
somewhat neglected army. Washington founds Confucianism and switches,
marking himself as my next target. Catherine also gets a bit upset with
him, and declares war. After letting her decimate his standing armies,
I declare war several turns later when she asks, despite not having nearly
the number of troops I like to have for a war.
I manage to take New York, and am knocking on the door of Atlanta, when
Catherine suddenly makes peace, and a small counterattack by the Americans
convinces me that my meagre force outside Atlanta probably won't be able
to hold out long enough to take it, so I make peace too.
I continue developing and building my army; I should discuss my development
strategy a bit. I have lots of health resources, and like to get Guilds
fairly early, and build granaries and aqueducts when necessary, so health
is generally not a problem. On Emperor, I've become a big fan of Hereditary
Rule while at peace, using the army that you need anyway to deter attacks to
make my cities superhappy. This allows cities all across my empire to grow
quite large, as opposed to Representation which only helps 5 cities, and not
as much. I tend to switch to Representation when my army is out in the field
fighting, to keep my 5 best cities happy, so they can produce reinforcements.
Once I have a reasonably sized army, I let the Americans have it, quickly
rolling through Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Washington, and then having enough
left to manage to split my forces and take Chicago and Boston, wiping out the
Americans. I'll note I like taking the capital ASAP when possible, despite
the fact that it is twice as heavily defended. First, it has the maximum
possible effect on reducing both the enemy's production, and also eliminates
the largest source of culture, pushing the borders back noticeably and
allowing a quick advance towards secondary cities, while wimpy cities can
easily be mopped up later (after a period of peace, if necessary). The key
to wars in Civ 4 seems to be to keep them quick.
Anyway, elsewhere in the world, Napolean, Caesar, and Gengis Khan are getting
restless. Napoleon notices my slightly overextended state, and takes Boston,
but I'm able to retake it with not too much effort. The AI is really bad at
putting enough troops on a continent to actually establish much of a beachhead,
and Napoleon gives up on the war 15 or so turns later, after not even attempting
a second landing.
Factories are discovered soon, so I become peaceful for a while as I build them
and other improvements; I've moved to first place now with my sizable land base
and am now running State Property. After the factories are in place, I start
building tanks and artillery.
I'm about to declare war on Catherine, when Napoleon declares war AGAIN, but
doesn't land any troops. I pay the Malinese, who are on the same continent
with him, 800 gold to declare war on him, then wait a few turns to make sure
he is too busy too attack me. When no fleets come my way, I move onward with
my war against Catherine.
I'm using a few Modern Armor with collateral damage upgrades, maybe 15 normal
Tanks, a handful of artillery, and 15 catapults I still have around, but thinks
still go fast. After using the cats to get rid of the defense bonus and one or
two artillery to soften up the Mechanized Infantry, two cities fall almost
immediately, and Moscow falls shortly after the two armies converge on it.
The rest of Catherine's cities, with the exception of two remote islands I
didn't bother with, are now mine.
That leaves me in a strong position in the late 1890s, with a continent to myself.
Now thinking about how to end the game ... (space race is off). But anyway, I'm
happy with my first Emporer game where I didn't get by butt handed to me by the
AI.
