Strategy Guide for Emperor - in quest for the truth

[atreas]

So far in this forum I have seen too many articles showing a strategy that works in some conditions (specific civs to play, specific and usually standard settings for the map and the number of AI players, specific speed). I wonder if there is anyone out there that, like me, likes to "check a bit" what happens with slightly different settings and see if the "strategies" can really work in these cases too. I will ignore the obvious difference it makes to have an "archipelago" or a "pangea" map, and will focus only on pangea or large continents maps. I also ignore (for the moment) the issue of speed, not because I think it isn't vital, but because I want to focus on other aspects of the game. Of course, in your answers it would be very helpful if you could also contribute opinions about these settings too - I just dont feel I have much experience with them.

Specifically, I have in mind two or three significant variations that I believe there should be checked:

1. The ratio Map Size/Number of Opponents. The less opponents there are, the bigger is the distance between them. But there are some things that dont scale equally: there are far more goody huts per player and early exploration is a must (the barbarians are far more, too, but we can ignore it). Also, this affects how you plan early war: it's another thing to capture the capital of an opponent that starts 12 squares away from your capital, and a completely different thing to capture the same capital when it is 22 or 32 squares away (maintance cost + time for movements). Can a version of REX still be tried in such a scenario, and if yes how?

2. (For Pangea maps) Starting position in respect to the sea. It is no joke that sea trade routes are better - they are FAR better than land ones. So, if your major cities are in the middle of land, you have much bigger problem to get money (and this means research rate) than when you are close to the sea. What is your strategy for this case? Also starting position according to nearest civs. Of course, everybody knows that it's another thing to have as neighbour Mensa and a quite different one to have Monty. Isn't this changing a bit the strategy you should follow?

3. Do you opt for flexibility in adapting a strategy after you know enough about the area and your opponents, or you just beeline to a specific tech discovery order from the start? I have seen many people saying that I go (for example) to bronze to get some axemen and capture some cities. Still, how will you get the resource if you dont have roads (not to mention copper)? Also, how often it will be a good spot to build the city right next to the resource square? If you have to build it even one more square away, then you also need mysticism (to make some culture and grow the fat cross - unless you only play creative civs). So, after all, which is the specific order in which you search for all these early techs?

What I would like to see is some guides that describe generally but specifically what can be done and when. For example, to give my personal answer in the 3rd issue, I tend to believe that - whatever your later strategy will be - the first discovery you should opt is Mysticism (if you don't already have it), as this leaves the road open for all directions (even switching to complete religious strategy in some cases), as Obelisk or Stonehedge can be handy in all cases.

I wonder if there are people out there that have tried such a diversity in their games and they could share with us their knowledge.

One last note: there is one victory condition that I rate less than the others, and this is the Domination victory (of course, I consider Time victory as a "loss of time"). The reason is the following: it allows in some cases "victories" that would, in fact, be "losses" if the game continued for some more turns. History has seen far too many "dominating" empires that broke in pieces after a few years - so I feel Conquest victory is all right but domination is inadequate, and I believe that any "healthy" strategy opting for domination victory can be transformed to a strategy for conquest victory too.

 

[Grimz101]

domination is 2/3 of the world, sure you can have your modern armour, and i with my inadquete tanks, but whens its 3v1 i win !

play tempreate and then iron and copper are quite common, no copper, means you get iron, no iron means you make axemen and find some iron

play romans with pret on pangeaa without using the constant revoulotion tactic on standard 9 civs like i do its fun, conquer 1/3 of the world(and only then your allowed to raze) then rush courthouses everywhere, and destroy a civilization to fund your research for alphabet for extoration

 

[atreas]

play tempreate and then iron and copper are quite common, no copper, means you get iron, no iron means you make axemen and find some iron

play romans with pret on pangeaa without using the constant revoulotion tactic on standard 9 civs like i do its fun, conquer 1/3 of the world(and only then your allowed to raze) then rush courthouses everywhere, and destroy a civilization to fund your research for alphabet for extoration

Thanks but that's exactly what I don't want: to win only playing with a specific civ, in specific settings that fit my strategy. Most probably my English were again poor.

 

[colony]

Actually, I do change my strategy slightly depending on how the early game goes. The size of the continent I start on affects my choice of early wonders a lot. If I'm isolated the Great Lighthouse is a massive boost on an island, even if it is only +2 commerce per coastal city before Astronomy. If I don't have iron and don't have a few (about 6-8) axemen spare then I'll leave my first war until catapults, and try to get the Oracle, generally for either CoL if I don't have a religion, or Metal Casting if I do. I've overcome my addiction to Stonehenge/creative civs now, I didn't want to feel like I needed either of them on Emperor

I've never tried to build the Pyramids on Emperor, so don't know how easy or effective a specialist based economy is to get going. Anyway, on to your questions:

1 - I normally only play on standard sized maps, with the standard number of AIs, but even then the amount of land I can grab early on varies hugely. Overexpanding on an isolated island can hurt your chances of catching up in tech later on. Generally, the more I'm hemmed in at the start of the game the sooner I'll go to war, occasionally even when I only have 3 cities, just to get some land that's relatively close.

If it's a more spread out map then war can wait (most of the time) until your infrastructure can support a sudden increase in the number of cities

2 - One difference I have found from Civ3 is that you do have to adapt in the early game, but generally you meet your neighbours early enough to know who's likely to sneak attack you in 500BC. As for being stuck in the middle of a pangaea I find you'll need a lot more friends than a coastal start so you don't end up fighting a 3 front war. The lack of coastal trade routes isn't great, but you also get more land tiles instead of coast tiles to work. In my experience this means more Calendar resources, most of which give decent commerce with a plantation, as well the happiness bonus.

3 - I like to keep my tech order at the start flexible, but BW is such an important tech not to delay it too long. If you have copper you can skip Archery completely for a long time. I've also begun to appreciate going for Pottery first if possible since practicing for GOTM3, having them down that early gives you a good research boost, making BW even faster to get, with the downside of slowing down expansion. I hardly ever research Mysticism that early on, I prefer to be able to build farms/chop/build cottages, and Obelisks can wait. If I desperately need that border expansion though I will consider researching it instead of a worker tech.

IMO the early game tech path is all about compromising. It varies a lot on the situation, and you might need to suddenly reconsider your choices when you have no copper nearby. When the barb Axemen turn up even Archers can look appealing . Despite this you do need to have some sort of vague plan in 4000BC to get you started and keep you focused

That's about all I can think of now, sorry if it's not very coherent, but I'm tired

Edit: I did once build a city purely to give me access to copper (on Emperor difficulty). The barbs were coming at me with archers, and my warriors just couldn't cope. I managed to hold them off long enough to give me time to get 2 axemen out to clean them up. The city never grew beyond size 4, as it was in the middle of a desert, but taking that hit saved me, and I didn't want to have to research Archery. And when I found out I didn't have Iron either I was even happier

 

[Archbob]

What about on a Huge temperate Archipelago map with the maximum number of Civs?

 

[Drake007]

DA TRUTH!! you need to be mumbling "it depends" in your sleep to play this game, come on now

 

[Yzen Danek]

Just to clarify something....

the main purpose of choosing Bronze Working as the starting tech isn't to build Axemen; it's to be able to chop forests.

No matter what strategy you're going for, it's execution is enhanced by being able to greatly speed early production. In my experience, more often than not, chopping is decisive.

 

[Yzen Danek]

One last note: there is one victory condition that I rate less than the others, and this is the Domination victory (of course, I consider Time victory as a "loss of time"). The reason is the following: it allows in some cases "victories" that would, in fact, be "losses" if the game continued for some more turns. History has seen far too many "dominating" empires that broke in pieces after a few years - so I feel Conquest victory is all right but domination is inadequate, and I believe that any "healthy" strategy opting for domination victory can be transformed to a strategy for conquest victory too.

I don't think I've ever won a Domination victory that wouldn't have continued on to be a Conquest victory had the game been allowed to continue.

The main issue is that the domination victory is often won by accident - if it's allowed, a Conquest victory isn't typically possible, since two-thirds of the way to conquest, domination triggers.

 

[Jorunkun]

In response to question #3, I think all good players plan for variations in their strategies, and this goes for tech-research as well. That said, I do believe that you fare best on Emperor and above by prioritising first Bronze and secondly investments in science (cottages, library, alphabet) in almost all situations. Therefore, I try to adhere to the following "critical path" as much as possible.

1. Mining, Bronze Working
My first goal is usually to try to secure Bronze, as this gives you the triple advantage of choprushing, slavery and axemen (plus the huge boost from mining gold, silver or gems if in reach); all of which are absolutely crucial to early expansion and defending your empire (early offensive also being an option).
I would say that in 90% of my games I beeline for BW unless I have a grave imbalance in health, happiness or production that needs to be adressed first (usually by researching fishing).

2. Wheel, (Fishing/Agriculture), Pottery
I can´t think of a situation where you don´t benefit from having the wheel early to hook up whatever ressources you have access to, and to connect cities for trade and defense (i.e. parking units at halfway points between cities to help out where needed). Also, it gives your workers something useful to do if they are not chopping or mining. Cottages are indispensable in keeping up in the tech race, so I start building them asap.

3. Writing, Alphabet
Again, to keep up in the tech-race, you will need an early library (to generate a scientist GP and found the Academy). My second strategic goal after securing bronze is usually to get to the Alphabet for tech-trading, as it saves beakers and helps improve relationships.
If I start on an island, I will stop after writing and pursue naval tech and whetever I need for expediating further expansion with happiness and health.

I generally view any deviation from the path as inefficient and risky, but do make exceptions if the situation dictates them:

Fishing / Agriculture
If maritime ressources are all you have to work with or a small island start necessitates workboat exploration and subsequent galleys, i will prioritise fishing and sailing; though usually only after BW. I usually don´t research agriculture but try to trade for it, unless my cities _desperately_ need irrigation or health.

Iron Working
If you are stuck without bronze, start out in a massive jungle and/or are surrounded by three or more aggressive civs or raging barbs, I will beeline for iron working after bronze, to make sure I can hold my own militarily. This goes doubly if you are Julius Caesar. The downside is that you risk falling behind on tech and miss out on early techtrading, which I consider to be a the biggest global risk on Emperor.

Animal Husbandry
I only ever research this if I am stuck without bronze and iron and it looks like I will need to defend myself early on with chariots. Animal husbandry is relatively expensive and can usually be traded for, so I will not put it before the critical path. Also, I hardly ever research horseback riding as a matter of priority (if at all).

Hunting and Archery
If I can build axemen, bypassing hunting and archery is usally a manageable risk. I believe the beakers are better invested in progressing towards alphabet. If I do slot it in, I usually do so last minute, in the face of an early rush by the AI. I very rarely slot in hunting if I have access to ivory and its happy face and gold would make a big difference in the early game.

Mysticism etc.
I believe the biggest risk on Emperor and above is to go after religions - founding a religion can get you killed. Conversely, nothing placates your neighbor and keeps the peace like adapting his religion. I think you are much better off investing your beakers in alphabet to trade for these techs as needed.
The only early religion I will pursue is Hinduism (I find the risk of getting beaten to Buddhism is too great, and Judaism is too much of an early investment), and only if I am on a big island with few happiness ressources AND I have mysticism by default. In this case, I will go for it as the very first tech and max out my gold to make absolutely sure I get it first.

As for mysticism, there is the odd game where obelisks or stonehenge are a worthwhile investment if you can increase your cultural ZOC around your first two cities to cordon off a significant chunk of land for future expansion. If so, I will slot it in after bronze working or not at all - libraries have the same effect and can usually be rushed by the time you research writing.
Mostly though, I don´t mind if the AI settles on land that I can forseeably cordon off later, as these isolated cities will be costly for the AI to maintain and easy for me to conquer when the time is right.

Masonry
I never research this before the critical path, because I don´t prioritise early wonders over tech-boosts and alphabet. In fact, I believe it´s the second biggest risk to Emperor level games. True, an early CS (oracle) or pyramids Slingshot is a powerful strategy, but if you goof up, you are usually in trouble.

Comments and questions most welcome.

J.

 

[Drake007]

True, an early CS (oracle) or pyramids Slingshot is a powerful strategy, but if you goof up, you are usually in trouble.

I'm pretty sure getting civil service with the oracle is impossible on emperor. Maybe it is if you click on code of laws in 4000BC or something, but obviously that would suck

Instead, get code of laws, don't research masonry, and use the great prophet on civil service.

 

[voek]

Mysticism etc.
I believe the biggest risk on Emperor and above is to go after religions - founding a religion can get you killed. Conversely, nothing placates your neighbor and keeps the peace like adapting his religion. I think you are much better off investing your beakers in alphabet to trade for these techs as needed.
The only early religion I will pursue is Hinduism (I find the risk of getting beaten to Buddhism is too great, and Judaism is too much of an early investment), and only if I am on a big island with few happiness ressources AND I have mysticism by default. In this case, I will go for it as the very first tech and max out my gold to make absolutely sure I get it first.

As for mysticism, there is the odd game where obelisks or stonehenge are a worthwhile investment if you can increase your cultural ZOC around your first two cities to cordon off a significant chunk of land for future expansion. If so, I will slot it in after bronze working or not at all - libraries have the same effect and can usually be rushed by the time you research writing.
Mostly though, I don´t mind if the AI settles on land that I can forseeably cordon off later, as these isolated cities will be costly for the AI to maintain and easy for me to conquer when the time is right.

J.

You are saying you will go for a religion rightaway when your are (alone?) on a big island. How do you know you are on a big island when starting your first tech?? (Without cheating) You only make a change when you go for it right away so...

I never go for religion, but try to conquer, or found myself one later

 

[Tarindel]

I used to hate not starting next to the sea, but I've found that when you start inland (I'm talking about far inland, not just 1 or 2 spaces), you just have to play things a little different.

The advantages of being inland: 1) You can ignore your navy. 2) You can expand in 4 directions instead of 2 or 3, giving you potentially more spots to choose from when settling new cities. 3) Your capital is more likely to be close to all of your cities, and hence your maintainance costs tend to be lower.

 

[Jorunkun]

You are saying you will go for a religion rightaway when your are (alone?) on a big island. How do you know you are on a big island when starting your first tech?? (Without cheating) You only make a change when you go for it right away so...

I never go for religion, but try to conquer, or found myself one later

Sorry, for being unclear: I mean when playing archipelago maps, and your starting location doesnt have any happiness ressource in range, but there is some land to settle on (i.e. you are not on a small wriggly stretch and need to research naval tech first).

Like you, i don´t usually go for early religion on continents or pangaea maps.

 

[Jorunkun]

I'm pretty sure getting civil service with the oracle is impossible on emperor. Maybe it is if you click on code of laws in 4000BC or something, but obviously that would suck

Instead, get code of laws, don't research masonry, and use the great prophet on civil service.

Not sure I understand why CS slingshot - using the oracle to get to civil service - would be impossible on Emperor. I´m pretty sure I have done it (though it´s been a while and back then I was still playing Monarch occasionally, so not 100% sure).

But you have to be quick on research and more than a bit lucky to get the Oracle, as the AI often builds it around 1000 BC, give or take a few turns.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Good thread. I was thinking of making one myself that would essentially be a flame of people posting niche strategies as if exploiting a human-set game world was skillful.

Yes, there's way too much emphasis on niche strategies and not enough for dealing with the randomness. Here's how I play Civ4. There are four things to worry about.

Paramount, you need to expand. Toss out everything bit of shite that might be molding in your ears from the first 3 months after release. You do not need to worry about your slider. You do not need to worry about an "economy." You also do not need to rush your neighbors.

A solid strategy, though, for all situations, is expand into all that great, empty land around you. So how will you best expand? I pray for lots of forests nearby, because chopping them makes things easy. So bronze working is an early goal. Generally I don't deviate from heading straight for it, mining or no mining. In a rare instance my start might mandate doing so. On archipelago, expanding means sailing is first. In desert, agriculture is going to be your ticket to settlers. But for most instances, whether it's a pangean land-grab or a battle over an island, extra shields early on will shape your game. Nay, they will BE your game.

This is about as good as it gets as far as a strategy that'll always work. There's usually at least three forests within a safe distance of your capital, and that makes bronze working worth it. Those 90 shields (likely many more) will mean more to your empire than anything else you ever do. After you get to chopping, I look to make my population boom, and this often means fishing, or maybe agriculture. But this is a secondary concern. Shields, by way of chopping, FTW.

The second consideration is how I'm going to expand my city borders. How will I? Three options.

If I'm creative, that's settled. I can ignore researching and building Stonehenge, and focus more on techs that will help me expand (food improvements primarily, roads & archers secondarily).

If I'm not creative, Stonehenge next comes to mind. I'll hope very badly for stone within range of my second city, preferably in a location that won't require roads. Roads require an extra tech, and those extra turns will possibly lose you Stonehenge. Here's a tip. If you do need to build a city for stone access, you need to settle adjacent to the stone. One time, ONE TIME, was I able to settle a square away, build an obelisk, hook up the stone, and still net Stonehenge, and it was only because of such ample forest supplies nearby. Many games I will build a city right on stone just so I don't need to get the wheel, even though said city is likely to suck for the rest of the game. If I have to resort to this because it took me so long to find stone, or so long to get masonry and mysticism, I won't found my second city on stone. But as a third or maybe fourth city it's viable.

If you don't get Stonehenge, be sad, but there exists a third option that I've pulled off more than once. You can expand borders with religion. But to do so you need to found a religion yourself, and get organized religion quickly. So for this you'll need to be a civ that starts with mysticism, and realize quickly that (1)stone is out of reach and (2)you don't have enough forests to get it anyway. This is one of the situations where I'll divert from bronze working. If you didn't start with mysticism, then hope for a nearby civ that did nab an early religion. It spreads easily early on, but here's a place where I'm unsure. Do you need a trade route to have a religion spread? I thinks so, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten a religion spread to me before writing(open borders). If this is your last resort for expanding your borders, think strongly about getting sailing for the costal trade connection, or building a long road to your neighbor.

Technically there's a forth option, you can just build obelisks in every city, but still winning after pouring so many shields down the hole in the early game is a difficult prospect. I play on normal size, so that usually means I'll only have a 2 or 3 cities with ample forest supplies. I suppose on larger maps building obelisks everywhere could be less handicapping. I think of not being creative, nabbing Stonehenge, or an early religion as a loss. Maybe you're lucky and someone built Stonehenge and you can capture it? Even if so, it's likely that the lack of expanding borders has cost you city growth, valuable resources, priority in border disputes, and allowed the AI to sneak into your patchwork.

You secured a way to expand your borders, now your third worry is getting a religion. This doesn't have the urgency of early expansion, but you will handicap yourself without the ability to build temples. Usually it's a late religion, Confucianism with the Oracle, or Christianity with a great prophet (from Stonehenge). It could be Taoism with a great scientist, but I think every time that's occured I've already founded Confucianism. It could also be Judiaism, but that's more often a failed bid for Hinduism or Buddhism, and neither of those is worth shooting for on high difficulties, unless you aren't in a situation to benefit from bronze working. Even when you found one, I would caution you against selecting a state religion on Emperor. It will often be the cause of war. But you do need a way to pacify your folks, and so you need the temple access. Should you find yourself needing to conquer a large tract of land, you'll need theocracy to make it efficient. You always benefit from having religion in your cities.

The final consideration I make is deciding how soon to war. By the time you get to here you're starting to look at a victory condition and long term strategy. The other stuff is just about getting a solid base for actually competing on high difficulties. Your choices then are CRUCIAL and securing the border pop and religion are VITAL. How you handle this issue is much more open to strategy. Depending on your civ's UU and traits, you may want to wait, but as a general rule, earlier is better. Since I basically do nothing but build settle and secure a way for my borders to expand, I usually would love nothing more than to sit down and just build my defenses after this early REX, but depending on my neighbors, going right to war might be better. This aspect of early war is the subject of at least half the threads out there, so I won't say much about it. Just consider that picking off the weakest guy is usually safe, eliminating a front if you're sandwiched is worthwhile, and avoiding another civ's UU is a fine idea. So this means hitting the Mongols and Greeks ASAP with Axes, and trying to get the English and Russians out of the picture before the Industrial period. On the other hand, if you're the English or Russians, it probably makes sense to capitalize on the financial (yes, **** Peter) trait and build up instead of risking early war.

That's how I play, in every game. It's my blueprint which works for every civ on every type of map. Naturally if I'm Mao I'll focus on production and use my great people to keep me in the tech race until I can unlesh my early mideval army on my neighbors. If I'm Louis stuck on an island then my priorities are going to be massing warriors to sentry every dark square, then building the Lighthouse and Colossus to maintain tech pairty until Caravels spot land. A religion too. Pray for marble (Oracle)! But no matter who or where, you always need to expand, secure a means to expand your borders, get a religion, and go to war. Unless you'd rather not war, in which case you're letting opportunity slip at SOME point in your game.

This perspective comes from playing mostly continents on a normal sized map with a random civ on Monarch and Emperor.