The Emperor Masters' Challenge 4 (Warlords v.208)

[cabert]

I don't like this start too much, since you don't have fishing as starting tech.
You could sacrifice a few turns of capital, but it's not necessarily going to improve your situation.

I'd move the warrior to the W, and see if you have a landbased food resource.
If not, I'd go settle where you are, tech fishing then wheel, then potery, writing, alphabet.

 

[voek]

No defense before alphabet Cabert?

 

[Phrederick]

The first is about leveraging the protective trait. Could a move to Archery early on be a good move? If so, where would it fit with Fishing, Pottery and Bronze Working on the priority scale?

What would you be trying to accomplish with that? It's only a good move if it's the best path to fullfil an objective. City defense? Personally I find that the biggest problem is active defense: attacking units before they can pillage my improvements. Archers don't fill that role, and anything that can would also be able to fill in on passive defense. Barb lookouts? With a barracks, you can choose Cover for the first promotion because Drill I unlocks it. I don't know if that would be a huge improvement over standard archers, though, so I don't think the addition of Protective changes matters for that objective. I don't really see a need that Archery could fulfill, unless we decide to push for an archer rush, using Cover-promoted archers. That could be an interesting fight, especially because they'd defend captured cities well.

Also, Since City Walls deal with bombardment differently after the patch, could city walls in military target cities be justified?

Not until dealing with enemies who have catapults, obviously. I think they would be easily worth it in high-production cities on borders if you have stone. In other cases, it's an option. I think it might be best to just wait until war is declared, then quickly build them in any cities in danger. It's cheap enough to build quickly.

 

[druidravi]

You can get walls and castle in your commerce city for extra trade route since its cheap enough being protective more so if you have stone, I don't see big deal with protective archers. My main fight is never to prevent a city from being taken but to stop pillaging when you require offensive units. Maybe gunpowder units and crossbows would be good with it.. outside the city you get only drill 1 extra on a normal archer which doesnt make much difference.

Only use I can find is gunpowder units and longbows when you capture an enemy city which will be immediately counter-attacked when your units are wounded. Also sometimes I send highly promoted defenders to my vassals cities to prevent them from being taken during war and get huge experience too in the way.

 

[cabert]

No defense before alphabet Cabert?

you defend with workboats?
No, it is to prevent any temptation for an early rush...
I'm tired of those games being won!

 

[Elrohir]

The first is about leveraging the protective trait. Could a move to Archery early on be a good move? If so, where would it fit with Fishing, Pottery and Bronze Working on the priority scale?

If you don't mind the opinion of a struggling Monarch player....

If there is no copper around, certainly. It would be cheaper to snag hunting and Archery than Ironworking, and faster in this case as well. Protective Archers do a fine job defending, and if trained and used properly, can do a decent job holding off the barbs. (I once held off a couple waves of barbarian axemen and archers with only Wang Kon's archers until I could hook up my copper. It was tight ) If he has copper, however, I believe that there will be better things to research in the short term, although he should take advantage of his protective trait to get some good defenders by the time he launches his first war.

Also, Since City Walls deal with bombardment differently after the patch, could city walls in military target cities be justified?

Most likely not. Walls are still fairly useless, although castles are not worth building, sometimes. If there is one city that is blocking off an aggressive neighbor, then perhaps - certainly so if you have stone. But as a general build in most cities, or even most border cities, I don't think it's necessary.

Now all the actually wise talking Civ4 avatars can tell me what terrible advice I just gave you. Just kidding.

 

[aelf]

I moved the warrior 1W, as recommended:

I don't think it's a bad start. We have grasslands, forests, hills, lake and coasts. And settling on the spot woud probably give us a strategic resource in the capital's fat cross. What do you say? We have rice to west for another city and also spice for happiness.

I think Protective only really shines post-Gunpowder. But indeed, if it turns out that there's no copper around, we would probably want to build Protective archers and wait for Hwachas before embarking on our first campaign, concentrating initially on settling some good sites and maybe getting early wonders.

On that note, we can get Oracle for MC and Colossus. However, for that I would be inclined to try founding Buddhism or Hinduism, since we might not get the chance to found any religions later and there's no guarantee we can capture a holy city. A shrine would help us keep up against the more competitive AI. Alternatively, we can go for the Great Library and lightbulb Philosophy with a GS, founding Taoism and building the Angkor Wat. I'm actually in favour of the latter option, since I believe extra GS's are better than 4C coastal tiles. I think it's also an option that's still open to us even if we have copper nearby and choose to axe rush somebody early.

Anyway, cheap castles can be decent if we want the extra trade route, but other than that Protective's half-priced buildings are really situational.

 

[cabert]

I think Hwachas + protective archers are all the troops you need for your early wars (provided there is someone to kill).

 

[NaZdReG]

honestly without having a tile you can work to generate 1 commerce right from the start your chances of actually getting an early religion are minimal. you'll have to pick either meditation or poly and hope the ai doesnt pick the same one or you will probably have tanked the game.

but you could shoot for taoism, confucionism, judism and still have a decent chance of getting one. will upset diplo relations but you can go on a missionary spree and convert people to your POV.

if you decide to build the oracle then its 1 of 2 ways. pop metal casting and get the colossus... or pop alphabet and shoot for the great library. I usually pick the latter as it lets me get the GL up way before 0AD and is very powerful in that regard. I'd only build the colossus if you settle 2 more coastal cities early.

settle in place and go from there. if you find no copper get archery online and start massing archers.. dont discount when you can upgrade them to lbows or xbows. keeps you safe and gives you defenders once a city is yours.. dont worry the hwachas will take care of the attack work. if you find nearby horses you could use chariots and some archers for an early campaign though..

so much for peaceful thoughts heh. actually given your initial goals I would REX and try to get a ring of 5 cities around the capitol.. 2 coastal and 3 inland. also a few workers so you can spam out cottages.

NaZ

 

[Meridius]

Great thread... I like wasting time at work reading about all these strategies! Am new to this forum and only stumbled across this site while trying to figure out if beating Emperor level or better was even possible in Civ 4 (after spending the last week reading the EMC 1-3, that question has been answered )
Anyway, I thought I'd join in the discussion this time (though bear in mind I only barely beat monarch level prior to finding this forum, and I had no idea about what an SE was until last week!)
I would settle in place. Happiness probably won't be a factor till you get your second city up, so the spices can wait. I like coast + colossus + Great Library for early tech (esp with financial trait).

I think it will be very interesting to see if you can win without a serious aggressive tendancy. From what I've read on the forums so far, being aggressive is the best way to win on the higher levels!

M

 

[lilnev]

Hey, I'm back. A longer range question to Aelf: Why do you want to build Angkor Wat? It seems like a Financial leader should be working cottages, not running specialists.

Also longer-term: Protective seems best with gunpowder troops. I would plan for a rapid land grab, then only modest expansion at your neighbors' expense while developing cities and tiles (lots of workers, lots of cottages) until you reach Grenadiers or Riflemen. Drafting may be a strong strategy, though it works better with many farms than with mostly cottages.

More immediately, settle in place. Either Fishing-BW (warrior, boat, worker) or BW-Fishing (warrior, whipped worker, chopped boat). I'm actually curious whether the second would be faster.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Tyrant Roger]

I find the protective trait to be the least desireable of all the leader traits. It is useful when you are attacked, but the key to winning on the higher levels is to be the attacker - not the defender. Perhaps Aelf and the EMC advisory panel can show me why I'm wrong to despise the protective trait.

Settle in place, research bronze working while building a warrior. After you build the warrior, build a worker, chop boat and a settler and settle city two where the copper is. Your second tech should be fishing.

After you have copper and an economy and have scouted the region, you will have many good choices about where and how to build your next few cities. Any early attack will - as usual - depend on the axes.

 

[Phrederick]

I moved the warrior 1W, as recommended:
I don't think it's a bad start. We have grasslands, forests, hills, lake and coasts. And settling on the spot woud probably give us a strategic resource in the capital's fat cross. What do you say? We have rice to west for another city and also spice for happiness.

Settle in place. That hill on the left of the river above might make a decent second city, depending on whatever else is around, of course.

On that note, we can get Oracle for MC and Colossus. However, for that I would be inclined to try founding Buddhism or Hinduism, since we might not get the chance to found any religions later and there's no guarantee we can capture a holy city. A shrine would help us keep up against the more competitive AI. Alternatively, we can go for the Great Library and lightbulb Philosophy with a GS, founding Taoism and building the Angkor Wat. I'm actually in favour of the latter option, since I believe extra GS's are better than 4C coastal tiles. I think it's also an option that's still open to us even if we have copper nearby and choose to axe rush somebody early.

A shrine is really expensive though, and going for one of the first religions is very risky. Unless you settle by that river you're only going to have one commerce per turn from the map, and I think you really need more commerce to go for a religion. I often skip adopting a religion for a while for diplomatic reasons, and a shrine is only good if you spend a lot of hammers on missionaries. If you aim for Taoism, Confucianism, or Christianity, you'll have enough of an infrastructure to be able to more effectively promote it. Wait on the religion until those become available. I think the latter option is better, as you said.

 

[Jet]

A Cover-promoted Archer rush would guarantee you a Badass victory by 1500 BC. Archers are totally the new Quechuas.

 

[NaZdReG]

yes indeed even I had to take up the old civ 3 strat of running over someone nearby with archers because they had metal and I didn't.

korea is indeed fun to warmonger with.. I wonder if Aelf will be able to restrain himself

rex rex rex then cottage up and whore your way to construction. procede to bulldoze someone then entrench.. can't count the number of times I've done that

NaZ

 

[aelf]

Great thread... I like wasting time at work reading about all these strategies! Am new to this forum and only stumbled across this site while trying to figure out if beating Emperor level or better was even possible in Civ 4 (after spending the last week reading the EMC 1-3, that question has been answered )
Anyway, I thought I'd join in the discussion this time (though bear in mind I only barely beat monarch level prior to finding this forum, and I had no idea about what an SE was until last week!)
I would settle in place. Happiness probably won't be a factor till you get your second city up, so the spices can wait. I like coast + colossus + Great Library for early tech (esp with financial trait).

Welcome to Civfanatics! Feel free to speak your mind.

Let me elaboarate more on the proposed game plan. As a Financial civ, I assume we're going to develop a CE, and the grasslands around the capital seem to agree with that. We could grab MC and build the Colossus for more commerce, but personally, I'd rather concentrate on getting a few more Great Scientists. Lightbulbing techs is a lot more important at this level than 4C coastal tiles and would complement our focus on teching. The Great Library would be great for this. Philosophy is one of those good techs to lightbulb with a GS, being a requirement for Liberalism, and if we are going to do that, why not do it asap and grab Taoism with it? Now, if we found Taoism, don't we want to build its shrine? To get a prophet to do that, we need to be running quite a few priests to counter the Great Library's large scientist GPP output. Now, if we have the opportunity to build the Angkor Wat (which allows you to run 3 priests by itself) and run better priests, why not? It would make our GP farm a decent or excellent production city and benefit other cities too.

Of course, this would depend on whether we are able to find a site with decent food and production as a GP farm and build those wonders there. There's also no guarantee that we can beat the new AI to those wonders.

Anyway, since most people have recommended settling in place and researching Fishing -> BW first, I shall be playing the first round today.

 

[aelf]

I find the protective trait to be the least desireable of all the leader traits. It is useful when you are attacked, but the key to winning on the higher levels is to be the attacker - not the defender. Perhaps Aelf and the EMC advisory panel can show me why I'm wrong to despise the protective trait.

I'm looking to find out the answer in this game.

 

[aelf]

Crap! I just realised the game is on Normal speed! I actually forgot to change the game speed Oh, well. I guess we aren't planning to war that much anyway.

Well, we can either restart on Epic speed or continue on Normal. Since we've gotten the discussion started, I'm inclined to continue. If we get kicked on Normal, we can always try again on Epic.

 

[NaZdReG]

ugh aelf. critical error!!! restart!! honestly though it may sound a bit cheezy a re-roll of starting position would be better anyway. I'd love to see you start next to a river offering 1+ commerce so you can snag an early religion and see what i've been talking about!!!

epic is a much better game speed than normal anyway.. restart!!!

NaZ

 

[aelf]

I've played the first round and judging from the circumstances a re-roll for a better start is not necessary. I agree Epic is more fun to play on. However, it's also more conducive for warmongering and I guess since the point of the game is actually the opposite (not to be a warmonger), maybe playing on Normal isn't so bad after all. We may lose, but like I said we can always try again and lower the bar a little with Epic speed.

Anyway, I am busier now and may not always be able to play more than 1 round a week. For a first trial game that we may lose, Epic might be too slow-going. Imagine if EMC 3, where we lost the first attempt, was on Epic. We'd still be stuck in it now

But that's just my opinion. Let's see what the others say.