Tips for Emperor difficulty

[Dagreat]

Ok to start off I'd say I'm an intermediate player....I'd say I've mastered Regent difficulty. I read some articles in the War Academy (including that monarch-emperor) article, so I thought I'd skip monarch and go straight to emperor.

First few games....disaster...gave up straight away when I met 2-3 other civs. (I think it's tougher to keep up with AI when there's more AI, so I changed opponents from 11 on Huge map to 5 on standard)

First a few general questions:
At emperor is it better to compete with AI in tech race or buy tech?
In a previous game I kept up in Tech race until about industrial era, when the scientific civs traded with each other, and would not trade with me since I had nothing they wanted.
Before that stage I had been trying to guess which techs the AI would not research (e.g. literature, monarchy) and trading them, but when an AI gets one of the techs i'm researching before me I'm screwed. So what do you if you fall completely behind in the tech race?

Also, how do u guys use the Luxury slider? I only used it at 10% or 20% at the start so that I didn't need to garrison warriors used for exploring. Is this how you guys use the slider?

City placement: Before Emperor I found that optimal placement was sufficient to win, but at emperor I've found that most of hte time I don't expand fast enough unless I build cities cxxc or cxxxc. What kind of placement do you guys use?

This game (the attached one) I'm playing as Persia with 5 opponents. I started off on one of (i suspect) 2 main continents, wedged between Greece and Babylon. The other civs are Carthage, Scandinavians and France (I think). I haven't met them yet.

I started researching pottery at max speed, then after that researching other techs at 10%, buying whenever I could. By the way does having accelerated production on increase or decrease the AI's production/starting unit advantage?

The Greeks for no reason at all decided to declare war on me early in AA, and a few turns later got an MA with Babylon against me. Luckily for me the Greeks were far off, and by the time they got to the edge of my borders I paid them off. (So their rep took a hit since they broke MA with Babylon). Once I peaced the Greeks I razed 3 of Babylon's cities with Immortals (they were size 1, I didn't choose to raze them). The Babylonians decided to give me 3 cheap techs for peace.

Since the first war I've been trying to prevent war with Greece by buying techs with gpt deals. Greece declared war on me again when I refused to pay 60 gold tribute and lost about 1000 gold worth of gpt...it seems it took them much longer to accept my envoy again that time than the first time...does it have anything to do with it?

At this point (and at the point in save game) neither Greece nor Babylon have Iron (I have seen a Greek city with Iron in its borders, but it hasn't been connected yet. Greece is the only one with horses, nobody can see saltpeter yet (we're all about 3 techs into middle ages). I have Statue of Zeus (mistake?) and my army consists of spearmen, a few pikemen and lots of immortals. I had both monarchy and republic when I switched gov, and I chose Monarchy (mistake? I chose monarchy cos of the police support and unit support)

About 3 turns before the save I wanted to take Babylon to war so when I fought Greece I only had to protect 1 front (at this point I have a stronger army than either Greece or Babylon), so I bought Engineering off them with a gpt deal, then asked their settler/pikeman combos to move off my territory, hoping they'd declare war on me, but instead they all got auto-moved out ofmy territory, and the next turn didn't move back into it, so now I'm stuck paying Babylon 30 gpt for the next 20 turns, which I don't want to. Can you guys please have a look at my savegame and tell me where I should go from here? Also can you point out what mistakes I've made and what I should change? Thanks a lot

 

[vmxa]

Dagreat

"First few games....disaster...gave up straight away when I met 2-3 other civs. (I think it's tougher to keep up with AI when there's more AI, so I changed opponents from 11 on Huge map to 5 on standard)"

I would suggest you play with the default number of civs until you are comfortable. Using fewer makes the game easier, but you will find moving up harder. So if I want to have an game with less strain, then I drop the civs.

"At emperor is it better to compete with AI in tech race or buy tech?"

Compete is the best way, but that can mean trading or buying at times. You just have to realize that you are not going to get a bunch of tech ahead and stay that way. Late in the game you can stay ahead or sooner if you are killing lots of their cities.

You may have to hunker down and be patient. So what if they are a bit ahead in tech, you have better skills than they do. Get aggresive and reduce their land holdings. Once oyu have the largest or nearly the largest empire they are not going to be able to stay with you.

"Also, how do u guys use the Luxury slider? I only used it at 10% or 20% at the start so that I didn't need to garrison warriors used for exploring. Is this how you guys use the slider?"

I use it as sparingly as I can gt away with. I am not one of those that wil try to get WLTKD all over the place. All I need is to keep them happy enough to not riot. Now at times this may mean going over 30%, but I want to get it down asap.

"City placement: Before Emperor I found that optimal placement was sufficient to win, but at emperor I've found that most of hte time I don't expand fast enough unless I build cities cxxc or cxxxc. What kind of placement do you guys use?"

CxxC is the one for me at all levels. Exceptions are on an island that is smallish, then I may go some closer placement.

This game (the attached one) I'm playing as Persia with 5 opponents. I started off on one of (i suspect) 2 main continents, wedged between Greece and Babylon. The other civs are Carthage, Scandinavians and France (I think). I haven't met them yet.

"I started researching pottery at max speed, then after that researching other techs at 10%, buying whenever I could. By the way does having accelerated production on increase or decrease the AI's production/starting unit advantage?"

Ok, i flat out will not play AP. It just distorts the game too much for my taste. It was intended for MP games to speed them up. Why ply TBS if speed is what you want? It does nothing to their advantage AFAIK. It just forces you to spam out settlers and worker galore.

"The Greeks for no reason at all decided to declare war on me early in AA, and a few turns later got an MA with Babylon against me. Luckily for me the Greeks were far off, and by the time they got to the edge of my borders I paid them off. (So their rep took a hit since they broke MA with Babylon). Once I peaced the Greeks I razed 3 of Babylon's cities with Immortals (they were size 1, I didn't choose to raze them). The Babylonians decided to give me 3 cheap techs for peace."

Ok I should have mentioned this before, but I am not fond of giving money to the AI. I will buy techs at times and prefer to do it with the weaker civs, but no way will I buy peace below deity and then only on pangea.

"Since the first war I've been trying to prevent war with Greece by buying techs with gpt deals. Greece declared war on me again when I refused to pay 60 gold tribute and lost about 1000 gold worth of gpt...it seems it took them much longer to accept my envoy again that time than the first time...does it have anything to do with it?"

Wait are you saying you failed to give 60 gold and lost 1000gpt deals? Does that make any sense? The Greeks must have been very happy with you lettign them out of those deals. especially if they were for techs.

"At this point (and at the point in save game) neither Greece nor Babylon have Iron (I have seen a Greek city with Iron in its borders, but it hasn't been connected yet. Greece is the only one with horses, nobody can see saltpeter yet (we're all about 3 techs into middle ages). I have Statue of Zeus (mistake?) and my army consists of spearmen, a few pikemen and lots of immortals. I had both monarchy and republic when I switched gov, and I chose Monarchy (mistake? I chose monarchy cos of the police support and unit support)"

SoZ is never a mistake, it canbe used to kill off all the neighbors. AC's will soon make a leader and then you have an AC army and turn out the lights.

Monarchy is the way to go if you intend to more less be at war all the time. Otherwise Rep is the way to go. I use Monarch for AWE or Sid.

Spears and Pikes are not the way to go, unless you have defensive issues. I often do not built spears at all. Understand I am not a big fan of Immortals, many are. I dislike them as they have a defense of 2 and can be killed by any attacker. Do run pikes with them anywhere they go.

I would prefer to get horses, but if you can't you can't. I would press those Immortals for all they are worth before they can no longer be used. AC's will do a better job, you did put a barracks in the SoZ town right?

"About 3 turns before the save I wanted to take Babylon to war so when I fought Greece I only had to protect 1 front (at this point I have a stronger army than either Greece or Babylon), so I bought Engineering off them with a gpt deal, then asked their settler/pikeman combos to move off my territory, hoping they'd declare war on me, but instead they all got auto-moved out ofmy territory, and the next turn didn't move back into it, so now I'm stuck paying Babylon 30 gpt for the next 20 turns, which I don't want to. Can you guys please have a look at my savegame and tell me where I should go from here? Also can you point out what mistakes I've made and what I should change?"

Well why did you not just attack the settler combo and get the free slave? You are in Monarchy and do not have to worry about WW and the boost they get will not help them, you are going to press the war ntil they are gone.

Do not worry about rep now as you should not be in the business of making any deals where you pay them.

 

[vmxa]

Well you have no improvements in most of the cities, that is not what I would expect at 410AD. Towns are making troops with no barracks, not good. Lots of gold in the bank, why pile it up, you are not going to be doing any horse upgrades?

No cats to support all those slow moving Immortals? The real killer is you have not even met all the civs and have not even exposed all you contient?

I would have gotten out a few curraghs a long time ago to find the world.

At this point I would/did attack all the Babs I could and start to eliminate them.

One thing I really dislike about the Persians is that you are going to have to use their UU or it is not worth having. That means a despotic GA. This is usually bad. I do not mind it on Deity or some Sid games, where it may be the only way to survive. Not on Emperor, here I will be able to control things.

The good news is that Babs and Greeks have probably triggered theirs as well.

I wonder why no Sun Tsu started? I may prefer to go for the Chiv here, even though I have no horses to get the Templars. Crusaders are going to be your best unit for a long time until you takes those horses.

Leos is nice, but you can get by without it as you will be way too strong for anyone anyway after clearign the contient.

 

[Dagreat]

Thanks for taking the time to help me Vmxa, here are the responses to some of the things you said.

"Wait are you saying you failed to give 60 gold and lost 1000gpt deals? Does that make any sense? The Greeks must have been very happy with you lettign them out of those deals. especially if they were for techs."

No I meant I was paying Greece gpt when they declared war on me...so does the fact that they lost lots of gold make them take longer to accept my envoy again?

"No cats to support all those slow moving Immortals? The real killer is you have not even met all the civs and have not even exposed all you contient?"

Well perhaps it's cos of my lack of experience, but I don't find bombarders really useful until artillery/bombers....how many cats do you think i should get and how to use them?

"I wonder why no Sun Tsu started? I may prefer to go for the Chiv here, even though I have no horses to get the Templars. Crusaders are going to be your best unit for a long time until you takes those horses."

Greeks and Babs are both building Sun Tzu and started before me...I figured they would beat me to it so I didn't start it....is that a mistake?

Btw I had 2 galleys but they got sunk by Greece during one of our wars. Do you think I should get lots of curraghs/galleys and suicide them across the sea hoping to reach the far shore?

Also, the reason I don't have that many improvements is because I felt I needed my cities to be constantly producing settlers/workers/units to keep up with the AI in expansion/military buildup (As you can see the continent still has room for at least 10-12 more cities). Have I done this badly or do I just need to focus more on improvements?

 

[vmxa]

Dagreat

"No I meant I was paying Greece gpt when they declared war on me...so does the fact that they lost lots of gold make them take longer to accept my envoy again?"

No, it just makes them foolish. They put in a delay to the process to force the AI to not make peace right after a fight. The idea is that players would punch the AI aroudn get peace and some tribute and then turn right around and do it again.

"Well perhaps it's cos of my lack of experience, but I don't find bombarders really useful until artillery/bombers....how many cats do you think i should get and how to use them?"

Well cats are not the best in the game, but they can take a hit point off of units and make combat more favorable. I do not use them a lot as I use fast movers. If you are stuck with slow movers, no reason not to bring some cats as they will not slow you down. They can be built without a barracks at no loss of experience.

I would bring as many as I could.

"Greeks and Babs are both building Sun Tzu and started before me...I figured they would beat me to it so I didn't start it....is that a mistake?"

Not necessarily. Don't forget that others in the game could be making wonders as well. In the main you will probably have a better producing city than the AI at levels like Emperor or lower. Especially early in the game.

"Btw I had 2 galleys but they got sunk by Greece during one of our wars. Do you think I should get lots of curraghs/galleys and suicide them across the sea hoping to reach the far shore?"

Yes I would be sending them to make contacts. At this stage you probably can wait for the tech and faster ships.

"Also, the reason I don't have that many improvements is because I felt I needed my cities to be constantly producing settlers/workers/units to keep up with the AI in expansion/military buildup (As you can see the continent still has room for at least 10-12 more cities). Have I done this badly or do I just need to focus more on improvements?"

No you are in good shape. At soem point I like to focus on force and let the AI make settlers for me or at least take my time filling in areas that are open after say 20 towns.

It is just more for me to protect, so I am in no rush. You are Persian so you get cheap libs, that is what I would put in most towns to get the culture going and the beakers.

I just do not want to not have anything in my towns, unless it is AW game. Then I will want only happy stuff (if needed).

 

[SimpleMonkey]

I use it [the luxury slider] as sparingly as I can gt away with. I am not one of those that wil try to get WLTKD all over the place. All I need is to keep them happy enough to not riot. Now at times this may mean going over 30%, but I want to get it down asap.

Here's a very rare cases where I'm not in 100% agreement with vmxa. I do as he does for the first part of the game -- basically use the bare minimum lux slider setting that will keep my cities from rioting. But by the end of the AA or beginning of the MA, I try to have as many lux hooked up as possible and have marketplaces in many of my cities as well. The goal? Little pink fireworks going off all over my map. I like to have WLTKD going on over my entire empire by the time Steam Power shows up. The reason? WLTKD is a great way to reduce corruption and keep the money flowing in. So if it takes a tweak with an entertainer or turning a citizen into a taxman, I'll do that to pick up the benefits of WLTKD.

Of course, I'm still playing at Emperor and not subject to the same pressures as folks playing at the highest levels. At those levels a player may not have taken enough territory by the Middle Ages to get the multiple lux items necessary for serious happiness, and he might well have to forgo WLTKD just to keep as many citizens working tiles as possible. Then it seem a wise choice to spend as little as possible on the lux slider. Guess I'll find out when I crack Demigod/Deity.

As far as the rest of it goes, I think vmxa has, as always, sound advice.

 

[Dagreat]

Ok I think i'll start a new emperor game with full AI. So let me get these things straight:

I should mostly use cxxc placement?
Should get more curraghs to try to contact other continent?
Get catapults to support slow moving units?
Try to compete with AI in tech race (I dont' see how you can compete and buy at the same time)?

Also, should I be the aggressor and try to take out half of a civ as early as possible or be peaceful and wait until a civ declares war on me?

As for paying off a civ for peace, at that time I war warring Babylon and Greece at the same time. Would you still suggest I not pay for peace against Greece?

 

[SimpleMonkey]

Here's my thoughts.

I should mostly use cxxc placement?

Yes, yes. And yes.

Should get more curraghs to try to contact other continent?

Yes, if you're in an ocean world and not pangaea. Either you're going to want to be very aggressive and use your sea units from the very start to rule the oceans and keep the AI from contacting each other, or you're going to use your little dinky boats to be in the lead for making friends and tech trading. I play a lot on pangaea, though, so I'm still struggling with proper use of the seas.

Get catapults to support slow moving units?

Probably. The AI is going to be ahead in units, so they can afford losses you can't. Your troops are only going to be moving at one tile/turn anyway (unless you're using Mounted Warriors or Galic Swordsmen), so the cats won't slow them down so terribly. And you'll likely be fighting wars in despot for a while, so you won't have WW prodding you to fight quick wars.

As for paying off a civ for peace, at that time I war warring Babylon and Greece at the same time. Would you still suggest I not pay for peace against Greece?

I hate paying off threats, but if a war isn't going to profit you and/or the AI is in a position to put a hurtin on you, then I'd say it's worth it to pay them off. You will of course be preparing for the day when they will pay dearly for their insults, right? It just seems to come much later the higher the level.

 

[vmxa]

Well you can, at times, get a monopoly tech and sell it around. You now have the cash to buy (may need to add a tech or something) another tech.

This is not something you will be doing over and over it is a one or two or so times deal.

Later you may find you forgo researching for a few turns and raise extra cash to buy. Again I am not fond of buying after early IA, but sometimes it makes sense.

 

[vmxa]

As to WLTKD, I am not against them and gets soem, but I do not spend time working for them.

It is more of how good is my start anyway. With only one born content and often no temple, it is not going to be easy to get them. Now the captiol will have good shot later at it, once I take some luxs from someone.

Before that, it is very hard as I will have few wonders. Sid just makes them too hard to get. It is the norm to be seeing the msg about a wonder being done and I am not even in the same age, let alone have the tech.

Under those conditions WLTKD is going to be a problem.

 

[Dagreat]

I started a new game with 60% water Continents game as Chinese with 7 AI opponents. I'm at 290 BC and I'd appreciate some criticism and help with where to go from here.

Summary so far:
I got a fairly good start I think, outexpanding all the AIs I knew. (I'm second overall in land area) No wars yet, and no demands for tribute from any AIs (All the ones I've met so far are "American" Culture group) I've got defensive military in all my cities and a few extra offensive units near my border cities. I've managed to get a curragh to another continent and have met the Aztecs, hopefully I'll meet the rest soon. I've built a few temples/barracks here and there, I've got ivory and am building SoZ with one of my more productive cities (Iroquois are also building SoZ and may well beat me, so I've got Great Library and Forbidden City to move to if they get it first.

problems i've noticed:
1. I've fallen behind all the other known civs in tech by about 5 techs and we're near the end of AA. My only immediate hope of catching up somewhat is if I get currency before any of them do. (9 more turns til i get currency)
2.I'm at the edge of a continent and I've almost run out of room to expand. I've got room for about 2 more cities at the coast farthest from the AI civs. Other than that, the only other way I can expand is into dense jungle/other civs. From what I've seen the other civs still have ample room to expand in places I can't easily get to/defend. My first problem with warring is that between me and the nearest Civ there is about a 15x15 area of nothing but jungle. It seems it would make it very hard and costly to mount a successful campaign against even the nearest civ.
3. I have horses but no iron. There is not even any iron even close to my territory. All the other civs have both horses and iron (except Aztecs who only have iron, but they are on another continent). The easiest way I can see to get iron without trading (nobody seems to have extra) is to cross a 4-5 tile sea (completely coastal tiles) and take iron from the heart of the Mayans.

How should I proceed from here techwise, military wise and (to a lesser extent) culture wise?

 

[velsing]

Well I've just started getting the hang of emperor level. I've found that the only way I can keep up in tech is to buy from the AI at the beginning until the late MA. Usually I try and get a GA by the late MA. That usually allows me to get my infrastructure up, and from then on I can try to compete in tech by doing my own research.
...thats my 2cents

 

[Dagreat]

hm....I tried buying techs from AI too but it just doesn't seem to work for me...once MA starts the techs just get too expensive, and especially if there are one or two scientific civs your'e going to find it really hard to keep up by buying techs, or do you mean to buy techs once everyone else already has them? the problem with that is you will be fighting with inferior units, and will see resources even later and won't get access to wonders until even later.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

How about an Always War game? That should slow the AI research down plenty.

 

[vmxa]

Dagreat
OK I looked at the save. First thing is see is too many towns are just off the any river or coast.

Shanghai take the BG from Chinon and put its pop on the horse. It does not need a shield for a worker build, but you want them for the SoZ. This alone saves 3 turns and add commerce.

Yanchow switch to Lib, never build warriors after you have horses, try not to build any troops without a barracks after the first few warriors.

Paoting should have been on the coast.

Set your Preference to ALways wait, that is a must. It casued missing a town going into disorder. You always want the chance to review the empire.

Ningpo switch to worker, wasted 4 shields, but it was set to a settler. This is no good as it would not grow to size 3 for 8 turn. Meaning 5 turns nothing happens.

Hangchow switch to horse was a settler and this is one of the few towns with a barracks?

Tsingtao switch to barracks, could do lib. It was making an archer. Again no barracks and I would not make archers over horses in most cases. I may if it was a sure bet I wold face attackers.

Set Sci to 70 and Lux to 10. No need to add more surplus right now.

Xingian not on the river or the coast?

Nanking not on the river?

Shanghai missed river.

 

[vmxa]

Ok you need to switch Yang to a galley, need more ships out there to see the world. You may find someone to trade for a tech, probably not, but hey.

The problem is that the two you want are gov techs and they willnot give them p easy. Especially Monarchy as it has the HG.

You may need to research one yourself. Hard to say, they may trade for currency.

Anyway you want out of despotism. You can fill in the holes soon and start to build horses for the annexation of your neighbor.

 

[Dagreat]

should I attempt to build galleys and cross the small sea to attack maya or attack Inca by land?

 

[vmxa]

No I would prefer to clear my home land first.

 

[Dagreat]

hm...ok thx for the pointers...i'll see what i can do and if i get raped too badly i'll start a new game and hopefully improve on this effort

 

[Dagreat]

Well the Chinese game didn't go too well after that, fell behind dramatically and then I gave up when they all got railroads and I was still pumping out ancient cavalry

So.....

Started a new game as French: Continents, 60% water, 7 AI opponents. They are Ottomans, Germany, Portugal, Arabia, India, China and Byzantines.

I started near the edge of the bigger continent, along with Ottomans, Germany, Portugal, Arabia, and India. Byzantines and China on the other continent.

Basically: Did ok in the expansion phase, and was generally able to block up Portugal and Germany at the end of our continent. Managed to maintain tech parity up to end of AA, then all the scientific civs got their free tech so I fell behind. Decided to declare war on Germany. Got Portugal in on a MA against Germany (Portugal and Germany are the 2 weakest civs at this point), but after a few turns of not doing much they made peace. (The first of several deals Portugal has broken so far) At the end of the first war with Germany I made peace for 2 techs and about 20 gpt. Later on I needed a bit of gold and started making demands from Portugal. They altogether gave me about 100 gold and were giving me 5 gpt when I told them to leave my land and they declared war on me. (Should you ever make demands from AI?) I started taking their cities in that they'd settled on "my" land, then took one of their core cities before they signed an MA against me with Germany. I made peace with them for a tech, (so they broke deal a second time) and then took Germany's remaining mainland cities. I captured Leonardos, Oracle and Copernicus from Germany . Anyway while this was happening China demanded a tech which i refused to give, so they declared war on me, and later on so did Arabs. I signed MA with Byzantines against China (Byz was already at war with China, so I gained 100 gold and 5 gpt for the MA) and then just ignored them, since India and lots of jungle was between me and Arabs, and the sea was between me and China. Anyway, just as I finished my war with Germany the Arabs arrived at my borders, and I made peace with them. Right now I'm stuck in war with China, and despite the fact that it's gone on a long time without much fighting (my currgagh destroyed one of their galleys then got destroyed by one of their caravels, and they've landed one longbowman on my land which was quickly killed by a knight) they are "insulted" by an offer of peace.

Right now I have iron and horses but no saltpeter, a few of the other civs have saltpeter but quite a few of them either don't have iron or horses or both. I'm about 3-4 techs behind everyone except Byzantines (who are about to die if they dont' make peace with China).

From here on: I plan to wipe out the remaining Portuguese core cities and then invade India for their saltpeter. Then (assuming all goes well) I plan to somehow get Ottomans to help me destroy Arabs, and after that destroy Ottomans. Hopefully by then China won't have become too powerful yet and I can destroy them. (I don't htink I can beat China in culture, nobody except the soon to be no more Byzantines like me and i can't remember if I enabled space race so i think i have to win by domination)

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks!