Trying Emperor - Please pitch in.

I had written a long descriptive post but it didn't post when civfantics went to the ad page in the process of posting it. Anyway, I was able to capture the Mayan capital and several Roman cities with a bunch of wonders. I had to conquer all the cities as a group because any one of them would have culture flipped all the others. I even lost one of the Mayan cities to Mongols after putting a GA's great work in it. It seems the cumulative effects of culture buildings and wonders is much more powerful on marathon than other speeds. I was also suprised to find how effective swordsmen, WE's and cats can be against cities garrisoned with muskets.

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Here's an update.

I decided to focus on corporations for the end of the game. I'm running well ahead in the score. I'm at about 2700 points. I conquered the Americans completely, have 17 cities, spread out mostly on islands, and am running Universal Suffrage/Emancipation/Free Market/Pacifism. The Mongols have 9 cities and are running State Property and have around 2000 points.

I am spreading Sid's Sushi all over the world and am able to run almost at 100% research. I updated many of my soldiers and a have a good navy with quite a few ships of the line and ironclads. I have steel and electricity. I am currently researching refrigeration.

My cities are struggling healthwise, even with harbors, aqueducts, grocers, and hospitals. The Mongols quit trading me dear. The Aztecs quit trading me corn and declared war on me. The Aztecs are hated by nearly everyone, have seven cities and a huge technologically behind army. The Aztecs have two cornfields, the only grains on the whole map. They also have cows on their lands, also the only on the map. They own the Pyramids in their capital. I could turn that into a city to make great engineers (for corporations). It would be nice for my future economy to conquer them. My cities would get an additional two health. Two allies are helping me attack the Aztecs.

I have a few questions:

1) What is the best way to switch my economy from what I have now to a wartime economy? Should I just switch from pacifism to theocracy? I did like the GP generating bonus, or should I just quickly try and make peace with the Aztecs? Can I carry on a war with pacifism?
2) I have little understanding of corporations. The world is rich in seafood but poor in grains. Should I conquer the Aztecs and take over their corn, would it make sense to start Cereal Mills?
3) I have been running 5 cities with forges and one specialist each to get great engineers, but engineers aren't popping out. I have no engineer producing wonders and Ironworks won't be ready for a while. What are other good strategies for creating great engineers to start corporations?
4) I have Wall Street in my capital. Should I found all my corporations there?
 
2 corns won't make up for lots of seafood. You have BUG, it looks like. shift-F7 is the corp screen. Go there, hover over a corp, and it should give you a preview of what it would give each city. I find that unless if you're inland, on a pangaea, or on a continents-type map with lots of land, you're usually better to go with Sid's sushi over cereal mills.
 
Hmmm. BUFFY + bad settings = events, even if you set their probs to 0. That's a good lesson, and getting a slave revolt in a SP game for the first time in months pissed me off so badly that's about all I have to say on this thread other than GLH + Mids should carry most the game.
 
I think I'm getting the hang of it. I've formed Sushi and Mining and that's it. I'm already making 400 additional trade even while running 100% science. I'm getting like eight additional food at branch offices of Sushi. That is really helping some arctic wasteland cities. I decided to sue for peace as soon as possible. Those AI attackers at emperor really bring the thunder. I have a few more closed borders than I prefer and no one is trading their techs. Still, my economy is strong enough that I am number one advanced empire. Another civ just formed jewelers so I'll get some competition. I guess I'll aim for space victory at this point.
 
The game has really slowed down now. It takes a lot of time for my computer to process each turn. My cities have been getting huge but I have complained before that the small map just hasn't allowed for great variety of food. The health of my citizens was really stuggling even with the latest technology. To cope with it, I haven't built any factories.

Every city of mine has Sid's Sushi and Mining. Sushi gives +7 food and Mining gives +14 hammers. Each branch doesn't cost me anything, the profits go to my financial capital, and they are multiplied by market, grocer, bank, wall street, etc. That +14 hammer somewhat makes up for not having factories, but it would be really nice to have them.

I have recently switched to environmentalism and organized religion from free market and pacifism. Environmentalism isn't a bad civic. Ironically, I can finally afford to build factories now without my population getting sick and dieing. I have been running at 100% science for quite some time now and have been making a lot of money from my corporations. I was about +450 money before, and now I am +225 money (with 100% science). I think the extra health is worth it. I am building a lot of buildings as my cities get huge. The +25% bonus to build buildings and wonders works great for me as well.
 
Space Victory, 1945
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It feels real good to win at emperor. The major powers kept warring each other while I peacefully built my spaceship. There was a lot of wiping out other powers and spinning off vassals. I found out I would really upset people if I didn't join in any wars, so I carefully selected my wars and sued for peace as soon as possible. Spamming Sushi and Mining execs really made things take off. All my cities really were helped by the +8 food and +16 hammers the corporations provided. I did form that coal -> aluminum conversion corp for a few cities near the end of the game for jet fighters and the space race, although most of the ship was build without the aid of aluminum. Environmentalism helped my cities grow really large. After a few future techs I did switch back to free market though.

Catherine isn't a particularly strong leader, but I'm sure the imperialistic trait helped get a few more settlers out there quick. I feel good that I was competing with 18 AI's and that I didn't win with the Romans, or Darius, or one of the really strong leaders.

Closing hints:
One hint that I read on the forums was to never put roads on the land where you want to spread your forest. Put forest preserves in the forests and they are likely to spread. I was able to spread forests over unforested tundra. At the end of the game (with lumbermills and railroad) these previously useless tundra tiles were producing 1 food and 3 hammers each. I even kept some forest preserves; they were producing 1 food, 1 hammer, and two coins with the environmentalism civic.

I think it was the right thing to start my corporations (except for that coal to aluminum conversion corporation) in my Wall Street city. The financial multipliers were the best there. I kept Mining in almost all of my cities, even if it slowed the spaceship production.
 
IMHO when good Mining and a food Corporations become possible, they are a very strong tool,
usually enough to win the game.
 
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