Trying Emperor - Please pitch in.

[LincolnOfRome]

I am trying an emperor level game. This is my second attempt at Emperor. The first time I chose the wrong religion and three civs conquered in two turns. I really suspect this is way above my abilities, but I am willing to attempt it for all to see my failure. I am always willing to listen to good advice.

Here are the settings:
Small map size with 18 civilizations
Big and small map with snaky continents and islands mixed in.
Marathon speed.

My leader this time Catherine (IMP/CRE). It is a small map with a lot of civs crammed together. It might work well to have a leader that can get the settlers out quick and get the borders popping quick at the start. The cheap libraries might help keeping up techwise.

Here is the start:

 

[lymond]

Small map with 18 civs?! I don't think that's the way to go. I recommend laying a standard size map like Fractal with the normal number of civs - say 7 or 8. Diplomacy gets much more difficult with a lot of civs on the map and I've never even thought of playing a small map with 18 civs. Of course, I never play small maps.

Anyway, I suggest posting a start save as well as saves of your progress at certain points - although you may intend to. Some folks may play along but you may not get many takers with those setting and marathon is an acquired taste - not that I don't like it or anything - it just takes more patience and is not as popular.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Lymond, a small map is as much as my computer will handle. It is 1.2 GHz and has 768MB RAM.

I am running Buffy for v3.19 of BTS. You can load up the starting save of the game here:

 

[Shurdus]

you can attach the save as an attatchment when posting here as well.

Why 18 civs on a small map? It seems like it will be complete disaster as the AI will not have enough room and it will declare amongt each other and on you where a normal game would not develop like that. It seems too coocked up to lead to anything useful.

 

[mariogreymist]

I agree that this is an extreme and impractical set of conditions under which to learn a new level. If you're beating monarch on small maps with 18 civs, hats off to you sir; that's no mean feat! Though I suppose marathon gives you a pretty good advantage, as you're thinking war far sooner than the AIs will.

Really though, if a small map is all your computer will handle, play against 6-7 AIs for a more normal game experience.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Well, I decided to get started right away. I decided to form my first city, Moscow, right where the settler was. I wanted to get as many settlers and workers out there that I could. Because the Russians get mining to start, I decided to build a worker and learn BW to do some chopping. By 3820 BC, I realized I was on an island big enough for three cities. Much of the land is unwooded tundra without a deer or beaver in site. I dotmapped where I would place my cities using the BUG tool:

Around 3550 BC, my first worker was built

A few years later, bronze working revealed that there was no bronze on the island, so learned fishing and sailing and scouted some nearby islands. I was shocked to find these islands unoccupied. With 18 civs on a small map, I couldn't believe how much _lebensraum_ I had. It wasn't until 2545 BC that I ran into another civilization. I met the jolly Kublai Khan first.

Meanwhile, a nearby oasis attracted many with the waters of life. I also allowed my herbalists to take extreme measures to increase the health of my population. In 2120 BC I founded the first city, Novogrod, on another island other than my original island.

By 1000 BC, I founded eight cities in total, three on one island, and three on another, and two small islands host one city each. So far I have found three sources of horses, a source of ivory, but no copper. I am currently learning IW to find a source of metal. Also, many of the islands in my empire are full of forests.

Here is a view of the northern island at 1000 BC:

Here are my southern three islands:

I have met many more civilizations since Kubla. At 1000 BC, my civilization knows 12 of the 18 civilizations. So far I have no enemies. I did find out Lincoln was very unpopular, so I quit talking to him. There also seems to be some squabbling between a group called the Buddhists and a group called the Hindus. I tried to find someone who was aware of why they were fighting, but no one in my empire calls themselves either a Buddhist or a Hindu.

Expansion has slowed my research rate to twenty percent. Here is my current tech situation:

As far as the game is concerned, I plan to build up a force and attack the Americans. They are located to the Southeast of me. I would be very popular and I might even capture some more territory. I also need to jumpstart my economy with cottages. I can't really expand much more at this point.

Please share any advice that would be helpful at this point.

Saved game at 1000 BC:

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I agree that this is an extreme and impractical set of conditions under which to learn a new level. If you're beating monarch on small maps with 18 civs, hats off to you sir; that's no mean feat! Though I suppose marathon gives you a pretty good advantage, as you're thinking war far sooner than the AIs will.

Really though, if a small map is all your computer will handle, play against 6-7 AIs for a more normal game experience.

I did try a small map with 18 civs at monarch level. I played with Ramsees and quickly built a large force of war chariots. After conquering three civs before 1000 BC, it seemed too easy. This is a tough map though. I need to move all my attacks from islands. I could be in trouble; I am rather weak at 1000 BC and not ready to be attacked.

I'm not sure if it will play out all that much differently than larger maps. Most civs have 3-4 cties and that isn't too bad. When civs conquer other civs, there will be fewer and fewer. It might be a fair approximation of a battle for domination amoungst small city states. I am much more concerned with playing an island civilization ( i am not used to it) than the number of civs. I would hope that this game won't produce crazy results. Is anyone interested to find out? The last game I played and shared online was five civilizations on a tiny map at monarch level. I thought it played rather well.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8913347

My intention was not to do anything crazy by having all these civs crammed together, I just figured that as the game progressed, it wouldn't be that different on a small map. Also, have any of you tried many civs on a smaller map? Maybe give my game a try. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe you won't.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Well, you all might be right. I've fallen behind tech-wise terribly. The AI's have been sharing their secrets among themselves and have left me out. I am trying to keep up on my combat technologies and learning construction for WE's and cats. I hope to beat up another power and them give me their technologies.

At 40AD here is my kingdom:

And the worlds leading power:

Please pitch in any advice (other than "play another game with different parameters"). Take a look at the attachment and see if you can help out in any way.

 

[Ghpstage]

I really think war overseas is a bad move now, galleys make it hard enough but everyone will be stronger than you, plus your nearest neighbours (except Lincoln who is too far South of your Capital) are part of the huge Hindu block with you and you don't want to isolate yourself diplomatically and of course, your economy is a shambles.
I can see how you managed to fall so far behind, high maintenance from a lot of cities, no early great people and strange tech paths (why Maths and Construction and not Alpha -> Currency!?).

Fortunately the massive Hindu block can springboard you back into the game, and quite quickly at that. All you need to do is make use of those Pleased AIs, beg for up to 200 gold from each Pleased AI, some may not give you it but most will and I estimate you can get between 800-1000 gold in the turn your currently playing
This will easily be enough for you to quickly research Currency which is going to be an extremely important tech on this map as all the extra trade routes will be overseas and foreign. After Currency some trade bait would be a wise move, perhaps CoL to bulb Philosophy although it may already have been taken by an AI by then.

Remember to keep begging every 20-30 turns for more gold from your friends. This is one of the big advantages of crowded maps, lots of people to beg from means lots more gold and it slows the AIs down more

With your wars, Monty will make peace now, and Giggles for a small amount of gold you can get by begging. You aren't in any condition to fight them right now and even if you could win, the cities you would take would be too far away.


Also with so much seafood on your starting island you should really had gotten your first Great Person by now.
Its very winnable in my opinion though, provided you make use of those freinds!

**Edit - Any reason you didn't attempt to get the Great Lighthouse when you saw those nearby islands? GLH would have pretty much won this game all by itself and isn't usually too hard to get on Emperor I also suspect that Pacal getting GLH has played a significant part in how far behind you fell!

 

[LincolnOfRome]

You make some good points. I thought the GLH would be good on this map and tried hard to build it, but I fell short. I did manage to take two cities (one of Monty's and a Barbarian city) with the force I sent down south. The pillage gave me some cash. The support was too much and I gave the cities to some grateful allies. I'll keep you updated. I am producing wealth in my cities now and running science at 60%.

 

[Shurdus]

What strikes me as odd is that you have tree resources of horse yet you cannot seem to find the ability to trade for health resources in order to figh the health issues in your size-8 cities. I cannot open your safe since you use buffy, but I would assume someone would trade you something to relieve the health penaltie you experience.

Begging should occur at a max once every 40 or so turns on normal speed, I would assume that on marathon it would be even more harsh there. Begging every 50ish turns would be more close to the ideal situation I think.

Other than that I would seriously hope you started thinking about how to generate great people. A bulb or two here and there and you should be able to trade for whatever you may need and then broker a tech or two and you are back in the race. Looking at the tech situation right now it looks very very weak indeed. Are you overbuilding infrastructure you do not need for hundreds of years while not building enough beakers or wealth? Do you run no scientists? With stone, even trying to complete the mids for failure gold is a solid and legit way of generating deficit research.

You may know already, but binary research really is kinda a big deal. Some players don't it as often as they should and perform fine regardless (hi TMIT) but you should really make a habit of setting research to 0% to accumulate gold and then seting research to 100% when you accumulated enough gold to finish the tech. That way the total amount of beakers generated is larger and more beakers are 'bonus' beakers that got multiplied by the libraries.

Without opening the save I do not feel comfrtable giving commenting more, so there you go. I hope you can use this.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

What strikes me as odd is that you have tree resources of horse yet you cannot seem to find the ability to trade for health resources in order to figh the health issues in your size-8 cities. I cannot open your safe since you use buffy, but I would assume someone would trade you something to relieve the health penaltie you experience.

That's one of the results of having 18 civs on a small map. There are not a whole lot of resources to go around. I've had trouble finding anyone with goods

Are you overbuilding infrastructure you do not need for hundreds of years while not building enough beakers or wealth? Do you run no scientists? With stone, even trying to complete the mids for failure gold is a solid and legit way of generating deficit research.

I think there are three libraries for eight cities at 900 AD while I am researching education. There are no marketplaces, no courthouses, and no wonders. The three library cities have been running two specialists most of the time. My cities have granaries, a few barracks. I have also built harbors and aqueducts on my largest cities only when they need them. Generally I have tried to keep half the cities generating strictly wealth while I run research at about 50-60%.

You may know already, but binary research really is kinda a big deal. Some players don't it as often as they should and perform fine regardless (hi TMIT) but you should really make a habit of setting research to 0% to accumulate gold and then seting research to 100% when you accumulated enough gold to finish the tech. That way the total amount of beakers generated is larger and more beakers are 'bonus' beakers that got multiplied by the libraries.

I wasn't aware of this. I'll have to look this up. Although, I usually try not to use these kind of fool-game-mechanics type tricks though. I know there are tricks to build settlers while growing the city populations and other ways to get around the game designer's intentions. If these types of tricks are really necessary at emperor level, I may need to stick to monarch.

I've done some catching up. I've moved back up into the pack as far as techs are concerned:

 

[Greep]

I wasn't aware of this. I'll have to look this up. Although, I usually try not to use these kind of fool-game-mechanics type tricks though. I know there are tricks to build settlers while growing the city populations and other ways to get around the game designer's intentions. If these types of tricks are really necessary at emperor level, I may need to stick to monarch.

These kind of trick most certanly aren't neccesary! I have just recently moved to emperor (maybe I could have made the jump a bit sooner) and have now won 4 games straight without any micro or "cheap" tricks. You do have to adjust your game a bit but don't have to ressort to what you (and I for that matter) feel like is cheating.

The map settings might make things a bit difficult for you... I would drop the amount of CIVS by at least 50%!

 

[Shurdus]

That's one of the results of having 18 civs on a small map. There are not a whole lot of resources to go around. I've had trouble finding anyone with goods



I think there are three libraries for eight cities at 900 AD while I am researching education. There are no marketplaces, no courthouses, and no wonders. The three library cities have been running two specialists most of the time. My cities have granaries, a few barracks. I have also built harbors and aqueducts on my largest cities only when they need them. Generally I have tried to keep half the cities generating strictly wealth while I run research at about 50-60%.



I wasn't aware of this. I'll have to look this up. Although, I usually try not to use these kind of fool-game-mechanics type tricks though. I know there are tricks to build settlers while growing the city populations and other ways to get around the game designer's intentions. If these types of tricks are really necessary at emperor level, I may need to stick to monarch.

I've done some catching up. I've moved back up into the pack as far as techs are concerned:

You speak of this settler 'exploit' that was posed back in 2006 or so yet the thread was resurrected recently. Quite frankly this is not a trick nor is it anything special. You can stop a worker from chopping a forest without tricks. Swith the city to a settler, finish the chop and then continue whatever you were building to get the chop towards the settler and not to whatever else you may have been building. This is no trick, just some micromanagement. Just because that thread about this 'trick' gave a very vague and weird description on how it is done does not make it fool-game-mechanics. the thread made it sound like the mechanics of the game were not supposed to be like this yet it can be done in a way that required no skill whatsoever. It is a way to do things, and if it may get you ahead you amy very well use it rather than dismissing it so easely - yet if you do not want to learn maybe you belong on monarch, who knows.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I am very aware of how to do it. In fact, I have a mod that will help me micromanage it. I know how to do quite a few micromanagement tricks. I just think that if the difference between Monarch and Emperor is just victory-through-micromanagement, then it might not be for me.

Of course, this trick doesn't help me with my current situation. I am not opposed to tricks. I may even try binary research. If it takes sixteen turns to learn something at epic rather than twenty, then it will be great. If it takes nineteen, it may not be worth the the micromanagement (I might want to try it on a close race to libaralism though). Although the sum of applying all these techniques may be substantial, it takes quite a bit from the game.

Right now, as far as the game is concerned, I need to come up with a strategy to win this game. Can I win a domination victory at this point? If so, how? Am I set up for a space victory? I have more cities and perhaps more potential production than anyone else. Maybe a need to take over a few more cities to assure a space victory. These are the questions I am trying to work out.

 

[Fleme]

I wouldn't call this a proper game of emperor by any standards. Crowding a map, especially this badly, is like playing 2 difficulties lower because the AI is forced to give up the benefits it would otherwise have when playing on this difficulty. Furthermore such close quarters on a map type (Any variation of archipelago, because the AI's don't have the tools to handle production in water heavy maps) in which the AI performs badly to begin with will force them to go to war with their miniscule empires, thus grinding their performance to a total halt.

If you really can't play anything but Small maps then by all means do it but for your next game let the number of AI's be what it is or increase it by one at most. For the map type choose fractal/hemispheres/continents/pangaea - all of which allow the AI to play as it would on emperor.

This game serves no purpose other than "fun", if even that, it's not for learning.

 

[Greep]

I am very aware of how to do it. In fact, I have a mod that will help me micromanage it. I know how to do quite a few micromanagement tricks. I just think that if the difference between Monarch and Emperor is just victory-through-micromanagement, then it might not be for me.

Of course, this trick doesn't help me with my current situation.

As I stated before: One doesn't need extensive micro to be successful at Emperor! Maybe at Immortal and definitely at Deity one needs to micromanage, but not at Emperor... Just take a look at how TheMeInTeam plays his games. He doesn't spend hours on micro (in fact he is finished with a game within hours!) and still is very successful at higher levels.

You can watch how he plays his games at youtube....

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I wouldn't call this a proper game of emperor by any standards. Crowding a map, especially this badly, is like playing 2 difficulties lower because the AI is forced to give up the benefits it would otherwise have when playing on this difficulty. Furthermore such close quarters on a map type (Any variation of archipelago, because the AI's don't have the tools to handle production in water heavy maps) in which the AI performs badly to begin with will force them to go to war with their miniscule empires, thus grinding their performance to a total halt.

If you really can't play anything but Small maps then by all means do it but for your next game let the number of AI's be what it is or increase it by one at most. For the map type choose fractal/hemispheres/continents/pangaea - all of which allow the AI to play as it would on emperor.

This game serves no purpose other than "fun", if even that, it's not for learning.

I disagree that crowding the map makes it easier overall. The diplomacy makes things tougher; there are so many nearby civilizations to please. Another issue is resources. I am also crammed into a smaller area. I am struggling healthwise because I can't find another civilization who will trade me for health increasing resources because I am competing with 17 other civilizations. Seventeen AI civilizations are very good about sharing research discoveries and resources with each other. I think there is a bit of a human penalty there (even though my BUFFY mod has a component that tell me whenever a AI civ will trade discoveries).

Although the map is crowded, the AI's are less crowded than the European areas of some real-world maps I have seen. I think most of the posters on this discussion agree that small crowded maps are much tougher for the human player than the AI. I have tried the advice of some of the posters and tried another emperor level game on a less crowded map. I am finding it much easier. I continue to play this small crowded game because I find it very challenging.

As I stated before: One doesn't need extensive micro to be successful at Emperor! Maybe at Immortal and definitely at Deity one needs to micromanage, but not at Emperor... Just take a look at how TheMeInTeam plays his games. He doesn't spend hours on micro (in fact he is finished with a game within hours!) and still is very successful at higher levels.

You can watch how he plays his games at youtube....

Great point. I have watched a few of those videos. I agree. He makes Civ4 at immortal look fun.

Does anyone have any advice about this specific game to help me win it?

 

[UWHabs]

Haven't opened the save, but you have more/better land than others. With the slight edge in land, go towards corp-fuelled end-game. Save up a merchant for sid's sushi, and an engineer for mining. You've got double the cities of most people in the game - get those corps up, and you'll be able to run over those smaller powers. Then either take another 6-10 cities and go to space, or keep wiping everyone out. Keep enough friends so that your trade routes don't die (gift techs if necessary), and you should be fine.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Thanks, that was the type of advice I was looking for. Based on another emperor level game I played, I think I went too sparse on the buildings as well. I need to build a few more courthouses, markets, and libraries.