Yuming's Emperor Challenge (on Warlords)

[Yuming]

This is an attempt by me, Yuming, to win properly on Emperor difficulty.

I will be using Warlords because I don't have Beyond the Sword.

For this reason, this will probably be a little out of date but I hope the community will support me, especially those who don't have BtS yet!

I will try to play the game through like Sisiutil in his ALC series and ask people for advice throughout the game. I'd like to take this opportunity to say how much I love his stuff and I'd like to thank all of the people who regularly contribute on the forums. Sisiutil, aelf, Snaaty, Sirian and Sulla's RB19 - you've been an inspiration!

Back to the challenge: I have been playing on Emperor difficulty for a long time but I can only win if I choose a lot of the settings: for example I can win on Terra maps if I choose the right leaders e.t.c.

However, recently I tried to win on the following settings:

World Type: Fractal
World Size: Large
Speed: Normal
Leader: Random
Difficulty: Emperor

I ended up losing 7 times in a row

Therefore, I hope the community will be able to help me win this Emperor game on the eighth time (Eight is lucky!) I will listen and try to pick up new techniques. If I could get a quarter of the input that Sisiutil gets I would be extremely happy so please voice all of your excellent ideas.

I am relatively inexperienced having only posted around 10 times but I hope that the quality of the stuff is high.
(I'll take the opportunity also to advertise the Chinese Unification Scenario thing that I wrote. It is great! - see sig.)

The settings I used were as above.

Guess who the dice roll gave us:

Brennus! Hmmmm,

Traits: Spiritual and Charismatic
Starting Technologies: Mysticism and Hunting
Unique unit: Gallic Warrior
Unique building: Dun

What do you think?
I'm thinking Stonehenge is looking like a very juicy wonder now since it will put +1 in every city and give free border expansions.
But first the start:

My first impression is:
There seems to be plenty of food since there seem to be more floodplains further north and those riverside hills look lovely.

Where should I move the scout?
And where should I settle?

Might this be one of those rare times when it may be better to settle first and then move?

General Strategy:

Since Brennus starts with Mysticism I like the idea of taking an early religion. We would have a good chance of getting it too with the extra commerce for working floodplains. Stonehenge is looking like a very useful wonder and it would be very fitting if the Celts did indeed get it!

Those are my first thoughts. A few questions for you:

Early research paths?
Victory condition?
Gallic Warrior rush?
SE or CE? (I don't really think I understand the -edit- SE -edit- very well but I'd love to learn)

Looking forward to all of your input.
Wish me luck!

Yuming

 

[Snaaty]

Some ideas:

1. move scout NE (plains hill)
2. if nothing special appeares, settle on other plains hill (SE of settler), because you get an extra hammer and that can do wonders early on (and you still have 3 hills left)


Research wise, I would go:

poly, agri, priest, mining, mason, mono, animalh


Build order:

worker, warrior, start stonh, temple (set first priest to work), continue stoneh, switch GW, next temple (set second priest to work) chop GW, build stoneh, start settler spamming

sounds weird at first, but with Bren this stat is ideal:

you found two religions (poly + jud) and can generate GP points like hell. You don´t need to work the pigs, because with farming, you can work enough floodplains (which you have). The extra happy allows to run the two priests and to get enough production the build stoneh and GW (backed by org religion). The GP´s you get and settle allow for EASY expansion later (+5 gold per GP) and great early production. If you should get a GE due to the GW, even better, just rush the pyramids (if not, don´t bother buiding them, expansion is more important). Your innitial expansion is slowed a bit, but once your capital is crancing out settler, you should make up for it (and you dont have to fear barbs).

 

[futurehermit]

tip 1: listen to snaaty, the guy's a great player. the only thing i don't like in his advice is that sometimes he forgets the odd thing e.g.,

chop GW

and

poly, agri, priest, mining, mason, mono, animalh

. where is bronzeworking!

general thoughts: with brennus you can go warmongering (charismatic) or pursue a nice cultural victory (myst + spiritual). but let the map dictate which way you go. if you take snaaty's advice then you're set up for either option. you have a couple religions and can get a 3rd from theology. well set up for cultural. but if you decide on warring this opening sets you up to spam theocracy-enhanced classical units during the era of strength with your uu.

 

[Haika]

First off, I'm new to this forum too, and will be lurking this thread closely, so good luck!

Big fan of Snaaty, his Persia Earth Game is one of my absolute favorite reads.

Snaaty's strategy would definitely be interesting to see, and has a lot of synergy with your traits. However, I can't say that the GP points from working priests will be worth sacrificing the early hammers. (1 hammer, 1 gold from priest vs 4 hammers, 1 commerce from riverside hill). Losing 3 hammers per turn in the crucial early going is going to snowball in a negative way. A settled great prophet will definitely make up for it, but keep in mind that you are making your scientists in the future much more expensive. Also the late settler and late strategic resource techs will put you at risk for getting outsettled/outarmed.

I believe in playing the land, more than the leader. Religion is pretty helpful for lifting the happy cap for emperor, however you have charismatic, which somewhat mitigates that need. I'm not clear on this, but there was some advantage that built monuments had vs Stonehenge monument after you researched calendar, so you might want to look into that.

If you want religion, maybe try warrior -> worker strategy, while growing to size 2. Generally I would always recommend worker first, but your worker will literally have nothing to do while you are chasing poly. Rather than going for a second religion, go AH -> mining -> BW. Improve the pig tile first, then the grass hills, then the plains hills. Grow while building stonehenge and putting new citizens on the hills. These three techs are all you really need to leverage your start, I think, since pigs and your capital square (+6 food) are enough to support all of your hills (-2 for grass, -4 for plains) at size 5, plenty of hammers to put out settlers/wonders as your situation dictates. As your cap grows, you can mix in cottaged floodplains.

If you see a nearby neighbor and/or an amazing second city spot, you can just build your first settler quickly with the pigs and whatever hills you have up.

I really can't recommend chasing Judaism. Improving tiles is crucial early on.

Looking forward to seeing how you decide to play it.

 

[futurehermit]

^^^good advice here as well.

 

[Yuming]

Lots of great ideas here!

I particularly like the idea of getting Hinduism and Judaism since Organised Religion can be very useful. However, I'm not sure the Great Wall is value for hammers. I'm not Industrious and at 250 hammers I would rather be building settlers.

Also, if I build the worker first, it will be a while before it will improve any tiles.

Anyway we need to see the location of the capital a bit better first. So I moved the scout NW onto the plains hill as suggested by Snaaty:

What a view! But no new resources here.
Keep the good ideas coming in! I'll probably take a few more suggestions about city placement before I found. Snaaty, you suggested moving to the plains hill - my only worry is that this one turn will lose us the Polytheism race. Also, I don't usually argue with the City Placement generator.
However, I'm willing to learn and try new strategies.

I'm dying to start playing so keep posting!

 

[Snaaty]

@ Future:

as always, thanks for correcting

...

@ Yuming:

Going for an early rel is always a gamble, so you are right, better settle in place if you take this strat (the extra hammer doesn´t matter much IF you are taking the religion/priest route)

The hammers you invest in the GW you save on fogbusters and soldiers (and the GP-points are handy)

Research:

poly, agri, priest, mining, mason, mono, BRONZE (now chopchop) animalh

...

@ Haika:

The worker has enought to do, because agri will come online pretty soon after poly is finished (I don´t like mikrom too much, but if Yuming wants to squeeze out some more, he can start on a warrior, and then switch to a worker (timing with agri). Later, mine every hill, because you need the production for the wonders (this keeps him busy)

The trick with GP´s is to get them VERY early, because each GP allows an extra city due to the gold:

100/9=12 turns (2 priests, stoneh, GW) for first
200/9=22 turns (with overflow from first)

Around that time you usually run broke, so the priest thing is quite usefull

 

[Yuming]

I'm taking the rounds slowly so that I can get more advice.

I decided to found in place since we were going to go for an early religion.
Polytheism was going to take 13 turns well, that's Emperor difficulty for you.
Here is a look at the capital's fat cross:

Bother.
The fish and the clam are going to be fairly useless now. If I had settled one SW....
I'm also hoping that we'll find a strategic resource near Bibracte to make up for the lack of resources - capitals usually get at least 2 or 3 resources, right?

On the plus side, the capital looks good. Those floodplains look perfect for cottages and with the hills and forests, it should be able to manage some good early production. Oh and the hut next to my settler popped for a map and then the other hut gave me 44 gold.

The next few turns were tense: Every time I prepared to press enter to end turn I dreaded seeing the words:

'Hinduism has been founded in a faraway land'

However, we were lucky:

And the Celts are credited with founding the earliest religion!

Here is a look at the map in 3480BC:

Hmmm, some nice terrain but resources look a bit thin to me - that signals a small continent or an isolated start. How would that impact on the game?

At the moment it says I'm researching Agriculture but I can potentially change it since I haven't invested any beakers yet. I've also delayed the worker until the capital grows to size 3 (sorry Snaaty - hope it doesn't ruin the strategy too much, I hate having idle workers and I like scouts!) After I took the screenshot I micromanaged by changing from a floodplain to a grassland forest which means both will now complete in one turn after which I can switch to a worker (completing in 10 turns by the way)

My scout just took a wolf attack and is healing next to the eastern silver. The new scout would probably explore to the north of Bibracte. I would agree with researching agriculture (which is researching faster because of the extra flood plain gold by the way) though I'm open to other suggestions.

Too early for dotmaps?
After I finish the worker, should I build a warrior or what?

As usual, keep the good ideas flowing in!

(And the starting save is below - I almost forgot)

 

[Ruler]

You got your religion what's good. I think it's important on Emperor to exploit your traits as much as possible some are easier than others and an early religion for spiritual it is as for Charismatic it means cottages and with that kind of map it screams cottages so get archery for barbs and pottery and cottage spam. Although you are lacking in happiness resources there's silver and lets hope there's more of north.

Just a suggestion, lets heard what Snaaty has to say.

 

[Scarredroman]

Bear in mind that without The Wheel you cannot link up any resources. Still with the strategy you're following you have plenty of flood plain to farm, hills to mine and forests to chop. Your tech path does not include pottery, so no cottages until after you've revealed horses.

 

[Yuming]

This round is even shorter!

But that is because I have important news to tell you.
Since there seemed to be no objections to continuing to research Agriculture and building a worker, I decided to play a few more turns. By 3000BC, I had managed to map the entire continent. You know what that means:

We have an isloated start!!

Well that presents some interesting possibilities! We'll probably have to rethink our strategy quite a lot
Here are my thoughts:

Happiness Issues: At the moment the cap is 6 in the capital. After Stonehenge and after we get the silver, this will rise to 8 in the capital (9 with a temple) and up to 7 (8 with temples) in the other cities. This probably means there is no need to beeline to Monarchy though it will still be a priority.

Research: Does the Fishing.......Compass.....Optics line look more appealing now? We might want to miss out some techs altogether like archery and HBR (if there are no horses around). Alphabet will now be completely useless except as a prerequisite!
Do we still need to found Judaism now? It would complicate things early on if we have some cities getting Hinduism and some Judaism wouldn't it? Personally I am for leaving Masonry and Monotheism and focussing more on economic Techs like Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working. And here's a screenie showing our current Tech situation:

Military and Barbs: Since the continent isn't all that big and Bibracte's borders are revealing a lot of fog, I'd prefer to use 4 fogbusters and a city garrison instead of building the Great Wall because 250 hammers is a lot. 4 will reveal nearly all the fog except for a sizeable chunk in the tundra (but we'll be able to see if a barbarian threat comes - the peninsula is exactly 5 tiles wide and there is a nice forest-hill in the middle) and 3 tile patches to the south east of the capital and to the north. This probably means I can keep my military quite small for the time being - until I use Hereditary Rule at least.

Wonders: Stonehenge is a must in my opinion. I don't like the Great Wall. The two I like are:

The Pyramids - Early representation is extremely valuable and since we can expand at our own pace, we can afford the steep price

The Colossus - It would be nice but we'd have to research Metal Casting and build a forge first. Hmmmm, who's to say we'll get there first!

Dotmaps/Expansion: Please can we have lots of these or at least discussions to place the cities because we'll have all the time in the world (4000 years in fact ) to build them so a definitive plan would be useful. Obviously a lot of this will depend on where the strategic resources show up but we can still make preliminary plans. The only obvious site I can think of is the site that claims two fish and pig north of Bibracte. The other ones I'm not sure about. (There is no way to put any of the Silvers with a food resource ).

CE or SE? I don't know a lot about either so I am extremely willing to take suggestions. One thing I will say though is that I like the capital for cottaging. It looks like a good mid-game Bureaucracy research city.

Demographics:
(I like Demographics, they always look so interesting! It will also be the only way we can keep in touch with the other Civs.

27 Food!
That's ridiculous at 3000BC
We have a lot of catchup to do already

This is going to be a difficult game and I'm going to need all of your help.
Please continue posting as vigorously as possible!

 

[futurehermit]

Fogbust so you can get down to building.

Economy: Hybrid. There are some high-food sources for specialists and some snaky rivers for cottages.

Wonders: If you can get pyramids that is great: no need for monarchy. Colossus will be GREAT with all the coast. The great library would also be very solid.

Teching: Masonry, Metal Casting, Alpha-Lit. That seems like enough to me for the moment

Optics vs. Liberalism. I would say go liberalism and trade for optics with whoever finds you first then go find the rest.

Cities: I would found fish-fish and fish-pigs to your north. Pinch the pigs temporarily from your capital to found anouth fish-pigs to your SE. 1 N of the E-most silver seems "ok" and gives +1 These would be your specialist cities (except the silver one). For commerce cities I think you have three along that river. 1SW of the wheat seems good. 2N or 2N1W of the crab. Then 1W of the N floodplain (on closer inspection this one would probably be best suited as a production center).

 

[Haika]

I'd agree with futurehermit about going liberalism instead of optics. Optics might let you reach your opponent first, but liberalism lets you actually have something to trade when they reach you.

You are isolated, your land has lots of rivers and grassland, you managed to knock down one of the religions and have a good chance for another one in Judaism. Gunning for a cultural victory would be the most natural thing to do imo.

If you post a save, or a more zoomed in map (turn on gridlines, turn off interface), would be easier to get dotmaps up.

 

[Yuming]

Thanks for the input.

I would usually go for Liberalism but I'm not convinced we'll be able to get there first this time. We'd have to generate quite a few scientists to say the least. The Pyramids will be extremely useful because we are spiritual. As for the tech path - it looks sound - But is researching both Lit and Alphabet for the Great Library worth it?

Here are two more screenshots to make dotmapping easier:

-EDIT- Haika: you said turn off the interface - I don't know how to do this, could you tell me? -EDIT-

 

[Snaaty]

@ Yuming:

I still would stick to the strat of getting two religions, because when beeing isolated and with only 1 happy, you need the 2 happy from 2 temples.

On the good side, isolated means you can take your time in the land grabbing, so you can squeeze in the Oracle also (take metal casting... ...remember to research pottery in time) and build an early forge. Time your GP (try to get only one BEFORE having the forge) and then run an engineer only (no priests) which should secure a GE pretty soon.

Oh, skip from stonh to GW as soon as possible, because now you need every GE point you can get (better build GW before stoneh then), because the Pyramids I wouldn´t build without stone... ...better use a GE for that, then go back to GP production after the first GE hits home

Don´t forget to run your capital always at happy cap

Only one possible way of doing it, but I think isolated and GP´s (money) go quite well together

...

Btw. I like isolated starts so I´m looking forward how this will play out, no matter what stat. you choose in the end

...

I´m also waiting for the next update for your "chineese unification" story, when will this be???

 

[futurehermit]

The Great Library will help you get liberalism OR optics/astronomy because it will greatly enhance your lightbulbing efforts. If you go for the high-food coastal cities first you should generate a number of great scientists!

Cultural victory seems reasonable to me. You're spiritual, which is a good cultural trait. You have one religion and should be able to nab taoism and getting one other one should be fairly easy.

 

[Yuming]

I´m also waiting for the next update for your "chineese unification" story, when will this be???

You missed the update by about 15 minutes. I posted my update at 12:23pm earlier today - or maybe you've already seen it.

With regards to the game, I'm gonna wait until tomorrow to play more turns.

 

[Haika]

Alt-I will turn off the heads-up display.



This map tries to pick up every tile on your island with enough food to work them. The colorful cities should be enough for a pre-CoL core.
Red 1 is a good early production city with multiple hills supported by wheat and irrigated grass. Try not to overirrigate, as I think you need to cottage up as much flatland as possible to remain technologically competitive. Just irrigate near the wheat, and chain after Civil Service for the food bonus.
Blue 2 shares the pigs with the food rich capital, gets silver and fresh water. Farm up the grass and whip in infrastructure, or use the grass hill to slow biuld it. After that spam cottages on every square. The pigs + city tile should (barely) support all the plains.

You are going to want some Great Scientists, whether for lightbulb if you feel like you are teching fast and have a chance at Lib, or Academies if you need to settle in for the long haul.

Green 3 makes a nice GP farm, especially if you farm up the flats. Working pigs, fish, and farmed floodplains (+10 food) supports 5 scientists under Caste at size 9. If you can manage an engineer somehow (either through a pyramids coup or more likely oracle -> MC -> forge), getting the GL built here with NE might be enough to guarantee you Lib.

Speaking of Oracle -> MC, if you can get the colossus, grey 4-7 would be much more profitable. As it is, they are standard fishing villages with high food surplus. Work as many land tiles as they can steal from the inland cities, then fill up the water.

Honestly, there's only one legitimate city I can see in the south, and I use the word legitimate very lightly.



Two farmed grasslands provide enough food to whip in some basic infrastructure. It gets the whale on first pop, and two extra silvers for trade on second pop. Obviously, a rather late priority city, but if you can get the second border pop, should prevent AIs from setting on your continent.

EDIT: Actually, I would move Grey 4 one tile SE for less overlap

 

[CivSetä]

I tried to make some kind of a dotmap. Many crappy cities, if only you had settled 1SW or 1W! But you never know.

I tried to make room for 8 cities. Two fishing villages should be able to provide 1-2 GS each, I would found them just when writing is arriving. Whale city is just some junk. I would found red city first, it can build more workers and settlers fast.

I would go for Great Lighthouse, which could be chopped in yellow city. That way new cities would pay themselves easily. I would forget about pyramids, no stone around and not enough forests near capital. But I would try to get the GL even literacy takes some time. And alphabet is not useless, building research is useful.

First I would take pottery to make some cottages, then sailing/masonry and towards alphabet. Maybe try Pyramids without chopping, money is always useful if you fail?

Is there enough time to grab monotheism after pottery+sailing? Maybe not on emperor, hence monotheism should be priority if you try cultural victory.

 

[Pete2006]

Tough game. I'd recommend building the sea commerce wonders (GL + Colossus) and runnings HR asap. I've played a couple bts games and the good news is that the game is much easier than warlords. I'd also go for Notre Dame for the happiness.

The AI doesn't prioritize Lib nearly as much anymore as I've been able to get it as late as 1200 so I would try to get caravels out before Lib and then take Astronomy as the free tech to open up the trade routes which will more than make up for the Colossus loss.