ok, so how do you win on emperor?

[cgrecu77]

after a long break I returned to playing civ4. Before i was a monarch level player where I had little problems winning, usually my goal was to get the highest score possible. After maxing out at 100k the game got very boring and I stopped playing until today when I decided to take another shot at emperor. I decided that since I'm going to be agressive I should start with caesar to get the early muscle unit + expansive bonuses ... I got the quick iron and I started pumping out praetorians which came in handy to repel a very early attack from alexander. I quickly neutered montezuma by taking his 3 major cities and then I turned to the leader, Elizabeth who by the time had 3 times my score ... Even though he already had Longbowmans I overpowered most of her cities leaving only the capital which was defended by 7 bows and was on a hill - basically invincible ... At that time I had about 25 praetorians but since I spread quite a lot I had a negative balance with science at 0%, way behind in tech lead even compared with montezuma, nobody wanted to attack anybody even though some were at +7 with me and negative feeling about other civs ...
Basically I was toast.
I've read the few topics on this diff level and I found few good advices other than stating the obvious (like you need to get the AIs to fight each other ... right, but how?)

So i'm in dire need of good advice on how this can be win, what strategies have good chances of success on a pangeea with standard settings and standard map size.

[mutax2003]

Before you start off on your conquest, it would be useful to get pottery for cottages, and code of laws via oracle, so you can build courthouses. Remember to take time to build some cottages in between your tree rush chopping. If you can capture the pyramid along the way, then it will be useful to switch to representation, farm spam and run a specialist-based economy. As a side bonus, farm with worked mines will give you amazing production, allowing you to take cities from AI much faster. When you are facing longbowman, then it is time to declare peace. Then when you have catapults, and courthouses+markets up in most of your cities, you can go to war again. With sufficient land and mature cities, you can pretty dictate which victory condition you want later on, whether via domination or space race, or vote yourself in for a diplomatic victory.

[Saurus]

Om emperor, If you fall too far behind in the tech-race early then there is really nothing you can do to recover.

Due to much higher upkeep costs on all fronts (compared to monarch) you will find that you will be in a particulary bad spot whitout a income-soursce early on (eg. goldmine).
Whitout a source of income early on, you will find that already your third city will horribly cripple your economy.

The most important thing to make sure of is that there is counters to the early economy problems.
Make sure you get Writing, Pottery amd Fishing as early as possible. You should have a plan on how you will manage your early economy from the very beginning and research accordingly.

It is easy to make misteakes on that part.
For instance, it may appear Writing is 15 turns away...but you decide to go for bronze working first.
By the time you finish bronze working that extra money from huts is gone...research drops to 80%.
At the same time you find your second city ... and research drops to 50% and writing is now 30 turns away.
Would you now find your third city, your research would drop to around 20% and writing would be 75 turns away and you beeing whitout any options of doing anything about it.

[johnmcd]

I have two slightly doubtlful approachs to causing inter AI strife. Neither is always possible, the first is almost impossible at the higher difficulty levels.

1- Found more than one religion, or have more than one religion in your cities. Even if you don't own them, spread them both, but to different civs, so your powerful rival is the same as you and the rest are something else. You are doing the religion's owner a favour but it can be the lever you need to create tension where there would be none. As I say, last resort and not always possible.

2- If you have a genuine enemy, raze some crummy town to create a cultural void in their territory (most easily done early). Defend that patch of barren ground till another AI puts down a city. Over the next thousands of years you will be sure of extra 'our close borders...' between those civs, that may be more valuable to you than an isolated city in a poor location could be.

Neither approach is terribly sophisicated, but it can do enough that bribes to go to war dare more readily accepted by the AI.

[make]

Re: ok, so how do you win on emperor?

Originally posted by cgrecu77
At that time I had about 25 praetorians but since I spread quite a lot I had a negative balance with science at 0%, way behind in tech lead even compared with montezuma,size.

As Saurus points out, its very bad to get to far behind in techs on emperor.

It is very hard to recover from an economy breakdown where you have to drop science to 0%. This should never be allowed to happen.

I use the science percentage as an indicator of when to expand my empire.
Note that in the beginning settler face its ok to drop science to about 30%, but no more. This is because its garanteed to go up again, when youre newfound cities start paying fore themselfes.

Otherwise, If it is 60%+, its IMO ok to think about expanding. When it drops to 50 or 40%, the red lights should go on and then you stop the expansion and build the economy up again to 60 or 70%. Then over again.
This workes fine in my games.

I rarely get science up to 80%, but also is somewhat behind in techs in the early and midgame. But due to my expansion and the science the captured cities starts to contribute with, I will catch up in the renesceiance. Even if I could get science up to 80% with green number, I will often go with as low as 50% because I need the cash to upgrade units.

[make]

I also would recommend trying to generate some Great Merchants. Its a bit late in the game before you can make them (after you have build markets).
If you manage to get a Great Merchant and send him far away to a large city, the trademission can make youre financial troubles go away fore a long time.

The last GM i used gave 5700 gold for the trademission.

[mutax2003]

Here is a game that's similar to yours, you might find the thread an instructive read.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=156299

[couerdelion]

I would tend to put my science threshold a lot lower as a guide to “stop expanding”. Unless there is an “obvious” site of value, a steady natural expansion after your first city plus a few conquered cities should for the based of a half-decent empire.

First and foremost your looking at science early to drive your tech and then you will be thinking more about money and cost reduction. Code of Laws is very important at this level to allow you to work on your maintenance costs. Getting this quite early will also give you a religion which is one other thing you can use to pay for your higher costs – though still not an excuse to let them run away. With a shrine you should be quite worried if you are running at below 70% science (unless this is due to the rapid inclusion of your neighbours cities)

Currency has also move up in my list of priorities. This brings with it both increased trade and the possibility of market places for your richer cities. Don’t underestimate trade income which can be quite a decent contributor to income even in the late-classical game. The more important your trade income, the more effort and work you will need to make in diplomacy. As long as you can keep open borders to civs with large cities, you can keep a decent enough trade income for even a small city.

I would also run a minimal military. By that I simply mean that I have just enough units (and the right mix) for what I need them to do. If I’m living next door to a psychopath or someone who hates me, then minimal might not be small.

Put simply, you need to have a good control over the different cost borne in the game and know the different ways of combating these.

I rather find that emperor level is the first level where you really have to use every aspect of the game and failure to take account of one aspect might lead to ruin. If you mess up on diplomacy and you’ve lost trade income, spread of religion, you’re not in the tech trading game and you may find a two-front war looming. If you don’t get the right techs you might find yourself losing ground in the tech race and fail to grab those temporary tech leads that can give you the edge. Mess up with the military side and you start losing units too many units (which cost you more than the AI). Add to that happiness and health and you’ve got a lot to deal with.

[cgrecu77]

my idea was not to overexpand, but to try to eliminate as much as possible and win the game by domination ... on monarch that is quite easy but on emperor it seems impossible. I realize that falling behind in tech is very bad, but how can you stop that when you have only 2 cities? If I don't establish my 3rd city in the beginning it usually means the end for new cities since the AI will quickly grab everything ... as a matter of fact in my game I only managed to build 2 cities and that's only because I had bronze and I cut a settler quickly ... As a principle I agree that it's better to conquer cities than build them especially that you need a decent army to discourage agressive civs. However, because I had no luxuries available (all that were near required calendar) I maxed out at 4 pop for the cap and 3 for the other city, at this rate even with cottages and gold there's not much you can do, even without the AI bonuses which seem to be far greater than on monarch.
I also agree with the religion founding thing except that you kind of need to get ahead in the tech race to be able to do that and I'm usually catching up. Granted, Caesar is not the civ you need when going for science but even with a financial civ you don't get that many bonuses ... Because my city was maxed out at 4 even creating a great leader is kind of impossible without cripling your capital even more.

What I find annoying about civ4 is that you really don't have any flexibility, if you start attacking a neighbour you kind of need to eliminate him, otherwise his culture will eat you up, plus the unhappiness caused by yearning for the mother land that causes conquered cities to max out at 2 without luxuries ... If you decide to try to stay ahead in the tech race you will probably have about 2 or 3 cities to work with and I just can't see how you could do it.

As far as the aggression wars, in my previous game I basically never stopped, constantly attacking at every turn and I've lost very few units due to their big advantage. Even so, by the time I reached the second civ(lizzie) she already had longbows which spelt the end since they can't really be overwhelmed without more advanced weapons, I can't afford losing 10 or more units for every city and cities on a hill could easily withstand a 20+ maceman-like attacks.
So if aggressive doesn't work and the economic approach is not working than what options are left?
Even the combined approach that I usually take developing my economy then attacking a neighbour, continue development then attacking the next is not working, it looks to me that if you get into any war then it's game over except for maybe quick defensive wars in which you don't lose anything (an unlikely event considering that Alexander attacked me with 15 units a few turns after founding my second city - luckily i was starting aggressive myself and i had a few praetorians that i fortified in a forest and i was able to repell him ...).

Since it seems that victory is possible, I'd like to know how did it happen, did you guys started on a very good spot and developed 3 good cities that were able to keep you in touch with the other civs in terms of science, did you have a more balanced approach, did you join a religion (i usually avoid that since more likely than not it spells war for you ...).Also at what point you started attacking other civs (if at all) and did you manage to win?

[couerdelion]

Without any workable happy resources, you have to get a religion for the happiness bonus. Even when you’re starting behind the AI, you should be able to make it to CoL if you make an early enough move for it. I rather tend to find that the first priority is accelerating the research rate - fishing for working sea tiles, pottery fro granaries, second city for tile gold and trade, and a library. Once the empire expands beyond two cities this then reverts to reducing costs (courthouses) or increasing gold (shrines + various combinations of harbours, market etc).

Actually, your start does look quite bad. I remember one myself where I was lucky enough to get silk and spices in my capital fat cross. Fortunately, a mine sprang some silver so I wasn’t without happy resources. I also started on a peninsula and was quickly cut of by Roosevelt so had to punch my way through with Axemen and Catapults. The one thing I had to thank Roosevelt for was religion which at least allowed my cities to grow while they produced their armies.

With regard to conquest, I will rarely wipe out a rival civilisation in one swoop. Usually, I will take a few easy chunks from it and then slowly digest it. Eating too much can bring some nasty indigestion which, as you are discovering, can leave you feeling very tired and lethargic. Once you finish the war you not only have to keep paying your army but also have a lot of costs from these new cities to manage and these costs will have to be borne largely from your initial core empire. Markets are then needed in the core while courthouses are needed in the outlying towns. Get some cottages down as well to help and if you’re back to 70% tech then you’ll find your large civilisation is a lot better off than it would have been had it been just 2-4 cities.

[Shaka II]

Re: ok, so how do you win on emperor?

Originally posted by cgrecu77

So I'm in dire need of good advice on how this can be win, what strategies have good chances of success on a pangeea with standard settings and standard map size.

Welcome to my world. Pangea, standard size that is. You didn't mention the game speed which is very important, but I can relate my experiences on marathon, playing for domination wins. Marathon may sound long, but it's actually a shorter game, being 9 to 11 hours in my games, because I finish early, before the modern era.

Pangea is anything but boring as you have probably found out by now, and the Romans are an awesome civ to play this map on emperor.

Some of my basic strats:

Build only about three or four cities. This is all you normally get on pangea, since the borders close so quickly. Occasionally, you'll get lucky and have 5 or 6, but they'll more typically be barb cities that you capture. Three well placed cities is a fine start, as the development of them is more important than the number of them. There are plenty to capture, so let the AI build them.

First of all, the traits dictate how rapid and at what point expansion is allowed. The game is lost if science goes to zero, so you simply can't expand without making sure it can be economically supported. Organized is the best trait that allows expansion, with financial being the second best trait. So Romans with Praetorians, or even an axemen rush are perfectly suited for an early expansion. But make sure Pottery is researched early and the cottages are in place to support five to eight cities. Since noncreative civs need to build a cultural building to expand their borders, I go for writing and libraries, which is next after pottery, saving a few forests to chop in my libraries. Granaries can come a bit later, since the pop cap is apt to provide an upper limit anyway. But the cheap granaries are another very important building in addition to cheap couthouses. Courthouses in the core are lower on priority that ones on the outer edges, but ultimately most Roman cities should have them, including a well placed FP.

Other civs like the Persians, (CRE/EXP) have to be more careful about expanding early, so even more attention to getting cottages down early. I'd still opt for grabbing two early cities with immortals, but no more.

Throughout the game, expand no more than is possible to support the empire, while keeping science at a good rate to maintain leader status or tied for the lead in science. This brings in the second key aspect, which is how to manipulate the AI to fight each other. Science tech bribes are best, but also gaining favor through religion choice, giving in to AI requests, sharing a "mutal struggle". Often you get lucky when you submit to AI requests, as they decide to attack someone else all by themself.

The most dangerous AIs are the ones who can leave you in the dust with their tech research rate. These include Mao, Mansa, Frederick, Washington, Catherine, and possibly Capac. To take a leader down, find the civs that don't like them and bribe them, at the right time of course, before they reach escape velocity. If you're lucky, you can get the two leaders to fight each other.

Geography and placement of civs are key. Expand to make a circular empire, or at least contiguous, as the maintenance costs will be much less and it can be defended more easily. Envision early on where the 64% land area for domination is going to come from. Sometimes that changes, but it's good to have a general idea.

Some of the best civs to bribe are Alexander, Caesar, and Ghengis. They just seem to enjoy battles more. In some games, it isn't necessary, you can achieve dominance independently, but others you need a little help from a mercenary AI civ. However, you don't want any one civ to be too successful, because to achieve domination, you need 64% land area. Try to keep any one civ with no more than 20% land area, otherwise, they become the next target, always concentrating on the leaders.

I almost always go for mining/bronze working first, for the chop and to see if I can get copper. In the case of the Romans, you start with mining, so its the only way to go, and iron working (Prateorians) if there is no copper close by.

My favorite domination leaders: Caesar, Tokugawa, Mao, Washington. Capac, Cyrus, Ghengis, Kublai and others are good too, even Liz. It's fun to try different leaders. But I'd try to master Caesar first. Be organized to start, especially if expansion costs are bogging you down.

The AI seems to leave some tech path openings to catch up or for unkown reasons. These include Alphabet, Civil Service, Paper, Education, Chemistry, and Steel, at which point, the game should be decided on this map. Domination by 1300AD is my goal, usually getting it by 1330AD. Victory by 1322AD gets me 88,000 score. This time with Washington, I had stone, chopped the Pyramids in, and look to make it before 1300AD, probably 100K+. Washington is the perfect leader for maintaining science leader status, while being able to afford continuous expansion.

For the marathon game on pangea, the game should be over before the modern era. Epic or normal speed will yield later end times. Likewise, larger maps will yield later end times. I like standard size, pangea, marathon, because it yields an end game with grenadiers and cannons, sometimes riflemen and cavalry, or even infrantry on occasion. But the number of units is less than 100. In the modern era, it is not uncommon to have 400 or 500 units, so it takes much longer, while being less fun. The fun part for me is before the modern era. Pangea is the most fun because of the early resource grab and the intense border friction that develops early on. You have to hit the ground running so to speak.

[cgrecu77]

i actually tend to find marathon games a little bit easier because you only need to get an edge and you can decimate almost everybody (that's how I got 100+ on monarch, beeline for maceman and kill everybody, only towards the end they manage to get longbows and by that time I vastly outnumber them so it doesn't really matter). I will try marathon games first and if it works then maybe revert to standard speed later ...

Based on your post it looks like I'm basically doing the right things so probably just need to tweak my strategy a lot, I usually play napoleon and I'm not used to having +2 health so I tend to be conservative with forest chopping, but since on emperor I'm already limited by happiness and i have the expansive bonus I guess I could try chopping my libraries at least.
I'm not sure of the benefit of granaries since I'm so severely limited in my ability to grow, maybe coupled with a poprush strategy, i'll have to investigate that ...

thanks for the advices though!

[Shaka II]

Granaries in the beginning make you hit the pop cap earlier, but once you get the expansion under way, monarchy for hereditary rule (happiness), and more resources by trading, conquering, growth is quickly enbabled. So the granaries and aqueducts come into play. Also, the +1 health per rice, corn or wheat is nice. The Romans are a civ where continuous growth is possible, without hitting the pop cap, but usually you bump the ceiling a few times. Part of that coming from the early land grab, with or without Praetorians. Granaries are certainly good for pop rushing if the pop cap is in effect. I suppose chopping in the granary first and then pop rushing in the library would be good for the fast growing city. Just make sure to wait a turn to make the pop rush cost 3 pop instead of 4 for library.

As far as marathon goes, it's not really easier than epic or normal, just quicker. No matter what speed you play, you're always starting at the bottom of the heap. Marathon allows units to move further in proportion to the tech rate and building rate. Also unit build times are a bit less.

On marathon, you won't be finishing with macemen as you did on monarch, rather with grenadiers and cannons, or cavalry and riflemen if you prefer. If you go for Liberalism take either chemistry (already having gunpowder) or nationalism if you want to go for cavalry.

Epic would probably end with infantry, while normal speed might end with tanks and gunships, possibly mech infantry. About 100 to 150 years per speed setting for a domination game. I just like the premodern era the best, which is why I play marathon. I think of it as my ancient mod.

I still may go for a few wonders like the Pyramids (if i have stone), Oracle if I'm philosophical (the Paladin CoL/CS sling), Great Library, National Epic, Heroic Epic, Hanging Gardens, occasionally the Colossus or Great Lighthouse. Probably two or three world wonders is typical. But, most get captured eventually, so I don't go overboard. I don't try to found any religions. It's not necessary on pangea and just distracts from the critical paths like bronze working. Religion comes to you along the rivers and roads. Code of Law might be the one exception, since it is on the path I take.

Also, if playing marathon, I don't go overboard on city improvements, unless they have time to amortize the cost. Usually just a few universities and maybe only one bank for the capital under bureaucracy, with a few others in key cities. It depends on whether I'm philosophical or financial. The rest of the cities are unit factories or culture producers to expand recently conquered cities. Pop rush theaters and courthouses to defray the cost of maintenance.

At first Napoleon doesn't seem like a great choice for domination, having industrious and aggressive traits, but if some of the right wonders are built, I think it should work nicely. I think you can make any civ work for domination, it's just that some are easier than others.

[cgrecu77]

Originally posted by Shaka II
As far as marathon goes, it's not really easier than epic or normal, just quicker. No matter what speed you play, you're always starting at the bottom of the heap. Marathon allows units to move further in proportion to the tech rate and building rate. Also unit build times are a bit less.

and that's the key, get a good attacking unit like maceman (and to a lesser extent cavalry) and there's nothing that can stop you

At first Napoleon doesn't seem like a great choice for domination, having industrious and aggressive traits, but if some of the right wonders are built, I think it should work nicely. I think you can make any civ work for domination, it's just that some are easier than others. [/QUOTE]
Aggressive is an obvious choice for a domination game I use industrious to quickly get oracle + pyramids + heroic epic. Having the epic in a secondary city and bureaucracy in the capital allows me to pump out macemans very quickly at a rate of 1 every other turn with just 3-4 cities. Because I don't need to expand I also save time which gives me quite an advantage over the AIs, usually the first civs I attack only have archers or spearmans and an odd axe ... Until they get to feudalism they have no counter and I don't even need catapults since my troops come out of the gate with 2 upgrade (barracks + aggres.). When I go to war I move the science to 0%, switch to low maintenance civics and I don't stop till the end ... which makes for a very boring game, but I find this the best strategy for a quick domination win ...

[uberfish]

I've come back from a totally crashed economy (-38 gold at 0% science, halfway to CoL) after taking over two AI civs with Persian Immortal rushes to win by spaceship at Immortal. I thought I had a lost game, but the overall game flow played out similar to the Civfanatics thread Mutax linked a few posts back.

I'll add a couple more tips for early warmongering - don't be afraid to chop a new palace in the new geographical centre of your empire early if you started in a corner of your continent. This can save a huge amount of maintenance, especially before courthouses are up. Also, as your first attack is finishing up, you need to be already getting things like libraries and cottages in place to lessen the economic hit. Libraries allow you to convert food or production into research via scientists, which means you can keep researching even if you are stuck with most of your commerce going into taxes.

I prefer to destroy AI civs totally to get rid of 'we yearn to join our Motherland', which really hurts early on.