How do you win peacefully at Emperor level?

[One_more_turn]

I can't. Well, I achieved a cultural victory once with Qin Shi Huang in the vanilla version, but that was awfully close as I had to sabotage rival civ's spaceship launch.

All my other Emperor level wins were achieved using brutal warmongerings on standard Pangea maps. The latest one was also my quickest domination victory ever in 1541AD, as the Charismatic/Imperialistic Immortals ran over three AI civs even before 0AD.

But a peaceful, builder type spaceship win at Emperor level still eludes me. How do the experts here achieve it?

[Cort Haus]

I don't think people do, OMT.

I've never seen a strat posted to get a fully peaceful win at that level, ie - not taking territory by force. It's hard enough on Monarch to grab enough land peacefully to win without using a tech lead to get the AI's at war with other to slow them down.

It would be good to be proved wrong on this thread, though.

[uberfish]

Culture is the easiest way to win peacefully, you only need 3 good cities and 3 mediocre ones.

If you can get 6 good cities without having to fight, spaceship should be winnable, as OCC emp standard continents/pangaea is winnable with just an above-average start. However, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get those city sites peacefully. Building a powerful super science city via Town spam and/or Representation fuelled superspecialists is probably the key.

Diplomacy is also possible, but I don't think a consistent strategy has been developed for this that works at emperor yet. The civ4 AIs can be very fickle.

[One_more_turn]

What's the culture victory condition for OCC?

[DrSpike]

The victory condition is build 2 more cities.

As for the OP, the answer depends most on whether you mean an entirely peaceful victory or are willing to accept a little early fighting and then settling down for a peaceful win. Basically if you deny yourself any war you need a large enough area to expand in, which is just luck. Probably you'll have enough this way to shoot for culture, but often not spaceship at emperor.

[darrelljs]

To me the Monarch to Emperor jump is where the game mechansim to graduate levels breaks down, simply because the AI bonuses at this point become sufficient to leave the human out of the early land grab. My solution to this problem has been to play maps guaranteed to give isolated starts, my favorite being Continents/Duel. The AI expands quickly, but with good city management you can catch up and pass them in time to build the space ship first. I have won several space race games at that level, although I've also lost several games!

I've won Pangaea Cultural games, but they aren't very satisifying and they are quite risky as anyone who read my Epic V report would know .

Darrell

[Footie Mad]

I've started playing large pangea at emperor level and two extra civs to crowd it up, making it 11 civs. It's totally ruthless and horrible!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by DrSpike
As for the OP, the answer depends most on whether you mean an entirely peaceful victory or are willing to accept a little early fighting and then settling down for a peaceful win. Basically if you deny yourself any war you need a large enough area to expand in, which is just luck. Probably you'll have enough this way to shoot for culture, but often not spaceship at emperor.

I more or less agree here, except for the luck factor in early expansion; on most maps it's possible to expand aggressively enough that you will have the land you need to win, with or without war.

The true luck factor is what the other AIs do: if a research-oriented leader attains more than its fair share of land through conquest (Mansa Musa is especially good at this) you're in for trouble.

As I've said elsewhere, no-war is a self-imposed restriction, not a playstyle.

That said I'm working on a game right now that will hopefully meet the requirements.

[One_more_turn]

Originally posted by Footie Mad
I've started playing large pangea at emperor level and two extra civs to crowd it up, making it 11 civs. It's totally ruthless and horrible!

I'd like to try with 10 civs on standard Pangea map. There is going to be lot of firework.

[One_more_turn]

Originally posted by darrelljs

I've won Pangaea Cultural games, but they aren't very satisifying and they are quite risky as anyone who read my Epic V report would know .

Darrell

Hehe, I got the same feeling.

[Saurus]

Winning a spacerace victory depends largerly on witch civs happens to be in the game.
I always play peacefully...but many wars and warmongering among the A.I will give you the opportunity to actually win.
If the world remains peaceful from the beginning to the end, then I'll say you are out of luck. I have won a spacerace victory on Emperor several times, but it has always included the element of A.I:s fighting among themselves. In fact, even if they attack you, you may still win. The important thing is that there IS many wars.
I remember one particular game where I was attacked by Isabella 4 times, Tokugawa attacked me 3 times, Kublai Khan 2 times, Hatsepshut(!) once and Napoleon 2 times ... and I still was very close to win. This was becaouse the A.I was constantly at war - not only fighting me but also each other.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I don't think people do, OMT.

I've never seen a strat posted to get a fully peaceful win at that level, ie - not taking territory by force. It's hard enough on Monarch to grab enough land peacefully to win without using a tech lead to get the AI's at war with other to slow them down.

It would be good to be proved wrong on this thread, though.

Here's a peaceful Emperor game I just completed (see attached engame save). Actually it was not completely peaceful: I did raze one city during a defensive war when my two War Chariots discovered that one of Isabella's border cities was only defended by a lone Archer. I would hardly call this an aggressive play, however, and the advantage I gained from this was not that significant - the culture war between us was easier for me, that's about it.

Settings were Standard Fractal, with 8 civs instead of the normal 7. I like crowded maps. The Fractal script cooked up two big continents with 4 civs apiece. The extra civ, Caesar, started tucked away in a small corner of my continent, so he was more or less a non-factor. I did use him as a diversion in my first war with Isabella.

I picked Hatshepsut for this because I felt Creative would be useful in the early land grab (Creative is not quite as good if you're a warmonger). I wanted to found some early Religions and spread them to my neighbors in order not to be attacked to early and often. I'm also a big fan of the Obelisk and how it can get you to Civil Service really quickly with very little investment. Finally, despite all these positive reasons, I stayed away from the more obvious, powerful leaders, especially the Financial ones, in order to show that this is doable with almost any leader; Hatshepsut has a rather poor late-game.

Since it was a peaceful game, there's not much to report, really. I spend the early part of the game getting my capital up and running as a research powerhouse, while using my other cities to build enough military units to keep Tokugawa and Isabella off my back. I got greedy and decided to convert to Confucianism (which I founded) instead of adopting one of Isabella's religions. This meant that neither of them wanted an Open Borders, so my plans of spreading my Religion far and wide were dashed.

Although I had the technological advantage, my one big concern was the civs I had not met yet, so I went for Optics right after Civil Service and Literature. Conveniently, this path provided me with the necessary tools, namely Machinery, to fend off Isabella's predictable attack. When I finally made contact with the other continent, I was happy to see that I was the global tech leader. When I hit Liberalism first I took Astronomy, and it was smooth sailing (pardon the pun) from then on.



As to the OP's question regarding how to win peacefully on Emperor level, I think it depends on a few key points:

1. Make your capital your primary research center. Since your empire will never grow very large, Bureaucracy is the Civic to be in. For this game, I used a combination of the Great Library, Great Scientists, Scientist specialists and the National Epic in my capital for research, before switching to a pure Cottage economy post Scientific Method.

2. Know who to trade techs with, and trade with them often. What you want to avoid is one civ being both successful in war and competitive in research.

3. Be prepared for a few wars, but avoid actual fighting as much as possible. I'm not sure how much I'm willing to pay to bring in a war ally, but it's around 2-3 techs. As long as your ally is not a top contender, trading those techs for some heavy AI-on-AI war attrition is always worth it.

4. In the late game, keep your eye on the prize; in other words, beeline for the Space Race victory without wasting resources on the other later era "toys". An example of this is Broadway, etc.: these are really not essential unless you're fighting a lot, which you should not be in this type of game. Use Wealth instead in order to keep your research rate up. With a couple of core cities running Wealth, you should be able to sustain 100% Science.

5. Expand aggressively, slowing only for imminent Barbarian threat. The AI civs will rarely (if ever?) attack before the Barb menace is over. So during your expansion phase all you really need to worry about is an Archer here and there. On a standard map a couple of Axemen is sufficient for early defense, the rest of your troops should be Warriors on garrison duty. In this game I had the luxury of War Chariots, but I only built a couple until well after I was established. It's the period right after there are no more Barbs where your military needs some serious attention, as the AIs start looking to pick fights, and they'll pick one with you if you're too weak at that stage.

[One_more_turn]

My observations of your game:

- It appears that you accomplished the CS-Slingshot.

- You went for Astronomy after getting Liberalism. Why is that good, to get an early start for Physics?

- You roughed up Isabella indeed badly. Did you beat her up using culture or wars?

- That's very impressive indeed! I'm currently on another Emperor game as Ghandi. I started out peacefully and had a nice tech advantage, but the game now has degenerated again into warmongering madness.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
It appears that you accomplished the CS-Slingshot.

With an Obelisk instead of the Oracle.

You went for Astronomy after getting Liberalism. Why is that good, to get an early start for Physics?

Observatories and trade across Ocean. Also I was kind of hoping that there was more land out there for me to claim, but all I found was a one-tile island (with two Fish!).

You roughed up Isabella indeed badly. Did you beat her up using culture or wars?

She attacked me first and I took the wind out of her sails. Then I think she fought Tokugawa and that did not go well for her either. As you guessed, I was pressing on her pretty hard with my closest city to her borders: a few Artists, a Great Artist, and Hermitage.

I'm currently on another Emperor game as Ghandi. I started out peacefully and had a nice tech advantage, but the game now has degenerated again into warmongering madness.

Best of luck to you!

[Cort Haus]

Brilliant, Dom.