Breaking the Emporer hump.

[Hauptman]

So I've played many many One City Chalanges on emporer level, and won more than a few of them. But every time I try a regular game on emporer, things turn out... differently.

So I settled in this weekend, put my Oblivian disk away and inserted BTS and decided to use everything I have learned to beat the snot out of the AIs on emporer.

So as today progresses I shall begin the story of how, still things are not going my way. But as for right now, gotta get back to work. Stay Tuned!

[Fleme]

*Emperor

I'll be shadowing.

[Crossfire]

Just finished winning my second game on Emperor on a Pangea map even though I thought I would never try another after the first. Turns out Monarch is too easy to go back to. If you are playing a normal map/game I would like to play along too if you post up the save game. Just remember that there is no substitute for more cities and grab what you need up front instead of bothering with wonders (except the GL).

[Krill]

Post the 4000BC save so other people can play along. Leads to more enjoyable threads if you also explain why you did certain things so that other people can learn from your mistakes and good ideas

[Hydro]

I haven't seen many after Civ4 or BtS after action reports, so as a novice I would be very interested. Knowing something can be done and seeing how it is applied and the thought process behind it is invaluable.

Hydro

[Hauptman]

Saves and Pics are still at home, they will be posted tomarow, for now, just imagine that I know how to spell emperor, and go with it.

So I start off by choosing Isabella, for my game for 3 reasons.

A) I wanted a spiritual leader to make the most out of my civics, and switching to fit whatever need I may have without the tech loss from anarchy.

2) Both her UU and UB come into play about the same time I've ran into trouble in previose atempts.

Lastly, my last attempt it was her that turned a perfect game into a clusterfxxk by declaring war (even though she was friendly) on my northern border when all my military was expanding south.

Emporer, fractal, huge, marathon, 16 civs. Map generates. "Isabella, your people have choosen you..." yeh yeh get on with it. First thing I did was open world builder to check my start.

Ive gotten in the habit of doing this in most games, to make sure I have ample expansion room. Better than wasting half an hour to discover that I'm ice-locked, jungle-locked, or surrounded by shaka, montezuma, and khan.

It looked great, I'm on the main continent, with a good capital location. I've got 2 clams, rice, pig, and 2 floodplains with hills and river. A great capital. So I accept it and begin the game.

Isabella starts with fishing so first build will be the workboats while my warrior scouts the imediate area for goody huts. First tech is Polythiesm (is that what its called? you know for hinduism) and an attempt at one of the early religions. I fail by 4 turns. /sigh. Ok reload try again, this time going for commerce. Slow the city grouth to near zero and still fail by 2 turns. OK forget that, try again this time just working on growth.

2 workboats then a couple workers, while I tech for mining, animal husbandry, agriculture and bronze working. I pop 180 gold and hunting from 3 goody huts, and send settlers from my now improved capital to grab land around me. 1 city north (for horses) 1 east (for iron and ivory) and 2 south (for copper and cow in one, and gems and dye in the furthest one) 1 more settler finishes as somone else grabs its planned location, so I head further south east to an ivory hotbed, 4 ivory on a river.

I settle in to build up my now sizable empire to learn only that 20% tech this early leads to my swordmen getting beat up by macemen. Well that was a wasted couple hours.

[LzPrst]

first of all. I can't play huge maps, my old comp can't handle it after 1 AD. (well it can, but turns take 20 minutes). smaller maps
ok, you can play your big fancy maps if you want

and secondly. you check the map? that's cheating! part of the challenge is not knowing what to expect, so you have to be prepared for anything and everything. only a true Emperor can make an empire out of nothing!

and my games on monarch are often won by keeping small, grabbing wonders, teching, defending, then expanding like a fart in an elevator around mid game. usually by smashing some irritating neighbour.

[Hauptman]

So lets try this again, This time I'm going for my tried and true, focused, almost civil service slingshot.

This time its 2 workboats, followed by 2 workers, then the oracle. I research mining and agriculture only before doing the religious route. I have no marble, but my capital is well improved, especially after bronzeworking finishes and I chop out the remaining turns of the oracle build. Ahhhh sweet Code of laws. My preciouse, my birthday present.

Perhaps I should take a moment to discuss my neighbors. The Dutch live north of me. (theres only two types of people I hate, those who are intollerant of other peoples cultures, and the dutch. - Austin Power's dad.) The sumarians to the east of them. East of me is everyones favorite Zara Yaqob (remeber him from "Fun with Tokugawa"?) And to my south, passed a thick jungle Victoria lurks. Beyond Zara, mansa, fredrick and Mr. Horned hat of the vikings at the farthest reach of our continent. All in all a great bunch of neighbors. The vikings should keep everyone busy while I'm too far away from him on the west coast to really have to worry much.

Now with all that beeing said, there isnt a religios one among them, apparently. Wich of course allowed my Confucian faith spread like wildfire in a baren landscape. The oracle didnt take long to generate that great prophet whilest I settled only 3 more cities after the oracle completed. The 1 north for the horses, and the 2 south for copper cow banana gems dye and sugar. The lack of iron worried me, but part of me hoped it would just pop on a hill and not be an issue.

Once my great prophet popped I was able to bump my research to 100% and still make $profit$! A quick look at my newfound temple showed +57 gold already! JEBUS! This game should be a walkthrough.


It would have been on monarch, but this isnt monarch.

[Crossfire]

I don't blame you at all for checking the map. I do it all the time too. Playing time is too precious to waste on a winless map. You are going to have a heck of a time out researching that group. And watch out for the Culture victory attempt by Zara.

The game I just finished, my main rival was Isabelle and her final score was 6500 to my 3500 to Ragnar's 3000. I won a spaceship victory 2 turns before she launched. She had eliminated 2 rivals and had 4 vassals at the end. Thank god Ragnar and I had good sized kingdoms too or she would have won a Domination victory. She is always a tough player and you should do well with her.

[Hauptman]

After bronzeworking and ironworking (southern city was jungled) I went after mathematics then to civil service. As soon as zara got alphabet the tech floodgates opened. I was able to trade code of laws for all the techs I lacked minus a couple of "we dont want to trade away just yets" that included calander and currency. But we will get them in due time.

Civil service was a long research, 60+ turns. But in the grand scheem its worth it. Beurocracy this early gives me that boost that allows research to speed on by. After that I went towards Literature. Then began the Great Library, a staple wonder for me. Made a few more trades to get caught up with currency calander and monarchy. Then went after machinery. Zara and the dutch both gained mideval units the same time I did but the poor sumarians did not. Now I should note that I did not skimp on military power. I've learned my lesson on previose attempts. The AI's on emperor love a weak military. So I had a sizable force to send northeast into sumaria. I nabbed a couple of his cities quickly without much difficulty but stopped it there as I had spent my catapults.

A marginal gain but important none the less, because after engineering I went for guilds, and another buildup.

This time those dutch will not forget who is their master.

[Hauptman]

After Guilds finished I was PISSED! "What the!" Knights? why can I NOT make knights? Shouldnt I NOT be able to make Conquistadors? Quick look at the civolopedia and I find that they now replace currisais. Oh well pooooooooh. I almost NEVER even make a single one of those. well thats a wasted UU.

A quick look around I find the summarians are all to willing to grant me iron "spare this for a good freind" Oh how quickly they forget. Upgrade my horsearchers to knights and spears to pikes. Then I send them north.

The dutch had a nice little chunk of land (and they stole my circumnavigation bonus by mear turns) with a bit of a peninsula, that had some nice surplus resources that i lacked. So I went after it. and I went full force. Trebuches and Knights made short work of his longbows and macemen. He had 5 cities and Iron, well that settled that issue. No more dutch. and no more lack of Iron. After his 5 cities fell I vassalized his single ship (requires complete kills) and began building up my new cities.

All the while My new tech path led straight through to grenadiers. Gunpowder, chemistry, and 'new military tech 1' gave me a newfound power advantage to use to finish off the sumarians. I send in the troops from the south, and hold reserves in the west, to block any counter attacks. After 3 of his cities fell He begged zara to protect him from the bad man. Boy does this bring back memories (Fun with Tokugawa) and now I find myself at war with almost my whole continent. (he had vassalized Victoria earlier and Mansa had voluntarily joined him). But I'm not worried. I have plenty of cash, and grenadiers with wich to upgrade to. They all still have mideval units. I continue to press with my main force into sumaria, while possition my defenses at likely targets for the etheopians. Then it comes. Zara's stack is quite sizable and full of brand new UU's that he had been hiding. Those pesky musketmen that he gets. All those first strikes make me attacking him too risky. But they dont add enough power for him to risk an attack.

I had switched over to nationalism after a trade to catherine so I could draft units (only my 3rd time ever) and quickly built up a sizable defense force that cause a rather comical stand off between me and zara surrounding one of my cities. His 3 trebuches split between 2 stacks took plenty of time battering down the walls of that citadel wich allowed me the time I needed to beat the sumarians back to a good possition.

Once I had the sumarians where I wanted them I moved my main force south and destroyed one of Zara's stacks, then offered up grenadiers as a trade for peace (he wanted a city!) This left me with a good sized empire and a stable home front where a friendly zara had just had his power graph knocked back. I figured I was now free to knock around some heads on the world stage.

[Hauptman]

Let us discuss that world stage. There where 3 other "minor" continents. Washington and Shaka shared the northern one. Then 2 of them in the south, 1 shared by the portugese and koreans and the other DOMINATED by catherine. She had beaten the snot out of her island dwellers and was rather untouchable.

It took only a few turns to build a navy. my capital and the southern dutch city (wich became my heroic epic city) could make a ship every couple turns. I loaded up my stack and went a sailin. I went to Shaka first. I landed my force on his east coast (rather close to me) and started taking cities. All the island dwelers where far behind in tech (save for catharine) and couldnt put up a fight against my rifles, cannons and grenadiers. After taking 2 of shaka's cities he wisely capitulated. I gifted back his cities and loaded the men back up. Payed washington a visit with the same results. I then gifted them all the techs I deemed them worthy to keep them upto power should I need them as combat allies. Then I headed south to portugal/korea and both of them capitulated with the loss of only a single city each. This gave me a 'paper' power score that should give Zara some pause.

Teched straight towards railroad. Traded for what I could but held my steel and steamengine dear secrets. Education was fair game, and Zara of course got the liberalism bonus. My empire size with the profit from confucionism kept my research going at a great pace. Not out doing Zara, but keeping up. And as usual, we took 2 seperate paths. My techs led to military power and increased production. His path led to reduced tech output.

[Hauptman]

Now what comes after railroads, is of course assembly line. City defense crossbows upgraded to grenadiers make real nice machine guns. So while my main attack force was away machine guns held the fort at home. Assembly line came quickly and before my main force finished off the Koreans I was able to upgrade them up for the trip home. By the way the game rather nicely lets you choose to upgrade to conquistadors OR cavalry. A nice touch but rather mute as both units are generally worthless at this stage of the game.

No wars happened at home, as Zara was still pleased (he didnt like my collecting of vassals, so not friendly) But I knew there would be a showdown. Just a matter of when. My main goal now was to get the industrial units first and use them to beat him down. My plan for this game victory was now Domination.

My capital got both the oxford university and wall street. The dutch capital was near useless as his cities where packed tight but he did leave me with an excelent unit producing city. The Sumarian capital was well positioned on a river with plenty of hills to become my super hammer city. Ironworks and the forbiden palace where placed there. Wich gave it an easy time producing the pentagon. Rome stole the statue of liberty 4 turns before I would have completed it, and Zara had a hayday building the electricity line of wonders. But that's a good thing, because I'm coming to get them. During my modernizing I gained 3 of the happy 4 corporatoins all founded in my capital. Creative construction, civilized jewelers, and sid's sushi. Some time spend in spreading gets a nice constant income with the benefits of hammers and food in all of my own cities. the vassals help pay for it, as well as neighbors with liberal spreading.

After Bombers and tanks where mine I began a nonstop buildup. What I hadnt counted on was Zara matching my buildup. What then happened was an arms race I had never experienced before. I had the modern units first, but he held me in check with shear weight of numbers. And he parked his main force RIGHT where I could see it. As my force grew, so too did his. He outnumbered my main force by 4 to 1. Even with tanks and bombers I couldnt hope to defeat his stack yet. So I continued to wait and buildup.

During the Buildup, Mansa/Fredrick had declared war on the Vikings, and he came begging me for protection. Just south of me mansa had a city that had been captured by catharine, then recaptured by fredrick. I took that wich gave me a coastal city on the border with england. and sent some bombers to scandanavia to help slow the german panzers. It wasnt long before they accepted peace and I now had an ally on the mainland.

Now I'm not beeing shy, so right when I was able, I researched fission and had the sumarian capital build the manhatten project. I figured if I cant beat him with conventional units I can just nuke his stacks. SDI and bomb shelters in all my cities gave me a bit of security (only in my head) and I had all cities build an icbm or 2.

But there was a problem. My time spent with the never ending buildup, allowed him to gain the techs for the same units. So now it's looking like a domination win cant happen. So now I've got to think about that space ship. However, he had built his appollo program much earlier and had build quite a few pieces already. I had none. I'm sure I can out tech him to the end, but I have to stop the buildup to do it. It's a tough decision. Military win that may not work, or space race that he has the advantage on.

Ok we'll try and win this with a space ship. My cities can out produce him (I think) and I should hold an advantage with the tech race, I'm a bit larger than he is. So I stop building units and build civil buildings to get everything running smoothly. This however had the very adverse effect of leveling out my powergraph.

[Hauptman]

Now it took my capital roughly 26 turns to finish the Apollo Program. yet 6 turns before it was finished, all hell broke loose. 20 turns of leveled out powergraph was all Zara needed. We had taken slightly different paths. I had better artillery, but he had better tanks. Once he had modern armor he figured he was ready. Gilgamesh and Victoria each had a couple of tactical nukes. They both used them on the first turn to nuke tile improvements. say what? No military units, no cities. Just tile improvements that where too far away from the cities to be useful. stuff i had captured with expanding cultural borders from THEM! Silly AI. but this of course tells me its ok to use my own NUKES on them. (you know, just in case I'd feel bad otherwise).

I sent Bombers out scouting and saw Zara's masive military just milling about his own lands... What the? Why declare war if your not going to attack. He send maybe a total of 5 units into my land. This of course, gave me nothing but targets for my nukes... Oh that was a mistake you silly little Ethiopian! (You cannot nuke your own lands, so luckily that super stack didnt move in! YAY!)

Every time I lobbed a mushroom of destruction at him, I told him ANOTHER starving ethiopian joke, just to add insult to injury. My amphib force (with tactical nukes on board) attacked the summarians. and my main force was busy trading a crappy little coastal city with Victoria in the south. The majority of the war with Zara started in the air. I wish you could watch air combat like land combat, but if you could, I'd still be playing from last night because there was soooooooo much of it.

My nukes took out the majority of his land power, and my jets did untold damage to his bomber force, and It didnt take long to go on the offensive. But now I'm invading a wasteland. Zara did send one nuke at me wich did hit a city. But suprisingly the Bomb shelters did their job and damage was minimal, save the tiles. Especially good, because that was the city I was sending my units to heal and/or wait. Could have been disasterous.

I had taken maybe 3 cities from him (and razed them to the ground) before I had to hit the hay last night. I'll finish it up and post the results and screenies tomarow for you all. Until then, Or'revoir.

[Fleme]

I actually started an Emperor game on a Standard sized Archipelago map (medium sea level) with the Vikings. Should I do a writeup? My previous one didn't get any attention whatsoever.