Emperor games C3C: how to improve your skills

[Mountain Sage]

Aqualung71,

Don't believe in what you read (or hear). My Sid win was a PP game, after all...

In all my other games won by conquest or domination, there was never talk of wars, just 'extended military police operations' or maybe some 'forced religious conversions'.

Goethe80,

A PP game is one in which you never declare war and nobody declares war on you. Basically, it relies on you being ahead in the tech race and on your superior diplomatic skills. Of course, if you plan to play a PP game, you should carefully choose your map. Usually, I end up with fewer than 10 military units (except maybe some ships as lookouts),
It is a rewarding way of playing in the sense that you can hone other skills than your military startegy.
It's another way of looking at this game, which relies heavily on 'Desert Storm' tactics to win. You also can inspire 'shock and awe' by winning it diplomatically or by the space race and a 6-8 tech lead.
Now that it looks that you can play (and win) up to Sid...

[Mountain Sage]

If somebody wants to post some AAR's and screenshots, I believe you can do it. Most players will have discovered the map and its surprises by now...

Since I am still in the Medieval Times, I will post mine later.

[mahi]

I think I will be able to finish the game during the next weekend. I am one tech away from the Modern Age and it is already abt. 1990, so it will not take much more additonal time.

[GeorgeWang]

Hmm, I just got back into playing Civilization. First game I tried a quick monarch, emperor seems interesting. Looks like this'll be alot of fun.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by GeorgeWang
Hmm, I just got back into playing Civilization. First game I tried a quick monarch, emperor seems interesting. Looks like this'll be alot of fun.

Welcome back.
You will find lots of emperor games in this thread, including some 'fancy' maps. Help yourself and keep us posted.
Don't forget the AU courses!

[mahi]

Mother Russia started quite well. The first warrior started to search for neighbors to the south and found the Germans while the second Hero of the nation found the Incas to the north. Both brave warriors built themselves a nice datcha in their final destinations near the cities of our neighbors not allowing anybody to enter Russian soil from the north or south giving their Czar some nice land to build a few more cities. When the Russian people learned to write some curraghs left their harbours to see what the world has to offer. The Russian sailors were welcomed to many other tribes, friendly as well as not that friendly ones. While exploring the world a question arose, how much vodka did the creator of this world have when creating it ?
The southern neighbour of Russia became naughty and had to be punished. Bismarck's capitol was near a fine Russian city full of enthusiastic soldiers, so it was not that a clever move to try to step over the border. A few years later Berlin was under control of Russian forces and Bismarck had to look for another home. As time went by again and again foreign tribes tried to enter Russian territory. All were heavily punished, so the Germans, Americans, Iroquois, French, Portuguese, Incas, Dutch, Koreans and almost the Spanish vanished from this world. During the fights many elite soldiers were promoted to generals, about 9 of them led victorious armies. In the end 8 civs were left on this world with Russia having the biggest part with 35% of the world area. Originally the Czar wanted to have about double of this, but found it too difficult to achieve this goal as some wars lasted just too long. In 2026 Shaka built the United Nations, but he did not call for the vote as he must have feared the Russian Czar becoming the leader of the world having good relations to most of the remaining statesmen, so Shaka preferred to continue punishing his neighbors and he must have been astonished to note that the Russians were the ruler of the world in 2050.

It was a cool game. Thanks MS. Just my second game on Emperor. What I learned is that I have to improve fighting the early wars as these took me too long. The leader generation was really strange. The percentage of getting a MGL from my elites was very high. Sometimes I could not create an army as I did not have enough cities. The techrace was quite slow. The pacemakers were the Zulus, Indians and Chinese. I did not trade that much. Most of the time I sold older techs to smaller civs enabling me to keep up with the Zulus. The final score was 2805. Not that much, but I was happy that I won it. Unfortunately I missed the UN by 2 turns which would have enabled me to win the game a little earlier. This was the only great wonder I tried to build.

[Dactyl]

I'm trying to improve my Emperor level skills. I'm playing the Celts almost exclusively and I'm doing pretty well in the early game, but I'm lagging way behind in the middle game. I find that by mid-game, though I'm the largest civ, or close to it, in terms of pop, I tend to be way behind in tech. For example, there will be at least a couple of other civs that have cavalry when I don't even have gunpowder yet. Are there any example games I can look at?

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Dactyl
Are there any example games I can look at?

Sure there are....you can start by looking at almost any game posted in this entire thread. There are a bunch of action reports by various people that have played them - that should help you with comparisons.

Also, I suggest you post a save of your game so someone can take a look at it and give you some pointers....though it sounds like you're doing pretty well

My first suggestion just from what you've posted, is....stop playing the Celts! Yes, they have a real kick-arse UU and the Ag trait is great, but you should be developing your civ skills more broadly by playing with other traits and less powerful UU's.

[Dactyl]

Here's a question I have. At the beginning of the game, one expands as rapidly as possible. Soon there's no more land to expand to nearby because it's all been appropriated by you and the AI. At that point, I generally go to war to seize more land and to weaken the AI opponents around me. I like to play a religious civilization and I switch to feudalism when I get it in order to facilitate my conquests. I don't generally care to pursue a domination victory, so at some point I want to consolidate what I have and go to a republic or democracy. Is there an agreed-upon rule of thumb as to when I should do this? This is the biggest problem I currently have when playing on the empire level.

[Dactyl]

In the above post, I meant to say emperor level.

[Aqualung71]

Feudalism is not a very popular choice, and most players would opt for Monarchy as their early war-mongering government except under specific circumstances....although of course it does require you to research an optional tech.

An early Republic switch is often worth considering as an alternative to Monarchy/Feudalism, due to the boost to commerce and lower corruption. You can even go to war under Republic for a reasonable period of time if you're careful, particularly if you have sufficient luxury resources available.

The key to succeeding early under Republic is to have reached city size in at least some of your settlements (ie, pop of 7 or above). The unit support costs under Republic are quite high - 2gpt - and this can cripple your economy if you switch too early. Every town is allowed 1 free unit, but every city is allowed 3 free units. This means that every time a size 6 town graduates to a size 7 city, you save 4gpt. This can be very significant in a reasonable sized empire. Early Marketplaces are also quite important under Republic, both for the cash boost and the happiness boost if you have 3 or more luxuries.

If you have delayed your switch from Feudalism/Monarchy such that you already have Democracy available, then a switch to Democracy is almost always better than Republic, unless you intend to go to war for an extended period of time.

[Mountain Sage]

Well, friends, please find below a short story of Ragnar’s adventures (from the SerpentWorld) …


3250BC:
We just had time to establish our first village and start some irrigation to feed our hungry people, when we discovered some half-men barbarious tribes clinging to the mountainslopes north of us. We will organize a raiding party and offer their hearts toOdin. In he meantime, our would-be explorers are heading south on their makeshift boat. Our so-called sages are researching Writing. It seems that thoughts and deeds hewn in stone are more perennial than those spoken in the wind…

[Mountain Sage]

double post

[Mountain Sage]

1910BC:
Ah, well, those barbarians will stay holed up in their mountain a bit longer, after all. They are not the only ones. Our resources are better used to expand our empire. In the meantime, we discovered more ‘advanced’ tribes, the ottomans, the Koreans, the Indians and many more.
They are all happy to trade with us. Our sages know now, BW, Pottery, the Wheel, WC and CB.

[Mountain Sage]

1125BC:
This is a really funny land, our explorers say. Full of riches, other more or less advanced tribes and great landscapes, as this one…