Big jump to Emperor

[Aqualung71]

I recall that in PTW the jump from Monarch to Emperor was pretty huge. But for some reason it seems to me that in C3C it's the Emperor/Demigod jump that's the big one. I'm not sure whether they've changed the bonuses at the various levels since I never really looked at the editor until C3C, but perhaps adding the extra 2 difficulty levels at the top end has something to do with my perception of this phenomenon.

[Arrian]

Came to think of it, I got A BANANA wohoo, that's a 8-turn pump?

Well, once you clear the jungle, that banana will give you 3 food under despotism (4 under other governments), I think. If you can irrigate it, it should provide 4.

+4fpt with granary = 3 turn growth, so settlers every 6 turns. If you can manage to average more than 8 shields/turn over that span you can go settler/spear/settler/spear.

-Arrian

[bongo]

A 6-turn pump ain't that bad, all the land is settled now anyway

I believe the nearest source of water was some 5-7 tiles away, of which 2 were jungle and 2 were forest...

I'll post a 4000bc save if anyone is interested

(come to think of it, the only real error I made was to pop a hut with my first warrior. Instant death I'm not sure if it mattered much though)

[Jawa Jocky]

Jungle starts

[Arnelos]

In truth, I love jungle starts. Then again, that may just be from getting them so often in the various Apolyton DG's.

[Arrian]

Jungle starts aren't bad if you have one or more fully-capable pump cities (+5fpt, for 4-turn settlers and 2-turn workers). Then they're actually fine, because once you clear that jungle it's a beautiful stretch of grassland.

But what Bongo is describing is much more painful - no bonus food sources until you chop some jungle. Hmm, it does bring the ISDG to mind, doesn't it, Arnelos?

-Arrian

[Krill]

Bongo, if a save is that hard, you are incredably masochistic to continue playing. Get a new start, one that at least gives you +2 food/turn

[bongo]

The game is crawling along into the ADs...as assumed a well planned military campaign will break any AIs back

I have the #1 power on my continent to the point where he will give me ALL his techs(OK, mostly tier1 and 2 ancient techs, but I am way behind, it is 5 of them ) I have taken a iron source, got myself a sword army, life is sweet. All I got to do is to decide when to stop Maybe his wonder city

I do not claim to be very masochistic, it's just that emperor is long overdue If I nail this one(think I will, at least i will be #1 at my own continent)

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Arrian
Jungle starts aren't bad if you have one or more fully-capable pump cities (+5fpt, for 4-turn settlers and 2-turn workers). Then they're actually fine, because once you clear that jungle it's a beautiful stretch of grassland.

But what Bongo is describing is much more painful - no bonus food sources until you chop some jungle. Hmm, it does bring the ISDG to mind, doesn't it, Arnelos

Minus one game tile, yes it does.... yes it does.

[bongo]

I guess the trick is to stay out of trouble long enough to build a decent empire, then find a suitable victim


I also noted that the price the AI wants for a tech is higher then my research cost. Is this normal, or a product of the higher difficulty?

[Ljube]

The difference between emperor and demi:

At emperor you build all wonders.
At demi you don't even start them.

I found emperor too easy for my liking so I switched to demi. This is after the terrible experience of Sid.

Vmxa1, can you summarise demi stats?

[vmxa1]

AI Bonuses
Def Land Units---------0 0 0 2 4 6 8 12
Off Land Units----------0 0 0 1 2 3 4 6
Start unit type 1-------0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2
Start unit type 2-------0 0 0 0 1 2 2 4
Extra free support-----0 0 0 4 8 12 16 24
Bonus for each city----0 0 0 1 2 3 4 8
Max gov transition-----0 0 0 4 3 2 2 1
Cost factor--------------20 12 10 9 8 7 6 4
AI to AI trade----------110 120 130 140 150 160 170 200

Other variables
Citizens born content----4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Citizens quelled-----------1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Attack bonus vs barbs---800 400 200 100 50 25 0 0
Percent optimal cities---100 95 90 85 80 70 60 50

[vmxa1]

I would say you may have a slight exaggeration on the get all and start none for wonders. It only seems that way. There are just too many ancient wonders to get them all even on Monarch. In a game for someone here I built all but two on Monarch.

You should get 2 or 3 on Demi, you can do between 1 and 3 on Sid. But it does seem like you can't get any. I would agree that you could do worse, if things went badly. You have no coast near you, no ivory and poor start for food and shields.

In the main you can build the Gl at least, unless you get a bad break and one civ gets an SGL to rush it out from under you.
That window should be very small if you have a decently timed prebuild (say within 4 turns).

[Ljube]

Hmmm, my average prebuild is from 10 to 13 turns. I never share literature, they never research it. And yes, I can get a couple of wonders more (I particularly like Mike's and Bach's and I also like Sun Tzu's and Leo's but I can count on only two of those in the best scenario). Of course I was exaggerating but that's how one feels the transition. After unsuccessful tries at Sid, emperor really seemed child play to me. And demi very much resembled the old deity.

[bongo]

Did some of the higher difficulties get some adjustment?


I went all out military on this game. I played until 570ad last night and finally entered the middle age. Still in despotism After taking the northern half of the iroquis empire I made peace, and got 6 techs(+150g+47gpt) in return, all I needed to enter a new age. Even with the aztecs owning SoZ, taking the rest of the continent is piece of cake now. Got two sword armies, all iron sources, and feudalism as my bonus tech I will continue playing until I meet the other civs. I suspect the wars has hampered my continent(which is a small continent btw) so much that the rest of the world may be half an age ahead of us. Time will tell, this is my first game in a long while that hasn't been settled in the ancient age