Help: I still can't beat Emperor

[Jawa Jocky]

I am still trying to get my 1st Emperor win. I can almost always win on Monarchy, but Emperor keeps holding me down I have tried about 20 times now but have only made it past the middle ages once.

My biggest problem seems to be the balance between growth/military in the early game. I either get spread out too thin trying to grow fast, or build up a military and I'm too small by the time I attack. Once the war starts the AI pumps out units faster than I do.

I lose my games in the middle ages when my bigger neighbors attack me. I don't fault my play here, because IMO if I hadn't done so poorly in the beginning I wouldn't be in this mess to start with.

Please give me some key pieces of advice for making the jump from Monarchy to Emperor

[zulu9812]

the no. of cities you have determines how much gold you have. More cities = more gold = rush buy = big military quickly. Early expansion is the key. Also, pick the right moment to attack. If you see in the diplomacy screen that they have no money, or they're busy dealing with barbarian hordes, or have left perimeter cities unguarded, go for the kill. Get them before they get you.

[BillChin]

An early war is a good idea. Use the upgrade path to increase military production. On standard size and small maps, build warriors, save gold and upgrade to swordsmen. On huge maps, build horsemen or war chariots and upgrade to knights. Practice the early part of the game, because if you get out of the first war in good shape the game is almost won. On many maps, an early war is the best way to catch up in techs and land.

I went into a lot of detail on various early war strategies on the April game thread:

http://64.246.32.51/~admin1/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46271

Another excellent strategy is ICS (Infinite City Sleaze), or building as many cities as possible as quickly as possible, as close together as possible. Search for posts by Aeson about this powerful strategy. Some see ICS as an exploit, but it does win, usually with very high scores and takes some practice to get it right.

[Jawa Jocky]

Thanks for the tips. This will definitely help with my military shortage. Build warriors and upgrade to swordsmen is so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it, or retain it from reading other threads.

BTW Your April unofficial game was my last Monarchy loss. That was a pretty bad starting location. I was gald to learn that I wasn't the only one who gambled and lost early.

[SirSebastian]

First of all, you have to stretch too thin. If you lose a city or two, well... at least you tried... and you might be able to take them back with culture.

I also find that Emperor is tough in the Middle Ages. I am not an expert, but can win sometimes. Just use every advantage you have. In addition, I've started planning for those evil Middle Age battles from day 1. Make sure your borders are defendable! IMO, it's better to stop expanding in a direction if the border easily defendable (choke point, rugged terrain) than to build one more quite corrupt city just beyond that that will be hell to defend later on. Use the rugged terrain to slam them with catapults/cannon and ! Make each step into your territory be incredibly painful. =P

Picking a UU perfectly timed for the Middle Ages won't hurt either.

[DrSpike]

A rough guide. Build 5ish cities asap, then barracks. Rush if advantageous. Research the wheel first, and make sure you connect up the horses asap. Use cheap warriors for exploration and as military police, then churn horses, or chariots and some defensive spearmen if you don't yet have horseback riding. Do this till approx. 1000BC, then go take some land and some techs from the nearest target. If you are playing conquest/domination the original cities can be 3 spaced, and the conquered cities kept and used for rushing more units with captured pop (make the 1 unit of pop in the city a taxman after unhappiness from rushing sets in). If you are after a more builder type game space out your original cities a little more and keep the captured cities and build them up. With a FP they'll be good, and you will have enough cities and land to outtech/outproduce the AI, or at least keep up through purchasing techs.