Emperor depotism

[V.O.C.'02]

I;m currently playing my first emperor game!

Standard map, pangea, playing as the persians.

I found out i'm in no way able to keep up with the a.i. in science and in (normal) production. So I just stayed frindly with the rest until I had enough cities (only caring about city growth), while making a run for iron and horses (build 2 cities around an iroquis city just to get the iron-tile. When I got big enough I just kept cranking out barracks and immortals (gotta love em) and was able to get most of the iroquis cities and land.

Now my problem is: the immortals are cheap (30 shields) but I'm in the late middle ages and everyone have got pikemen or musketmen, and researching strong! Is it doable to pop-rush knights and does teh A.I. at emperor build enough defensive units To stand my avarage to strong army of knights.? I need to stay stay in depotism, cuz otherwise I will fall back very fast, the only way I can keep up is pop-rushing, and it hurts to see those unhappy faces

It's just to much for me, I'm acually Regent material (tops) i'll guess i will start a warlord game later, just for ego and killing spears with my caverely!

(What I do like is conquerring a size 12 city, get rid of the resisters and pop-rush it to 1 by getting me library, pikeman, and a couple of immortals )

[Dominae]

I'll just address one problem I see with your game: there is no reason for you to stay in Despotism in the Middle ages, unless you haven't discovered Monarchy yet. If not, get it ASAP and switch.


Dominae

[Arrian]

I need to stay stay in depotism, cuz otherwise I will fall back very fast

No offense, but this is a terrible mistake. Despotism is by far the worst government in the game and should be left behind ASAP. Monarchy *may* be viable if you are fighting a lot and have a large army, but more likely republic is the way to go. You can outresearch the AI on Emperor - it just takes time to build up your infrastructure properly (markets, libraries, banks, univerisities).

When I jumped up to Emperor, not long ago, I developed a simple strategy:

Pump out a few warriors from my capitol, go exploring, find nearest neighbor. Wait for a settler team (warrior/settler) to come my way. Hit it. Result: 2 captured workers, and a very angry AI civ. But after a few turns of refusing to speak with you, they will cave and give you tech and gold. That will give you more room to expand by crippling your nearest neighbor early on, and it will help you out in tech early on.

Step 2 is a swordsman attack on the same civ to gain all but 1 city, their tech, maps and gold. Maybe not in the case of Persia, because that blows the GA. Meanwhile, I'm beelining for Monarchy (note: I normally play religious civs, and will use Monarchy. If not religious, I just want the HG, and will wait for Republic before switching).

Step 3 is a horseman (or war chariot... mmmm) rush on somebody else, with swords along for the fun. Hopefully, a leader will be generated. That can be used to rush a FP, or move the palace after building the FP near the original start.

If you accomplish 1-3, you're all set. Once you have an optimal FP, you essentially have 2 empires. You will have luxuries to sell the AI, too, draining their economies.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

Neat idea hitting the settler early. Didn't know they would cave at that.

[Dominae]

The situation Arrian is describing is great if it works, but definitely doesn't happen every game on Emperor. Even if you're right next to your neighbour, you'll often find that your 2 early Warriors are seriously outmatched and outnumbered by the AIs free units. But, if you do pull it off, it basically means that you've doubled your potential territory by "taking out" a civ so early. Definitely a strategy to keep in mind, just don't depend on it.


Dominae

[badman]

mmm... I usually REX until there no fertile land left. Then I build baracks in every citiy and conquer the next neighbour as soon as possible (I like Swordsmen more than Horsemen). I do hope for a leader but I almost never get one during my first wars because I go for the kill and leave them just with one city. Then I'll wait until the peace treaty expired again and take that city as well.
I find that seize is everything at Emperor. You can easily outresearch the AI and play builder style (during the second half of the game) if you're just big enough.
So after I have conquered myself a large empire, I'll simply disband my military, switch to republic and build a lovely, peaceful land of freedom and wealth.

[Arrian]

Dominae,

I will admit my sample size is small (2 games - I didn't use this in AU201... which I still need to finish). However, all you need to do is nail the settler team, and then basically hold them off until they'll talk.

In a recent game as Japan, I hit an Indian settler team with 2 warriors. 1 died, the other got the workers. The Indians had a number of warriors running around and I had 2. Both were killed, and the workers recaptured. However, I made peace in exchange for several techs and all their gold. In the meantime, I expanded toward them aggressively, and was able to launch a direct assault in Delhi from a city I had built (in other words, Indian eastward expansion was thwarted totally, and I got money and tech).

The first time I did it (my first Emperor victory, as Egypt), it worked even better: 4 techs, money from America, and I kept the 2 workers.

The whole point is to hurt one civ badly early on, thus providing an excellent whipping boy for later (read: swordsmen). The damaged civ will keep up or close to it in tech with the other AIs (and thus, so will you) but will be weak, and ripe for the plucking.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Arrian, the strategy you're describing works just great...when it works. When I first started playing Emperor I used this strategy extensively, until I realised that I was quitting most games where I couldn't make it work. If you've got a pretty strong neighbor, rushing with 2 Warriors may be suicide; if you lose your 2 units (a very real possibility), you will be facing a few Archers and Spearmen at your door pretty quick. Do you count the games when that happens?

All I'm saying is that the early Warrior-rush strategy is not a simple decision, by far. If you're going to play the game out, you're going to have to deal with the fact that your rushes will simply not work at least half of the time (in my experience).

By the way, if you really like this strat (like me), you should try it with the Aztecs. I'm sure you can imagine how effective 2 movement points is to an early Warrior (JW) rush.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

V.O.C.'02 post a save. I would say it is likely that you have not gotten all you mite have from the cities you have. I get out of Despot ASAP and on emp go for republic if not religous as I do not want to switch again.
Arrian gambit is neat, but watch out as they will go to war and could put you out of the game. Do not try it on Deity the 12 units will be to close to home and get you. You have to catch them spread out to attack early.

[alexman]

Dominae, I think Arrian is not advocating a Warrior rush in the classic sense, where you attack an enemy city. He proposed attacking a lone warrior escorting a settler. If you catch them on level ground, you have about 82% chance of capturing the two workers when attacking a regular warrior with two regular warriors. I think those odds are pretty good.

If the defender is a spearman, however, then your odds drop to about 50%, in which case it would be too late to try this strategy with just two warriors.

[Jawa Jocky]

Re: Emperor depotism

Originally posted by V.O.C.'02
I found out i'm in no way able to keep up with the a.i. in science

So very true.

Set your science to 10% and buy, trade and/or extort all of your technology. Keep on growing your empire by force. You can make up for the research/production disadvantage by having a larger empire than everyone else.

[Theseus]

Warrior Bopping (there, I named it) is a lot of fun, and almost always successful. It MUST be done on open terrain. I typically will only go for it if I've got a great starting location, just in case.

[Arrian]

Yeah, like alexman said, I'm not going after cities. It's literally just an attack on 1 settler team, and MAYBE, one or two other battles (if I got an elite warrior from barbs from a hut, I will try and use him). If I can, I will get a warrior w/in the enemy's capitol radius just as I'm ready to talk peace, forcing his worker(s) inside so I can demand them during peace negotiations.

@ Theseus. "Warrior bopping" eh? I'd say "settler bopping" but it doesn't really matter.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Gotta make sure people understand it's not Spearman Bopping!

BTW, if Militaristic (non-Japan), I will sometimes build a quick reg Archer for this, so that my hunting team consists of that and one Warrior.

I always forget the thing about getting a unit near their capitol.
/smacks head... REMEMBER, REMEMBER!/

[Dominae]

Sigh, my poor communication skills are preventing me from getting my point across! I know the point is not to attempt to eradicate an enemy civ with two early Warriors. And I'm aware that 2 Warriors against 1 in open terrain is pretty good odds.

My point is simply this: that in my experience, if you expect to get this sort of thing done every game, you'll be sorely disappointed. Sometimes you're just so far away from an enemy civ that they've planted 3 cities by the time you get there. Sometimes they are defending their Settlers with Spearmen (am I the only one where this is the norm?). Sometimes you won't get them on open terrain (forests are the most common nuisance). And sometimes you'll just fail and realise that your game is probably going to suck because your "Warrior/Settler bop" didn't work. In each of these cases, do you start over?

I see the whole "bopping" strategy as seizing an opportunity: if you see that you have good odds at taking out a Settler early on in the game, then go for it. This is why, like Theseus, I've come to fit in an Archer in my early build queue. But advising someone who is new to Emperor to go hunting with your two first Warriors as a matter of course may be more harmful than helpful.


Dominae