10 Tips to get you up to Emperor/Deity

[joncnunn]

AI's and deficits:

The AI is not allowed to sign a deal that would result in the GPT going negative.

The fact that the AI is willing to give you 100 GPT means that they currently aren't going all out for science.

For that matter, the AI won't accept GPT from you either if it would result in a deficit, so you may need to trick the AI by waiting until your turn, lowering the science rate to 0%, calling them up and signing the deal, and raising the science rate back up to what it was.

[Dominae]

badams: .

Nathan, you know the game well enough to know when contacting the AIs repeatedly is necessary or not (your example proves my point). I was just trying to make the point that it is possible to "miss out" on important deals if do not have this knowledge. The easiest way to avoid this (the alternative being loads of experience) is use the diplomacy screen very often ("every turn" just sounds better!). I learned this lesson well in OCC, which is essentially all about diplomacy.

Also, I can make the same point about selling techs: clearly I was being extreme to try and get my point across. The idea is simply that selling techs is not a "bad thing". Players used to the "easy life" on Regent/Monarch love their tech lead so much that selling techs sounds just wrong. I think such players could definitely benefit from losing this bias.

yxhuvud (did I ever mention your name is tough to spell correctly from memory?!), I agree that telling players to always build Granaries is misleading (I defended this point in another thread). But, IMO, top players make very good use of Granaries, and it just so happens that Granaries are useful more often than not. I would not say they're essential, but they're a very powerful tool. A newer player would do well to learn to use them.

Your point about selling techs is exactly the kind of reasoning I'm warning against! If you only sell techs that give the AI "no advantage" and that will net you "good deals", you're crippling your economy. If I can get 100+ gpt from 3-4 different civs for Replaceable Parts, you bet I'm going trade it to them. Tech brokering is really very powerful.


Dominae

[joncnunn]

#19 Know the Terraign:

Cities seperated from fresh water access or coast by 1 tile : Generally highly undesirable.

Rivers: Most valuable tiles in the game.

Hostile terriagn: Still needed because that is where most of the valuable resources appear.
(Oil always appears in Tundra / Desert, Rubber often appears in tiles that were Jungle in 4000 BC.)

[Arrian]

#2 and #10 are probably the main reasons I do not enjoy Emperor, let alone Diety. And I'm ok with that.

Good list, and good suggested additions by others.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian
I take this a bit further. If possible, KILL scientific civs before the end of the medieval era.

What do you think is number 1 on my list of things to watch them for?

On the other hand, if a scientific civ will have been a tech away from the industrial era for three or four turns by the time your invasion force is ready to go, that might suggest some other civ as a better target.

[Arrian]

Heh, that happened to me relatively recently. My Roman invasion force (lots of Cav, backed by some muskets, cannon, and leftover legionaries) landed in Korea a couple of turns AFTER they got nationalism. I still beat the tar out of them, but it was bloodier than I'd hoped it would be. Kyoto (size 12, on a hill) was a PitA.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

Nathan, you know the game well enough to know when contacting the AIs repeatedly is necessary or not (your example proves my point). I was just trying to make the point that it is possible to "miss out" on important deals if do not have this knowledge. The easiest way to avoid this (the alternative being loads of experience) is use the diplomacy screen very often ("every turn" just sounds better!). I learned this lesson well in OCC, which is essentially all about diplomacy.

I agree 100% that checking every turn is the ideal, especially for people who don't have a lot of experience figuring out when good deals are likely to be available. I'm just highly skeptical of how many people will have the patience to do put that ideal into practice. Ultimately, both points are important - the ideal, and how to get the most out of contacts if you find the ideal to be more trouble than it's worth.

Also, I can make the same point about selling techs: clearly I was being extreme to try and get my point across. The idea is simply that selling techs is not a "bad thing". Players used to the "easy life" on Regent/Monarch love their tech lead so much that selling techs sounds just wrong. I think such players could definitely benefit from losing this bias.

The danger is that people might go from one extreme to the other when the ideal is somewhere in the middle. If you don't sell techs at all, you lose out on an opportunity to leverage AI gold to research faster, maybe rush-build some extra infrastructure if there's gold left over, and ultimately build up a bigger tech lead than you could get without trading. But at the other extreme, if you sell techs dirt cheap to anyone who can pay the moment you get them, you can't build up a lead. The trick is to find the middle ground where you're siphoning off most of the AIs' available gpt most of the time without giving the AIs better deals than is necessary in the process.

Nathan

[Jaybe]

... But at the other extreme, if you sell techs dirt cheap to anyone who can pay the moment you get them, you can't build up a lead. ...

It is my understanding that the point is to sell them to all the AI civs in the correct order. Labor intensive -- pretend that your staff is doing it, not yourself.

• On the turn you get the tech (or decide to trade it), visit everyone to find who has the most funds, and see who is willing to offer the most. DO NOT DO ANY ACTUAL TRADES.
• After research is done, do the actual trading, from most profitable to least.

(The point being that as more civs have the tech, the less value it has to others because its research time is reduced.)

[joncnunn]

Also, for map trading:

1. First buy every body's maps. (Skip civs that say that 1 gold is acceptable for their WM; it's worthless.)

2. Then sell from most profitable to least profitable.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Jaybe

It is my understanding that the point is to sell them to all the AI civs in the correct order. Labor intensive -- pretend that your staff is doing it, not yourself.

• On the turn you get the tech (or decide to trade it), visit everyone to find who has the most funds, and see who is willing to offer the most. DO NOT DO ANY ACTUAL TRADES.
• After research is done, do the actual trading, from most profitable to least.

(The point being that as more civs have the tech, the less value it has to others because its research time is reduced.)

Right, but make sure you figure any tech and luxuries you can get from the deal into your calculations too. And keep in mind that the value of techs you trade for also diminishes depending on how many civs know them.

By the way, another of my big tech trading tricks is to get my luxuries as part of my deals on tech sales. When doing that, it's useful to have as many of the deals as possible expire at the same time, since each such deal locks the timing of some of my tech sales into a 20-turn cycle.

Nathan

[yxhuvud]

dominae regarding tech brokering: well, I admit it might be a bit farfetched to say that I would never sell replaceable parts, I wouldn't even think on it if I were to wage a war within a reasonable timeframe. On the other hand, this might be kinda influenced that the last games I've played have been largely building a few infantry and a gazillion of artillery

Regarding granaries, check your target audience, are they mainly warmongers or builders? In my experience, monarch players are mostly builders. Arrian not inlcuded.

Joncunn: if you save your incomes a few turns eventually you will be able to buy a tech for the money. It is of course a balance act to choose when to save and when to build improvements. It all comes down to which techs and whcih improvements.

Arrian, you should really take the step up to emperor permanantly. You will not improve unless you take on a challenge, which you don't at that level. At least for me, half the charm in playing the game is the mental challenge and the improvement of my play. Without any such challenge I might as well be playing Hearts.. Not saying that can't be satisfying anyhow, if in a different way.

Hmm. Dave, do you have any suggestions on how to survive the initial onslaught at deity? I feel I have a nice chance of winning as long as noone attacks me first, while if they do I am totally b0rked.

Regarding the spelling of my nick, I happen to live in a country where it is pronouncible and actually almost means something


#20: Place your cities so that not only you get production from as much land tiles as possible, but as many coast and sea tiles as well. This allows for tighter city placement close to coasts to maximize the amount of tiles you get production from. A wealthy civ have it much easier than a poor one.

[Theseus]

Great tips, Dom, and very much in the spirit of the Strat forum!!!

Good additional comments by all.

Re granaries: I didn't use to build them early... I pretty much learned how to do Settler pumps from Nathan. This is a great tip for semi-new players, as long as they learn *where* to build them. In AU 204, at Monarch, I kicked the ever-lvon' cr-p outta the Greeks when REXing... I think I had 7 towns to their 4, and I got all the good territory.

Tip # 20 (and I'm surprised this hasn't come up yet): When you a ready to go to war, don;t screw around. You want a minimum of 8-10 units for a given town, and god knows how many for cities and metros. Hit'em fast and hit'em hard.

(there's probably a lot of other military stuff to add here)

[badams52]

Originally posted by nbarclay

By the way, another of my big tech trading tricks is to get my luxuries as part of my deals on tech sales. When doing that, it's useful to have as many of the deals as possible expire at the same time, since each such deal locks the timing of some of my tech sales into a 20-turn cycle.

Another thing to keep in mind when trading for luxuries is that luxuries #s 1 and 2 are least expensive, 3 and 4 are next, 5 and 6 next, and the most expensive are numbers 7 and 8. Supply and demand make some difference, but by far the biggest factor is how many happy faces the luxury will give you. So if you're trading for 5 luxuries from other civs, then try and get all 5 trades to end on the same turn. That way, you'll at least get a discout for the first few. If your 5 luxury deals end sporatically where you're always bargaining for just one, then you're paying the same rate for all 5 of them.

edit: typos

[Theseus]

badams, nice one... never thought of it that way.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by badams52

Another thing to keep in mind when trading for luxuries is that luxuries #s 1 and 2 are least expensive, 3 and 4 are next, 5 and 6 next, and the most expensive are numbers 7 and 8. Supply and demand make some difference, but by far the biggest factor is how many happy faces the luxury will give you. So if you're trading for 5 luxuries from other civs, then try and get all 5 trades to end on the same turn. That way, you'll at least get a discout for the first few. If your 5 luxury deals end sporatically where you're always bargaining for just one, then you're paying the same rate for all 5 of them.

Also keep in mind that if deals involve something per turn on both sides and a resource is involved, they don't terminate automatically just because something up front was part of the deal. The best procedure is to end the deals that didn't terminate automatically before negotiating new deals on a "highest value first" basis, since that means you won't have the luxuries from those deals when you start negotiating.