Emperor level advice

Myrddin · October 19, 2003, 09:13

Coming back to Civ3 with Conquests due, I made a first attempt at Emperor with the Iroquois. I found it much, much harder than Monarch and found myself behind in everything.

1 It seems to me that I need to be more aggessive, especially in the ancient age. Given that the AI starts with extra units:

If I try an archer rush, how many should I have before attacking?

If I wait for Mounted Warriors, what is the minimum number of cities and units?

If I am attacking at relatively even techs eg knights/pikemen, cavalry/riflemen at what ratio of military strength is a successful attack feasible?

2 Trying to generate culture and research seems useless - should I concentrate on military and cash only?

3 War wariness made staying in Republic very difficult - is Monarchy a much better choice?

At 2050 I had worked my way up to second place, but found it hard going as I had no options - always behind in tech and so nothing to trade, few luxuries and resources and so nothing to trade, boxed in by a much bigger civ, making military expansion impossible. Is there something else that I should be trying?

vmxa1 · October 19, 2003, 15:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Myrddin
3 War wariness made staying in Republic very difficult - is Monarchy a much better choice?

At 2050 I had worked my way up to second place, but found it hard going as I had no options - always behind in tech and so nothing to trade, few luxuries and resources and so nothing to trade, boxed in by a much bigger civ, making military expansion impossible. Is there something else that I should be trying?

Republic is fine for war, IF you either end it quickly or they declare on you. Of course you still want to not go on for long periods of time.

One of the problems with the score at emperor is that if you do not get any of the early wonders, it will suffer. Those early wonders generate culture and add up over time. It can be hard to get them without conquering, if you do not aim for one or two at the start.

Given that you had trouble with conquest and research, it makes sense that the score would be hard to raise. You really should/must take the tech lead by the ToE at the latest.
This can be done with a solid empire and proper use of you workers. A few timely wars will round it out.

IF you had a very poor start, that is going to make it much harder.
You will need to keep a close eye on happiness and therefore get those lux amd , market places going.

bernardjan · October 20, 2003, 09:52

2 you are religious, use it and build temples/cathedrals

A slow tech pace favours the Iroquis, nothing stops
the Mounted Warriors early on. Trading is always cheaper than researching yourself.

With the upgrade Mounted Warrior->cavalry, you are
able to take an opponent out in a few turns. Using cavalry almost feels like an exploit.

Regarding war weariness: for me it is never a problem,
since I always want to fight fast wars. (5-6 turns)

Myrddin · October 20, 2003, 14:01

In a new game I used an archer rush to take Washington, which seems to have made all the difference as:

I have room to expand
A weak neighbour to beat up when I need techs
Still have the ability to time the Golden Age with the Mounted Warriors attcak

eric2075 · October 20, 2003, 23:31

I've started playing Emporer the last few weeks and it's definitely a huge jump up from Monarch. You really have to pay more attention to micromanagement than at the lower levels. I think the biggest thing is checking diplomacy much more, especially early in the game. That way you have the opportunity to make good trades and not fall so far behind.

I never used to war much, but I can't see any other way to win at this level other than making war early before I fall too far behind in tech.

Mountain Sage · October 23, 2003, 08:07

Myrrdin,

Out of topic, but did you really managed to read ALL of R. Jordan's books?

Arrian · October 23, 2003, 10:02

The horror! The horror!

-Arrian

There is no Jordan [/Matrix]

Myrddin · October 23, 2003, 18:50

Author of Excession is Iain M Banks

Cort Haus · October 26, 2003, 07:00

The extra unhappiness is a headache at the start - it makes it difficult to get out there and do things, and redirects the normal priorities, if you're used to Monarch.

I'm not sure that a more aggressive ancient age, beating tech out of rivals, is the only way to go at this level.

I'm playing Korea on a standard Pangea, and went full throttle for Writing, then Lit, then Currency, trading these three for all the rest (including Republic but not Monarchy), going with the leaders into the Middle Ages at about 1000BC where I picked up Feudalism from my trait.

I had to squeeze all possible research out of my first city for the first tech (Writing~32 turns) though, and was only able to do so because of a river start, prioritising roads over mines, and delaying expansion.

With Writing I traded for all communications first then traded to a tech lead. They caught up, but I was able to maintain parity going into the next era. Now I just have to decide what and how hard to research, and whether to jump for Republic now or after I've pop-rushed another border library or two...

vmxa1 · October 26, 2003, 15:10

My last game was an Emperor game that I had no war in the ancient age at all. I was the tech leader more or less the whole way.

Myrddin · October 26, 2003, 17:20

How on earth did you manage that!

vmxa1 · October 26, 2003, 19:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Myrddin

How on earth did you manage that!

It was on a large map. I was England and popped many huts. I got two advanced tribes and many techs. I used CxxC with two camps. This gave me parity or better in troops so no one ever messed with me. No settler bops occurred and peace rained.
With the large number of cities, Imanaged to get my FP up close to Spain and had two good cores going. My capitol pumped out settlers about every 4 turns and did not make troops or wonders.
The two camps made workers every now and then and tossed in a settler when they got to size 6 or 7.
I made a coastal city very quickly and made 6 gallies to find all the other civs. It turned out that I did not have to any suicide runs as the other contient was within range on the far side of mine. I send 2 each way and kept two to block any others from passage. One set never had any combat, the other fought lots of barb gallies. That is why I sent two, one would get in a free shot as I would fort both when I say them. I still lost one and the other had many fights with only 1 HP before it reached the Aztecs.

So I had contact fairly early with all civs.

Theseus · October 26, 2003, 20:04

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I used CxxC with two camps.

vxma1, I've seen you mention that a few times... what do you mean? Where the heck do you put camps in a 3-tile CP layout?

Mountain Sage · October 28, 2003, 10:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Myrddin
Author of Excession is Iain M Banks

Ah, but you find Myrddins also in R. Jordan's books.
thanks

vmxa1 · October 28, 2003, 14:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus

vxma1, I've seen you mention that a few times... what do you mean? Where the heck do you put camps in a 3-tile CP layout?

I hope the server will not chock, but here is the layout from Master Zen some time back. Note the goody huts are the camp locations:

vmxa1 · October 28, 2003, 14:12

Theseus I only used the two camps right next to the capitol. Once I made it to the middle ages, I started to abandon them in favor of two camps much farther out. This was to let my capitol get larger and make some wonders. The camps were getting to be just too far from the front lines. I had Spain close and we were gong to have to start pushing soon. I had lots of open land on the other side of my empires frontier and wanted troops coming from that area as well. Since I had as good or better army as any I could afford to change over.

Paddy · October 31, 2003, 13:44

thanks for the guff.,,... appreciatted