ALC Game 16: Persia/Cyrus

KMadCandy said:

last paragraph first ... if you're used to redheads that are easy to get along with, canada must be quite an odd place. i can say that, i am one. a redhead, not a canada.

you know i do the whole war thing differently than you do. i'm really lost about your picking friends statement tho. as far as diplomacy in civ4, i pick my friends based on who i want to protect myself from, who's help gonna protect me from other people, who i want to distract until i can choose the timing of the war, or who's gonna trade with me, usually. izzy's not a generous trader. i don't think you're planning on asking her for help with huayna are you? and i don't think you consider her anything close to dangerous yet, as far as wanting friendship to protect you. so none of my reasons add up to picking her.

i'm sure you have some reason in mind, but i really don't get it. sure, we'll want to be friends later before we abuse her. but she's the easiest one in the entire game to get a late friendship with. change religions and bingo, you're in, no pre-planning or laying the foundation necessary. so for now, i'd manipulate the heck out of the guys that are the bigger threat now/short-term.

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Life with a redhead is always interesting. That's what I like about them. (Not that I'm an expert, I married a blonde. Good thing the wife doesn't read this forum.)

Usually I prefer to follow the guidelines you've set out. However, in this game, we're looking at warring almost constantly from as soon as we're able. Once Qin is out of the way, Huyana and Genghis aren't friends, they're potential targets. That means for a civ to be my friend it has to be further away. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, the potential of knocking out two of the best competitors early in the game is very attractive.

KMadCandy said:

last paragraph first ... if you're used to redheads that are easy to get along with, canada must be quite an odd place. i can say that, i am one. a redhead, not a canada.

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lol, my experience with redheads would suggest otherwise too, I have a soft spot for them but they tend to be bonkers mad (as in Isabella seems sane when compared to most in real life). Elizabeth is a bit high-falootin-rootin-tootin for my liking, and she favours explorers apparently, I'll wait till we get Boudicca!

popejubal said:

Two injured units seems better to me than 1 dead blitz promoted unit.

...especially since that blitz promotion could have been March or the next Combat promotion instead to allow the units to heal just that much faster with the medic in the stack.

Immortals are super-cheap and meant to be semi-disposable, but why try to put such a heavy promotion on them like Blitz when the next Combat promotion would give better odds, less chance of death AND faster healing.

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I agree that blitz immortals are nice for mop-up. You dont need much but 2 or 3 per city are great.

In my game with cyrrus, bulk of army was all combat, with 5 or 6 C1 + flanking, and 6 blitz. one big stack, all immortals

I find immortal too weak for flanking without C1.

On each city i used only half of the flanks and blitz, they would heal while the rest of army go taking another city. This shave a lot of time between
cities while needing less units on the whole. the surviving flanks get insane proms quickly, and the blitz are not much injured as they deal with units strength 1 or less. I took something like 30 cities with the immortals alone, so shaving even only 1 turn each time is a good move.

Blitz are also great against counter-stack remmants

Considering Genghis, let him alone. your next target is Huyana.

Sisiutil said:

Usually I prefer to follow the guidelines you've set out. However, in this game, we're looking at warring almost constantly from as soon as we're able. Once Qin is out of the way, Huyana and Genghis aren't friends, they're potential targets. That means for a civ to be my friend it has to be further away. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, the potential of knocking out two of the best competitors early in the game is very attractive.

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ah thanks, that helps. i guess you'll be so focused on war that you don't expect to have time to mess with their heads, and in this game you want a real friend, not just someone to further your purpose for now, time for tea parties later like i was thinking.

i totally agree that knocking out the two of them early is a good idea. i think the difference is that the way i define and use friendship in civ4 (do not tell my friends this) doesn't make "huayna and genghis are next to die" rule out "maybe i should pick one of them as a friend for now". in fact it makes it more likely *giggle*.

that's part of why i like to watch your wars. we start them so very differently .

ParadigmShifter said:

they tend to be bonkers mad

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i've used the name KMad online for years. i had many reasons for picking it, but i won't deny for a second that the fact that some folks consider me quite bonkers mad was one of them

Validator said:

I'm sure this will be a bit controversial as everyone has been suggesting that the immortal rush needs to happen ASAP to catch Qin when he is weakest. But I wonder if this is really the best move. This goes back to the discussion earlier concerning using an early warrior to harass a neighbor and stifle development. At the time it was pointed out that that tactic is counter-productive when you're planning an early attack as you want your neighbor to develop their cities so that you'll get more when you capture them. With that in mind wouldn't it be worthwhile to wait a bit to attack Qin?

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I think it is a little different now. If you have an army sufficent to take out Qin, waiting for him to develop more has lots of risk for little reward (at best).

The risk imo would be that Qin builds a few more archers or has a cultural bump to 60%. If part of the hope is that he builds a wonder, this could also help the move to 60%. I don't know how big a risk this is since I don't know how close to 60% he could get. More archers would definitely be a risk.

Qin getting iron working and building a sword or two could also be a risk.

The gain doesn't seem that large. The area around Beijing at least seems developed enough already. He could build a few buildings I guess, but don't most of those get destroyed when the city is taken over?

It seems like Qin's cities are close enough and have enough commerce tiles to pay for themselves. Wouldn't it be better to take over a few cities with an ability to make a net positive contribution that to sit around a pay for a standing army?

I guess you could argue that diverting hammers for a key wonder would be profitable relative to an early rush. Is that the arguement? If so, what wonder would be worthwhile? (I first thought oracle, but we seem late for that...)

Sorry for the ramble

My votes:
writing
earliest safe war with Qin
Beijing first

GS

Sisiutil said:

Sorry, Validator, but my fellow Canuck makes some excellent points here. By taking down Qin and then Huayna, I remove the two Financial civs in the game.

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Give me a chance to respond. BTW: You do realize that Qin isn't Financial in Warlords, right?

futurehermit said:

Plus he's aggressive and will have a sizeable army at this point. Why lose so many troops?

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Based on my experience I doubt that Genghis will have much of an army if you attack after getting Construction and building up a force of cats supported by swords and spears. The AI normally stays in REX mode until all of the available land is used up or it is attacked, and then it starts building its military. Considering the size of that northern peninsula it's going to take Genghis some time to finish expanding, which should give you the opportunity to attack him while he's weak.

I believe futurehermit normally plays on higher difficulties where AI behavior may be different. Sisiutil, what have you seen in terms of early AI military buildup at Monarch (no Aggressive AI and no BetterAI mod of course)?

futurehermit said:

He has no economic traits or advantages really. His strength is during the 1st 3 eras. Why attack him during his time of strength? He is no threat to win the game as he is always backwards in tech late-game.

Instead, I would focus on Huayna. He is a legitimate threat to outrun you tech wise and then to field superior troops.

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In the general case I would agree that Huayna is more of a long term danger than Genghis. But on a game by game basis the threat posed by different AIs varies based on a number of factors and one of the most significant is the quantity and quality of the land that the AI civ has at its disposal. There's still land to be explored in the SW, but based on what's been explored so far it's clear that Genghis has the best land and certainly the most.

Which is more of a threat: Genghis with 12 cities or Huayna with 6?

I seem to recall seeing somewhere "Land is power" but I can't remember where...

futurehermit said:

Let him develop all those jungle tiles for you. Why do you want to waste your worker turns doing that.

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Does it really matter if the jungles are cleared by Genghis' workers or the workers that you capture from Genghis?

I think one of the key points of taking on Genghis first is that the sooner you get control of those profitable jungle cities the sooner they can start getting developed and contributing to your empire. What we can see of Huayna's land doesn't look like it would add much.

futurehermit said:

Bribe Genghis as your lapdog to keep him off your back and work your way West. Once you have out-teched Genghis (say at Cavalry) you can go in and mop the floor with him.

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It's definitely possible that you can manipulate Genghis to keep him from attacking you, however I'm not sure it's a guarantee. You don't know what's going to happen in terms of religion spread, and how relationships will develop between the AIs.

The danger I see in this: once Genghis finishes expanding he will start building an army and it will be a formidable one. What's he going to do with it? His isolated peninsula location means he only has one neighbor. If you can't bribe him into fighting someone else you're the likely target. And he may not be so kind as to wait until you've out-teched him, or even finished your war with Huayna.


The main goal of the strategy I layed out was to minimize the chance of your getting involved in a very unpleasant two front war situation. If you try something different and that's what ends up happening don't say I didn't warn you

Since Qins capital seems so utterly fussy to tear down, perhaps just take the juicy golden fleece and finish Ghengis instead to make proper and programmed use of that legendary wave of Immortals. (Whose blitz promotions I will certainly try out.) Make peace with Qin and befriend Huyana to stir him up against the former. (Martyrdom glory to you if you suffer to befriend that PITA!) Unfortunately we won't see that swollen salmon bosom, then, though I also love her yawn and fingernail-peeing. I'm sure there would be some diplomatic way to keep them occupied. Yes, you would have to work those jungle fruits yourself, but there's so much better lands to the north then to the west: Why not expand there now? And more so as it seems the easier prey. And since you took the marble (I would have settled SE of the ponies because of the hill and coastal), why not take Beshbaliks stone? But I can't get rid of that builder thing and that is probably the raeason why ALC saves are still my only monarch games. So perhaps this shouldn't be taken too serious.

edit: oh, I forgot: CoL would be nice for that.

Gr8scott said:

The risk imo would be that Qin builds a few more archers or has a cultural bump to 60%. If part of the hope is that he builds a wonder, this could also help the move to 60%. I don't know how big a risk this is since I don't know how close to 60% he could get. More archers would definitely be a risk.

Qin getting iron working and building a sword or two could also be a risk.

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Just to clarify what I meant by a delay was something on the order of 20-30 turns after the earliest possible attack opportunity. So 60% culture and IW really aren't going to come into play. (Unless Qin was very lucky getting techs from huts.)

If Qin were to build a wonder in Beijing then I think that would be the likely time to start the war.

I doubt Qin will be building many additional archers for the existing cities until he's attacked. For the short term the AI will likely focus on settlers, archers as garrison units to accompany the settler and workers. After that, considering that Qin is Industrious, I don't think there's any doubt that Beijing will be starting work on a wonder and not on more archers.

As long as the war starts with an attack on Beijing I doubt it will be heavily defended.

Gr8scott said:

It seems like Qin's cities are close enough and have enough commerce tiles to pay for themselves. Wouldn't it be better to take over a few cities with an ability to make a net positive contribution that to sit around a pay for a standing army?

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The cities can't start working the high commerce tiles until they have enough population. Each city's pop will go down by 1 when it's captured, so waiting and letting Qin pay maintenance on the cities while early population is growing would be the better way to go IMO.

As to the maintenance cost of the army, that is indeed an issue and would be reason to slip some civilian builds in. That was one of the reasons I thought it was important to discuss the timing of the attack now, before the army is built.

Gr8scott said:

I first thought oracle, but we seem late for that...

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I'm not sure if it's too late for Oracle. If the necessary techs were researched and the marble hooked up after the border expansion it could probably be built around 800-900 BC. Even if an AI gets it done first the hammers invested would get converted into gold at a good rate thanks to the marble.

Validator said:

I'm not sure if it's too late for Oracle. If the necessary techs were researched and the marble hooked up after the border expansion it could probably be built around 800-900 BC. Even if an AI gets it done first the hammers invested would get converted into gold at a good rate thanks to the marble.

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I think it's too late for the Oracle, for a few reasons.
*First is research - you still need Masonry, Med/Poly, and Priesthood. Of those, only Masonry is on the proposed list for the near future.
*Second, any hammers that go into the Oracle will be hammers not spent on Immortals. I don't think that's gamble worth taking in this game - sure a smaller army of Immortals might be able to handle Qin, but with a Protective archers on a hill I'm inclined to play it safe and build the extra Immortals with those hammers.
*Third, I don't see a particularly juicy target for the Oracle given our surroundings. The extra beakers are always welcome, but the time spent researching Med/Poly and Priesthood are turns taken away from Alphabet or Iron Working, most likely.
*Finally, you are next to two Industrious civs, one of which starts with Mysticism to boot. I'm not sure it's a race you want to get into, and an Early GP (instead of GS) doesn't look particularly appealing this game either.

If the Oracle is pursued I'm sure it would be put to good use, but I think those hammers should be Immortals this game.

Round 4: 1900 BC to 490 BC, Part 1: Prelude

I started the round by making some of the recommended adjustments. I change my research to Writing, skipping Pottery for now:



I changed to building a monument in Pasargadae:



And, on the next turn, I whipped the barracks to completion:



After that, it was time to send the Worker north to chop-rush Pasargadae's Monument:



Ironically, Qin beat me to Writing and proposed an Open Borders agreement first:



That's okay, Writing is handy nonetheless for several reasons. Once I had it two turns later, I got OB agreements with all the other civs, hoping for a religion or two to spread to me. That hasn't happened yet, but it's just a matter of time. Writing also enables libraries, and if we decide to run a specialist economy, they'll be pretty darned important.

Hmm, yes, I'm being noncommital about the economy so far. Probably not wise, but without Pottery and small cities, I don't have much choice yet. Feel free to berate me later. I know I can count on you.

Compared to the previous game, the barbs have been astonishingly shy this time around. I had to go looking for them. One showed up just west of Pasargadae and gave my first Immortal a bit of a workout:



KA-CHING! 2 XPs. I made him my Medic unit.

Meanwhile, with Writing complete, I researched Masonry. It only took 7 turns, and since Pasargadae's border was about to pop, the extra hammers from the marble quarry would be welcome. Then, with Masonry in hand, I had a difficult decision to make: Iron Working or Alphabet?

I decided to go after Iron Working. Knowing if Qin had iron or not for Spearmen was going to be valuable. Not only that, I wanted it for myself. I was worried that the Barbs would start showing up with Swordsmen after a while and I had no counter for that. And what if one of the other civs jumped into the war with Spearmen? Besides, I've noticed as I delay Alphabet more often that the AI does the same.

To help with IW, I whipped a Library in the capital:



I suppose some of you will say I should have focused purely on Immortals, but in my opinion and experience, Civ is all about balancing the various needs of your civ. I didn't start running specialists yet--I was focused on production and churning out as many Immortals in as short a time as I could. Whipping away 2 pop also meant I had to focus on growth.

Meanwhile, just north of Pasargadae, I found out why the barbs were being such wallflowers, and had another important decision to make.



Well of course I was going to send my first few Immortals against those barb Archers. It would be a good chance to acquire XPs, as well as a good trial run for city capture with Immortals. But the important decision was whether to attack now and auto-raze the city or let it grow to 2 pop and capture it.

Not an easy decision! I almost ended the round here to come back for advice. But I figured that the big highlight of this round should be the war with Qin (next post), and surely I'm capable of making a few decisions on my own.

It's a darn good location for a commerce city. Corn and bananas for growth, gems and dye for happiness, and riverside grassland beneath that jungle for cottages and commerce (the gems and dye won't suck in that regard either). Plus a couple of hills for production. I considered razing it and founding it 1E to claim those horses, but I already have a source of horses and it would be a shame not to work those bananas. I would also soon have Iron Working to clear that jungle, and the gems would be a welcome happiness booster. Besides, I only have 2 cities and time's pressing on.

I decided to keep it.

A couple of turns later, Goth reached 2 pop. I attacked and killed its 3 Archers at the cost of only 1 Immortal. Not bad.



I was mixing the promotions a bit, experimenting and hoping to find out the best combinations. So since I had a Medic unit, my next promoted Immortal got Flanking I and Sentry. I also decided to pursue the Flanking promotion track with one unit. Most, however, are getting Combat promotions. Shock doesn't make too much sense to me unless I start seeing a lot of Axemen or even Spears, and the risk of Qin having any is quite low.

My Scout continued exploring and found both Spain and land's end:



So I'm on a largish continent with my 4 neighbours. It's tough to say if that land mass to the NW is another continent or just an island. Finding out will have to wait, as will meeting the other 2 civs.

If the other 2 civs are isolated with one another, they're likely to be somewhat backward, since they won't tech trade with one another. Or will they? Does that limitation only apply to AI-human contact?

Anyway. Isabella is already getting demanding:



I turned her down. I want to stay friendly with Huayna at least until I have Alphabet so I can trade techs with him. I also want to wait until Qin is done before aggravating the Incan too much. I don't want him angry when I'm busy whomping someone else.

In 835, I finished Iron Working and started working on Alphabet.



So after getting the shaft on horses and copper, do I have iron?



Ha! So it would have been in the fat cross of the opening position. As it stands, like I said, the capital's 3rd border pop claimed it. This also is further impetus to put a fishing village over on the east coast at some point, especially since it will now have a decent source of hammers. I'm thinking 1N of the iron, but that's quite a ways off at this point. I don't really need that city until health becomes a concern and the crabs will be helpful.

A bigger concern is that Qin also had iron, just outside of Guangzhou, in its 2nd ring. Fortunately the city's border had not popped yet, and perhaps Qin didn't have IW yet. But I now had 11 Immortals available (besides the 3 on city garrison duty), sitting just outside of China's borders to Beijing's southeast. And what about Beijing's city defenders?



3 Archers with no promotions beyond Protective's defaults--a situation unchanged since the start of the round.

Time to go to war.

To be continued...

*refreshes around 12 times, grabs a sandwich between refreshes*

wow, 126 turns till alphabet comes in @ break even? Where did all that money go??? I hope you're not stretching your economy too thin before you bust out the hammer...

he reasearched IW... And he is not running any specialists... Quin should be long dead by this point, heck even huyana should... Too much fiddling about and too little action imo. Hopefully thats easy salvagable, it is after all still early in the game .

Round 4: 1900 BC to 490 BC, Part 2: The Battle of Beijing

Before declaring war, decided to check on its consequences:



Okay, so I'll earn a demerit with both of my next two targets and my furthest neighbour and eventual sweetheart (though there will be an incredibly messy breakup) won't care. I can live with that.

Besides, as you can see, my economy was about to crash. I hate to admit it, but I panicked a little. I switched builds in Persepolis and Pasargadae to the Pyramids and a Worker, respectively. I was trying to avoid building anything that would cost me maintenance. I also figured that the 'mids would give me a pile of gold when I inevitably failed to build them.

Well, of course, I needn't have worried. Shades of the Hatshepsut game: many of the units that were costing me maintenance were about to go to the great beyond.

First, however, I had to deliver the bad news:



I captured a worker with my Medic Immortal and sent the rest towards Beijing, which they'd be able to attack on the following turn. But to start off that turn, I had my Medic unit earn some more XPs by going after Qin's horses:



Chariots, after all, would be a needless complication. I killed the Archer and pillaged the horse pasture. I sent the captured worker to the stack for protection.

I thought I would accede to the wishes many of you express to see a detailed battle. I also want to highlight the UU, of course. So the rest of the post focuses on this key battle to capture the Chinese capital--a very expensive proposition, as you'll see.

So, 10 Immortals versus 3 Protective Archers fortified in a city on a hill. I decided to start by sacrificing the rookie units for collateral damage. The odds my Combat I Immortals got just plain sucked:



And that even with their bonus versus Archers. Protective units on a hill are nothing to scoff at. But then I've always maintained that the Protective trait was included in Warlords mainly for the benefit of the AI rather than humans.

Of course that first Immortal died. But he did quite a bit of damage, taking the Archer down to around 1.2 strength IIRC. The next candidate wasn't going to fare much better:



Another fatality, of course, but again, considerable damage was done--an Archer brought down below 1 strength.

The next Immortality faced the last healthy Archer:



Unfortunately he didn't do quite as much damage as I'd hoped. The Archer was at around 2.2 strength after the battle. Troublesome for the next Immortal, needless to say:



Okay, I lost him too, but he did some more damage (lowering the health of this Archer to around 1.5). So the next Immortal faced much better odds than his predecessors, especially since I was now starting to throw my veterans into the fray:



Okay, not great odds, but not bad. Alas, it was not to be. He died as well. And the odds for the next Combat II Immortal weren't vastly improved:



Stubborn as barnacles, these Protective Archers. At this point, I contemplated giving up. After all, as you can see, if I kept losing Immortals at this rate I'd have almost none left. Now I know how Xerxes must have felt at Thermopylae.

But I'm not a man who's afraid of commitment. I decided to see it through, come hell or high water. Fortunately, my luck started turning around. The Immortal survived the attack, killed that Archer, and earned a couple of XPs in the process.



After that, the odds were steadily improving, and my Immortals began to win their battles:



In the end, I was able to send my experimental Flanking II Immortal after the last city defender.



And with that, Beijing was mine and the battle was done:





That gold came in none too soon! A +6 surplus at 0%? Scary. I was able to push the slider back up to 100% and projected finishing Alphabet in a reasonable amount of time.

That concludes the Battle of Beijing. I hope it was illuminating, and I look forward to your comments on how it went, whether the selected promotions were the best to use, and so on.

The next post will deal with the remainder of the war.

wow atleast you were able to follow through and capture the capitol.. IIRC I did say something to the effect of 10 immortals being barely able to take 3 archers. but congrats on your conquest. personally I would have sacked his border cities first, but now if you get the whip in gear rather than building pyramids etc you should be able to replenish the ranks quite quickly.

since the other cities are closer to you the maintanance will be less. I know your econ is crashing right now but atleast the capture of the cities will be able to support you getting some cottages online to pay for it all.

research pottery at 100%, then drop the research slider for a little while so you can get your econ back up and running. get those gemstones and gold up to help with costs and you should be able to expand again in 20 turns or so.

NaZ

Round 4: 1900 BC to 490 BC, Part 3: The Great Fall of China

Well, the capital really was the tough part. Would you believe the other two Chinese cities that we had our sights on were each protected by a single Archer?

I had a couple of reinforcement Immortals ready to go in the Capital. I was able to send them at Guangzhou:



The first Immortal even got half-decent odds:



However, he did not survive. I wonder if Flanking promotions would be better, allowing these guys to run away after an unsuccessful battle more often? I may get a chance to test that theory shortly, as you'll see.

At least the first Immortal's failure meant the 2nd one was practically guaranteed victory:







The free Granaries are a nice surprise. A wonder would have been better. I suspect Qin was working on at least one and I interrupted him, given the dearth of military units.

Meanwhile, near Beijing, my units spotted a Chinese Settler and 2 Archers nearby. Of course Archers are easier to defeat in the open field than ensconced in a city, and it was an opportunity to gain more XPs add another free Worker to the 3 I'd already captured.



And I also spotted an Archer heading towards Shanghai, no doubt to reinforce it. Now Qin had built walls in Shanghai, raising its defense to 50%. The last thing I needed was another Archer fortified behind its walls and me with no Catapults. So he had to die as well:



With that accomplished, I started moving units in around Shanghai. In particular, I occupied the best production tiles (the gold mine and one of two forests) to try to prevent Qin from building more archers for the city.

It worked. I lost another Immortal but gained another city and 2 more Workers:





No granary this time, but soon I'll have a gold mine. Sweet!

Oh, I also earned my first Great General. I used him for a Medic III/March unit:



Interesting--he's one XP away from one more promotion. I'll have to keep my eyes open for an easy--make that guaranteed--battle for him to fight. If I'd been thinking, I would have given him Flanking I instead of March, then I could have given him Sentry and had my M*A*S*H and sentry unit combined. Oh well, I already have a Sentry Immortal, so no biggie. I'll probably give him Morale as the next promotion when he earns it.

After that, it was mop-up duty. Qin had a couple more cities that needed to be taken care of, starting with one in the south near the deer:



I razed it. I don't need the deer or horses it would give me and I certainly can't afford it.

Qin has one more city left, which I haven't taken yet:



Hmmm, two Archers on a hill. I know now from experience that it will be expensive. However, I was thinking that this would be a good chance to hustle a couple of new Immortals with Flanking I promotions to see if they have a better survival rate than their Combat I counterparts.

With the help of all that war booty, I finished researching Alphabet on the last turn of the round:



Of course, since Qin isn't quite dead yet, I decide to see what he'd be willing to cough up in exchange for a breather:



Not bad. Not great either, but definitely worth considering. I suppose I could try swapping those techs out for Mathematics, but I'd be surprised if he went for it.

So let me know if you think I should take whatever techs I can get for Qin or if I should just finish him off. The next post will detail the state of the world, to help us make this and more decisions in the next round.

I would take the techs.

In any case, why did you keep those two border cities by him. I would rather keep the capital only, raze the border, and conquer another of those guys.

moving forward you should remember that mearly running HR will keep Capac on Pleased terms even if you are different religions. Izzy will stay good based on religion. So being buddist and runnning HR will keep both of them off your back while you jack up Temujin next.

Excellent work already eliminating an opponent at 490BC.

That barb city you captured is gonna be quite awesome.

One thing about immortals and flanking. You said you send in your flanking immortal at the siege of Beijing last. Now that is confusing. The flanking promotion is meant to do first damage. With the extra retreatment odds he has the biggest chance of survival. The lower the normal chance of survival the bigger the chance of retreating.

So if an immortal attacks and has only 3% to win then he will almost get 9.7% chance to retreat. If an immortal has 90% chance to win he will only get something like 1% chance to retreat. So flanking should be used as the first ones. Flanking II would mean 30% survival against those archers which would have been a lot better then combat immortals. Against a badly wounded archer where he would have 90% to survive he would get only 3% chance to retreat instead of 1% which wastes his promotion totally to say the least.

Other then that, GREAT PROGRESS!!! Barb city couldn't have been better and Qin is toast. Take the techs, wait 10 turns and finish him (at least as long as those techs don't count towards too WFYBTA). In that time you even get the chance to build up your economy (barb city improvement fast with your captured workers).

If you have at least 6 immortals available now I wouldn't make peace. I don't think you want to earn any more diplomatic negatives by making peace and then re-declaring war. And the techs aren't worth much (archery and fishing are too cheap to risk WFYABTA implications and you can probably get Pottery in trade from one of the other AIs or just research it yourself).

Xian won't be as bad as Beijing since it doesn't have any cultural defense. At least for now, but if you wait... I'm assuming that you plan to raze it and resettle 2 tiles east when your economy can handle it.