Stuck between Emperor and Immortal

Just finished my first game at Immortal, and man, it was tough early. I was playing Inca, as I wanted the extra growth from terrace farms and wanted the extra mobility in hills for tactics. I was definitely in tough early - thankfully I was on the tip of the continent, and my closest neighbour expanded away, so I was never really in a threat to be taken over. Mountain/Hill/Jungle terrain around. I was definitely far back in tech early, and knew that if I did nothing, I would never have a chance - I was seeing wonders getting built which I didn't even have the prereqs for the techs to build them.

But I basically decided to make my move, and made a beeline to I think crossbows and Trebs. I went to war with my second closest neighbour who was near the bottom in score, and it was definitely a tougher war than I'd fought before. But eventually I made it through, and with the units from that war could get a quick swipe at my closest neighbour in Babylon. At that point, I know my only chance was basically to move to cannons and fight Darius, who was in the lead at that point. It took a while to get through, but in some ways it was good that he was all in hilly terrain, as my extra movements in hills worked great. Combined with Kilimanjaro which was on the edge of his territory and all the hills were roads for me. At that point, my army just kept walking through. Finished about 2 turns after I got rocket artillery. At the end I think I had a solid 5-6 artillery which had extra range, double fire, and march, which certainly made things easier to handle.

I definitely did not play fully optimally, i'm sure, and still need to tighten up my early game to not fall as far behind, but it doesn't take a huge military to win if you go that route. Not sure who I'll attempt next, but it certainly makes for a much more exciting early game compared to relatively easy emperor games.

beetle said:

It is good for those of us working our way up the difficulty level sloppily.



Since you beat deity, it stands to reason you could beat immortal. But don’t you think yours is an usual pattern? But having worked through the ladder, switching between emperor and deity (and not immortal and deity) makes senses to me.

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No question it is unusual. I don't play deity for "sandbox" type games, so I figured if its for optimized play, may as well skip immortal as there are really limited play choices. Added benefit that the losses (of which I have many) are much quicker on deity.

Is Immortal that much more forgiving than deity ?

Aristos said:

Yes, interesting variant, and I agree with you. I was referring to a long war of attrition, where you are forced to almost continuously build replacements for the war machine (if player did not plan the war well, or if he was taken by surprise, it's likely that he will lose some units against the AI that need to be replaced, especially if on the offensive pre-arty).

Your example with Shaka does not fall into the case scenario I was referring to. You used geography in your favor (which is the way to go in such a case), and basically turned the long war into a long phony war. Such a war does not delay your development, generally.

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Good points. It wasn't a phony war for him most of them time though. The fact he was burning through so many units in a futile attempt to breach my defenses probably contributed to the eventual demise of the Zulu empire, that at one point occupied about half of Pangaea. Another point that worked in my favor is he was almost landlocked: he never held a non-puppet with access to the open ocean. That meant my sea trade routes were unmolested apart from the occasional CS.

The worst case scenario is a nearby aggressor who can attack on a broad front over plains and grasslands. In my experience I either lose the war in the initial crisis or they offer peace a while after I beat off their invasion. Generally if war looks likely it is better to start it early. If they're expanding aggressively you want to crimp them before they consolidate.

whyidie said:

Is Immortal that much more forgiving than deity?

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Well, so far with Deity I can only win by diplo and SV, and even then only with OP civs for SV. Immortal gives me much more flexibility, but I am still terrible at domination. So I would say yes!