Stuck between Emperor and Immortal

As the title says I fall between the two difficulty levels.

My normal set up is:

-large map, epic speed - I enjoy the pace of epic

-small continents with low sea level - random in nature, sometimes like a pangea but water is important and contact might occur with only triremes or you might need astronomy

-random age- might be mountains with clumps of resources or flat with wide spread resources.

-random precipitation - might be heavily forested and jungle or lots of desert

-raging barbs- makes exploration more challenging

-random civ- with the above settings any civ might have terrain that greatly enhances their abilities but all will have something. There won't be a Polynesia stuck in a dry land.

With Emperor I can play any start with the above settings and come out on top. Good start, bad start doesn't matter. The difference is when global dominance is achieved. Victory will be based on civ and how the game progresses, any type might be pursued. I try not to use any exploits, rarely worker steal unless I intend to conquer.

Moved up to Immortal, whole different ballgame. Won first game with Huns. Was alone on a continent with Denmark, took him with horse archers. Economy and tech crashed, saved with GE from liberty getting Machu Pichu. Isolation saved me from getting rolled by the rest of the world. Came back with tech lead due to autocracy double speed spies and three promo subs fought back the world which was all Order. Eventually got domination with heavy use of highly promoted nuke subs and battleships with a lot of nukes.

Next immortal game was Korea, coastal tundra, few luxuries, no strategics. On emperor this would be a challenge but would be overcome. On immortal I got left in the dust by a booming Shoshone with ten cities to my four, fourteen techs ahead, with his smallest city larger than my capitol.

Current is America, pangea like due to low sea level with five other civs close. Land grab was fast by the AI, I have two cities they have five plus. All the civs have a strong dislike of warmongers and are all friendly with each other. War is the only way to expand but small production with a tech deficit and soon to be ganged up on for warmongering makes this appear to be untenable.

Are the days of me playing out whatever start I get over? Do I need to start re-rolling the map until I get a good start to be able to hang with the AI bonuses on Immortal level?

No, epic makes things easier, so you absolutely should be able to roll with whatever map you get.

If you are sloppy like me, you will be behind in tech until the industrial era, and behind in score until you launch or win by diplo. At immortal, I never was able to make dom or CV reliable. But many players want “global dominance” even when not going dom. I cannot help you there. For peaceful wins at Immortal, I think you have to tech harder than maybe you are.

I'm not sure what your question is OP.

Easier maps certainly make the game easier but there are probably some improvements possible for you to make since all maps (non modified) can be won on immortal.

Keys to moving up from Emperor to Immortal:

1. Until you win at Immortal at least once, do not attempt to hand build a single wonder (unless you get two eras ahead or it becomes obvious one that requires a policy was skipped by all AIs) . However, be sure to note down the turns the AIs built them so you get a good feel of when they are all built. Once you win a few games and get a feel, then you might try hand building a couple in some circumstances

2. Take all the AI gold you can. (in BNW micro manage sells of resource down to a set of 1 resource for 2 GPT each, if you have a spare luxury and someone who is your DOF, sell for the full 240 gold while getting payment from non friends via one of their luxuries to ensure you get full value.)

3. You might want to try a civ with a direct science advantage on Immortal first. Or if you want to stick on Emperor a bit longer, pick one of the civs that are considered worst to play.

4. Having enough military to defend yourself is more important.

5. Use science is King tactics.

Epic Speed: Benefits the human more the AI compared to standard speed unless you are unprepared for war when attacked [more expensive to cash buy units than standard + more turns before a beelined advanced unit becomes wide spread]

Large map: Cultural victory more difficult. Helps Liberty start more than Tradition start

Raging Barbs: Hurts the AI a lot more than the human. Can absolutely cripple AI settler expansion, especially overseas.

Random Civ: Actually a bad idea if you are between difficulty levels, getting one of the best civs on Emperor will be too easy while getting one of the worst civs on Immoral will be too hard.
It will work better after you have some Immortal wins under your belt.

Thanks for the tips. I think I need to pick a course and focus more instead of a more widespread approach that I used on Emperor. And for the time being anyway, abandon the difficult starts until I get a handle on Immortal.

My current game got a random Celt start in heavy forest, copper and iron near a muti-salt Greece. He had six cities compared to my two when I grabbed his next settler. It took a long time but finally beating him down to extermination after 100+ turns of war. Managed to get Stonehenge and first religion with pagodas, tithe and mosques. Earth Mother with 3 copper and four iron in first two cities.

It is semi-isolated so have only met two other civs. The isolation might set me back in terms of trade and science, but the safety of having only one opponent at the early game is helping. I can catch up later, early game war could be a game ender versus larger more advanced AI melee heavy armies.

The AI makes a lot more troops on Immortal and makes them pretty fast as well. Also noticed that cities have a lot of buildings in them now. Shaka has three capitals of people I have not met yet, with Austria between us. I think frigates or subs+battleships will be the decider in the upcoming Shaka war.

Stop building early wonders and start build an early army was the main key that made me win on Immortal. Then, after some wins, I started building them again!

That 100+ turn war is a killer, believe me (as it should be). Pre-war management is key at higher levels, meaning you really have to have the war won BEFORE you start it (ala Sun Tzu), or not start it at all. A long, protracted war, even if you win big time, will kill your mid/end game big time, to the point of being impossible to catch up to the AI.

Try out a smaller map size. Larger maps help other civs snowball easier due to more space for them to expand (+Small Continents is in nature a wide map type with a lot of free land to grab) and the inconvenience (is it spelled this way?) for you to get to them earlier (the AIs).

Random civ is OK as long as you get civs which are at least mediocre. It's going to be hard to win with Carthage on a pangea in comparison to Poland or the Shoshone. Picking up an all around good civ is going to help you win and would be a good idea if you are really struggling.

Sounds like you need to work on your war tactics. 100 turns war is fatal early game unless you are warring against a few civs and winning. I've found that early game wars are effective and fun if you can manage to get a good momentum. The rule should be that you get as much as possible out of a war in as less time possible. Things you should consider before going to war:
1. Are your goals worthy? - Aiming for a couple of cities to both cripple an AI and support you civ is a good idea. It's not worth it to go to war if your are not going to come out on top at the end.
2. Are your goals achievable? - Consider the enemy AI army size, the units (is he behind in tech or too far ahead), is he getting his UU, etc. Being able to make a good predicament is a product of experience, gathering information and probable assumptions.
3. Is the war worthwhile? - Can you upkeep your happiness, infrastructure developing and good relationships during the war? - It's important that you are able to foresee the outcome of a war globally.

Looks like settling is a point you need to concentrate on. At Immortal AIs don't get settlers at the beginning unlike Diety, so they aren't grabbing land at the very start. Telling you when to start working towards a settler is impossible since it could be a good idea to get one at a population of 3 this game, but next you might wanna grow a bit more. I'd suggest trying to settle fast and aggressive the next few games in order to get a feel of when to settle. But you having 2 cities and the other AIs 5-6 is too big of a difference even at Diety in the early game. Minor point out - try to go for the settlers earlier than later - a pop of 3 or 4 is enough.

If you show a game with some screens, helping you would be a lot easier since it'd be possible to illustrate the points in examples, whereas right now I feel like I'm giving air to you. Anyways, I'm sure you'll make the jump pretty soon. Good luck!

The 100+ turns might have been only 80 or so. It is epic speed so time goes slower It started with compbows and ended with xbows. Ranged combat was the key. I placed a front line of drill pict warriors in rough terrain and focus fired from hills with the bows.

Greece was next door with six or so salt tiles. He went liberty and had seven cities when I started the war by capturing his settler. We were both in the classical age, he had hoplites and soon had companion cav, I had composite bows and pict warriors. The terrain was forested and hills. To my north was mountains and snow, ocean east and south, and Alex was in the west and the only way to expand. War with Alex was inevitable so I started it.

I captured and burned most of his cities, resettled two of them and then got peace and his last two cities. I waited the fifteen turns of peace while land blocking any escape from his land with cities on the coast on both sides keeping him locked up. As soon as I hit machinery I upgraded to x-bows and put him down. Austria hated me for it as did Shaka, but the rest of the world never knew of the crime .

Ended up winning with a space launch around 1940 or so. The keys were clearing out Alex early at any cost, having the first spy survive and steal a few techs, having defendable terrain with a narrow land bridge blocked by a city state, having Austria last for 100+ turns against Shaka and having enough faith to buy four or five scientists plus a few engineers. Shaka took out Austria and Brazil, Assyria took out Egypt, Dutch and someone else.

KmDubya said:

The 100+ turns might have been only 80 or so. It is epic speed so time goes slower It started with compbows and ended with xbows. Ranged combat was the key. I placed a front line of drill pict warriors in rough terrain and focus fired from hills with the bows.

Greece was next door with six or so salt tiles. He went liberty and had seven cities when I started the war by capturing his settler. We were both in the classical age, he had hoplites and soon had companion cav, I had composite bows and pict warriors. The terrain was forested and hills. To my north was mountains and snow, ocean east and south, and Alex was in the west and the only way to expand. War with Alex was inevitable so I started it.

I captured and burned most of his cities, resettled two of them and then got peace and his last two cities. I waited the fifteen turns of peace while land blocking any escape from his land with cities on the coast on both sides keeping him locked up. As soon as I hit machinery I upgraded to x-bows and put him down. Austria hated me for it as did Shaka, but the rest of the world never knew of the crime .

Ended up winning with a space launch around 1940 or so. The keys were clearing out Alex early at any cost, having the first spy survive and steal a few techs, having defendable terrain with a narrow land bridge blocked by a city state, having Austria last for 100+ turns against Shaka and having enough faith to buy four or five scientists plus a few engineers. Shaka took out Austria and Brazil, Assyria took out Egypt, Dutch and someone else.

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Congratulations! I was definitely wrong with my assumption that your tactics aren't good, because it sounds like you did quite well! I would have decided to take out Greece too if that's had been the situation.

Good job! I'm sure your games will start getting very interesting and enjoyable from now on. At least my games became so when I started playing at Immortal.

Aristos said:

That 100+ turn war is a killer, believe me (as it should be). Pre-war management is key at higher levels, meaning you really have to have the war won BEFORE you start it (ala Sun Tzu), or not start it at all.

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Ideally, but sometimes they start it for you.

Aristos said:

A long, protracted war, even if you win big time, will kill your mid/end game big time, to the point of being impossible to catch up to the AI.

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Possibly, but I recently a won game on immortal that featured a 200+ epic turns war. Pangaea+, Shaka DoWed me in the classical era and we inked the peace treaty in the early industrial era. He had the numbers so he would never agree to straight peace (I don't WPB), but geography was against him. He had to cross a large desert area to get to me and then there were only two 2-tile passes in a mountain range to come through. Once I had enough units to fend off his attacks I decided to turtle and focus on growing my civilization instead of trying to win the war. It paid off.

There are advantages to a long war. I had some very promoted gats by the end of it.

What do you feel your weak points are? There are several key points one should be focused on.

City Management - This includes assigning citizens contextually optimally, working specialist slots, placing cities in defend-able locations, not building every building available in every city you own, deciding which cities need growth (caravans) the most, etc.

Tech Path - You should have a pretty general path to follow in order to optimize your tech lead. Regardless of which victory condition you're going for, being on par/above your opponents in tech is always beneficial. This can change occasionally depending on civ/placement, but shooting for science techs(universities, labs, schools, observatories) and timing your Oxford -> Radio for first ideology are pretty big deals.

War - Knowing how to wage war is extremely crucial in civ. Roads, movement points, positioning, terrain, promotions, zone of control, etc. There is alot to be said here, and going into detail would make this post way too long.

Religion/Ideology - These both provide incredible benefits but are often overlooked. Tbh, it is hard to get a religion going when playing Diety, but it is very likely you'll get one on Immortal. Be sure you choose a pantheon that provides faith in some way, as shrines alone often will leave you with either last pick on religion or no religion at all. Ideology choice shouldn't boil down to 'pick ideology last so that I can follow suit and not go unhappy'. You should be happy enough even through the pressure. The ideologies provide happiness within them, so between that, happiness buildings, lux trades, and CS's, you should be fine.

Diplomacy - This is a big one. You can turn a war-mongering neighbor on another to ensure neither of them attack you. Make friends with the civs that everybody likes, and denounce the ones that everyone is denouncing. Do whatever it takes to not make yourself a target. If you've made some DoF's, save up money and sign research agreements whenever possible. Sell your horses/iron for 45g a piece if you're not using them. Check lux's each turn, because even though the AI trades lux's constantly, you can catch them in between trades due to the way the turns roll over (human acts in between AI turns) and fit yourself into a few lux trades. If you don't plan on going to war, be sure to keep a trade up with pretty much everyone, regardless of how small the trade is. This ensures that if they DoW you, they get the 'backstab' penalty, and taking a few of their cities in return is less penalized diplomatically.

Long-Term Strategy - Figuring out how you plan to win is a big deal. Generally speaking, a peaceful science/diplo win is the easiest for me personally on the higher difficulties (Immortal/Diety). If you plan on doing something risky like a culture victory, decide to do so very early in the game and tailor your game accordingly. Assess your threats and pay people to DoW them. If Greece is in the game, open up the CS policy tree and throw some spies in neighboring CS's for coups. Pay civs that have 3-5 CS allies to DoW Greece so that he cannot take those CS's. Little things like this are important on a big scale. Knowing how you plan to win also means knowing who can take that victory from you, and doing whatever it takes to slow them down or even outright kill them.

So yeah, figure out your weak points and work on those at a difficulty you feel comfortable with. Whenever I pick up a new civ or want to try a new strat, I play on Immortal so that I'm more comfortable with the pace of the game. I can't speak on behalf of your customizations, as I play on Pangea standard-everything (besides Quick Combat), but these general concepts still apply.

The biggest adjustment is to be much more focused. On Emperor I could screw around, fall behind, and still pull it out for the win without fail.

Immortal is forcing me to pay more attention to the details and to have a purpose. If I am going tall tradition then I need to go for it and max it out instead of half assing it like I had been. The same for rexing or war, whatever it is I need to go all in. Making this change has made a huge difference and has been leading to several Immortal victories now with the same random maps and random civs.

Multi-salt monsters are still a threat to steamroll the world but they don't appear in every game.

I personally think this is one of the big design flaws in single player difficulties, but it's an obstacle that current AI designs in strategy games cannot overcome. The AI gets more and more bonuses to compensate for it's lack of skill, and it just results in greater and greater focus on a supposedly "optimal" strategy, so on Deity it becomes get NC before T80, education before T110, hit modern at T180 etc. It would be much better if the AI is designed to be smarter and better at war as you move up the difficulty, but that would be a huge demand on the programmers.

So I do agree that staying very focused and disciplined is going to help you play on immortal+, but won't help you develop other strategies and explore the potential of the game. Wiggle room just gets narrower and narrower.

qemist said:

Ideally, but sometimes they start it for you.



Possibly, but I recently a won game on immortal that featured a 200+ epic turns war. Pangaea+, Shaka DoWed me in the classical era and we inked the peace treaty in the early industrial era. He had the numbers so he would never agree to straight peace (I don't WPB), but geography was against him. He had to cross a large desert area to get to me and then there were only two 2-tile passes in a mountain range to come through. Once I had enough units to fend off his attacks I decided to turtle and focus on growing my civilization instead of trying to win the war. It paid off.

There are advantages to a long war. I had some very promoted gats by the end of it.

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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.

Sessy said:

It would be much better if the AI is designed to be smarter and better at war as you move up the difficulty, but that would be a huge demand on the programmers.

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That is kind of just wishful thinking. Look ahead programming (the way chess works) is not that hard on the programmers, but it is extremely resource intensive.

Aristos said:

Your example with Shaka does not fall into the case scenario I was referring to.

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I feel that your case scenario is actually the exception. I almost always either loose fast or turn the war around so that it is an xp farm, even if I am not progressing. It is not really unusual for me to loose decisively and quickly, but it is quite rare to have a war where I am steadily loosing units and having my lands continuously pillaged.

I don't see the point of Immortal. Never beaten it, jumped to deity. When I want to sandbox I'm usually at Emperor or even down to King. When I want to optimize I go to deity. As long as I'm locked into a limited set of options, may as well play at deity. At least the losses are over quicker

Hey KmD (and others).

We had a couple of these threads that you can search for and learn good tips like the ones Jon listed above, and of course, some see good explanations of a lot of strategies to get you 'faster' at building up your empire to achieve strong games in Immortal.

I'd personally add this thread about learning to Oxford into Radio and therefore get your ideology of choice as soon as possible.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=533025&highlight=Learning+Oxford

I used to be somewhat inconsistent at Immortal, but among other things, Learning to time a perfect leap into Radio (and get my ideology 30 turns faster than I used to, at times) made the game a lot easier. One of the common issues in late game is Ideology unhappiness, and a strong Immortal player can a) bulb into Radio super quickly and then b) propose and pass the World Congress Resolution before most AI even pick an ideology (and therefore will not all vote against it).

As per the topic of Immortal vs. Diety. One advantage of playing Immortal is that you can basically put "random everything' (civilization, land, water level, etc.) and manage tough conditions in Immortal, whereas playing a civ and a map that you're unaware of before set-up can be death in Diety, pretty easily.

whyidie said:

I don't see the point of Immortal.

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

Never beaten it, jumped to deity.

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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.

Think Immortal is another beast to tame, things go very different, and if you don't actively disrupt your enemies is hard to win... All but science peaceful victory, with is the easiest doing things in a cookie cutter way. These are some of the usual tips that come into my mind:

- You don't need any wonder, you could considerate it if you get a safe tech lead.

- Science is absolute priority in the game. Don't delay science, and thus don't delay growth. Focus on food tiles most of the time, etc. Focus city on production and lock tiles, specially on the beginning, later you can care less about it.

- If you steal a worker on about turn 20-25 you make things much much easier. I often make a second scout mainly for that. A good number all the game is 1.5 workers per city.

- Get your starting cities quick, you can pop your first settler with 3-4 pop. Try to get NC on about turn range 70-90, plan it beforehand (epic is +50% but things can be done a bit faster than 120 turns). Universities are the most important building you will get, so get education and univerisities up ASAP. Two specialists on science if the city isn't too little (about 8 to 10 pop is safe).

- Tradition - Patronage - Rationalim, try to get the most of Rationalism, even delaying culture to the renaissance to get it full ASAP.

Is quite straighforward, the best approach to a new difficulty level (also for Deity witch is even a bigger step).