Difficulty on Immortal

I've recently started play Immortal (jumping from King) and I'm having a little bit of difficulty with a couple of points in my games. Namely Diplomacy and Happiness/Gold.

I'm playing random civs and following the standard 3 city tradition route (aiming for science victory).

First game was as Askia. I got Education T119 and was on track for ST at ~T175-180. I had a DoF with Egypt and about T140, he back-stabbed me because on how weak my military was.

My main issues this game were:
Forgetting to keep up military (I had 2 archers...)
Poor cities (really good first one - stone, marble, deer and 2 silks, an ok 2nd one - 2 iron, citrus and sugar - damn Shoshone took my ideal 2nd city place, and a poor 3rd city - 1 bannana, 1 silk and no production (60+ turn granary...))
Unhappiness


Second game was Babylon. I got a pretty good first city again and stole a settler from America (I got the spot he was going (2nd city) to settle 1-2 turns before he got there). I got Education on T114 and was on track for ST ~T165-170. I was friendly with America and Atilla and had a decent military. On T160 I got DoWed by Atilla for some reason (I'd bribed Ghengis to DoW him earlier to get him off my back) and managed to hold him, then 2 turns later got back-stabbed by America who quickly took over my main production city (with 2-3 trebuchets, lots of swordsmen and crossbows). I just retired here. Unfortunately I was at -1 happiness and had like 30 gp at +1 gpt and couldn't get anyone to declare on either

Washington got grumpy with me T115 when I settled my 3rd city to the south of me because it was 'in lands he considers his own' and he was on my north side??

Issues:
Diplomacy - I wasn't weakest in military, but was in approval. Not sure why, I was being nice to everyone.
America's (who got Terracotta Army) Capital was about 7-8 tiles north of my capital and Atilla was directly to my south -.-.
Unhappiness


So my common issues are:
Diplomacy - I'm not sure what I could've done better tbh
Unhappiness
Social Policies - not sure what to go after Tradition finisher (Asthetics or Patronage)??

Can anyone please offer advice on what I can do to help with these issues?

you could provide some screenshots, or better record a playsession of the first 100 turns - would be easier that way.

Other than that - If I am not going for CV - always pick patronage. I often do that too when I go for CV actually. But its only worth it if u actively take care of CS quests when you can and there are at least several cultured CS. If you just ignore em, and only get the passive quests - its not worth that much. That means - actively checking for resources quests, sending em trade routes when they want, etc.

One way to find out what diplomacy issues you are having is to open up the diplo screen and hover your mouse over your current friendliness status. It'll give you a run down of what they like or dislike about you. With some mods, it shows it on the main screen as well. Your military strength also plays a part, even though that may not show up on that tab.

I recall when making the jump to immortal, diplomacy was the biggest thing I had to learn.

dragonxxx said:

you could provide some screenshots, or better record a playsession of the first 100 turns - would be easier that way.

Other than that - If I am not going for CV - always pick patronage. I often do that too when I go for CV actually. But its only worth it if u actively take care of CS quests when you can and there are at least several cultured CS. If you just ignore em, and only get the passive quests - its not worth that much. That means - actively checking for resources quests, sending em trade routes when they want, etc.

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I'll try and find them when I get home. I was picking Patronage, but I don't recall any requests I could fulfill. Most or them were for luxs I didn't have, or clear x camp (when I was 'posing' to scare off America about T120) or the camp was on the other side of the map, etc.

Uzael36 said:

One way to find out what diplomacy issues you are having is to open up the diplo screen and hover your mouse over your current friendliness status. It'll give you a run down of what they like or dislike about you. With some mods, it shows it on the main screen as well. Your military strength also plays a part, even though that may not show up on that tab.

I recall when making the jump to immortal, diplomacy was the biggest thing I had to learn.

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They were all fine with me on that screen. I can only remember America. The quote when I first go to talk to him is 'your expansion worries my advisers' and friendly was showing up with 'there has been no issues' in white when I hovered over it.

corranhorn01 said:

They were all fine with me on that screen. I can only remember America. The quote when I first go to talk to him is 'your expansion worries my advisers' and friendly was showing up with 'there has been no issues' in white when I hovered over it.

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If they backstab you at that point, it is likely because your military was too weak. If you open up the demographics and look at the military stat, you want to be at near or above 50% of the largest military, and not in last. Otherwise, they may just declare ware on you. And of course some civ's are warmongers.

Uzael36 said:

If they backstab you at that point, it is likely because your military was too weak. If you open up the demographics and look at the military stat, you want to be at near or above 50% of the largest military, and not in last. Otherwise, they may just declare ware on you. And of course some civ's are warmongers.

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That was my thought. I know I wasn't the weakest, but I was probably at the bottom of the table. I was having to build markets, etc instead of units which was a pain, due to having to buy a lux (18 gpt and a spare lux or some s***) because of unhappiness. I even had to take a happiness religion thing and was still in -ve...

Could I possibly be growing a bit much? I mean each city was 10-16 at about T50 I think.

corranhorn01 said:

That was my thought. I know I wasn't the weakest, but I was probably at the bottom of the table. I was having to build markets, etc instead of units which was a pain, due to having to buy a lux (18 gpt and a spare lux or some s***) because of unhappiness. I even had to take a happiness religion thing and was still in -ve...

Could I possibly be growing a bit much? I mean each city was 10-16 at about T50 I think.

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At turn 50, that would be extraordinarily big. I don't believe I've every seen that. I have seen near 10 on the cap and a bit less on the rest, but that sounds more like turn 100 or higher sizes.

Uzael36 said:

At turn 50, that would be extraordinarily big. I don't believe I've every seen that. I have seen near 10 on the cap and a bit less on the rest, but that sounds more like turn 100 or higher sizes.

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I must've missed the 1 :/. T150 lol. My bad.

corranhorn01 said:

I must've missed the 1 :/. T150 lol. My bad.

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Ok, that's more like it, though your cap should be hitting 20 at that point. It probably was not the size that did it. Either you were weak on the military side, or it was just a warmonger personality.

Uzael36 said:

Ok, that's more like it, though your cap should be hitting 20 at that point. It probably was not the size that did it. Either you were weak on the military side, or it was just a warmonger personality.

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I'd say it was military side. At least for America (they're usually not a Warmonger are they?).

With the growing part, I was more referring to the happiness level.

corranhorn01 said:

I'd say it was military side. At least for America (they're usually not a Warmonger are they?).

With the growing part, I was more referring to the happiness level.

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On happiness, you just have to trade for luxuries, and get CS allies. Merch CS's also give some happiness even if you aren't allies, if I'm not mistaken, so gaining some friendship with them is also nice, please they also have special lux resources. Soon, you should be heading towards getting an ideology, which quickly takes the happiness problems away.

I guess I need to work of the CS friendship thing too....this is a massive change from even Emperor (done a couple of games).

So much to learn. Oh well, it'll be worth it .

Also, should you leave jungle near your cities? For the 2 bpt post University.

corranhorn01 said:

Also, should you leave jungle near your cities? For the 2 bpt post University.

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I mostly put trade posts on them.

Uzael36 said:

I mostly put trade posts on them.

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Same here. I'm just not sure if I should be chopping them down for the hammers during the early game.

corranhorn01 said:

Same here. I'm just not sure if I should be chopping them down for the hammers during the early game.

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Jungle does not give hammers, but it could open up a hill. My rule is to leave them jungle if they are not by a river or fresh water, unless I have a ton of them. There are only so many of them I'd want to work.

Uzael36 said:

Jungle does not give hammers, but it could open up a hill. My rule is to leave them jungle if they are not by a river or fresh water, unless I have a ton of them. There are only so many of them I'd want to work.

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Welp. Learning already lol. I assumed it would be the same as forest. I'll try and follow that rule. Seems good to me .

Here are the saves. Hopefully from the games in question. I'm unsure as to how to check. However, before I started trying this out, I deleted all current saves.

Please keep in mind, this is my first and 2nd times ever trying to play like this. With that said, please don't hold back on the criticism.

I know I could've scouted a lot more in the Babylon game, I was just scared of leaving my cities too 'under-guarded'.

corranhorn01 said:

I'd say it was military side. At least for America (they're usually not a Warmonger are they?).

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Same gameplay as Portugal, Netherlands, Incas, Mayan, Morrocco. Pretty fair, but if you're weak and you are neighbor, they'll attack you.

If you can't have an army (5-6 archers and wall in front cities), save a caravan to send it to those civs. It ensures you gold, some beakers and a quick DoF. They can backstabb you if they need room to expand. Open borders can fix this issue.
Also, let a scout near their borders to see if an army is incoming. Then go to diplomacy screen and try to send a civ against you future war opponent (try also to bribe this civ which wants your land against a CS). Select the cheapest way.

With practice, you'll learn how to sustain an assault with 3-4 archers and have a fast peace deal. Before, build an economy (trade routes and road) to buy peace.

Memoryjar said:

Same gameplay as Portugal, Netherlands, Incas, Mayan, Morrocco. Pretty fair, but if you're weak and you are neighbor, they'll attack you.

If you can't have an army (5-6 archers and wall in front cities), save a caravan to send it to those civs. It ensures you gold, some beakers and a quick DoF. They can backstabb you if they need room to expand. Open borders can fix this issue.
Also, let a scout near their borders to see if an army is incoming. Then go to diplomacy screen and try to send a civ against you future war opponent (try also to bribe this civ which wants your land against a CS). Select the cheapest way.

With practice, you'll learn how to sustain an assault with 3-4 archers and have a fast peace deal. Before, build an economy (trade routes and road) to buy peace.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm still figuring it all out (Civ playstyles). I had ~6 Archers, but no walls. It was just the timing. I had Attila to the South with a big army and America like 2 turns later with a big army to the Nth ('Merica was a backstab).

Since this, I've got a bit better. I've watched a fair bit of MadDjinn's Let's Plays and I recently won my first Immortal game (Diplo with Alex) - Islands. I went 2 City Trad (rushed Optics and only went 2 citites as I started steeling a bit late). I had a Warmonger to the Nth that coveted lands I had form like T100 (I paid him to war all the other civs at the same time a couple of times ). I was struggling with culture as I kinda forgot about the Guilds :/..., but I had DoFs with all civs but Iosuits (it was something like that) and Russia for most of the game.