Mastering Realism Invictus - Hints and Tips.

I've been playing RI for probably about 3-4 years now and I play the svn version. Currently I'm on v4831. The problem I'm having is finding useful and meaningful advice on how to 'play' RI. I'm hoping for some advice or ideas in this thread if possible?

I'm not bad at the game but I feel like I have in no way mastered how to thrive or dominate whilst playing it. I play on Emperor Level, which is a challenge but I'm probably comfortable on Monarch.

There's plenty of advice on how to play vanilla BtS. You can find theories on a cottage economy or specialist economy play styles but none of them are really that relevant in RI, because most of the buildings, wonders and terrain work differently or give different benefits.

I recently played a very big archipelago map on Emperor where I was restricted to an island that just about had enough land to almost fill the fat cross on my first city. It wasn't overly rich in resources either but it had a useful mix of river, grassland, hills and forests so I decided to give it a whirl and see how well I could do given the difficult starting spot. This game taught me such a lot about the importance of base commerce. In the end I was restricted to one main city, wonder whoring and generating great people, mostly great scientists or great merchants. I managed to found a handful of trading cities (5) crammed onto the only island that I could reach before ocean going vessels. This second island was entirely tundra and ice though, so these cities were just about functioning and they were only there to maximise the trade between cities.

I met the AI in my ocean going vessels at roughly the same time that they started to meet me, about 1450ish. I soon realised I had kept pace in the science race really well, despite a lack of tech transfer or foreign trade but I was far too weak militarily to defend for long and once the first AI nations had fusiliers it was game over, the Japanese steamrollered my cities in short order.

What I learnt on that game will hopefully serve me well in future games; here's a breakdown of the core elements I've learned across all my recent games. I hope others add to this or expand on it.

• Your leader and civ makes a huge difference. Not all civs are born equal. Some of them have very powerful unique improvements or buildings. I find the unique unit's have less of an impact.
• Commerce makes the world go round, maximise this where possible. A larger base commerce gives more flexibility for science, tax, espionage or culture.
• Bigger cities make more commerce, maximise your city sizes as quickly as possible.
• Happy citizens allow cities to grow bigger, to keep cities growing; you have to keep pace with the happiness resources or buildings.
• As well as being a pain in the arse, pandemics slow you down; try to keep pandemics and unhealthy conditions to a minimum.
• Fog bust with units fortified on hills early on, it helps with early barbarian control, gives your units some early promotions and prevents barbarian cities spawning close by.
• Get open borders, you'll benefit from the friendship this fosters and the tech transfer. Without open borders you'll be on your own in a harsh world before you know it.
• Found a religion, spread it and spawn a great prophet to build the shrine to that religion. The gold bonus alone will help you maintain a larger empire. The friendly relations with rivals will keep you from war on all fronts and give you allies in your own wars.

I think this is good starting advice and will help new players survive, but it's the limit of my knowledge and probably isn't anything that more advanced players don't know already. I'm looking for advice or strategies not on how to survive, but on how to thrive!

Before adopting slavery, make sure you have atleast 1 skirmisher for every 2 cities to kill rebelling slaves.

Before advancing to middle ages, and if you're using slavery/planning to use serfdom (who uses caste system anyway?) Make cavalry to deal with more powerful rebels. If you don't have horses, use crossbowmen, they should do the trick, along with experienced skirmishers.

Advancing to renaissance use upgraded skirmishers (explorers), cavalry or adopt feudal civic to build those powerful melee units.

Advancing to industrial use light infantry. (your upgraded skirmishers)

No point of using slavery/serfdom after industrial, unless doing a fun challenge.




Have atleast 4workers/city, 5 if you're foreign leader, helps during classic-->middle ages (slave farms to farms) and mines to windmills, building lumbermills etc, farms to mechanical during industrial. Tip to gather workforce: Have a border city, with weak defences, and wage a war/wait for AI to wage war against you, he should send you a big stack of future slaves attacking that city. Scout your opponents with spys so you know what to build against it.

Use forts at border as military stations and try to use them as your advantages. Optimal place for fort is on a hill, next to a swamp, where enemy has to stand on in order to attack.(-25% defence). Try to make choke points for your favor.

Fort bonuses are huge and can easily win you battles and wars, while you're outnumbered. Forts can also be used against rebelling slaves (put forts near your resources, and make sure atleast 1 unit is inside the fort).

Using zulus/mongols with pastoral nomadism and slavery combo is very strong in the late game, but it's hard to get the ball rolling.


Also for last but not least, protect your siege weapons, and build them. They're excellent to soften enemy stacks (crucial in later eras). Spain is nice, since it can get high leveled siege weapons fast (their castles give +5xp to siege).

That's exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for, thanks CivEikka. Lets hope more people take the time to post their tips. The slavery tips are very useful and the sort of forward planning that helps keep slave damage to a minimum.

I play Immortal level but I usually play on large/1 or 2 continents. There are 2 critical phases in my games usually. The first is the beginning after I build my second city which is usually the most important city in terms of placement, you really need to have a decent city (your capital is supposed to be good). That is where I very often get attacked (though some time not). the issue is to be ready for that first wave, so do not neglect your military early on and keep your experienced barbarian fighting units un-promoted till you are attacked to choose promotions accordingly.
Surviving the next waves is easier especially if you build a couple of skirmishers to attack your invading enemies: I usually attach a GG to a skirmisher and attack with it. Every turn I kill an enemy unit and lower therefore its aid advantage, the last units are easy kill. I usually take the "immune to FS promo" first.
If you survive the beginning than I'm fine till the MA with 5/6 cities max. That is where the second critical phase kicks in: I need to double in size without loosing in economy because that's where other civs start to get bigger as well.
I find some Civ pretty easier

HannibalBarka said:

I play Immortal level but I usually play on large/1 or 2 continents. There are 2 critical phases in my games usually. The first is the beginning after I build my second city which is usually the most important city in terms of placement, you really need to have a decent city (your capital is supposed to be good). That is where I very often get attacked (though some time not). the issue is to be ready for that first wave, so do not neglect your military early on and keep your experienced barbarian fighting units un-promoted till you are attacked to choose promotions accordingly.
Surviving the next waves is easier especially if you build a couple of skirmishers to attack your invading enemies: I usually attach a GG to a skirmisher and attack with it. Every turn I kill an enemy unit and lower therefore its aid advantage, the last units are easy kill. I usually take the "immune to FS promo" first.
If you survive the beginning than I'm fine till the MA with 5/6 cities max. That is where the second critical phase kicks in: I need to double in size without loosing in economy because that's where other civs start to get bigger as well.
I find some Civ pretty easier

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Do you find it difficult to keep your experienced barbarian units alive without promoting them? How do you keep them alive long enough? Do you stack them?

How do you manage your cities, do you specialise? I imagine getting wonders and founding religion is harder to come by on Immortal level because of the tech penalties.

Is there anything you need to bear in mind when getting tech? Any bee-line techs you go for?

Antmanbrooks said:

Do you find it difficult to keep your experienced barbarian units alive without promoting them? How do you keep them alive long enough? Do you stack them?

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I usually give the Flame promo and maybe hunting barbs for ~2 militias (the 3S melee early unit) and use them on "flat land" improvement. others are fortified on hills, cities or forest and usually that is enough because Barbs usually attack with archers in the beginning. Don't stack too much units though because else barbs won't attack until they gather too many units. When I see a single archer coming (or an archer with a weak other unit) coming I keep only one unit in my city so the barb attack (else they some time won't and wait for reinforcement).
I attack also barbs when on flat land. I almost never promote my archers until the first AI attacks.

Antmanbrooks said:

How do you manage your cities, do you specialise? I imagine getting wonders and founding religion is harder to come by on Immortal level because of the tech penalties.

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I try to get the Mids and succeed in almost 75% of the time (surprisingly!!). and I don't even beeline towards it as I usually build a couple of warriors (4 that I upgrade later once the tech giving 3s melee is in, I beeline towards that tech by the way). I than build a workers (or the two buildings giving 1H) than a settler because by than I usually finished Writing and changed to Despotism. I than build the Mids. I try to discover Hinduism usually, more because of the ToA than the religion especially if I have marble. I also try to Moai if I have lots of islands or sea food, than the GL because commerce is key in RI. I than lean towards Literature for the GL and the 2 national wonders it gives. My capital is almost 100% the wonder place unless I have a city that is under too much culture pressure or is worth a instant Moai by a GE. I usually have my second most productive city for military. After the GL, I try to have Calendar, again mostly because of the wonder and not necessarily the religion. It also has math on the path, where I grab Heliopolis when ever I can as it's a wonderful unit.
Other wonders I love are GW because having GG is great for having great promos. Later on I try to have Kremlin because it does wonders in the MA.
I usually build farms and mines only as in RI farms are just too powerful now (though the late SVN are starting to rebalance that).

Antmanbrooks said:

Is there anything you need to bear in mind when getting tech? Any bee-line techs you go for?

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key techs are:
1. the one that gives the 3S melee unit to save you from barbs in the beginning (unless you have powerful unique archers)
2. animal husbandry if you have like 2 "animals" near the capital because pasture with the right civic is just unbelievably powerful in the first turns (until discovering Mining at least).
3. writing because Despotism is necessary if you want to build your second city.
4. the tech that gives Hunters (or skirmishers) because those recon are the best defensive unit you have when used offensively.
5. mining: before it you're just too weak in production and food. Slavery gives much more hammers and food.
the rest is "negotiable" though IW needs to be in not too late and HR as well especially if you have a "powerful" neighbour which is the case in 99% of the time

Great thread!

I'm not a expert player myself, but if had to give some advice to someone trying this mod for the first time:

1. Barbarians are a real threat unlike in vanilla civ4. You can't neglect your military at all in early game. You need to get archers before barbarians start spawning or bad things will happen...

2. Tech transfer is very important part of this mod. You can get a huge bonus to your research by simply having open borders with few other civilizations. However, notice that other civs can get profit from tech transfer too. Getting technology Writing is necessary for making open borders, so it's important to discover it soon.

3. If you don't pay attention to power ratios and fortify your borders adequately, somebody WILL attack you sooner or later. AI is quite aggressive and cunning if compared to vanilla. Try to have your power ratio at least close to the top, put some defensive units on borders and build forts to the strategic places.

4. The size of your empire is closely tied to the amount of commerce you produce. City maintenance is a big deal at early game, so it's wise to not build too much cities. Infinite city sprawl is not a viable strategy in this mod.

5. Try to maximize your city size as soon as possible. Citizens eat more food than in vanilla and it takes more time for a city to grow, so do not colonize places without sufficient food tiles.

6.Try to take full advantage of your civs unique abilities. Technologies that unlock your unique units, buildings and especially improvements are very valuable and should be prioritized. Every civilization in this mod plays very differently when compared to each other.

7. Civic system is completely different than in the base game. There's lots of options to choose, and many times it's better to not change your civics to newer ones. Some civics (actually most of them), like slavery or serfdom, get their benefits from their exclusive buildings and improvements, and are not very useful without them. Have enough workers to replace your improvements before you change civics that affect them.

This mod is very complicated and it takes some time to get in, but once you learn the basic stuff it's very rewarding and fun, probably the best mod ever made for any Civilization game.

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Question: I see that it's very popular strategy to build Pyramids at the start for the valuable GE points (I do this a lot myself), but how about Nazca Lines? It allows you to have engineer specialist very early, but also gives more food to the farms. Which one do you guys like more?

Routalempi said:

Question: I see that it's very popular strategy to build Pyramids at the start for the valuable GE points (I do this a lot myself), but how about Nazca Lines? It allows you to have engineer specialist very early, but also gives more food to the farms. Which one do you guys like more?

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Nazca is indeed a very nice GW as well, but in most of my games AI prioritize it so it's very hard to have and its other benefit (+1 food for farms and slave farms) pays later because you need Mining first which is a "late" tech. I by the way never build farms in the beginning but wait for slavery to build slave farms directly (except on food resources on grassland: much more food and no hammer loss).
oh and writing is indeed very important for Despotism and OB

does anyone pay any attention to logistics penalties, or do you use superstacks?

thanks

Nice thread!
Additional tips:
1. Use Barbarians to train your early units for later city capturing. Apart from the Anti-Barbarian promotion, drill is very good for Archers, also city raider and cover. If you have 4-6 well promoted archers and militias early on later warfare will be a lot easier.
2. Build and maintain a small but efficient, that is well promoted army for invasions. Have a normal army for the rest: keeping cities happy, revolts etc.
3. If you have flood plains build some cottages early on. As AntmanBrooks said: A good economy is very important, especially early on if you haven't got the tech for open borders, or do not have friendly neighbors (Isabella!) or too few.
4. Build libraries early: Their scientists will help in the tech race.

BTW I don't see why I should keep Barbarian cities from spawning. I never build additional cities after the second one in the early game; I simply conquer them from Barbarians. Why? Because conquering them trains my units (1), gives me good cash (2) and mostly Barb cities are already placed nicely (3). And I save the investment in settlers (4), instead building more military units or whatever is useful at the moment.

doctoxic said:

does anyone pay any attention to logistics penalties, or do you use superstacks?

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I pay attention but not until level IV or V. I also like micromanaging, so I may move units out of a stack before attacking an enemy unit or stack. If I attack another stack or city I usually use two different stacks especially from MA onwards.

doctoxic said:

does anyone pay any attention to logistics penalties, or do you use superstacks?

thanks

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they are important! I try to have logisticics II, III at most!

I almost exclusively avoid having any logistics issues whatsoever, to the point of having 3-5 stacks attack a city instead of 1 or 2.

I usually keep big stacks, 10-15 units. Yeah, the penalty sucks, but having a whole stack demolished because it wasn't sufficiently balanced is worse. Typically, the stack aid bonuses will outweigh the penalties (depending on the situation, of course. The siege unit stack aid isn't very useful if you aren't attacking a city). Usually I don't have more than 3 units of a certain type in a stack unless its a siege stack.

[Y];13817839 said:

The siege unit stack aid isn't very useful if you aren't attacking a city).

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I disagree. Sieg aid gives you +3% attack and 1 first strike chance. I agree that this has to be counterweighted with having another land unit instead of the siege weapon, like an additional archer or melee unit.

Shoobs said:

I almost exclusively avoid having any logistics issues whatsoever, to the point of having 3-5 stacks attack a city instead of 1 or 2.

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I do this when I'm in place around a sieged city. I have one stack for knocking walls down and a second or third stack for the city assault. It's possible to reduce city's walls to 0% and then attack carefully with multiple small stacks without losing any troops if your stacks are well managed and you take into account the enemy's units and bonuses.

For me, the key is knowing what troops and bonuses your enemy has.

I've heard people in multi-player games complain about losing an Archer on hills to a barbarian. Only to see that it's an Armed Savage or a Savage Fyrdman that attacked their Archer on the hill. So the bonuses of the hill are more or less nulified.

Ambassador said:

I disagree. Sieg aid gives you +3% attack and 1 first strike chance. I agree that this has to be counterweighted with having another land unit instead of the siege weapon, like an additional archer or melee unit.

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The attack bonus only factors in when attacking a city. If you're attacking a unit on the field, it only provides the first strike chance. I don't consider the first strike chance worth hauling around the siege units.

Antmanbrooks said:

I do this when I'm in place around a sieged city. I have one stack for knocking walls down and a second or third stack for the city assault. It's possible to reduce city's walls to 0% and then attack carefully with multiple small stacks without losing any troops if your stacks are well managed and you take into account the enemy's units and bonuses.

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Do you ever feel that any of the stacks is vulnerable because it doesn't have enough counter units (spearmen, crossbowmen, archers when on a hill, etc.)? I've considered your tactics before, but always opted to have a large stack with varied counter units instead. I really got to try the small stack strategy at some point...

[Y];13832323 said:

Do you ever feel that any of the stacks is vulnerable because it doesn't have enough counter units (spearmen, crossbowmen, archers when on a hill, etc.)? I've considered your tactics before, but always opted to have a large stack with varied counter units instead. I really got to try the small stack strategy at some point...

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It's a risk, and the AI does sally forth and cause issues occaisionally, but I've never been wiped out doing this. It's always good to have your civ on a total war setting during expansion wars. Get in there, get it done, quick. So even if you lose units they are being replenished quickly. You might lose the battle, but not the war.

As with everything Civ related it's dependant on the situation. I've usually taken down a large part of the their army by the time I'm outside their city gates. If you prefer you can keep a mega-stack and all the penalties right up until the turn before the assault, then split the forces and weigh up the bonuses/penalties to see what is the optimum stack composition. Move a unit at a time if necessary. I always conduct the attack a unit at a time to weigh up the best chance of success.

What map settings you guys use? I've been unable to finish my games recently, usually by these reasons:

1)The map really sucks, I play for ~50 turns and it turns out that the map is crappy
1b) Mainly of this I've began to use WB on turn 1 to see what kind of map and what kind of resources there is, turns out there ain't horses/copper most of the time
2)Bore yourself to death in ancient/early medieval since nothing really happens
2b) Get mad to some random event (I play them off because of this)
2c) You're fighting to get a vassal, but there doesn't seem to be any purpose on having vassals. Vassal constantly claims itself as a free state.
3)You're in middle of renaissance and have met the other leaders and notice that it's pretty clear you've won.

Usually I use custom game and set AIs to 32 (so that every civ appears, but only once) and I usually go with Planet Generator, with 3-7 continents.

I've also tried to play somewhat roleplaying challenges, like using Stalin of Russia and creating a totalitarian state, using Fascism/Collectivism/Forced Labor/State Property/Cult Of Personality, and trying to make the world united and "free", but it's quite difficult for reasons I mentioned earlier.

CivEikka said:

What map settings you guys use? I've been unable to finish my games recently, usually by these reasons:

1)The map really sucks, I play for ~50 turns and it turns out that the map is crappy
1b) Mainly of this I've began to use WB on turn 1 to see what kind of map and what kind of resources there is, turns out there ain't horses/copper most of the time
.

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I do this as well, but I usually ask my kid to open WB and tell me if the map is OK or just crappy

CivEikka said:

2)Bore yourself to death in ancient/early medieval since nothing really happens

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you must be playing a level that is too low for you. You should play at a higher level and put barbs to raging for example.

CivEikka said:

2b) Get mad to some random event (I play them off because of this)

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hummm, I also hate some events, but I still play with them on cause some of them are cool and I like adding some randomness

CivEikka said:

2c) You're fighting to get a vassal, but there doesn't seem to be any purpose on having vassals. Vassal constantly claims itself as a free state.

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are you playing v3.25? svn?
I play svn and until recently I used to put vassal off because it was not working correctly: empires vassalized too easily. just put it on again recently because it is supposed to work better now.

CivEikka said:

3)You're in middle of renaissance and have met the other leaders and notice that it's pretty clear you've won.

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than you are definitely playing under your level. I play Immortal and I rarely encounter that. I'd have that if I played Monarch for example.

CivEikka said:

Usually I use custom game and set AIs to 32 (so that every civ appears, but only once) and I usually go with Planet Generator, with 3-7 continents.

I've also tried to play somewhat roleplaying challenges, like using Stalin of Russia and creating a totalitarian state, using Fascism/Collectivism/Forced Labor/State Property/Cult Of Personality, and trying to make the world united and "free", but it's quite difficult for reasons I mentioned earlier.

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I alos playe PG, large, 1-3 continent, but I usually play with the default number of Civs (12?), that I choose according to the civ I am playing (put Greece, Rome and not Aztec if I am playing Persia for example). I also do try to put additional rules some times especially concerning religion (try to found/adopt Hinduism if I'm playing India for example) or wonders (build the Eiffel Tour if I am playing France)