Hi, I'm playing the Persians with Darius, (Fin/Org) on Noble Pangea standard maps. I like Domination victories.
My usual line is to try to take out 2 Civs early. With 5-8 immortals this is easy enough on the 1st civ. But the 2nd usually has bronze by then and spear-men devastate immortals. I tried teching to construction for catapults and elephants, but learned last game those spear-men even crush elephants and it was swordsmen plus sacrificial catapults that won the day.
Is there an even more efficient line to take? I probably wasted a lot of time with those elephants, but I feel like the catapults are still needed so maybe not. Or maybe massing swordsmen for the initial attack, and then using the immortals to clean up would be faster/better?
Thanks
Darius is one of my favorites too a different research path is to head to Literature rather than Engineering so you can build the Heroic epic with even a meager number of hammers a Heroic Epic city can turn out an Immortal every turn. Often your second city will be suitable.
The path is slightly cheaper
(civIVvanilla) and along the upgrade path for horse units to Military Tradition and cavalry etc
Steal target #1 and 2's workers and make sure metals are not connected. You get workers and much softer 2nd target. Make sure when they offer peace to take a cease fire (not a peace treaty), this way they build more workers and no more units. Keep rinsing and repeating.
Is it not a peace treaty that causes an AI to resume peacfull build priorities rather than a cease fire?
Otherwise I have been making a grave error!
If doing an immortal/war chariot/horse archer rush, you simply can't let the targets get metals. Pillage and choke your targets. Otherwise, you'll need a lot more units.
TalladegaKnight is spot on here. Use your first city to block off metals and place your warriors and first Immortals at choke points to stop rival Civ's settling metals don't be afraid to start a war by taking a settler and its escourt out as your normal plan is to kick off your Invasion with a worker steal anyway.
You will likely have a better idea of the surrounding land as you can scout vigorously and rapidly with little to fear from animals and barbarians with Immortals.
The longer you can prevent them Mining metals or Trading for it (Alphabet) the better.
Well if it's an early rush it's unlikely they have the ability to trade for it.
So your next target may not be the next closest with juicy land but the one slightly father away who is about to research Alphabet
You can, in theory, blockade their ports or destroy their roads to stop them trading for metals, but this is a much bigger undertaking than just pillaging a few mines.
Blockading their ports will require a navy diverting from Immortal production and requiring you to settle coastal cities. However the AI seldom builds a sufficient navy so if you do only have have a coastal foe available a few galleys will suffice.
Snipping their roads should be simple with good scouting.
I also really avoid pillaging when my goal is to take that territory. But if I'm just trying to slow down an enemy's production to aid an ally or, heaven forbid, I'm losing the war and need to slow them down somehow I find it can be helpful for a couple quick knights or horse archers to hit strategic sites, or even roads depending on the intervening terrain.
Plundering the resource is actually unnecessary as long as you plonk an immortal on the mine it is denied to the enemy,
As Immortals have defensive bonuses for terrain unlike most horse units you can seize and hold mines which are usually on hills quite well against even quite sustained attacks and if you think you will lose anyway or just don't want to lose the units you can pillage and run or pillage and leave your least experienced Immortal to die.
Thanks guys, I have refined this and jumped from an Augustus Caesar victory in Noble to a dominating performance (1000 points so far above a 680 2nd best) in Prince. This is what I do:
1. Beeline to horses. Establish a 2nd city with horses in the 9 tile initial area. (I've tried to get more favorable locations with the horses in the BFC further out, but this creates all sorts of problems)..
Yep as Darius is not Creative pushing your boundaries is a pain you could settle so horses are in an outside BFC square if you had Stonehenge but why waste valuable Immortal building hammers building a big stone star anchor.
2. Attack the closest Civ 1st. In the past I would attack a Civ with an aggressive leader or favorable territory (chokes/resources etc). No longer. That 1st war is the most important one.
I mass Immortals until I spot a worker and then seize the worker. If I have 2x attackers vs defenders I go for the capital, otherwise I take a closer/smaller city. I notice population 1 cities tend to auto-raze though (the game forces it).
3. If I can tell there will be a buildup period on both sides then I take out farms and mines. While I'm sieging/pillaging/scouting around the capital, I'm also beelining to Construction for catapults. The fight for the 1st enemy capital is the only battle where I typically lose half my units. (After that, collateral damage protects my army for the rest of the game).
Any square that you controll with a unit is cut off from their city(s) and trade network you can prevent having to use worker turns to rebuild by plonking any unit that has the ability to attack on it, recycle your obsolete warriors to suppress these squares and once you have the capital you can use them as garrison it or keep them moving up behind your Immortal spearhead.
4. After the 1st Civ is defeated I usually have an easy connection to copper or iron. I switch production from Immortals to Axemen to defeat enemy spearmen and axemen. Immortals are still best against archers though. I'm also building catapults, enough to bombard and then suicide a few for collateral damage.
A couple of axmen promoted vs melee as stack defenders will be enough. one spearman promoted healer should do you for horse defense untill your foe can bring out elephants.
5. Catapults make the 2nd war much easier. By the time I've beaten them I have 2 cities of my own (Capital and "horse connector" city) 2-3 cities from the 1st conquest, 3-4 from the 2nd. 7-10 total. The game is basically won from there as everyone else has 3-5 cities, half the land and/or population.
6. Swordsmen have city attack promotions so I start teching to them while building up my economic engine during a short lull period. Granaries, lighthouses and courthouses, with some libraries, monastaries, colloseums and aquaducts as needed.
The AI generally doesn't build a lot of Spears so, especially if their metal is an easy pillage, I like to draw out the Spear using a sacrificial Chariot then kill it.
The AI has a hard time resisting the high win odds of a single Chariot vs spear but doesn't seem to factor in the fact you will just kill it next turn. If you can trade one Chariot for one Spear + XP for one of your units it isn't a horrible trade and once they have no spears your Chariot army dominates.
Because Immortals have defensive Bonuses you will normally have to leave your bait unit on flatland to work this ploy Vs Spearmen. The follow up Immortal will often be left injured on flatland so you can sometimes chain this ploy to draw out multiple spears.
Beware Alexander and his non-spear spearmen phalanx in BtS
Bear in mind that I like Hatty so I am often talking War Chariots making this tactic more effective but I have run it successfully with stock Chariots. It is better to have axes nearby to finish off the Spear with stock Chariots whereas a pure War Chariot army works fine.
Or you could just whip and chop Axes for the second target.
Even a single axman to injure the best defender con reduce your losses in immortals but it is hard for them to keep up with the advance.
If you bypass a well defended city the axmen(and later catapults) can reach and besiege it while your Immortals rush the deeper or softer target and then turn back to take out the well defended city. Hopefully by the time the second city falls the deeper city is out of rebellion and you can use their roads to hurry your advance to the next target.
speedy advances and retreats also confuse the defender
Augustus Caesar is the score/rank I got at the end.
