Moving from Emperor to Immortal & Land Wars

OK, so I've played enough Civ that Emperor is mostly a cakewalk for me now. However I really can't seem to make the jump to Immortal. I have a tendancy to try stuff I've not done before, but either way I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or just not optimising/rushing enough.

Current game, I'm Shosone. Elected to go Liberty, got my NC very late (turn 90 or so), currently have about 7 cities up. Assyria and China have been ripping chunks out each other on my doorstep. Currently I'm in this situation

- I'm pretty much last on tech (apart from Siam who have 1 city), low on gold, low on everything apart from land (1st).
- I have a big army for me that's costing me a lot of upkeep sat on the front line watching the fight go on.
- I sorta did nothing really in the tech tree and got Muskets just to keep up
- Attacking Assyria means my happiness bombs because of all the trades. GPT too low to let me buy out CS.
- The only easy city to take would be Siam, but this will wipe them out and give me a lot of unhappiness for not much in return.

So my main option is attacking China when my DoF runs out. However... I'm starting to realise I'm awful at land wars. I tend to win games either through giant tech leads, or though having a huge navy (I think Destroyers/Battleships are really OP incidentally). Having the same size/tech army I always seem to muck up. I'm never sure how many units I need to take say, a defence 30 city, and then always seem to get stuff stuck everywhere trying to get to the thing. I hate losing units so put them all on heal, and then slowly die a war of attrition... and obviously the AI gets so many units on high difficulties.

So yeah, questions.

- Any tips on taking cities with equal/similar tech/armies?
- Any tips on if I should be worrying so much about being behind in tech or not, or is having my big land empire going to come into it's own later on? My front line is pretty locked down.
- The other option is to make a load of frigates and sail across the ocean... but I'd have to disband half my land army to afford the upkeep.
- Is this game most likely just a loss due to my slow NC and over-wide empire?
- Any other hints going to Immortal? On some level I feel 4 city Tradition is just so damn strong that anything else is a mistake.

Thanks

How much of an army are you sitting on?

It sounds like you might have too many cities - how big are they? I am guessing some of your cities you settled did not have unique luxes, which means you're down on happiness mostly because of extra cities. Have you gotten the happiness bonus from liberty yet? Do you have a religion? You may have settled too many cities too early without the infrastructure to support it.

You should be about even in tech by renaissance if not slightly ahead. If you're way behind, there's a problem. Are you spying? How many beakers are you getting every turn?

As for taking cities, use ranged units, and your musketman are there to tank the damage from the cities until the city's whittled down to 0 health.

I generally don't like warmongering very early either, and I don't find a need to build a large army - five archers is usually enough for maybe 4-5 cities, depending on location of course. But if you are playing peaceful early you really need to get your science up ASAP to get that tech lead. If you're behind on tech and behind on army and gold and everything.... something is wrong.

kimadactyl said:

OK, so I've played enough Civ that Emperor is mostly a cakewalk for me now. However I really can't seem to make the jump to Immortal. I have a tendancy to try stuff I've not done before, but either way I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or just not optimising/rushing enough.

Current game, I'm Shosone. Elected to go Liberty, got my NC very late (turn 90 or so), currently have about 7 cities up. Assyria and China have been ripping chunks out each other on my doorstep. Currently I'm in this situation

- I'm pretty much last on tech (apart from Siam who have 1 city), low on gold, low on everything apart from land (1st).
- I have a big army for me that's costing me a lot of upkeep sat on the front line watching the fight go on.
- I sorta did nothing really in the tech tree and got Muskets just to keep up
- Attacking Assyria means my happiness bombs because of all the trades. GPT too low to let me buy out CS.
- The only easy city to take would be Siam, but this will wipe them out and give me a lot of unhappiness for not much in return.

So my main option is attacking China when my DoF runs out. However... I'm starting to realise I'm awful at land wars. I tend to win games either through giant tech leads, or though having a huge navy (I think Destroyers/Battleships are really OP incidentally). Having the same size/tech army I always seem to muck up. I'm never sure how many units I need to take say, a defence 30 city, and then always seem to get stuff stuck everywhere trying to get to the thing. I hate losing units so put them all on heal, and then slowly die a war of attrition... and obviously the AI gets so many units on high difficulties.

So yeah, questions.

- Any tips on taking cities with equal/similar tech/armies?
- Any tips on if I should be worrying so much about being behind in tech or not, or is having my big land empire going to come into it's own later on? My front line is pretty locked down.
- The other option is to make a load of frigates and sail across the ocean... but I'd have to disband half my land army to afford the upkeep.
- Is this game most likely just a loss due to my slow NC and over-wide empire?
- Any other hints going to Immortal? On some level I feel 4 city Tradition is just so damn strong that anything else is a mistake.

Thanks

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The biggest tip I would give you for fighting against relatively equal armies is use the defender's advantage. If you fortify your melee units you'll come out ahead on every trade because the computer never hesitates to attack into your fortified units. If you're constantly healing and fortifying while they're attacking into you, you'll start to eliminate more and more of their units to the point where you have a strong enough advantage to push forward and take their cities. When don't have enough of a tech or unit lead to just brute force your way through, your best offense really is sitting in a defensive position and letting the computer kill itself on your units.

If you are attacked, dig yourself in in good positions and kill all approaching troops. Once they have been killed, then you can advance and should have an easy job of it. Bring at least 3 siege units. If you have unfriendly terrain then you are probably better off waiting until you tech dynamite.

If you are the one attacking, declare war early and sit your army in a defensive position outside his borders with a few mounted units. If his army doesnt come out for you to kill, use your mounted units to pillage his improvements. Try in all situations to kill his units first then his cities. Ideally you want nothing about when you enter his borders.

I think early warfare on immortal is difficult. The AI simply has more units than you can afford. It becomes doable by the time of musketmen and cannons, but really you want artillery because a city surrounded by hills is always going to be a pain in the butt to conquer (to the point where i wouldnt bother). Then things get a lot easier. A good tip for early war is make sure they are limited. Build some troops, kill his army, nick that 1 city you really want, then make peace. You will weaken them enough that an era later you can roll over them easily.

As for tech its a little bit difficult to see the big picture without a screen shot. Its possible on immortal to be behind all the way until the atomic age depending on whats happened in your game. You should be aiming to be at parity by renaissance though.

EDIT: If you are having a tough time then i suggest choosing a civ like Poland. Their UA and UU make them so versatile they are almost like playing on a lower skill setting. Japan, on the other hand, would be rock solid. Shosone are not that bad but their bonuses are limited purely to the early game. After that they get pretty much nothing.

As sherbz mentioned, you will be behind in tech on immortal and Deity for much of the game. This is huge shock when you come from Emperor, where you start more or less equal in tech and then build a tech lead.

Do not worry about it, you will catch up eventually. Use spies and research agreements to supplement your science.

To put this in perspective, in the Deity game in my signature (Emperor Player Attempts Deity) I was two full eras behind the AI at my worst point. I ended up winning a Science victory.

On a related note, I do not think you should go to war. With seven cities, you have more to gain by going tall now. War now will consume your resources unnecessarily unless you are going for a domination victory without benefiting you enough to justify its cost.

As Shoshone I have good success with harrassing my neighbors as soon as I find them with my scouting CBs. Kill their units until they are willing to give you all their stuff. If there is a useful city in the deal, keep it. Other gifted cities you can burn down. As long as you don't conquer any AI cities you won't get warmonger penalty. That way you get GPT, lump sums and maybe puppet cities and some additional workers. While you get benefits your neighbors will be crippled, which gives you a head start to develop your nation.

CountAccountant said:

As sherbz mentioned, you will be behind in tech on immortal and Deity for much of the game. This is huge shock when you come from Emperor, where you start more or less equal in tech and then build a tech lead.

Do not worry about it, you will catch up eventually. Use spies and research agreements to supplement your science.

To put this in perspective, in the Deity game in my signature (Emperor Player Attempts Deity) I was two full eras behind the AI at my worst point. I ended up winning a Science victory.

On a related note, I do not think you should go to war. With seven cities, you have more to gain by going tall now. War now will consume your resources unnecessarily unless you are going for a domination victory without benefiting you enough to justify its cost.

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Agreed. You can even pull off a science victory when you are behind on tech in the last era. The AI makes such a terrible effort when it comes to saving faith for GS's, beelining hubble, saving other GS's and actually pumping production for building the spaceship that its really not that difficult to beat it, even when marginally behind when it actually comes to the space race.

Trade routes are also a somewhat useful way of boosting your science, although only moderately.

I've just started my first Immortal game too. Trying Korea, Fractal, Standard Time.

So far I've found Alex (sigh. always in my games it seems), Indonesia, and Ghandi. None are all that close to me, I have quite a bit of room to expand and not get into trouble (mountains between Me and Ghandi/Indonesia), and 2x CS betwee me and Alex.

Should be interesting. Don't have high expecations of winning, but you never know.

kimadactyl said:

- I sorta did nothing really in the tech tree and got Muskets just to keep up

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I think I found your problem. You want to focus pretty hard on science to succeed on immortal.

chazzycat said:

I think I found your problem. You want to focus pretty hard on science to succeed on immortal.

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I think there might have been bigger issues before that...

But yeah science tech beelines, growth and staffing unis is very important. But with Shoshone land grab, seven cities should be bringing in tons of lux and strategics for sale. Did you settle marginal cities? With the current setup of five percent penalty every new city needs to contribute to science. Just keep growing and teching smart and you should have no problem catching up later on.

kimadactyl said:

OK, so I've played enough Civ that Emperor is mostly a cakewalk for me now. However I really can't seem to make the jump to Immortal. I have a tendancy to try stuff I've not done before, but either way I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or just not optimising/rushing enough.

Click to expand...

Well, don't experiment at Immortal or Deity. Most people don't win at these levels because they're canny and adaptive, but rather because they play the game with a level of stolid inflexibility that would flabbergast Arthur Murray.

As has been advised previously, just start a defensive war and let them impale themselves on your defenses.

Woah, that's a lot of replies

How much of an army are you sitting on?

Starting to think not a nearly big enough one. 5 xbows, 5 rifles. Enough to slow my economy but probably not big enough to hit an AI with.

It sounds like you might have too many cities - how big are they? I am guessing some of your cities you settled did not have unique luxes, which means you're down on happiness mostly because of extra cities. Have you gotten the happiness bonus from liberty yet? Do you have a religion? You may have settled too many cities too early without the infrastructure to support it.

I got 7, they're various sizes but none huge, all but 1 is on a unique lux. I think maybe a religion would have been a good idea, and focussed more on a defensive army. Yep I got the bonus! I think the main problem is there seems to be a lack of tradables on this map, a lot of the luxuries everyone has or enough people have you can't trade.

I generally don't like warmongering very early either, and I don't find a need to build a large army - five archers is usually enough for maybe 4-5 cities, depending on location of course.

Hmm good to know. I find the terrain can be the main problem. Maybe 7 cities is enough with being satisfied to defend, and that's where I went wrong till late game?

Various comments about using defender's advantage/attacking early is hard

Yeah. OK good to know. Maybe I should have trusted my instincts and been happy with my huge land grab!

If you have unfriendly terrain then you are probably better off waiting until you tech dynamite.

Ended up doing exactly this, but can't help think it's a lazy strat Crushed Assyria with a bunch of artillery I converted from cannons the turn it finished. Next target was China who I bombed to death, got their 2 biggest cities (cap and 2nd) and made peace.

Anyway thanks for the tips. Sounds like my only real mistake then was doing anything other than making a defensive army while I got my land up and running.

Now my current problem is a runaway Austria with her own continent with capital in the middle, SS boosters done, a full 10% ahead of me on science (I'm in 2nd!) with triple anyone else's science. I'm catching up but again not sure the best route - mass up a navy and roll her coastals and purge her from my continent? But she has a massive airforce and is friends with many people. Try and cram science and hope she techs badly? Not sure about that. Maybe best to try and DoW her and purge her from my continent defensively while teching science and hope she forgets her spaceship bits? Or is this game just a done deal?

I guess I could go for domination (3 capitals left) but getting Warsaw is going to be very painful indeed unless I get something like X-Com units and lots of carriers and a huge navy. Ideas?

I recently moved up to immortal as well. Although it was daunting at first, you soon get the hang of it. Some tips:

1. Don't worry about tech lead. You'll be behind for the first part of the game. You want to try to reach parity with the AI by the beginning of industrial. Use your spies!

2. I've found that expanding early actually really hinders me. The games were I stayed tall, I won comfortably, whereas all my loses came from when I tried to expand too soon. In my last game with Indonesia, I wanted to make use of their UA. The thing was, my capital wasn't coastal so I needed my second city to be coastal for the city connections. Then the 3 other cities with unique luxes on other landmasses. Then I saw a faith giving natural wonder (the green mountain one) and decided I needed it. By that point I had 7 cities and things were going fine at first. The problem is/was that you only have a certain amount of gold, and instead of rush buying science buildings as soon as they come, I had to hardbuild a lot of them. My 6th and 7th city were still getting around to building universities by the time Industrial came along. Throw in a double declaration of war which lost me most of my trade routes, and things went sour quite quickly.

3. Ignore religion (but don't ignore faith!). You will save yourself some early-game hammers and faith by not competing with the AI on the religion front, which is mostly a losing battle these days the way many of the AI have been programmed to favor piety. Of course, every situation is different (faith wonder, cs, etc) but generally speaking, I had a lot more success letting the AI spread their religion to me, using faith to buy the religious buildings. You can actually end up having each religious building in each city if you play it right. If two AIs are sending missionaries to your cities, buy the faith building that you currently can, and you can always build your own missionary of that faith and send him to the other cities once you've built all the buildings of a particular religion.

4. War. Again this is very situational, but grabbing an early enemy city might help, ONLY if it doesn't mean you have to spend too much hammers or gold on your army. A city in a jungle or with hills everywhere will be very tough to grab in the early game, and you'll be spending time/hammers/gold on units instead of on buildings for your city/other uses of gold. If you have to spend more than 20-30 turns in a war with the AI and/or you are losing units, it's going to hinder your progress.

instead of rush buying science buildings as soon as they come, I had to hardbuild a lot of them.

Is rush buying science buildings a necessity do you think?

Ignore religion (but don't ignore faith!)

Do you actually bother making faith buildings, or only if they come with a bonus?


Another question: when do people advocate starting wars? And what are your objectives when you start one?

I personally think rush-buying science building is a MASSIVE advantage. It even is on Emperor, but you get the tech lead after the NC already, sometimes even earlier. On immortal you don't have that luxury. I would hard-build if I had good production, but if my crappy tundra-city needs 35 turns for the library, it's going to cost wayyyy to many turns.

Also, +1 for ignoring religion. On emperor I find it easy to get one but on immortal HA HA no I think going for religion is something you do after you feel comfortable coping with the higher difficulty (I certainly struggle alot with immortal) OR you have the super-awesome start with no religious civs and no wonder-spammers. But given that even Bismarck now goes defensive-cultural-science most of the time...

Not sure about the ignore religion part. In my current game as china I had to go tall because of geography, and managed to get the last religion. I got an early pantheon and picked fertility rites, which worked out well (there was no useful faith giving pantheons based on where I was) and since I decided to go tall an turtle, I picked swords into plowshares. All of a sudden I had 25% boost to food. That is just huge. I got enough faith from some shrines and a few CS

I think religion is situational on immortal, much like everything else, which IMO is what defines it apart from emperor. On emperor you can basically win on a well honed prince strategy. On immortal, you have to adapt to the AI’s and the map that you are given. This is even more the case on Deity. For instance, on my last 2 immortal games:

The first I was Spain. In order to make good use of my UA I built scout first, found a lot of decent land that was far away and offered a good choking point, so went hard liberty. With the early happiness I managed to obtain, I decided to continue expanding rather than building shrines. I did not found a religion and was unfortunate in that Venice spammed me with theirs when they had no religious buildings. I won a science victory in about 1950. In this case, expansion trumped religion. It would have hurt my game more if I had went for a religion and missed out on decent city sites.

The second I was Sweden. I was playing on continents and ended up having a continent all to myself with 3 other city states. I knew I wouldn’t be beaten to any of the sites on my land mass that I wanted and I had space for 6 decent cities. I also had a decent hammer city in my capital. So rather than expand, I went for early calendar and tried for stone henge (actually one of the more gettable wonders on immortal depending on other AI’s). I also built shrines and temples early in my other 3 cities and even ignored tradition completely (IMO liberty is a far superior tree to tradition and I only ever take tradition if I know happiness is going to be a problem). I built stone henge and founded the 2nd religion. Easily spread it to my land mass and beyond. I won a science victory in 1919.

I think you can make similar scenarios for warfare in BNW. Early warfare is heavily contingent on terrain. Bad terrain = bad idea. You can also ruin yourself going up against a civ at tech parity that has a good UU of that era (never attack England when they have longbows). If however you are close to an enemy civ, the terrain is favourable and flat on your approach and they have a really good city that you want, then by all means build a load of units, push yourself into negative gold, then declare war, take the city, lose a few units, regain your GPT, and enjoy your new city.

I guess the key is – be flexible

I guess the key is – be flexible

I think this is maybe my problem - I'm trying to force a strat based on my race choice, rather than work with what I'm given. Yeah, you're right, it seems very hard to lose on Emperor. Even though I've lost every game so far I've had a lot more fun playing I think - it feels like a real challenge rather than going through the motions. Things matter which didn't before, like religion, timing of happiness SPs etc.

Another thing I'm struggling with -- how do you deal with getting all your land mopped up early? I seem to end up having to go Liberty for the settler just to make things go fast enough! Is this OK or do I just need to be patient for my 12 turn settler build on pop 5?

Hm, 12 turns seems slow with 5 pop. If you got a minable lux and a hill it should be faster. YOu do set production focus and work only hammer tiles when building it, right?

Yeah, I'm just thinking out loud "worst case scenario" here. Japan expanding into you and you are still on 1 city on turn 40 kind of situation. Or maybe that's just a reroll?