Beyond Emperor: Winning on Immortal

DIFFICULTY: IMMORTAL
Land type: CONTINENTS
Land size: STANDARD
Game speed: NORMAL
Starting civ: RUSSIA (Catherine)
Options: ALL DEFAULT OPTIONS

Emperor has been getting a bit stale and it's time for the next step: my first Immortal game ever. I chose Catherine for this 1st game because I'm used to playing that civ and thus I consider it a good benchmark for assessing the general nuances of the game. I begin choosing random civs when I get more comfortable. The settings above are about as standard as they get.

Now, I've been strongly espousing the REX strategy as viable in emperor games, proven in the following other threads:

Revenge of Rapid Expansion Strategy on Emperor
Building up a huge empire relatively early on then catching up (Emperor)

Will it work on Immortal? What other strategy if any will work? Is it possible to outtech the AI consistently? At all?

There have been quite a few Emperor threads as of late so my purpose here is to collectively try and find out just how big of a jump it is from Emp to Immortal.

Emperor veterans, feel free to try this and find out. I'd say it's a rather good start, well maybe not...depends on how you look at it. No reloading, ever!



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Don't underestimate the AI's when you go to war with them on immortal. What is normally an easy route on monarch/emperor is far from it on immortal. The AI's have a million units. Warring without an ally is very difficult. So keep going Mutax I'd love to hear how it goes.

Here's an immortal SG that we won: LOTR19 It's standard size map, inner sea, 7 civs, epic speed, all default settings, as Victoria.

I'll give this game a try, but I expect it'll probably end up with a loss, never having played on Immortal before, and not being used to Standard speed games. In general how much faster is the tech rate compared to an average Emperor game?

From reading LOTR19 this will be a decent challenge. Plus I need to give myself a reason to move up another level.

Another thing I'd like to confirm is whether we get any further penalties in anything, in addition to the AI getting further bonuses. I haven't noticed any penalties in health/happiness that's greater than that in emperor. Anything I'm missing here?

goraemon said:

Another thing I'd like to confirm is whether we get any further penalties in anything, in addition to the AI getting further bonuses. I haven't noticed any penalties in health/happiness that's greater than that in emperor. Anything I'm missing here?

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Health/happiness is the same from emperor and up. But Immortal is slightly harder. You only get 2 free units (instead of 3 on Emperor). Research costs a bit more too. City/civic maintenance gets slightly more expensive as well. But nothing dramatic. AI get a bit more bonuses too, including extra starting worker, but generally the difference between Emperor and Immortal is quite small.

Excellent thread - count me in!

Like Goraemon, I´ve gotten quite comfortable on Emperor but have yet to try Immortal for real ... did a few games on that level on very small maps, which didn´t feel that different to Emperor. But I´m sure a fullsize game will.

Cossacks Ho!

J.

I'll try a cultural win this weekend. The start isn't ideal for a culture city, but the settings and civ choice are. Well, assuming you aren't alone on a "continent". Catherine is poor in that situation.

Well, I guess any win would be good on immortal.

I finished the game, won't say whether I won or lost just yet but I learned some things. Although AI's resesarch rate was certainly faster, it wasn't THAT much faster and I'm now beginning to be convinced that consistently outresearching the AI is possible on immortal standard settings.

A bit of a curveball because I didn't exactly use REX in this game; instead I tried using the smaller empire, economist approach. I now believe REX will work on immortal as well given the AI's general timeline for victory - although one will have less room for inefficiency and stupid mistakes. I'll have to test that sometime down the line.

And what is with this early wonder dependency? Can't you folks just win the game without pyramids and stuff?

alexti2 said:

Health/happiness is the same from emperor and up. But Immortal is slightly harder. You only get 2 free units (instead of 3 on Emperor). Research costs a bit more too. City/civic maintenance gets slightly more expensive as well. But nothing dramatic. AI get a bit more bonuses too, including extra starting worker, but generally the difference between Emperor and Immortal is quite small.

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Just one point. The civic upkeep on Emperor, Immortal and Deity is the same, although city upkeep does seem more expensive.

My first immortal continents win

A bit sloppy, and far from perfect, but a win is a win




Settled in place, BW first, but on immortal research is so slow you can grow to size 2 and build a warrior before the worker.
Chopped workboat first (always try something new ), then a second worker, then 2 settlers.

I decided early on I will build 4 cities (including moskov), because I saw the 2 gold spots in the north and in the west. Without gold or gems I would rather go for two or three early cities. I founded the second city at the west gold spot (a early gold mine is really a boost) and the third on the south stone/cu spot, probably the reason I didn't get pyramids.

The russian east/north gold mines. Slavery at its best.


The third city, responsible for delivery of finest stones and copper. Unfortunatly those lazy bastards were way to slow to keep up with the immortal AI.



I didn't bother with Stonehenge (I like it for the early Great Profit), since it was way too late when I finished founding my cities, and did go for the pyramids. But the early expansion has used up to much wood, and despite of clearcutting i came 5 turns short. I got beaten at the Great Library too and was about to give up

When I met Washington, I was 5-10 tech behind, although very easy tech like archery (I almost never research that, its for wimps I think ). I followed the upper Music/Drama tree, knowing that the AI almost never takes that path and was able to slowly keep up. At the time optics came in for the AI, I met the remaining AIs which allowed me to catch up in tech.

But overall I was pretty slow in the tech race, I think I got cossacks at about 1450, although I didn't exactly beeline for it, to much other techs, and since I was on a island, warmongering had a low priority.

When I decided it was time for Washingtons children to return home, I still had only one (1!) galley to ship my first two (2!) heroic cossacks (which were upgraded knights) to America, which was only separated by one coastal tile from my island. Of course I backstabbed him, attacking him shortly after bribing monty into a war with him I killed two longbows in Boston and cowardly returned in the same turn to my island, repeating this attack again and again with more and more cossacks until Boston run out of longbows

The war progressed rapidly (did I mention that monty is a very valuable partner), I took the larger half of america and left cleaning out the colonies to monty, but not before taking all the money from G.W.
I between I mananged to get libertism and physics first.
Some 50 years after the peaceful russian empire looked like this:


After this it was a pure builder game. I decided not to go to war with monty because he had that much troops, and SAM and infantry started to show up.
This was the first game ever I made use of the internet, it probably saved my ass. In the very late game the AI usually refuses to trade techs from rocketry on, this time they won't even give me industrialism :-( Since I was still missing some medium-late techs I decided to go for fiber optics (didn't manage to build the kremlin) and build the internet. During the time it was build I researched the late techs like Fusion at Genetics, and when it was finished, I got all the techs but Composites.

Finally I could see Aluminium When it was hooked up, the Apollo Project finished (takes kinda long without Aluminium, but perfect timing anyway) and I started all the space ship parts, the most expensive needing 15 turns. At this time Mansa was still missing Genetics and Fusion. I checked every turn and 5 turns before launch he discovered the last tech he was missing. Just to be sure I hired some engineers in the two cities which build the last 5-turn parts, starving them a little, but I could squeeze out one more turn, now 4 to launch.
Mansa didn't make it

Very impressive game drhirsch!

goraemon said:

And what is with this early wonder dependency? Can't you folks just win the game without pyramids and stuff?

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I was concerned that I might be isolated on that island until Astronomy, so I've decided to play safe. By the time I've discovered Americans I've already been committed to wonder strategy. I'm pretty sure that not building Pyramids and/or Great Lighthouse when you're in isolation almost guarantees you a loss on Deity. Not sure if you can make it on Immortal or not, but not building them is definitely risky.

goraemon said:

I'm now beginning to be convinced that consistently outresearching the AI is possible on immortal standard settings.

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It is. I've just won a space race victory as cath on immortal/standard continents/epic and the biggest techs the AIs had were scientific method and steam power i think (none of them were financial though). I never declared war on the AIs from the other continents, although i did bribe them into lots. Man 8 turns from doing it in the 1600s

About your REX goraemon, i think whats important early on is claiming land, not capturing cities till your science rate is 0.5%. Keep a few but raze most of them and dont kill the AI completely. That way you can stay in the important tech trading business. That AI will be a very easy prey later on when you can afford occupying the land, and will actually have settled cities for you and worked the terrain a bit, kind of like a barbarian vassal state...

1848 AD culture win. It got a little exciting in 1700 AD when the Incans invaded. My cossacks handled the ground troops, but my fishing boats got chewed up badly. Both the commerce city spots and great people city spots are a bit lacking, so this map really is setup better for some sort of production-based win. Either warmongering ending in domination or diplomatic or a space win.

Well this game showed me how much more I have to learn.

When I started the game I wasn't concentrating properly, and I simply didn't get the best out of my first 100 turns or so. I never really managed to get to tech parity, and at the end of the Medieval Age Mansa and Elizabeth really started to pull away in techs. I was still researching Steam Power and Democracy when Mansa and Elizabeth both had Rocketry, and maybe even more advanced techs, but seeing those SAM infantry was what really made me realise it was over, and being so far behind now it looks like I've lost.

I think one of the main reasons for this was my Diplomacy, in the end I managed to annoy everyone. Roosevelt didn't want to trade any techs from quite early on, with the whole "we fear you are becoming too advanced" excuse, and Genghis started to fall behind quite early. I was only involved in two wars in the entire game. Mansa randomly declared and sent over 1 empty galley not long before I got Cossacks. But he sent over some Rifles later and promptly razed one of my (less productive) cities. But I used the war to take 2 of his cities, including one which was the holy city for Confucianism (one of the dominant religions in my game) and Toaism. The other one was not long afterwards with Roosevelt. He had a far larger army that me but it was all busy trying to wipe out any evidence the Mongols ever existed, and I took the opportunity to take control of the rest of my starting island.

By 1750AD Genghis had been reduced to only 4 cities by Roosevelt, who controlled about 25% land and pop. As I'd assumed I was isolated at the start I didn't focus on my military, and not being a great builder didn't help too much. I would be interested to see how I do if I played again being more aggressive, although if I won it wouldn't feel like a proper Immortal win.

I've continued trying to get something different than cultural victory. There were couple of interesting moments on the way. After I've met Mongols and Mali I've established good trade and my economy flourished. Americans were getting in the lead though. So he seemed a natural target. Somewhere around 500AD, right after I got macemen I've dropped invading force of catapults and macemen backed by spearmen and longbowmen and couple of elephants. Given the nature of the map (and AI not bothering with navy) I didn't want to invest into a large fleet, so I was ferrying my troops with just 4 galleys (extremeny annoying micromanagement :<). I've quickly taken the closest american city, but then I've discovered a serious oversight in my plans: I couldn't get this inland city connected to my network, and because of american culture I didn't have food sources there, so the population there started to die off due to unhealthiness (all I could do is to rush some buildings). I've quickly conquered coastal city to the north, but american culture made a wedge between these 2 cities, so the first city has starved down to 2 in the end Because of map layout, I have lost my trade routes with everybody as well and my economy took a hit (I had to run something like 30% cultures + 50% gold). So I've quickly made peace with Americans and rushed to Astronomy while making more troops. Around 1000AD I got Astronomy and attacked americans (now I could also field pikemen and crossbowmen, so I pretty much rolled over their land) conquering them by about 1300AD. I'm not sure it's worthwhile to continue any further, only Mansa Musa is on par in tech, everybody else has fallen behind and now with all large american cities the lead is not going away. I'm researching cannons and building grenadiers so it will be easy to quickly take over Mongols and then Mali (or in opposite order).

I wonder if there's any use for Cossaks, with strength 18 they look attractive, but I can't figure out what role they can play. Cannons are about as good at attacking cities, they can get 3rd city raider promotion and they do collateral.I can see some limited use in defense or in open field (though AI doesn't usually risk to move units outside of their cities), but is it worthwhile to spend 6 or 7 turns to research otherwise useless military tradition?

Overall, I think I've made mistake with an early attack on americans (before Astronomy), I had to suffer for a few turns without trade (and resulting unhappiness, starvation etc) while those 2 cities I got brought little benefits to me until the following conquest. The 2 key things here was to establish good economy early on (and not bothering with jungle terrain on my island) and then accurately managing invasion (I find it really painful, because you need to bring all the right units to every city - right number of pikemen, right number of longbowmen, right number of macemen with Combat+Shock promotion and right number of macemen with city raider promotion, and considering that you need to ferry all of them... - Civ is still the king of micromanagement).

alexti2 said:

I wonder if there's any use for Cossaks, with strength 18 they look attractive, but I can't figure out what role they can play. Cannons are about as good at attacking cities, they can get 3rd city raider promotion and they do collateral.I can see some limited use in defense or in open field (though AI doesn't usually risk to move units outside of their cities), but is it worthwhile to spend 6 or 7 turns to research otherwise useless military tradition?

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Cossacks are devastating, with their 18 strength and 2 movement. Deployed quickly and in a timely fashion in a game where you have the tech lead, they are a strength 18 unit facing at most musketmen, and quite typically longbowmen and knights (which as a mounted unit, they quickly destroy). When your opponents get Cavalry of their own, the Cossacks can take cities and hold their own even against waves of opposing Cavalry because of their additional strength and bonus against mounted units - defending against Cavalry, the Cossack, even without defensive bonuses, has a total strength greater than that of a fortified rifleman with City Garrison I.

Even better is the fact that after a lengthy Cossack war, you can have a lot of Combat III + Blitz units to promote to Gunships, making them a 4-attack per turn unit going into the modern age. Panzers? More like Pansies.

Yzen Danek said:

Cossacks are devastating, with their 18 strength and 2 movement. Deployed quickly and in a timely fashion in a game where you have the tech lead, they are a strength 18 unit facing at most musketmen, and quite typically longbowmen and knights (which as a mounted unit, they quickly destroy).

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Oh, I see. I haven't thought about having technical lead. I usually count on AI already having infantry by the time I can get Cavalry (which I never do).