The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

[Sisiutil]

While I am inexperienced at Immortal level (and Emperor besides), I would advise against pursuing an early religion. Not because it's unlikely (it's always a gamble), but because you've indicated you plan on warmongering in this game, so you should pursue that strategy, which makes early religion a red herring. It will be preferable to just capture a nearby holy city.

Rather than complaining about starting techs and units and so on, do your best to leverage them.

Hunting: build a Scout or two and take advantage of their ability to race around exploring and beating other civs to tribal villages, not to mention getting a thorough map of your landmass. Look for the opportunity to claim an early, nearby campable resource. Also, if we de-emphasize an early religion, consider getting Archery early and never building a Warrior.

Mysticism: Monuments will be needed, yes--what are the odds of Stonehenge on Immortal, though?

Jaguars: Look for an early target with lots of cities surrounded by jungle and woods. Normally Swordsmen are lousy defensive units, but Jaguars have an edge on them here. I also like the idea of pumping some of them out with Woodsman II for more mobility, which is always a military advantage. And by the way, Jags have a way cool attacking animation.

[Jorunkun]

Oh what fun: Aelf does Immortal, at last.

Found Unconquered Sun's analysis and Mutineer's reply very valuable. Settling the hill for the extra hammer is a powerful opening short term, but it doesn't give much flexibility or leverage beyond that.

However, if you settle in place and work the Oasis, you are pretty much getting buddhism on a silver platter, with all options open. And you get to mine the plains hill, which might be your only substantial source of hammers early on (which you will lose if you settle on the hill).

Good luck, ganbatte kudasai!

J.

[aelf]

I'm not complaining about starting techs! It's just that my favourite starting techs are Agriculture and The Wheel, which give the most flexibility and are relatively expensive, so Hunting and Mysticism are not my favourite. I didn't know that so many of you like them

Anyway, thanks for the contradictory advice, guys At this point, I must say that those in favour of founding an early religion are more convincing. There are a few immediate benefits that have been highlighted: happiness and culture. On the other hand, what are the benefits of not pursuing an early religion? I can only think of earlier Agriculture to work the corn and vague diplomatic flexibility benefits. But what is quick growth for if we quickly hit the happiness limit? And diplomatic consequences are too difficult to base decisions on at this point.

In any case, I moved the scout NW and NE, as recommended. This is what he reveals:



Pigs! So we have lots of food around. Perfect for whipping And I guess this means we settle in place?

[JoeBlade]

Originally Posted by aelf

On the other hand, what are the benefits of not pursuing an early religion? I can only think of earlier Agriculture to work the corn and vague diplomatic flexibility benefits. But what is quick growth for if we quickly hit the happiness limit? And diplomatic consequences are too difficult to base decisions on at this point.

Keep in mind that you may not found the religion you're persuing and in that case the beakers invested are truly wasted. Nearly all AIs tend to research those early religion techs too, hence they have very little trade value. Their only real worth is precisely the religion.

Early agriculture OTOH implies working improved tiles sooner, thus all subsequent builds will finish sooner. Esp. those direly-needed first few settlers should not be looked down upon IMO.
As for the happiness limit: that's what the whip is for

I reckon it's really a choice between horizontal and vertical expansion. By going after worker techs earlier you may be able to found one or two additional cities before being boxed in, but they'll be smaller. With a religion you're more likely to end up with fewer but somewhat larger cities.

[Godel]

Originally Posted by aelf

On the other hand, what are the benefits of not pursuing an early religion? I can only think of earlier Agriculture to work the corn and vague diplomatic flexibility benefits. But what is quick growth for if we quickly hit the happiness limit? And diplomatic consequences are too difficult to base decisions on at this point.

Diplomacy is not a concern at all here. You are religious so can switch to no religion if necessary. You will still get the benifits of early culture and cheap temples.

Unless the spread of your religion to your cities makes it harder for other religion to spread and you lose a potential diplo bonus. But this is a minor concern really. Much better to convert someone to your religion if possible, and get the diplo bonus that way (+ religious spying).

[Galileo44]

I think this means settle in place now that the pigs are revealed. With the 2 best food sources in the game (although corn not irrigated) you should be able to do a lot of whipping later once you break out the sacrificial alters. Then again, why wait, get a religion and start whippin' now.

[futurehermit]

I would say risk it and go religion. With those food resources you can whip out settlers next. The ability to avoid monuments and to have 4 then 5 (temple) in your early cities is just too tempting to pass up. Keep in mind that if there are no early resources around the limit is 3 in non-capital cities. You can do so much more with 4-5 than you can with 3 (i.e., whipping)

[sylvanllewelyn]

I am strongly against going for an early religion, because your chances of getting it are so slim on immortal. Forget about benefits and oppertunity costs: you won't even get it.

Besides, you want the AI to have more religions amongst themselves. Ideally, you want different religions to spread to you, but keep non-religious, until you decide to attack someone 50 turns later, in which case you could switch to that religion, get diplomatic modifiers, and then bribe your (temporary) religious friends to war with your enemy.

[aelf]

We do have oasis, so the chances of getting an early religion is quite high, IMO.

Anyway, letting an AI have an early religion may not be a good thing diplomatically. They tend to form religious blocs more easily with the early religions, in my experience.

And it will be sometime before we can whip, so we would surely outgrow the happiness cap way before that with a farmed corn. Makes Agriculture less appealing to research first.

[Snaaty]

Hm, both options (settling in place or on the plains hill) are great.

1. Settling in place will give you a great capital where you can whip/draft like hell later. Also you will very likely end up with an early religion...

2. Settling on the hill gives you about 20% production bonus for workers/settlers (12 turns instead of 15 turns for a worker for example) and up to 50% for early units. You still will end up with a decent capital, but you very likely won´t be able do found a religion...


It´s a close call, but still I would go for 1. because of the religion-bonus...

[carl corey]

Go for a religion. If you get one of the first two you're less likely to have troubles from your neighbors in terms of religion than with a later one like Taoism. You're well set for it and a missionary here and there to convert the AIs isn't a big waste of hammers.

[Civman123]

If you decide to go for a religion, you should be prepared to face religous maniacs later in the game. This combined with the already said problem of Financial leaders going nuts on the Tropical climate convinces me that you should try going for an early attack to knock the AI's off balance.

[darrelljs]

Originally Posted by Mutineer

I would go after early religion, and in Warlords your best chance is buddism.

Hmm...that's not really true, is it? If you've been following the better AI thread you'll know the AI used to have a heavy bias towards Buddism, but with their changes it is 50-50. So with 2.08 you are better off going for Hinduism.

Darrell

[Galileo44]

My advice for the opening: Settle in place, work Oasis (duh) and research Polytheism. Opening build of Warrior. Then research mining/BW for whipping followed by the worker techs (Agriculture and AH in particular) to develop the capital for whipping.

[lilnev]

I'm still struggling to decide on what advice I should offer. I'd kind of like to see the Poly gambit, just because I never do it. And if not now (start with Myst, Oasis), when? But one of the big differences between emperor and immortal is the speed with which the AIs settle their second and third cities (and fourth and fifth, actually). I'd hate to see your first immortal challenge fail because you were too cramped in the very early game -- two cities and no metal, for example.

In either case, settle in place for power whipping later.

peace,
lilnev

[PMabey]

^^^no metals? - what do you think jaguars are for?

[HiroHito]

Originally Posted by JoeBlade

Keep in mind that you may not found the religion you're persuing and in that case the beakers invested are truly wasted. Nearly all AIs tend to research those early religion techs too, hence they have very little trade value. Their only real worth is precisely the religion.

I've always been able to grab a religion up to emperor, as long as I focus on it from the start (myst then religion tech), dunno about immortal tho.

[Jayhawk5]

Thank you Aelf for beginning IMC... I look forward to the challenge! After carefully reading everyone's posts, I truly believe the gamble for Hinduism is worthwhile. Here's my two cents:

1. Poly - Mining - Archery - Ag - BW - AH/Priesthood
2. Scout - Worker - Archer (maybe 2) - Worker - Settler

[futurehermit]

as has already been mentioned it might be better to go for buddhism instead of polyth.

[uberfish]

Hinduism is an odds-on favourite to get, especially with an oasis

Remember this is Aztecs, you don't have to worry about not getting metal either.