Immortal: What is the right strategy to victory with this start?

Here's the starting position:


Turns out we're completely walled off. I beeline Optics and try to do 4 city tradition, but end up horribly behind, with no viable victory options.

If anyone wants to try, here's the starting position save file. Note that I'm using the PerfectWorld 3 map script, so you'll need to have that loaded.

I don't want to believe that there are maps that are unwinnable, especially from Turn 0 ... I am curious what is the right strategy to victory here, however.

I don't have PerfectWorld 3, but from what I can see -- and it's a bit cheating as I know you're walled off --, the best solution would be to settle your capital on the coast near the river if there are fishes, then another city on the gold and another one somewhere else (can't see the rest of the map since I can't play, lol) for a 3-city tradition opening. From there, going to sailing as one of the lux tech, build/buy a trireme and try to find another civ. Otherwise, go straight for education and try to keep up in tech, while waiting for other civs to potentially meet you.

Also, since you are completely locked off by mountains, I assume your starting area is kind of small, so perhaps skip building the early scout (more time for an early worker which you'll need as I assume there's no cs or a shrine to get the tundra faith going)?

Or if you are that desperate to meet someone, you can also go liberty and take a Great Admiral and fill out the map (perhaps you'll found the Congress this way and be the first host), but that doesn't seem like a very good idea.

Lots of food, isolated start, some forests to chop, yep looks like a perfect place to go tall. As an added perk you have your choice of really strong pantheon beliefs-- Goddess of Festivals, Religious Idols or Dance of the Aurora. So, what exactly is your complaint about this spot? That you need embarkation to go somewhere else? That's pretty much the way it is in all archipelago maps, it's not the end of the world.

alcaras said:

Note that I'm using the PerfectWorld 3 map script, so you'll need to have that loaded.

Click to expand...

It will go without. Map scripts just help generate the map, after turn zero they're not needed anymore.

That actually looks like a good map to do a Tall Domination/Hybrid Victory Condition. I might shoot for Stonehenge and develop an early religion with one city. You can basically tech to Public schools at that point looks good I may play it

I tried to open the file and it does not work - I installed that perfectworld mod following your link, but it seems that there are more mods that you are using.

From the screenshot, my advice is

1. Settle on the gold.
2. Not sure how many good expo spot you got, but since you have isolated start, do tradition 1 city NC and expo to 2-4 cities.
3. Beeline education and astronomy - once you get observatory and rationalism opener + secularism, your tech will be faster then AIs.

Infoaddict mod was also required. I played for ~t112.

Sorry, didn't realize InfoAddict would complain if it wasn't installed.

Thanks! I'll give it another try today using that strategy.

Can you elaborate a bit on your reasoning as to how you arrived at that plan?

alcaras said:

Sorry, didn't realize InfoAddict would complain if it wasn't installed.

Thanks! I'll give it another try today using that strategy.

Can you elaborate a bit on your reasoning as to how you arrived at that plan?

Click to expand...

well, it is pretty standard tactic for isolated start. If you do not have enough room to expand, 1 city NC is the most effective strategy.

And if you can get an observatory spot, for 99% of the time you should go for it. For this map, it even has mining lux and river... and 2 wheat next to it. Ideal.

For 2nd city, it's also great - river, coastal, observatory spot. This strategy is proven to be effective at GnK. This 2 city setup is even more powerful in BNW as you can ship food from each city to the other so that both cities grow much faster.

I usually don't go for any early wonders at immortal, but for this map there was no reason to get any units so I just got the wonder that is almost guaranteed and I needed. I needed religion anyway and GE points from stonehenge is great.

Hmm, maybe I am not executing right.

I've attached my state at T111.

Here's what I did.

Capital:
- Monument
- Worker, switching to Granary when Pottery finishes
- Finishing the Worker
- Stonehenge
- Library
- Worker
- National College
- Settler
- Water Mill (while Settler walking over)
- Caravan x2
- Oracle attempt (missed by a turn, it was built on t68)
- Writer's Guild
- National Epic
- Garden
- Market
- Workshop
- University
- Circus Maximum (in progress)

Second City:
- Buy a Granary
- Library
- Lighthouse
- University
- Water Mill
- Trireme (for exploration? or did you mean work boat?)
- Shrine
- Colosseum
- Market
- Workshop (in progress)

Social Policies:
- Tradition Opener
- Legalism
- Landed Elite
- Monarchy
- Aristocracy
- Oligarchy
- Patronage Opener
- Philanthropy (then bought Allies with Ragusa for 500g)

Tech:
- Pottery
- Calendar
- Writing
- Philosophy
- Mining
- Animal Husbandry
- Sailing
- Optics
- Bronze Working
- Drama and Poetry
- Beeline Civil Service
- Beeline Education
- Beeline Printing Press
- (Queued) Beeline Astronomy

As you can see, I'm far behind where you are, even at the same turn.

alcaras said:

Hmm, maybe I am not executing right.

I've attached my state at T111.

Here's what I did.

Capital:
- Monument
- Worker, switching to Granary when Pottery finishes
- Finishing the Worker
- Stonehenge
- Library
- Worker
- National College
- Settler
- Water Mill (while Settler walking over)
- Caravan x2
- Oracle attempt (missed by a turn, it was built on t68)
- Writer's Guild
- National Epic
- Garden
- Market
- Workshop
- University
- Circus Maximum (in progress)

Second City:
- Buy a Granary
- Library
- Lighthouse
- University
- Water Mill
- Trireme (for exploration? or did you mean work boat?)
- Shrine
- Colosseum
- Market
- Workshop (in progress)

Social Policies:
- Tradition Opener
- Legalism
- Landed Elite
- Monarchy
- Aristocracy
- Oligarchy
- Patronage Opener
- Philanthropy (then bought Allies with Ragusa for 500g)

Tech:
- Pottery
- Calendar
- Writing
- Philosophy
- Mining
- Animal Husbandry
- Sailing
- Optics
- Bronze Working
- Drama and Poetry
- Beeline Civil Service
- Beeline Education
- Beeline Printing Press
- (Queued) Beeline Astronomy

As you can see, I'm far behind where you are, even at the same turn.

Click to expand...

1. You haven't scouted the map enough. Ignore spt, pop, etc, and just look at the minimap for the same turn.

It is really essential to meet many CS asap so that you can plan on what vic you aim for and to get quests. You should have sent 2 scouts to explore (and when you get ruin, you can get nice pop ruins that would jump your cap's pop from like 12 to 13). Also, meeting other civs will let you exchange/sell lux (in this map, your only lux is wine, so it's required to exchanged them for other lux to keep happiness).

2. philanthropy (left 1, right?) is bad, unless you have lots of cash and can get scholarism soon. Which is not the case for this map and civ. I recommend right 1 (it was aesthetics before, don't know what the name is now, but it gives you +20 influence so with protection you get 30 influence for free so you are friends with all CS you met). Of course, to utilize this well you need to scout well and meet CS asap.

3. Astronomy before printing press. First reason is to explore asap: My 2 scouts and 1 trireme did some scouting, but I also got 2 trireme ready before the astronomy (see t92) and upgraded them to caravel and explored. 2nd reason is to get astronomy asap. Observatory is really OP. NC gives 50%, univ gives 33%, and this one gives 50% on top of that. Your pop is 18 16, and mine is 20 18, so pop is not that different. The difference in spt comes from rationalism opener + secularism and observatory.

Usually it's recommended to oxford astronomy so that you can get obs asap and time rationalism opener. You can use +3 sci from oxford from early on (with 133% multiplier and rati opener 10%, this is not a negligible thing) and you can get theme bonus from early on.

4. Lastly, this is not really important, compared to the previous points, but for 1 city NC you shouldn't have problem with happiness early on so you should get aristocracy before monarchy. You can save some turns for NC (which leads to faster tech) and can get oracle.

5. one more: not sure what I did, but for 2nd city it would be better to build lighthouse earlier than library.

Thanks for all your advice!

I ended up doing the following and got to 161 Science at Turn 111, which is a huge improvement over where I was.

I wonder if I should have prioritized Optics earlier to get my scouts out and about sooner (and perhaps passed on Hagia Sophia). Do you buy OB from the AIs to pass through their lands? They usually want 2-3 gpt.

alcaras said:

I ended up doing the following and got to 161 Science at Turn 111, which is a huge improvement over where I was.

I wonder if I should have prioritized Optics earlier to get my scouts out and about sooner (and perhaps passed on Hagia Sophia). Do you buy OB from the AIs to pass through their lands? They usually want 2-3 gpt.

Click to expand...

Why would you need Hagia Sophia? Optics is pretty important on a map like this, as already stated meeting other civs opens up trading opportunities that are very important, and CS give a big boost if you can fulfill a random quest here and there.
Without any outside influence you are still on 2/3 of his science, mainly due to not exploring the map. Are you getting universities up asap? Running their specialist slots?

Good points. I saw Hagia Sophia and was like "ooh, wonder" and figured it can't hurt to enhance my religion earlier. But you're right. It can hurt, if it delays exploration and Optics.

Playing through this map several times to T111 has been instructive in how to improve my play, because I have a benchmark to hit (glory7's screenshot above) and it's fun to figure out how to do it, and more importantly, why the way to get there works.

Until this game, I didn't realize exploring early made as much of a difference as it does.

Apart from exploring earlier, what else can I change to hit glory7's benchmark?

alcaras said:

Until this game, I didn't realize exploring early made as much of a difference as it does.

Apart from exploring earlier, what else can I change to hit glory7's benchmark?

Click to expand...

The immortal/deity challenges are also good for things like that, and maybe you get different accounts and playstyles.

Exploration makes you tech faster and gives you trading opportunities. Meeting city states means they give you quests and you can befriend/ally them, and in total you want to know what goes on around you.

You can read about optimal science openings in other threads, i guess. Optimize the build order, lock on production tiles, use specialists manually, don't automate workers, there are a lot of areas where one can improve his gameplay.

meeting other civs and CSs is just too crucial. pay 2-3 gpt for open borders - they are worth it.

and I would suggest that instead of going for t111 benchmark, check when you get secularism. That's the point when your science is really high and surpass AIs. I think t111 was secularism time for me at this game.

and get optics asap and let your scouts start swim - in this game right after philo - sometimes it's even better to get optics before philo, but for this map I thought NC fast is better. It depends.

alcaras said:

Thanks for all your advice!

I ended up doing the following and got to 161 Science at Turn 111, which is a huge improvement over where I was.

I wonder if I should have prioritized Optics earlier to get my scouts out and about sooner (and perhaps passed on Hagia Sophia). Do you buy OB from the AIs to pass through their lands? They usually want 2-3 gpt.

Spoiler :

## Capital

- Monument
- Worker, switching to Granary when Pottery finishes
- Finish the Worker
- Stonehenge
- Library
- Worker
- National College
- Settler
- Oracle (while Settler walking over)
- Caravan x2
- Finish Oracle
- Hagia Sophia
- Scout
- Writer's Guild
- National Epic
- Garden
- Water Mill
- Start Colosseum
- Oxford

- Observatory
- Finish Colosseum

- Artist's Guild

## Second City

- Buy a Granary
- Library
- Trireme
- Lighthouse
- Water Mill
- Work Boat
- Work Boat

- University
- Trireme (for upgrade to Caraval with Astronomy)
- Trireme (for upgrade to Caraval)

- Observatory
- Colosseum

- Work Boat
- Harbor (because no good routes in range)


## Social Policies

- Tradition Opener
- Legalism
- Landed Elite
- Aristocracy
- Monarchy
- Oligarchy
- Patronage Opener
- Consulates

## Research

- Pottery
- Calendar
- Writing
- Philosophy
- Mining
- Animal Husbandry
- Sailing
- Beeline Theology
- Optics
- Beeline Education
- Masonry?
- Beeline Education
- Compass
- Beeline Printing Press and Bulb Astronomy

# Production

- Lock Food w/ Production & Specialists on Buildings
- Pure Production on Wonders, including National Wonders
- Also Pure Production on Settlers
- Or anywhere we're in a rush....

Click to expand...

not sure why, but your pops are too low - compare this one with the previous game of yours. Did you forget to use caravans to send food, or did you hit unhappy sometime?

glory7 said:

not sure why, but your pops are too low - compare this one with the previous game of yours. Did you forget to use caravans to send food, or did you hit unhappy sometime?

Click to expand...

The previous game I set cities on Prioritize Food unless I was building a wonder, when I switched them to Prioritize Production. I didn't lock any tiles either.

This game I set cities on Prioritize Food, then locked all the tiles that it selected, then switched to Prioritize Production (while the tiles were locked). Each time the city would grow I would toggle back to Food, relock, and then go back to Production. (I've seen Deity level players do this on streams, but am not entirely sure why -- something to do with forcing the citizen to work a production tile on city growth, in the turn you don't have control over the new citizen because it's new). I would also lock Academy and settled Great Prophet tiles once I had them. Specialists would be Manual, with all on University and Writers' Guild.

But when building National Wonders or Wonders, I would uncheck Manual Specialists, letting it go back to automatic, and then optimize production. This is what probably led to my lower food total. Since there's no competition for National Wonders, maybe I shouldn't go pure production on them? But on the other hand, isn't getting Oxford faster better? Not sure when to go pure production.

For workers, I improved food and luxury resources first (farming Wheat, plantationing Wine and farming riverside hills) before mining.

alcaras said:

Here's the starting position:


Turns out we're completely walled off. I beeline Optics and try to do 4 city tradition, but end up horribly behind, with no viable victory options.

If anyone wants to try, here's the starting position save file. Note that I'm using the PerfectWorld 3 map script, so you'll need to have that loaded.

I don't want to believe that there are maps that are unwinnable, especially from Turn 0 ... I am curious what is the right strategy to victory here, however.

Click to expand...

I would like to know what the nearby terrain looks like beyond the mountains, and how much total land you have before bumping into coast or neighbors in each direction. Scout like crazy. I've been building 2 fast scouts every Pangaea now & I haven't looked back at other build orders. Sometimes I'll add a third in even. As for a capital, this looks very defensible by land, and tundra faith with granaries & Maritime CSes will make for a really nice capital if you can drive hard on growth. Tundra faith on all those tundra hills might offer a mid to late religion which could be very nice. As for liberty versus tradition, the food tradition picks will be good here, but it really depends on how many nearby viable cities you have (viable= 1-2 luxuries, 2+ resources). You probably only have a couple nearby viable city sites, if so tradition all the way. Push growth and science hard, early National College, libraries A.S.A.P., fast universities. You should be into astronomy early off education just to break out and meet everyone, so if you scout a target weak to frigates, that would be an ideal military for you since the sea is pretty much your only weakness in this position until artillery & flight. That's how I'd play it anyway.