Defeated once again by sheer boredom

[Juanholio]

Okay, I tried another foray into immortal difficulty on the back of a string of easy wins on emp as a number of different civs/VCs.

I tried Babylon thinking that the free GS might be a help. As expected I was 'DoW'ed by neighbouring Russia and Korea but was plenty prepared with bowmen and later c. bowmen. Both sought peace in my favour with good lump gold & gpt deals.

A bit later aggressive Russia DoWs again while fighting Korea. And so it begins... a war that lasts a couple of millenia but doesn't go anywhere. They have seemingly endless units - I can't produce and move fast enough to make them stay dead. On the other hand I was doing pretty well and competing very well with other civs - founding a religion which became dominant on the continent.

So I guess my question is: is this the nature of immortal games? Basically I have played a number of games where I do pretty well if not top civ (on score due to lack of wonders but good dev otherwise). Each and every time an inevitable war (wanted or otherwise) ends by me quitting a tedious stalemate. I keep coming back for more because since a lot of people here seem to play (and enjoy) immortal and deity and I'd quite like to be that good! But if it's like this all the time I simply don't have the patience. Maybe I need some sort of Emperor++

 

[Sherlock]

I always play on Prince. I tried some higher level games and it's constant war and constant units.

One game I had a neighbor AI who had one city attack me pretty early on with over a dozen units. Where did he get that huge army so early in the game with one city? I remember being just amazed at all those units.

I find the war is not my favorite part of the game so I stick to normal for difficulty.

 

[PhilBowles]

I've played a lot of Immortal games recently where I've only been involved in wars I start, and have tended to play peacefully through most of the game, DoFing with most of my neighbours. I've only had one 'early rush' game.

On the other hand, I just boredom-quit today's Immortal game. My scout had been roaming around the area where Greece and America were gathering troops and that seemed to stall their 'rush' - I built up forces to defend the target city; still no rush. Greece did eventually attack, but although I saw them off they just kept pouring units my way to get killed. They had no ranged units my terrain wasn't conducive to them anyway, so I wasn't going to lose cities - it just got dull having to devote so much of the game to combat so early on, knowing it would set me behind in the long run and I wasn't having any opportunity to use any of Sweden's abilities.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I was sandwiched between Korea and Germany in my Immortal game. Surprisingly, Korea never attacked me but continued to covet my lands, as I did a tradition opener 4 city rush. Germany attacked but was held back, and Persia tried to attack Germany but failed. I was in mild unhappiness the entire game, and never built National College. Then I discovered Egypt who had a 25-pop capital, so I decided I would tap out of that one. Everyone was in Rennaisance when I just barely got civil service.

 

[Tachii]

This is why I like to play on Fractal. There's so much variation in that I could be isolated on a lone continent - so much so I won't be meeting any civ until I get Astronomy, or so close to another civ I'd be getting an insanely early war - I'd have trouble even producing 4 archers for a legit defense, or fairly isolated due to terrain but have 4 AI civ together in the land south of my direction - probably the best scenario where I could just bribe the most powerful guy to DOW on the weakest guy over and over so in the end the 4 all denounce each other and make a gazillion military units to kill each other while I work on my infrastructure.

 

[Kwami]

I started on Prince, then moved to King, Emperor, and Immortal. I've found the diplomacy and war to be nearly identical on all four difficulty levels. I generally go tall with my empires and play nice with the AI, so I've had entire games on Immortal without a single war. In my last game, I actually went wide with The Aztecs and still scored a Science victory without a single war on Immortal. On the other hand, I've had some of those never-ending wars on lower settings (esp. King & Emperor). So, I don't know. Maybe you've just had bad luck?

Supposedly, there's more war on Deity, but I'm skeptical. I guess I'll find out in my next game!

 

[GhostSalsa]

Equating never-ending war with boredom??

My problem is I can't get into an endless war anymore. There might be a runaway on another continent but I keep seeing science victory from too far off. I probably dominated on my continent by excessively lucky or good timing in attacking neighbors. I've moved up to immortal with little improvement. The only great contest I had recently was a little too two-front, and I wrote off as certain loss: both my neighbors Ceaser and Nebby were huge runaways by 0AD, and knocking at the walls. I think I'll go load that one back up.

 

[Esperr]

I have the same expierience on immortal, unless I iso start. But other then that it will be millenia before you can crackback, because there money and production bonus allows them to drop an army every single freaking turn. Its annoying.

 

[DGDobrev]

In response to the OP:

I think this seems to be the case in most immortal games. I usually play OCC, as I find it heaps of fun to be limited to only 1 city. In all of my games, I noticed a few tendencies:

- if you have a warmonger civ nearby, they will rush early, and DoW regularly, unless you find a way to get friendly with them
---> To avoid it, simply beat their initial attack off, and when you get to Education and you're still at war, sign as many RA's as possible, give your gold for GpT to someone and sign peace. The AI will want to have your gold, but since you have none, it will simply sign the peace. Once I bribed the AI with my last gold coin for peace

- if you refuse giving them what they want, they will just keep the war going. In my last OCC scientific victory game on Immortal, I had a squabble with Genghis from like 2500 BC till 1860 AD, simply because I told him to bite it when he asked for my gold. What's worse, he was trying to go past me on some occasions to attack another civ, and squarely got his army butchered every 10-15 turns. The AI finally gives up, but it takes a long time.
---> To avoid it, using the aforementioned strat will help, as well as signing a few DoF's with your attacker's friends.

- another thing I noticed - the AI likes to DoW players to have taken Swords into Plowshares in order to negate their advantage. It is not easy to avoid this, but bribing the AI with a few gold helps - or simply choose another religious bonus. Everyone knows what Fertility rites + Full Tradition + Temple of Artemis + Petra + Swords into Plowshares means... 50+ city by turn 250 even with poor setup. I, personally, had a 65+ city in OCC with this setup with normal resources.

- last but not least, the AI tries to keep the game chances stacked against the human player. Since war deters the advancement of the human player, AI logically turns to it. A way to avoid it is to keep as friendly as possible with the AI, never steal from them, double-forgive them when they fail to steal from you (when you get the message, click and "let this pass" and then "Forgive" when they ask for forgiveness.

So far I can't think of any more reasons why would an Immortal-AI will DoW too often. It looks logical not to give into demands, but by using workarounds and other options, you can keep the AI peaceful for a long time.

 

[AiTenshi1]

It really depends on two things: specific map generated and specific AI civs generated. My current immortal game stinks very badly for me and is extremely annoying (no resources for me but lots for the AIs, Polynesia DoWing Ghengis for no reason with China running away with territory/cities, Polynesia running away with culture victory and no one stopping him except very minor attempts by me, etc.). It's a tiny, small continents map and just did not give me anything to work with by the late game. So it just depends.

 

[Lakissov]

The best way to end a war is to reduce the AI's army and increase yours. And increasing can be done not just by pumping out new units, but also by getting a tech advantage and upgrading your units.

I just had a case like that very recently. I'm trying an Aztec culture game on Immortal, and I've been delaying researching the tech that obsoletes jaguars for quite some time (to build more of them and then later have super-powered rifles). The result was that my army seemed very weak to AI's, and I got DOW-d by Rome, then Egypt, then Huns. At first, even though I beat their assaults off (with my human-level tactics, not superior arms), they were still demanding everything I have for peace. Then, when I hit Metal Casting and started upgrading my jaguars, suddenly Rome wanted peace on even terms. Several turns later, when my jags started becoming musketmen, Attila panicked and offered me all his gold, gpt and luxes for peace (I was able to get the same from Egypt too).

So, from my experience, the easiest way to peace is to get a tech lead and upgrade your army.

 

[DGDobrev]

I would like to add another thing to my post - if you have a lot of gold and a weak military, sooner or later you get DoW'd.

I decided to try a game with sweden as OCC on pangea, Immortal, and got Monty * Cathy as neighbors. I was almost ready to quit, but I had 3 luxuries, so I thought... oh well, why not
Since I teched well, they did not DoW me, even Monty went past me to go attack Cathy, and everyone was freindly for a long time. However, around 600 AD, they both turned on me, cause I decided to stockpice cash for future RA's. This effectively cut my way of to finding the last 2 civs, and I feel sorry for it, cause I was able to make a turn 2 city with decent bias and get ToA, GL, Tradion, Fertility Rites, Petra (!) and swords into plowshares. I guess that was too much for the AI I certainly won't break any records, but I peaced out on T220, and I ar researching rocketry. The game seems won, but it is nowhere near perfect. Babylon, Pacal or Korea should have planted more than 3 scientists by now...

I am starting to think that there is a breakpoint where AI decides that you pose a threat and after that point they start to go all aggro at you...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@PhilBowles

You have mentioned that you have had a lot of peaceful games lately. May I ask, what is your strategy? I find early rushes on king usually unsurvivable. On Prince, I can survive but the long early wars set me back developmentally. The only way I currently know how to avoid early rushes is to either have friendly neighbors (which is entirely up to chance) or to build a massively early army. To do that, however, I'm set back almost as much as if I had been rushed. Thoughts?

 

[ahawk]

Immortal I find more fun militarily. If I boredom-quit on Immortal, it's almost always because I got an unusually good start.

Prince I like for peaceful strategies, and I prefer Prince because of this. When I go war-monger on Prince, though, I almost always quit from boredom because it usually gets to a point where all I have to do is move my slow artillery units from one side of the map to the other and mop everyone up.

Emperor is my ideal. War isn't perpetual, so there's enough peace to work with, and yet when war does break out it's challenging enough through much of it. If Immortal isn't quite your cup of tea, play Emperor with the settings stacked slightly against you (England with no water, Aztecs or Germany or Askia with no barbs, etc). That's as close as you can get to Emperor ++

 

[nokmirt]

All the wars I have been in lately have been really short. I play on emperor, but the AI asks for peace even before it loses a city. I wish the AI had more resolve. An endless war would be a godsend. This edition of CiV is way too unaggressive. I hope the devs address that issue, because, yes, boredom is becoming a problem.

 

[Tachii]

I find early rushes on king usually unsurvivable. On Prince, I can survive but the long early wars set me back developmentally. The only way I currently know how to avoid early rushes is to either have friendly neighbors (which is entirely up to chance) or to build a massively early army. To do that, however, I'm set back almost as much as if I had been rushed. Thoughts?

Depend what you mean by massive.

I decided to play an aggressive game once since I had the Romans as my only neighbour (you and I both know he will make a load of his UUs to screw me over in the Classical period).

So as the Ottomans, I made 4 archers, saved my money so I can upgrade them at the same time, and with just 2 warriors and a spearmen acting as meat shields, I took Rome and Cumae without losing a single unit. This was all under T100 of course, I forgot the exact numbers though.

I find it if you can surprise the AI instead of waiting for them to DOW on you with their truly massive armies, just start the war sooner and pick your targets first with archers. The point isn't to take their cities ASAP, it's to whittle down their long list of garbage units with your 4 archers, then by the time you upgrade them all into CBs, they will take cities more effectively once you killed most of their military standing units.

My production was pretty poor as well. I think it took me like 6-8 turns to get a single archer up in my capital. And this was already around T30+ or something.

You could say it put me somewhat back in science, but positively, it means I don't have to face a massive Roman army somewhere down the road. And I did squeeze a library in there as soon as I build 3 archers in my capital while I made the 4th in my second city. I think I was behind like 2 civs in science after I discovered them in the Medieval era (one guy entered Renaissance in like T100-110 or something. Mostly because it took ages to build the NC in my capitol when it only had like ONE hill and a lumber mill, no strategic resources and some plain farms (this was within the entire city premise that could be worked, not just the adjacent tiles).

I realized I should've just went for Liberty instead of Tradition when my production is so bad and I was going to puppet early (met Romans pretty early since they were only like 8-10 tiles close.

 

[smallfish]

Emperor is my ideal. War isn't perpetual, so there's enough peace to work with, and yet when war does break out it's challenging enough through much of it. If Immortal isn't quite your cup of tea, play Emperor with the settings stacked slightly against you (England with no water, Aztecs or Germany or Askia with no barbs, etc). That's as close as you can get to Emperor ++

Play on Emperor against AI teams.

That's the closest thing you'll ever experience to Immortal without upping the difficulty ladder.

 

[nokmirt]

Play on Emperor against AI teams.

That's the closest thing you'll ever experience to Immortal without upping the difficulty ladder.

I never tried immortal is it really that tough?

 

[thadian]

- if you refuse giving them what they want, they will just keep the war going

This. Keep your coffers empty and have nothing to give for a demand. Or else they will demand whatever it is they can, a resource or gold or gold per turn. For instance, you hit a golden age and get +18 gold per turn. the AI will come asking for +16 gold per turn, all of them will come knocking at once.

 

[DGDobrev]

The best option is to just empty the coffers and try to get peace on the earliest possible turn. This is especially improtant and valid if you're saving cash for RA's - you always want to be out of war when this happens - cause even of the AI DoW's, you just sign the RA's and get peace in a bunch of turns. Unless your capital is situated in a bad place with minimal defenses, it won't go down in less than 5 turns.