Immortal has become tougher.

[Txurce]

Pre-patch, I had won all but one of dozens of Immortal games (all science victories). I've played 6 games with the new patch on Immortal, using Continents Plus maps. I won two without going to war, a third in which I had a tough early fight, and quit two after losing cities. In all the games I was using Tabarnak's opening, with fewer ranged units than he recommends.

In the first loss the Celts lined up spears and bows en masse and overwhelmed me. I was surprised they did it so well. In my close win I learned to take out melee units rather than ranged, only because there were too many ranged to limit their damage. In my second loss, Korea had a 4-tech lead and overwhelmed my crossbows with cannon, muskets, knights and lancers. Again, it was overwhelming. (Korea also attacked during a DoF, with no red attitudes at all.)

This last game makes me feel that Immortal has become more limited in terms of research, in that you have to maintain a decent-sized, up-to-date military if there are any neighbors who may cause trouble. The days of a few ranged units staving off poorly coordinated attacks seem to be over.

Part of the issue is that the AI spends much more of its gold - a good thing - which doesn't allow the human player to develop as quickly. As a result, I've noticed that my science has felt mediocre in all my games, regardless of whether I won or lost.

 

[Wargizmo]

Pre-patch, I had won all but one of dozens of Immortal games (all science victories). I've played 6 games with the new patch on Immortal, using Continents Plus maps. I won two without going to war, a third in which I had a tough early fight, and quit two after losing cities. In all the games I was using Tabarnak's opening, with fewer ranged units than he recommends.

In the first loss the Celts lined up spears and bows en masse and overwhelmed me. I was surprised they did it so well. In my close win I learned to take out melee units rather than ranged, only because there were too many ranged to limit their damage. In my second loss, Korea had a 4-tech lead and overwhelmed my crossbows with cannon, muskets, knights and lancers. Again, it was overwhelming. (Korea also attacked during a DoF, with no red attitudes at all.)

This last game makes me feel that Immortal has become more limited in terms of research, in that you have to maintain a decent-sized, up-to-date military if there are any neighbors who may cause trouble. The days of a few ranged units staving off poorly coordinated attacks seem to be over.

Part of the issue is that the AI spends much more of its gold - a good thing - which doesn't allow the human player to develop as quickly. As a result, I've noticed that my science has felt mediocre in all my games, regardless of whether I won or lost.

I think the biggest difference is simply the amount of gold they have at the start of the game to sell off luxuries to. Without being able to rush buy as much at the start it really sets back your entire empire. Small delays at the start snowball into big delays later on.

 

[Veneke]

I definitely agree with this. Immortal pre-patch was, for myself, pretty much a guaranteed win provided I paid attention; post-patch though I'm struggling something serious Immortal. I initially thought that it might be just that I'm rusty (haven't played in several months) but I quite agree - whatever the patch did it made the AI on Immortal far more competent in science, and that'll kill off your chances of winning really quickly.

 

[Gamewizard]

Txurce, you should try out the TSGotM47 when you get a chance. It was a fun immortal game.

Back on topic...yes the decrease in AI gold, especially at the higher levels, makes the game harder as expected. I believe this is another thing that you can thank Thalasicus and his mod for. The devs clearly love his work.

 

[Txurce]

Txurce, you should try out the TSGotM47 when you get a chance. It was a fun immortal game.

Back on topic...yes the decrease in AI gold, especially at the higher levels, makes the game harder as expected. I believe this is another thing that you can thank Thalasicus and his mod for. The devs clearly love his work.

Thanks for the tip - will do. And yes, both the lower AI gold and the increased pillaging (but not the healing) originated with Thal's mod.

 

[Light Cleric]

I've noticed the AI is spamming WAY more on Deity than they did before, it's kinda crazy. I would guess Immortal is kind of the same. It's annoying dealing with having less money and the AI having more units, but trading for their GPT helps. You lose a little bit compared to normal gold and it takes a little while but it's better than the luxuries sitting there. It also has the benefit of shoving people you don't like into budget deficit for research.

Something else I've seen is that the AI is much more likely to go beat up City-States now, sometimes multiple ones. Even CS friendly civs like Polynesia have done it, it's strange.

 

[RedRover57]

I considered myself a solid Immortal player pre-patch and I have to agree that Immortal seems to be significantly more difficult post-patch. The current GotM was my first game post-patch and I got blindsided and destroyed by the Celts (they brought over a dozen units to my capital) while I had most of my units to the north fighting Alex, who had DoWed me earlier. Even a replay of the game with better preparation was rough going as I had a persistent war situation that really slowed down my progress.

In my second Immortal game (Ottomans, small earth map) I had both the Aztecs and Mongols as close neighbors (bad luck). Even though I prepared as well as I could based on the circumstances (walls, 4-5 archers, 3 spears) I was DoWed by Monty on turn 60-ish and he brought no less than 15 units (jaguars and archers). I had killed off half or more of his units (with some losses of my own) when Attila also DoWed and brought (you guessed it) a dozen or so units (4-5 horse archers, warriors/spears and a few battering rams). Needless to say I was overwhelmed.

Currently playing a game on Emperor (Ottomans, large islands, small map) and this one is going well.

In addition to the AI aggression and larger early armies I have also noticed that espionage seems even more annoying post-patch. I have lost spies more often when trying to steal techs and my spies don't seem to be able to kill enemy spies in my capital as easily. Also, my spies aren't very helpful at stopping coups in CS's. The AI can coup at will it seems, as always. The only upside regarding CS relations with the new patch is that the AI has less gold from buying troops and therefore less gold to throw at CS's (including Austria, who doesn't seem to use their UA quite as often).

 

[budweiser]

I have had some success on Immortal. My Russia vs Gandhi; I stayed OCC and used Honor until I could pump units every 2 or 3 turns from Moscow. I also just held off Washington as Willem although he did have a jungle start. On Diety, Inca, I spawned next to Genghis but he went after Theodora and Halrod went after me. I won against Harold.

Watch out though because they will pillage your citadels now, so you have to be able to hold on to those.

Another thing, is I saw the AI go for God of Protection first quite a few times when I wanted it for my self. Its not much trouble getting a pantheon if you go scout, Pottery, Shrine.

 

[neilkaz]

Now more than ever there's a need for a level between Emperor and Immortal. Pre-patch I was crushing Emperor so easily that it was boring, and holding my own once I stepped up to Immortal although I could still have troubles with run-away AI's winning a science or even diplo victory. Now Emperor seems a bit tougher but no real problems and from what I'm reading here I am going to have issues playing Immortal and keeping up with Tech while cranking out units all the time.

 

[Txurce]

As I mentioned earlier, I have also had two games in which the AI never attacked, and came close only in one. But I just started a game as the Mayans on the coast, and found Spain, France and Rome as close neighbors. How close? Rome had three and France two cities before I had a second one, and they built so close to me that I could only expand along the coast and in a largely desert peninsula beyond.The situation seemed hopeless, so...

I took Goddess of Protection along with Oligarchy, then built five atlatlists and two spears, then took the protected settler Rome was moving into the peninsula. I promoted them all to Composite Bows, and was therefore ready for the Roman and (of course) French onslaughts. They still only had archers, and I quickly gained peace with France, and Rome after taking his closest city. Spain declared war soon after, and I stopped her swords easily. Rome came back with a serious army, including five ballistas, but they were no match for my city defenses and multiple bowmen.

I'm now moving on Rome, and will continue to play it safe, going for Machinery before Education. But there may be an advantage to starting a very early war with eventual enemies, even when ultimately playing for a peaceful victory (science in my case).

 

[chazzycat]

I've only played one game so far (immortal), but haven't had any problems really. A lot of the AI only expanded to 2-3 cities at the beginning and with my 4 cities/tradition opener I lead in science from the get-go. lump sum gold is harder to find, but you can still get good GPT deals. Siam was my neighbor which is usually a problem...but I was able to hold off his attacks then counter with a wave of minutemen/crossbows (despite totally forgetting to pillage...d'oh). Once I took his wonders it was pretty much game over, just gotta finish it out. Have 8 cities and #1 in every single demo.

 

[Tachii]

It's more like you need time to adapt to the new changes. I've yet to try the patch though *cough* I hear there's a bunch of problems associated with it.

 

[pwoz]

I didn't think it was particularly hard. I beat it quite easily even restricting myself to no Research Agreements. The pillage heal is very nice for taking apart AI's.

 

[Light Cleric]

Again, I know I'm talking about Deity in an Immortal thread, but it fits the theme because the AI spam really feels like it's been taken "up to eleven" now. After I took down Theodora and marched my Crossbows/LS/Trebs down to Nebby/Dr. Stampy PhD Esq. III(my new name for Rammy after someone poked fun at my pronunciation of it lol), the guys watching my stream commented that the whole map was a giant clusterf*** of units and there were "like no free tiles". The fact that I can differentiate between the normal Deity spam and this insane new spam says a hell of a lot.

Something else I noticed is that the way the AI is spending gold, they don't even really ally City-States in peacetime or sign Research Agreements and I've noticed the tech pace has been pretty slow in any game that doesn't have Korea or sometimes Babylon if the AI doesn't play them badly like they often do and I haven't had a lot of trouble keeping tech parity. It's almost like the AIs are ignoring research a lot of the time in favor of spamming more. The new normal for hitting Renaissance by the AI seems to be ~125(most noticeable benchmark for me because of spies popping up), which is probably a good 15-20 turns past the old normal, although I don't exactly have a large sample size(I've seen them get there by ~96 before pre-patch with weird GL timing occasionally, it was nuts). In wartime, though, they do their typical "buy a CS every turn" thing.

I also don't know if this is a bug or not because I haven't been able to read all the patch discussion, but there's something pretty significant; if the AI captures a city and decides to annex it and then you capture it from them, you cannot puppet it and it is automatically annex to you. That's pretty big when you're trying to build National Wonders as well as for Social Policy costs.

 

[budweiser]

Back to Immortal.

As Russia, I got one of those starts where your lands are blocked by 3 City States so the others can’t reach you. It’s pretty deep in the game (Atomic Theory & Apollo are out) and the Russian Self Defense Forces consist/ have consisted all game of 4 warriors, 2 archers and a caravel still.

America is making really rude noises at me for being so weak and he might try a cross channel action, we will see. I still need to finish one Tree for cultural and I am in a dead heat with Egypt. He has exactly as many policies as me and it feels like he is about 5 turns ahead of me. It could be a tough loss, but what I really wanted was From Russia, with Love and didn’t get it.

 

[The Pilgrim]

As I've already posted in GD thread, I'm under impression the game has become tougher when you're fighting. Longer wars with more units involved on all sides set you back more than before. But peaceful play feels the same so far. The defense requires few more range units as well, but that's not critical, IMO. Have to play another half dozens of games to get a better feeling of the things though.

 

[loki75]

Yes, it has become tougher. I have needed several save/reload on the first 70 turns to get things right.
What I have seen so far:
- money is scarcer than before so you can't sell your luxuries as easily,
- AI expands faster, more aggressively. They are probably buying settlers.
I have to shift my openings towards settler because otherwise I am too late to build cities and good spots are taken.

 

[Txurce]

On Immortal there is now also no doubt in my mind that the AI does not respect DoF's. I have been attacked twice in this game by Friends, and have done nothing to provoke it. This has happened before, but I can't write it ff to chance anymore. If you look weak, even your Friends will be tempted.

 

[The Pilgrim]

If you look weak, even your Friends will be tempted.

That makes sense now when they have even bigger armies.

 

[stealth82]

I definitely agree with this. Immortal pre-patch was, for myself, pretty much a guaranteed win provided I paid attention; post-patch though I'm struggling something serious Immortal. I initially thought that it might be just that I'm rusty (haven't played in several months) but I quite agree - whatever the patch did it made the AI on Immortal far more competent in science, and that'll kill off your chances of winning really quickly.

My. Same. Impression.

I played several immortal games and although I thought I was doing well tech-wise the other "big" Civs were still furiously neck and neck.

If you don't start a war early and take off a Civ later wars are tougher, like never before. It seems I'm not able to put myself ahead in tech enough to make a real difference anymore. Always playing with the same toys other Civs have, or toys useful for only a few turns. After that I'm hitting a wall because these Civs have "carpets", "carpets"!

Probably the new changes require more strategy/politics and pushing the strengths of the Civ you are playing with to new levels.

This is the first time I'm thinking of dropping a difficulty level and going back to Emperor.