[BNW] Need help on Immortal domination: huge fractal 22 civs, 41 CS

[keloo]

Hi,

Here's my setup:

22 civs, 41 CS, domination only
Huge fractal map.
No start bias, raging barbs, random personalities

I am trying to beat the AIs on Immortal and regularly falling behind on tech and then getting my ass whooped when the AIs got riflemen and I still got XBs.

I have a game where I managed to survive till I got the atomic bomb, and then I started rolling the AIs, but I didn't finish it cause it would have been very tedious. It was on continents, and by year 2000 or so I hadn't even finished cleaning up my own continent and had an even bigger continent left to clean up.

I tried playing with Germany and the Aztecs. I have a lot of trouble with happiness, resulting in my cities often being much smaller than the AI's. At some point Ethiopia was having a 30pop city, when my biggest city was 6 or 7. I am not sure which techs I should beeline and when, which policy trees to go for, when exactly I should build a new city. Should I even bother trying to get a religion ? I LOVE pagodas, cause they help me with my happiness problem, but sometimes it's really hard to get a religion with so many other civs in the game.

That despite reading a lot online and playing already quite a lot on Immortal. For some reason, I can't manage to get a feel for this kind of game. The problem is, with my setup it's pretty crowded, I get to the Industrial Era with 6-8 cities or so, but by then some AI manages to get 12-15 cities and pump science and be 9-10 techs ahead. In fact, I never seem to be able to close the science gap, but rather let the AIs widen it

I also think I don't know very well how to use my units. It would help if there were some youtube tutorials on this. I tried, but couldn't find any specifically for using bowmen/XB.

Thank you for the feedback.

 

[phryxolydian]

On a huge map you will never be able to have as many cities (while being happy) as the AI. Just be at peace with that, the AI gets HUGE happiness (as well as many other) bonuses. I have never played with your setup but I'd try Small Continents instead of Continents + Low Seas. The continents will still be big enough to fit your 7-8 cities empire if you spawn isolated and , if not (because 22 civs), then you can conquer them (wipe them out - keep the good cities, raze the rest) before you meet many of the AIs (you won't have warmonger penalties with them). I also suggest SC because the AI is notoriously bad at naval warfare so this way you'll have an easier time cleaning up their units with frigates.

As I said, I have not played with your setup (only played a Huge map with the default 12 civs) but, it is a good idea to still try to have your NC by T80-90, if you're going wide (rush NC with Liberty finisher) and, also, to research Sailing and get 2-3 triremes out to meet some AIs at least and get the research boost from that. If you are going Liberty then expect to have gold issues in the mid-game. Huge map means you're very likely to have tons of Bonus Resources that you will eventually be able to sell for A LOT of gpt. You still want Aqueducts, Workshops and Unis and hopefully you can settle a few Observatory cities, this will boost your science a lot.

Other than that, check out Acken's China LP on YT to see a shining example of what can be done with just CBows and XBows (CKNs in that case) and also consentient's Domination guide for noobs. Hope it helps, gl!

 

[consentient]

Why don't you learn how to play on normal settings and then work your way up? You're essentially trying to run like Michael Johnson before you can walk.

 

[beest]

If you fall behing in tech on immortal you're probably not focussing enough on tech, e.g. prioritise universities, public schools, and growth. Unless you want do some early domination game, even then tech is important.

Also, if you play on a map with 22 civs and you want to win by domination, then you need to roll 21 civs (obviously)...I can imaging that can get boring at some point.