On a Immortal difficulty start near Assyria, I feel like the game is over

[Leathaface]

Due to Assyria's big tendency to use Siege Towers early. I feel like I could have 5 composite bowmen and a warrior protecting my capital but still not able to stop Ashurbanipal taking it.

I feel like i'd need to forgo building a library and shine to just build archers to defend my capital. I'd have 7 archers in total which could keep him away.

Any advice on how to survive starting near Ashurbanipal on immortal?

 

[elniallo]

Bribe him to hit someone else

 

[Callonia]

Bribe him to hit someone else if possible. Siege towers is vulnerable to melee if I remember right.. I only ever got to face them once. And that was few years ago. x.x

 

[LordBalkoth]

Post a save game where that happens and I'll make a video showing how to survive. Can be turn 0 or further into the game (but please don't post a save with your Capital at 10% HP and surrounded by Siege Towers, that's a bit more than I can salvage!).

 

[Leathaface]

Post a save game where that happens and I'll make a video showing how to survive. Can be turn 0 or further into the game (but please don't post a save with your Capital at 10% HP and surrounded by Siege Towers, that's a bit more than I can salvage!).

OK. I uploaded the save file, it's turn 91 on epic speed. I'm playing as the Inca.

I'm on 21 gold at -1GPT however Monarchy is only 4 turns away and an undiscovered Brazil and Korea are to the south-west.

I'm unsure on when I was defeated by Assyria, but my last autosave file is named "AutoSave_0130 BC-0750.Civ5save."

 

[shaglio]

IIRC, Siege Towers are like Battering Rams in that they can ONLY attack cities, NOT units. If all he's bringing is STs, you can completely surround your capital with the 5 CB and 1 Warrior and he can't do squat. If he's bringing more to the battle, that's another story.

 

[Redaxe]

You can bribe as mentioned here but you have to remember that is a risky strategy. If Assyria does kill a neighbor from your bribe then chances are he will be even more powerful and will come back to you later.
Delay Libraries if you have to, Immortal gives you plenty of time to catch up on science, just make sure you keep out of unhappiness and your population keep growing. Population is the most important unit of your economy and as long as you are growing you can catch up with libraries/national college later..

 

[LordBalkoth]

You can bribe as mentioned here but you have to remember that is a risky strategy. If Assyria does kill a neighbor from your bribe then chances are he will be even more powerful and will come back to you later.

At the same time, coming back later means more time for Leathaface to get firmly on his feet and the Siege Towers are less dangerous.

Population is the most important unit of your economy and as long as you are growing you can catch up with libraries/national college later..

The reverse, actually. Better to focus on production initially and catch up on growth with Civil Service/Tradition finisher.

 

[Redaxe]

The reverse, actually. Better to focus on production initially and catch up on growth with Civil Service/Tradition finisher.

Depends really. So long as you are progressing your civ that is the main thing. Early production is good but then if you focus a bit on early growth you then have more population to work more production tiles.

Tradition (assuming that is what the OP is using) is very forgiving because of the growth, happiness, gold and defensive bonuses.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Depends really. So long as you are progressing your civ that is the main thing. Early production is good but then if you focus a bit on early growth you then have more population to work more production tiles.

So you're claiming you can focus a bit on early growth and still get out the standard 3 cities by turn 50ish and National College done by turn 85-90ish (standard) in a 3 city Tradition game?

 

[Redaxe]

Sure you grow while you build your opening scouts and monuments/shrines... If you're lucky you might get a pop ruin too.
Your expo's when you plant them should focus on getting to population 3-4 as quick as possible. Usually I chop forests to speed their production along to get a quick shrine or archer if I need.

Anyway we weren't talking about a standard NC setup. The issue was when you start near an early warmonger and you can't take the risk in early science buildings. My point was that delaying libraries/NC is fine so long as you are able to keep steadily increasing population. So the focus would be to have enough happiness so your expo's can grow - even if your capital is still producing settlers. Once your expo's are a bit bigger they pull their own weight more readily.

 

[phillipwyllie]

...I'd have 7 archers in total which could keep him away...
Any advice on how to survive starting near Ashurbanipal on immortal?

You want Composite Bowmen. In one of the DCL(I won't say which) you spawn next to Ashurbarnical(misspelling intended). War is pretty much constant but with comp bowmen he was easy to deal with.

 

[chuckh89]

Why are all your City States angry?
Ahh, because you stole workers from them (Kiev and Jerusalem),....I understand wanting a worker quickly, but NEVER steal from more than one CS (and normally not from High Quality CS like culture, faith either~ preferably Military),...those nearby City States could have totally helped you with your Siege Tower problem.

IMHO this was your biggest mistake.

Positives and Negatives (there are more, but I am just referring to the situation I am focusing on)

Positives
- Three resources in your city (Gold, Ivory, Gems)
- Mongolia is in the game
- Your Faith situation is good with with no Religious competition on your continent.
- Your Pachacuti, and don't expend movement on hills.

Negatives
- Assyria is on your doorstep (And has Siege Towers and Swordsman)
- Your economy stinks
- You have too many workers,....(You have way more tiles improved than you are actually working)
- Mongolia doesn't have any Gold for trading
- Your getting beat to the quality Religions, and need Religion as quickly as possible to help you with your problem.

Ideally you wouldn't have made your CSs angry and it would have have made things much easier to manage this dilemma.

#1 Seize production of Slinger, then resume production right before you get to Composite Bows since upgrading is not a possibility because you have little gold. (Your production toward the Slinger will transition to the C Bowman, so you will have a stronger unit without having to upgrade and lose out on the production)

#2 (Switch to production focus) Build a Caravan
You need Gold, and have CS quests that will give you influence to earn more Faith (Jerusalem)
You need a Religion ASAP, and Tithe or something else will help with your economy.

#3 Get rid of one of your workers
Like I said, big mistake stealing from Jerusalem initially (and then AGAIN, making everyone mad).
But, if we are dealing with the situation at hand. Give that former Jerusalem worker to the nearby Barbarian camp, and then reacquire him and give back to Jerusalem (Influence/less maintenance).

#4 After Caravan, build 2 scouts to block Seige Towers

#5 Build Warrior, Warrior, Warrior,...

#6 Use one of your Resources to Trade with Mongolia (Happiness won't suffer at all with 3 Resources, plus you will get Dyes when Jerusalem is your Ally),...
One resource to Declare War on Jerusalem (Once again different game if you didn't make everyone angry). Then gift all the Warriors you make for 10 influence each!

Repeat for other CSs, and before you know it you will have a Religion and Tradition closed out quickly, plus CS allies with powerful armies.

ALSO,
March your scout over to Assyria's Iron (In Assur, above the Wheat,..Making +4 Production - I know you don't have Iron Working, so you can't visibly see it) Pillage that mine immediately if he attacks, weakening his Swordsmen.

Choosing a scout with sight is not a smart choice when Assyria is in the game,...My defense is almost always to block my cities from his Seige Towers with Double Defensive Scouts (since Seige Tower can't attack units)

For Gods Sake build a Settler, and get another city out....Somewhere in the mix, AND I would time the build so your getting your forest "chops" toward Settler production, so that you limit your time not growing your city.

To be honest,...just reroll and don't make your CSs angry on the next game!


-

 

[LordBalkoth]

Sure you grow while you build your opening scouts and monuments/shrines... If you're lucky you might get a pop ruin too.

That takes you to 3-4 population in your capital and then you're building settlers. It sounded like you were talking about focusing on getting to higher population than that with your capital initially.

Your expo's when you plant them should focus on getting to population 3-4 as quick as possible. Usually I chop forests to speed their production along to get a quick shrine or archer if I need.

No. Each point of food after finishing Tradition will be worth about twice as much as prior to finishing Tradition due to Aqueducts and 15% growth bonus. Not to mention happiness will be more of a crunch due to needing to get luxuries improved or things like Colosseums up.

The issue was when you start near an early warmonger and you can't take the risk in early science buildings.

If you can't devote production to early science buildings then you also can't devote food to growth. I mean, sure, if it's a choice between a 3 production mine or 4 food/1 production wheat tile at 1 pop I'll go with the wheat in part because I'll grow extremely fast into working the mine...but a 3 food vs 3 production tile? Going to favor production there if I'm worried, especially prior to finishing Tradition and Civil Service.

Why are all your City States angry?
Ahh, because you stole workers from them (Kiev and Jerusalem),....I understand wanting a worker quickly, but NEVER steal from more than one CS (and normally not from High Quality CS like culture, faith either~ preferably Military),...those nearby City States could have totally helped you with your Siege Tower problem.

Yeah, this is a huge issue. You *never* declare war more than once on CSes (combined). If you must declare war on a CS to steal a worker...do NOT make peace if you want to steal another work and do NOT declare war on any other CS. You've screwed yourself out of a ton of Culture/Food/Happiness/Faith/etc. Your rep with EVERY CS will decay twice as fast and many CSes will have you start at -20 rather than 0.

- You have too many workers,....(You have way more tiles improved than you are actually working)

Also a huge issue -- THREE workers for one city is massive overkill...you can't even work the tiles plus you've pissed off all the CSes in the game plus you're losing tons of gold.

- Your getting beat to the quality Religions, and need Religion as quickly as possible to help you with your problem.

I think he had a really late Shrine...and I don't get at all what he's been doing this game. Turn 60ish on Standard and he has a Shrine/Monument/Library with no extra cities. Like...what's he even been making this whole game? No Granary either.

#1 Seize production of Slinger, then resume production right before you get to Composite Bows since upgrading is not a possibility because you have little gold. (Your production toward the Slinger will transition to the C Bowman, so you will have a stronger unit without having to upgrade and lose out on the production)

This is a trick I pulled as well.

#2 (Switch to production focus) Build a Caravan

No, the CSes will literally only be giving like 2-3 gold for a trade route at the moment.

#3 Get rid of one of your workers

I don't see a point to do that now -- he might as well keep them for his next cities/chopping forests. It's a sunk cost at this point and he'll be in the positive for gold in a few turns due to Monarchy.

#4 After Caravan, build 2 scouts to block Seige Towers

No, Assyria has too many non Siege Tower units, need to be able to deal with Pikemen/Swordsmen/Archers.

#5 Build Warrior, Warrior, Warrior,...

No, should only be building Spearmen/Comp Bows.

#6 Use one of your Resources to Trade with Mongolia

Mongolia has no money.

Repeat for other CSs, and before you know it you will have a Religion and Tradition closed out quickly, plus CS allies with powerful armies.

I think you've missed the fact he's losing rep at twice the rate with all those CSes.

To be honest,...just reroll and don't make your CSs angry on the next game! -

He's still in a more-than-winnable position, he's just screwed himself over on several fronts. But it's only Immortal. Video should be up sometime in the next few days, got a backlog of videos processing/uploading (and those pesky holidays).

 

[IkM]

You can handle him at immortal, IMHO. Also, like mentioned before, bribe him to attack someone else and you can live in peace for some years. Then you can bribe him some more times till you get power to destroy him.

Good luck.

 

[adsin15]

Wait a sec...stealing workers from multiple CSs is bad?

 

[IkM]

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you steal 2 workers, you get influence penalty with CS'.

 

[Browd]

With all CSs, you lose the "meeting gold" bonus. And your influence resting point is permanently reduced for any CS that you DOW and any other CS that has met any CS you have DOWed or (near as I can tell) that you have met. Punchline is, there might be some CSs located on distant islands or trapped behind other AI civs that don't hear about your transgression, but every other CS will distrust you intensely for the rest of the game.

If you want to steal multiple workers from a CS, or use a CS as a punching bag to farm XP for your units, pick one CS and never make peace. Permanent war with one CS is "free of charge."

 

[LordBalkoth]

Hoping to get the videos posted today. Played it until about turn 275ish -- conquered Assyria and then continued on. Largest concern is probably going to be Korea as he's gone Tradition/Liberty with Hanging Gardens/Temple of Artemis and now Rationalism. But the good news is that he's only on three cities (of sizes 18, 17, and 14 or something like that) while I have a capital of 21, then five other cities of about 14, 12, 11, 11, and 3 (the last was recently founded in the middle of the continent and will need to catch up).

 

[IkM]

Browd strikes again