A discusion on Immortal game

[Murky]

I take it the reason for the location of the 2nd city is so you gain access to more food resources?

 

[patagonia]

Interesting read so far - thanks for doing this.

I was just wondering why you built/whipped obelisks in some of the early cities? Especially Tiwankwu which already had religion for culture and Bombay where you subsequently built a library?

 

[acidsatyr]

Reason i built it in Bombay is because it had nothing better to build at the time, and to expand asap, and Tiwanaku same and to expand before Boston i think..
Location for Bombay was because of its food resources, perfect position, it doesn matter its close to capital, it will be long before they actually fight for a tile, if ever. Also horses will be shared among those two cities from time to time.

 

[Paeanblack]

do you usually build your 2nd city so close to the capitol? doesnt it limit their growth later in the game? i usually try to find the optimal placement so that the overlapping tiles are minimal. this is 3 tiles up/down/left/right and 1 tile diagonal in any direction. should i ditch this idea for success at higher levels?

Overlapping cities is a very powerful technique. If you are spacing your cities out early on, then space them slightly farther apart so you can squeeze more cities in the gaps later.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184240

 

[voek]

Strong opening. Good thing you have taken upon this 'challenge'. I know you are a (critical) strong Immortal player. The placement of the second city is one I wonder if I would have done this, although I think it is the right decision.

The research and expansion path at the cost of the Inca seems obvious. You had horses and no room and he had not metals.

I am curious however, why you didn't trade the precious alphabet away to backfill before they got it, and they did. True about the difference with Emperor, the AI realy sets of in the beginning. I thought it was amazing when I first saw it and was just staring at the screen when I found out the actualy got alphabet before I did...

I can see you want to prevent them from techtrading and running for the GL, but still. Like what has happend there is a good chance one of them will get it soon. It will net you some nice techs and you can always embargo one or two potential near victims or strategical enemy's. Next to that literature isnt very high on the AI list anyway. Would like to know your reasoning behind this.

Lucky on the capturing of a dominant religion from your continent. The shrine will be huge. Recommend signing some priest to get a GP asap. The shrine will help spreading without the need of monasteries. The faster the spread the less chance they will get a religion of their own and adopt it soon. The coin is nice of course.

Interesting choise with the GS. Why no Academy, but popping for Phi? I know it has good trading value and not saying it is a bad decision, just wondering, cause I think this is a difficult choise early on.

Next path, construction is very obvious. You will have cats and elephants. Consider generating one more GP for theology for the extra XP. No anarchy anyway.

 

[slowcar]

Very nice to watch you play, i enjoyed your SGs a lot, too.

do you usually build your 2nd city so close to the capitol? doesnt it limit their growth later in the game? [...] should i ditch this idea for success at higher levels?

The later game is not important until very late
The second city has two high valued seafood ressources -> lots of food -> lots of GPs. In fact a nearly perfect 2nd city for a philosophical leader.

I have one question though too:
Why didn't you let Bombay grow one size before assigning the two scientists? It seemed to be only one round from growing and could have worked a high-food tile.

 

[aelf]

I think using Pacifism is something I could learn about. Do you like to use it? What are the situations in which you won't use it?

 

[podraza]

It seems like the strategy, at least for this particular game, is focused around producing great people.

Why?

To lightbulb techs?

Is this just one strategy among many, or is this the only way to keep up on Immortal?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

What I really like about this guide is that it uses very standard, normal development that a player on noble difficulty would use anyway, but just executed with precison (except for the alphabet part). No beelining, no UU and no traits that ask for building around.

I do have a few questions though:
a) Why do you insist on scientists and the Great Library, when your cities clearly have enough food to run cottages? Is it because of the philosophical trait, great scientists to pop techs to keep your tech up to AI levels? If it's high population for production, then you have neither, and you don't have the happiness to increase population anyway. If it's for beakers, then I don't see how you could eventually get liberalism and astronomy with just scientists. You don't have pyramids, so you aren't running representation either. Must be missing something.
b) That was a lot of dead chariots. How did you handle the WW from losing 8 units straight in enemy territory? I do notice that WW seems to be a lot weaker in the earlier years, but was that your intention? What's the functional relationship between the year and WW?
c) Why the rush to philosophy and pacifism? Because your neighbours are so close to you, my next step would've been to research horseback riding and attack American cities with HA. Of course at this point catapults and elephants are the way to go, and sounds Indian enough. But how does pacifism help your conquest?

 

[podraza]

Yes, please explain your plan for the economy. I've gathered from other writings that you prefer the specialist or hybrid/specialist economy. Is this your strategy in most games, or unique to this one given the philosophical trait?

 

[DuseCutter]

Seems to me that early on, you benefit more by having a scientist specialist than working a cottage. An automatic 3 beakers.

Once you give your city time to grow past working resources, you use that extra population to start maturing cottages for a supplemental cottage economy.

In other words, scientists start strong and give an better transition to a cottage based economy.

 

[aelf]

Lightbulbing is the key here. It's very important on higher levels and the GS is the best at it.

 

[podraza]

Lightbulbing is the key here. It's very important on higher levels and the GS is the best at it.

What do you know about this? I don't know anything about lightbulbing and its inner workings. Is there a FAQ or strategy thread on this somewhere?

 

[playshogi]

What do you know about this? I don't know anything about lightbulbing and its inner workings. Is there a FAQ or strategy thread on this somewhere?

It's in the war academy:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_tech_pref.php

 

[aelf]

What do you know about this? I don't know anything about lightbulbing and its inner workings. Is there a FAQ or strategy thread on this somewhere?

Basically, lightbulbing might allow you to get certain techs to enjoy their benefits earlier (eg. running Pacifism early for more great people by lightbulbing Philosophy). It also gives you a cutting edge tech (for that period) as a very valuable bargaining chip when doing tech trading. This is even better if you get to Liberalism first by lightbulbing Education with a GS, in which case you get another expensive tech 'free'. Without the GS' help, the AI on Emperor and above can easily beat you to Liberalism.

 

[podraza]

It's in the war academy:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_tech_pref.php

Thanks, that looks like a very helpful list that everybody should be familiar with. (maybe I am the only one who isn't )

 

[acidsatyr]

I am curious however, why you didn't trade the precious alphabet away to backfill before they got it, and they did. True about the difference with Emperor, the AI realy sets of in the beginning. I thought it was amazing when I first saw it and was just staring at the screen when I found out the actualy got alphabet before I did...
I can see you want to prevent them from techtrading and running for the GL, but still. Like what has happend there is a good chance one of them will get it soon. It will net you some nice techs and you can always embargo one or two potential near victims or strategical enemy's. Next to that literature isnt very high on the AI list anyway. Would like to know your reasoning behind this.

Thats exaclty the reason. I was keeping in mind an option of going for GL. So even tought they dont put literature on very high priority, they grab all ealry techs easy, and still get literature early. Generaly speaking, i dont want to give away Alphabet if im first one to it! As soon as i see one of them got it, i will trade it away. I think its adventageous to keep them away from trading with each other, even if its a turn or two.

Interesting choise with the GS. Why no Academy, but popping for Phi? I know it has good trading value and not saying it is a bad decision, just wondering, cause I think this is a difficult choise early on.

No academy since i dont have powerfull ealry scientific city. They are all around there somewhere. I get in better position by poping techs than ny building academy in this case. Hopefully ill be able to show that.
If one of my cities had more than 40 beakers pullin in (having gold or other high coin resources), i would be more incline to create academy.
Philosophy gives me powerful ealry pacifism, has excelent trading value, and gives me Tao. All in the order of significance.

Next path, construction is very obvious. You will have cats and elephants. Consider generating one more GP for theology for the extra XP. No anarchy anyway.

I am playing my next set of turns already. Unfortunatelly (or not!), i got 4 more GS and no prophet. But thats expected since capital and Bombay are really putting in lots of scientist points, and i did want to concentrate on getting GS in this one. I wont be concentrating on getting GP in this game.

 

[acidsatyr]

I have one question though too:
Why didn't you let Bombay grow one size before assigning the two scientists? It seemed to be only one round from growing and could have worked a high-food tile.

I dont undestand this sorry.
It was limited to size 3 because of happines limit , it worket total of 6 food for stgnation and two scientists. Thats what you mean?

 

[acidsatyr]

It seems like the strategy, at least for this particular game, is focused around producing great people.

Why?

To lightbulb techs?

Is this just one strategy among many, or is this the only way to keep up on Immortal?

No, its not the only way to win. But being philosophical really puts me in the mood for this kind of a game. I can easily match research with my scientists rather than working cottages.
We’ll see how it goes later in the game.
Later the choice becomes more crucial. But this early in the game, isn’t it more advantageous to work that all that seafood and get scientists? Where would you put cottages anyway, and why?
Don’t get me wrong, take what you got; if I had my capital surrounded by flood plains id probably put down a cottage or two, in addition to my scientists. But in this case it would be a shame to restrict my capitol’s awesome production potential to so I can build cottages.
Generally I will be concentrating one getting great people here, yes.
Even later in the game as you’ll see I would be aksing question : "Is this tile a good place for a farm", rather than more usual, "Is this a good tile for cottage?"

 

[podraza]

So you're saying the use of specialists in Bombay is largely the result of geography?

You only have limited population points allowed at this point, so in the capital, you want to use them up working maximium production. No cottages here.

In Bombay, which is not a productio center, you could work cottages, but where? There isn't much land available to Bombay, so better work the scientists who don't require a tile?