Best Immortal Start I've had. What next?

[bobshiznit]

So I have been messing around with National College openings and CS Slingshots on Immortal. When I got this game.
Catherine of Russia - Immortal Continents Standard Size and Speed.
What I did -
Build Order - scout worker monument Library NC GL
Tech Order - Potter Writing Mining Masonry AH Trapping Philosophy Bronze Working
Social Policies - Tradition Aristocracy

The original plan was to build a national college and tech and expand like wild fire.

What happened is I hutted 30 culture to speed things up. I had marble in first border pop. When I finished the national college I noticed 2 things I could tech philosophy in 4 turns and build the NL in 8. So I did and I got really lucky the AI's building wonders picked Collosus and Great Lighthouse. The great Lighthouse went off 3 turns before I finished my GLibrary scared me a bit, but I wouldn't have lost much.

So here I am turn 51, with a pile of gold 550 or so with a very small army of a scout and a warrior. The scout came in handy to help the warrior beat off barbs, absolutely essential. How to procede? How fast can you win?

I got a lot of days off so I'll be finishing this one soon. I'm interested in seeing how others would proceede from here so I can learn some tips, tricks, and strategies post-patch.

I'm thinking - head to Iron next, Picking the first policy in liberty and spamming settlers on luxuries.

 

[bobshiznit]

I've played quite a few turns in this game now. I'm up to turn 197. Looking towards I science victory since I am the leader. It's going to be a lot later than my pre-patch science victories, if I do win. This is the first game I've played that I thought I might lose. I have all renasaince tech, artilery and steam power. The teching is a lot slower than it was before the patch. I have 250 beakers per turn, I was getting that around turn 150 pre-patch.

What I did after this great start was spam warriors and then spammed 8 straight settlers out of the capital, taking advantage of the first policy in liberty. I sold extra furs for gold and bought some workers to get luxuries hooked up so I could sell more and build farms to get some growth for science. I bought a maritime state, not as strong outside the capital, but the capital in this strategy has the necessary infrastructure for science. I went to education after I backfilled Iron working, construction, and the wheel. I got a university in the capital quickly, and a few more quite a bit later. Then I went to astronomy to sell more furs to the other AI's and make more RA's. This kept me up in tech and around turn 150 I took the lead in tech. The National College start if pretty strong post patch. Anyone got any thoughts on how to best leverage a start like this? Is what I did pretty much the standard play?

Unfortunately I am bordered by japan and they got to Samari very quickly. So I had to hold out on war until riffles. The warriors I spammed early turned out to be great as they upgraded through swords-longswords-rifles. The Japanese UU is super tough with the unique ability, they can stand tough with rifles. I didn't break the Japanese until artillery could clean up the unit spam. This is the first time I have been in a war in ciV and it felt like a war. The patch helped the AI survive alot better. I didn't see as much suicide AI, but still some.

The Immortal AI plays tough post-patch especially when they go down the liberty route and settler spam. I also made some bonehead errors - I got archery with a RA - I could have researched it 1 turn at that point, soooo stupid.

 

[bobshiznit]

Any takers?

This has been the most fun I've had with ciV. This is my first post-patch immortal game. I've reached turn 252 and I haven't won. Pretty tough game imo.

I got declared on by my buddy in Babylon after my conquest of Japan. He tried to get Ghandi to join in and it backfired. Ghandi denouced me while a had a defense pact with me. Babylon DoWed me and Ghandi joined my side. I fought off Babylon and took a city.

On the other continent there is Siam and Washington and a couple minor civs. Siam is the only Civ close to me in tech. They declared war on me when Babylon did. Siam likes the shiny stuff a lot and they also like City States. They have 11 allies.

I made peace with Babylon and went on an intercontinental adventure. I took 3 cities from Siam with artilery and infantry. They built an airforce on carriers i sunk it with destroyers. Destroyers are BEASTS!!! They eventually took a city back and I had to try to get peace. I gave them the more worthless of the two other cities I had taken from them and they accepted peace.

Now to build my spaceship. Probably going to lose if I don't build up and army to kill Siams City State buddies quickly. If he went straight to Globalization I'm toast, and I'll get my first defeat.

 

[Anseta]

I think Russia isn't appropriate for science victory, with their trait, domination victory is easier.

 

[bobshiznit]

Russia did work for the spaceship. Won turn 314 yipee! This is my longest spaceship. It's also my fastest post-patch spaceship, it's my only one.

Domination maybe better for Russia. But another benefit Russia has is they can sell their strategic resources, such as aluminum and iron. I definently sold both of these to help me win the game. I sold iron to upgrade my army, to prevent from being squashed. I traded and sold aluminim to get gold to speed up my spaceship. With domination I ran into a problem next to me. Japan was a tough nut to crack. I wasted a ton on resources on them. The other problem I had with dominational was Siam was even in tech with me and had a ton of gold. I couldn't sustain my foothold on their continent and had to retreat to my well defended fortress. Washington may have been more difficult to impale.

The UN never got built. I think Siam was going for domination, as they conquered China, and were at war with me the last 100 turns. Washington ended up being the competition. He built the Apollo program the exact same turn I did. He was too far back in tech to be much of a concern.

I learned how to build a spaceship in this game. Coal is a very necessary resource. I definently lacked it in this game. Siam had most of the coal, Washington had some. Luckily washington was willing to trade me some coal for some alluminum. I got my factories built way later than I needed to, so I only got one spaceship factory up early. I bought my second spaceship factory as I was building.

I needed more city specialization. All cities are the same roughly until the renassaince. I needed to get more gold specialized cities, I had none. I had been relying on gold from puppets in other games I have played. I need to improve my army game, taking cities is more difficult now.

I think I could launch about 30 turns sooner with some better play. I'd be interested in seeing other methods to wining, like a longsword slingshot, culture or diplomacy. I think domination would be very tough against the samari. Diplomacy may even be out with the way Siam was getting city states. I don't know if a culture win could be done before I launched my ship, Washington wasn't too far behind.

I'm giving the patch a big My weak methods of winning via horserush has exposed some holes in my game that need to get tweaked.

 

[neilkaz]

This is very nice game story and a nice win! You have a nice start and did well with it.

You were fortunate that Siam didn't try to build the UN and lame you with all those CS allies.

IMHO, it will be impossible to beat a determined Immortal civ on the other continent with lots of gold, if they decide to buy the UN vote.

Had you tried to win by domination you may have been too slow to knock out those 4 civs on the other continent and some AI would've won via a different victory condition.

Well done .. neilkaz ..

 

[bobshiznit]

I think there is a way to prevent the cheese diplo win. Kill City-States if the UN gets buillt.

You may piss off the other AI's but if you're going to lose otherwise I think you have to go for it. In this game Washington bought up enough CS's off Siam that I only had to snipe 1-2 city-states. I could have captured one very easily in the 10 turn window, I don't know if I would have been able to get a second, since Siam's other allies were pretty far away. You probably need to have an army on standby for this. just in case. I was building units in my non-space part cities once I had the tech for all the parts.