Close borders to starve my opponent?

[pokeii]

I continue to attempt to get my first win on Immortal, with Elizabeth on pangaea. Sury stole my wheat with a city 2W from it. I thought if I close borders, he needs a galley to farm the wheat and it would hurt him considerably. This was on turn 81. Now I played until turn 99 and regret it for a few reasons:

I want to attack the Dutch because there are only two Buddhists, and Willem got the GLH. He had it by the time I closed borders with Sury but I wasn't paying attention.
He still doesn't want to reopen by then.

I notice he hasn't put a worker on the wheat yet by turn 99.
So how big a benefit do I need to close borders? If it's wet corn, similarly the only food resource for a city, and I have many trade partners do I do it?

 

[Henrik75]

Since that's in his second ring, you could fight for it by settling on the hill next to the wheat and getting a quick monument out, then granary -> library -> monastery if needed. Without food, his city won't be doing much unless it's a deity AI.
But if you are going to do this, you would need to react fast and grab it in your borders before he hits 100 culture, which secures it (50 turns later for a creative civ). But honestly there's better spots to settle to the south.

To be honest, your expansion is a little slow. I would aim to have 5 settled cities before 1000 BC, always on IMM or below, since expansion is much more critical on difficulty levels like this.

I would also be teching monarchy or looking to trade for it (unlock the prereqs) as early as possible for all those wines and your lack of happiness. Iron working will be critical to trade for too to utilize the south. The copper banana ivory spot and rice fish silk spot will be amazing cities eventually and help with health/happy long term.

Immortal is already won once you have 8-10 good cities as a financial leader, you should be able to blow them away in tech and tank vs rifle against them or cav vs longbow.

 

[pokeii]

@Henrik75 Thank you. When should I settle the bananas city? My plan was to settle north of copper first and only take the bananas once calendar is close. And then Willem took it at T99. He had an archer around so I was suspicious. Should I take it before I get math and therefore close to calendar?

 

[Henrik75]

You can utilize that city a lot earlier actually, it's a bit debatable but you could use that settler you are building in the screenshot for it just to get it early and claim the land - it's not completely useless, you can work the copper tile at size 1 and first get a monument to grab elephants for early happiness then pump workers for a while. once you got enough workers you build a granary there and eventually chop the banana and use that to grow a couple sizes then you get calendar later and it takes off. To be honest I would aim to have those 2 cities to the south secured by about 800bc or turn 85? There's some errors here that can be optimized- like the lighthouse in nottingham is very unneccessary as there's lots of good land tiles to work - i would have built a settler well before that - infact settlers and workers take priority over granaries even until you got 4 good cities, then commit 1 or 2 cities to build the last 2 settlers while others grow/granary and develop.

 

[pokeii]

@Henrik75 I like the suggestion about the lighthouse.
But for the bananas, I don't own the copper tile. With only a library in the capital I won't get a border pop for a while (~T160). I settled SE of the stone and then north of the copper. I think I can skip the first one?

If I do some scouting I can see that the bananas spot is likely close to the southern coast. So it would block Willem. I might cheat here, load and do that. I think one lesson is that I should have built a scout earlier.

(See Izuul's comment below. Surprised I didn't see it and then didn't read Henrik carefully enough. I'll try and report back)

 

[Izuul]

I assume he meant settling 1SE of the copper to get it first ring. Border pop gets the eastern ivory.

 

[pokeii]

I played until T99. I only got Henrik's banana spot. Settler on the way to the fish spot. Sury captured a barb city and Willem took the other elephant and iron by sharing food. There is plains cow and clam in the south but I think it's not worth the trouble assuming there's no more food. Obviously I'll take the clam on the east later.

I think I'm doing OK on tech. I triggered WFYABTA with Isabella but I think she's a bad trade partner anyways, unless I can get to friendly. I delayed picking a religion until now. I only have one Hindu city. Two Buddhist cities but I won't go Buddhism. I just did a double switch to hereditary rule and organized religion. I wanted to switch to Hinduism this turn but I think I'll deal with the barb galley first. I guess I'll mace/trebs on Willem. I think I'll move my troops to his border with America, and then attack Amsterdam. He has GLH there so it's a lot more valuable than the other cities.

 

[Henrik75]

If you got the 4000bc save id like to try :3

Alot of immortal and deity maps on my channel

 

[Henrik75]

Tech looks good but id be prioritizing civil service with that capital, ideally reach it by 1ad and have a size 10 cottaged grown capital.

 

[pokeii]

If you got the 4000bc save id like to try :3

Alot of immortal and deity maps on my channel

Here you go. The original save was with BUFFY mod. I suspect it will be easy for you though. Most of my attempts went south much earlier than this.
I think I'll watch more of your videos but I'm already lurking in your discord server

 

[Henrik75]

Turn 75 position

Spoiler :

Turn 108 position....

Spoiler :

turn 119 position

Spoiler :

video