Cracking Immortal II

[Gumbolt]

Get on building your stack!!! Try to use OF to complete the following HA. 2 whips in each city should produce 8 HA. So may 3 whips each.

 

[MeowZeDung]

To 775 BC:

Switched the queued stables to barracks in my second and third cities (no hammers invested in them yet) and got everything set up for when archery got in. This round I really didn't do much more than chop, whip, and manage hammer overflow to get a stack together. Also researched most of Mathematics.

Took my first 4 HAs to that barb city asap:

Spoiler :

It's a keeper.

I scouted Boudica's land as soon as writing came in, and here is the situation where I stopped before my DoW next turn:

Spoiler :

As you can see, her best unit is still a chariot. So what do you think? Vienne -> Bibracte -> Gem City? Or would it be better to circle back north and take Camulodunum after her capitol? Either way I'm guaranteed a happiness resource if I have to take peace after capturing a third city, so I suppose the decision is a commerce boost vs guaranteed phants. If she doesn't get metal soon though, I might just be able to wipe her out.

Here's the tech and diplo situations:

Spoiler :

Ragnar might be too busy hating Ramses/Justinian to be bribed in on me, and Boudica doesn't have alpha to bribe him with techs anyhow. Worst case scenario I can probably bribe someone on Ragnar to keep him off my back if he gets involve.

Thoughts?

 

[DMOC]

I'd just head straight to the gems city, capturing the three cities along the way. That ivory city looks like it can be easily captured by the reinforcements currently being produced. Keep going, if Boudica gets alphabet consider getting some peace if you can make sure Ragnar won't bother you.

 

[lymond]

Looking back at your first 2 city placements, they are both horrible

and that barb city should never have materialized. (that probably would have been my first city)

 

[Fippy]

I think chariots are higher than Axes, when you check what units AIs already can build.
I always did find that strange too.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Looking back at your first 2 city placements, they are both horrible

and that barb city should never have materialized. (that probably would have been my first city)

Ok. Please explain where your first two cities would have gone and why specifically they are better sites than the ones I chose. I am here to learn after all.

 

[Gumbolt]

The barb city. Shares the pigs, has wheat in second ring. Lots of forest too for chopping. Closer to Celts. I missed that city but I perhaps should of explored better. I can't comment too much as I have played on way past your point. I stopped playing as I wasn't happy with my micro. Will comment more as you progress more.

HA vs archers should be easy if you progress quick to his capital.

 

[sampsa]

On early city placement:

Spoiler :

Imo this screenshot tells a lot. If I'm seeing correctly, you are not working pigs (61), dry corn (5) or dry rice (4). It indicates that you should have shared the food.

Capital is unhappy, so you have whipped it at least twice. Unfortunately, with a low happy cap whipping is not great (meaning that you can't do several 2-pop whips to build an army without causing retardiation in your capital). It's better to skip the granary (saves 60 for now) and work some mines.

There are several good ways to share capital's food. For example 2E of dry corn can use both the pigs and the corn. Also can work 2 cottages for capital if needed. If going for a 3-city HA-rush, 2E of corn and Ghuzz's location would be good.

The earlier you can decide the strategy, the better. Optimally before settling your 2nd city.

 

[Fippy]

Djenne was good with taking Corn and getting Pigs after borders pop, also good location for Fin leaders. Kumbi was not so good esp for HA rushing.

 

[Gumbolt]

The map is still very winnable. This map may be more about 1-2 good HA rushes. Happiness is only an issue if you have no happiness resources. Boudica has gems and ivory. What's the problem? Trade for monarchy and you have HR/wine too. Whips will wear off anyway.

 

[sampsa]

The map is still very winnable. This map may be more about 1-2 good HA rushes. Happiness is only an issue if you have no happiness resources. Boudica has gems and ivory. What's the problem? Trade for monarchy and you have HR/wine too. Whips will wear off anyway.

Yes, without a doubt it's winnable, immortal is still a forgiving level. What I meant was that it's not optimal to create an army with multiple whips when happy cap is 5 and you have trees to chop. With better planning (city locations, builds, improvements) it was easily avoided.

I'm sure you agree that putting yourself into a situation where you have unworked 6-tiles is something to avoid.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yep a bit of planning goes a long way. Ideally you always want to be using the high yield tiles where possible. Managing whip anger is something you learn.

This is perhaps where sharing resources between early a cities really helps.

 

[ben-jammin]

Yes, without a doubt it's winnable, immortal is still a forgiving level. What I meant was that it's not optimal to create an army with multiple whips when happy cap is 5 and you have trees to chop. With better planning (city locations, builds, improvements) it was easily avoided.

I'm sure you agree that putting yourself into a situation where you have unworked 6-tiles is something to avoid.

Whips and chops go together, ones doesnt just replace the other. A bigger problem is that he doesnt have the right tiles improved to do growth/avoid growth whip/chop cycles properly. That riverside plains hill should have been chopped, mined, and worked to avoid growth. Cottages are great for getting to HBR but should be more-or-less ignored once you get there other than for tile micromanagement.

I agree with whats already been said about that third city location. You should have settled it where it could share food with the capital, have some mines and forests to chop. Id not have settled it where the barb city is, though (also not sure how you leta barb city spawn so close to you). Id have put it on the PH 3N1E of the capital, allowing it to take the horses and pigs from the capital without a border pop, also adding an extra forest in its small cross. Allows you to juggle tiles quite effectively between all three cities. But again mines would be key.

Barb city would have been a fourth site after the rush was done. Ideally you would have wanted to shave a good 8 turns off your attack date.

 

[sampsa]

Whips and chops go together, ones doesnt just replace the other.

I guess it is possible to interpret my words like that, but you must realize that it's not what I meant, so don't know why you bother saying that. Sure you can (and should!) do some whips, but with no happy resources you can't set up a real whip-machine.

A bigger problem is that he doesnt have the right tiles improved to do growth/avoid growth whip/chop cycles properly.

This is pretty much what I meant. If you need to avoid growth, investing in a granary (60) is not necessarily beneficial, and whipping without a granary barely beats working the mines.

My posts must have been atrociously worded as this is the 3rd post I write on the same issue saying the same things.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Alright, I'm going to redo this one from scratch for two reasons: 1. it's been several days and I've forgot most of the situation, and 2. I see the major issues you all are pointing out with my city placement and tile management, especially given the lack of early happiness on this map.

To 2640BC:

Spoiler :

Ag>AH>Pottery>BW

I'm thinking the settler would have been out quicker had I grown the capitol to size four first. BW before pottery might have been a better idea as well.

The worker is on the way to improve Djenne's rice next turn. The worker currently being produced is going to hook up the horses asap, then the dry rice.

Thoughts on the third city site? Any issues I'm overlooking?

Thanks for all the advice guys. With forum help I hope to have a solid HA rush against Boudica this time.

 

[ben-jammin]

I guess it is possible to interpret my words like that, but you must realize that it's not what I meant, so don't know why you bother saying that. Sure you can (and should!) do some whips, but with no happy resources you can't set up a real whip-machine.

I don't see why not. If you've decided on an HA rush (which in this case makes a lot of sense) and youve got tons of food you're going to want to whip heavily no matter what. Lower happy cap is far less of a concern than having your rush go off as well as possible, and in this case he's going to capture at least ivory.

Meow: the spots you have marked are both good. I had suggest 3N1E of your capital partly because it blocks off the tundra (?) spot for you while still providing a good production/whip city, and then you dont have to worry about losing other spot. Depending on how long the rush takes, you might lose the land north of your capital. Then again, immortal...maybe not.

Tundra spot gets its HAs to where you need them the fastest.

You weren't wrong to cottage the capital early, just to keep working those cottages and neglect building mines. Once HBR and archery are in, your focus should be 100% on horse archers. You want to time your first whips so that you re-grow the next turn. Then you get yourself (ideally, not always possible depending on how many workers, how many forests, etc) into a pattern:

Overflow goes into the next HA, chop completes that HA, next HA gets enough hammers into it, whip again. So you'd be constantly whipping from size 4 to size 2 and producing roughly a unit every 2 turns. You'll run into situations where workers cant keep up, in which case you swap tiles around to avoid growth so that your capital isnt growing into unhappiness and your other cities are only growing into unhappiness on the turn you whip. Like this with three cities you should be able to produce 10 horse archers in under 10 turns.

 

[sampsa]

@ben-jammin: I'm not still completely sure if I understand what exactly you mean. 10 HA's, ok, how many of them would come from capital? Around 5 I suppose, so maybe 3 whips? Do you build a granary? Could you play a game and post a save? I'll try with minimal whipping.

 

[sampsa]

Here is my attempt (to 1280 BC):

Spoiler :

What I see is lots of hammers from unforested hills, so skipping BW springs into mind. How to put the hammers into use? Oracle -> HBR of course. Techpath agri-AH-myst-medi-PH-huntz-arch. I didn't worker steal, as I'm trying to compare different strategies and attempting to worker steal adds some randomness.

Settler @size3. Djenne borrows the best food tile from cap while cap builds another worker.

With tile-swapping, I was able to grow Timbuktu to size 5 and have mines improved just as PH was done. Building a settler at Djenne would have just slowed down the attack, so decided to go with just two cities. I never improved neither dry rice. When at happy cap and not whipping, >.

After archery, went to BW of course for chops. Only got in three so far and I'm ready to attack B:s capital with 7HAs + medic chariot.

I might re-play and try a more traditional 3-4 city HA-rush, skipping Oracle.

edit: 5 turns ahead:

Spoiler :

Battle luck was rather bad, 5 lost HAs. The downside of a fast rush (=one that focuses on maximal speed at the cost of economy) is also starting to show - I am far from alphabet (at least 15 turns) unless I can extort it from someone. It's hard to reap much benefit out of wars without alpha. Boudica's remaining cities are weak and I better attack Pericles asap to capture a shrine.

 

[ben-jammin]

@ben-jammin: I'm not still completely sure if I understand what exactly you mean. 10 HA's, ok, how many of them would come from capital? Around 5 I suppose, so maybe 3 whips? Do you build a granary? Could you play a game and post a save? I'll try with minimal whipping.

Can't playright now. There'd certainly be a granary in the capital, built well before HBR. Ideally there'd be a granary in all three cities but depending on how late you get your third city up and running it can do without. Capital for sure gets a barracks, again whether you build one in the other cities depends on how long they take to get founded and grow vs. how fast you can tech HBR and archery.

You want at least 3 workers dedicated to chopping during this phase, which means you ideally want 4+ workers total so you can have at least one roading towards the target. Ideally you start with something like this (in all cities, but capital will of course be 1 siwe bigger than the others):

2 turns before growth into unhapiness start producing an HA, and worker moves onto a forest. 1 turn of production later you're 1 turn to growth and able to whip with ~25 hammer overflow. Whip, the next turn you regrow, the turn after your chop completes the HA. The turn after you should have enough hammers in the next HA for another 2-pop whip and be close to growth, worker has moved to the next chop, and you've produced 4 HAs in 6-7 turns (a bit slower outside the capital where you have less tile production between whips to finish the chopped units and get enough hammers into the next one for a whip).

You obviously don't stop at those 10 HAs though. You'd need at least twice that if the AI has started to produce metal units. But once your forests are chopped it obviously starts taking longer between whips. With the overflow from the last whip usually being too great to 2-pop whip again, and no forest chop to be timed to finish the in-between HA means you slow build it. And it's at this point that having lots of mines available and micromanaging your tiles to avoid growth until the right turn becomes extra important.

But really on Immortal you don't have to worry much about micromanagement and growing into unhappiness for a few turns here and there isn't going to make your rush anyless effective. If you've beelined HBR after worker techs, have some commerce (in this case, all from cottages), and are chopping+whipping aggressively you should have no problem crushing your target with numbers even if they hooked up metal that you can't immediately pillage. Sound tactics are of course also important, luring AI units, pillaging roads and/or metal, skipping well defended cities initially (for every city with 4+ defenders there should be 1 or 2 with no more than two defenders). Also a good road network for your reinforcements and efficient use of promo-healing.

 

[sampsa]

@ben-jammin:

Spoiler :

I'm impressed if you have 3 cities (at whippable size), 4 workers, 2-3 granaries, 1-2 barracks, 10 HAs by 1000 BC, which is already 7 turns slower attack date than in my game (2 cities, Oracle HBR). A settler, 2 granaries and 2 workers cost 340 total compared to Oracle's 150. Sure, 3rd city pays some back no doubt plus you can get much more chops so maybe it evens out at the cost of forests.

If you don't want to play, I can try it. Thanks for the long answer, but I still have doubts. Working food, mines, cottages and doing 2-pop whips all at the same time with no happy resources. If you can't work all the food resources all the time you probably can't beat slow-building at happy cap anyway.