Empror to Immortal rough transition

[KingKong76]

Been beating and lately dominating Emperor level wirh pretty much every civilization I had interest in playing with. Im usualy more confortable in playing tall, early peacefull and devfensive style aming for science or diplomatic victory, but I can really adapt to my civ special unique abilities, buildings and units and build my strategy accordingly.

The 2 Civ I had the biggest succes with at emperor level are Poland and Venice... SO dominant that it can even be boring.

So, when I decided to move to Immortal level, I said, ok lets go with Polland 1st... more vesatile and more adaptable.... FAILED (at least 2-3 games that I ran to turn 150 to realize I wont catch up the other civilizations.

Venice! MAJOR FAIL!!!

Babylon, cause science seemed to be the major problem I got in the first 5-6 games I tried (more than that, tut 5-6 to turn 150 or more), MAJOR MAJOR FAIL!!!

Did you pass through that rough transition, and what were your major flaws and habbits from Emperor level you had to change to be succesful.

Thanks in advance

 

[joncnunn]

Emperor to Immortal is the second biggest jump in difficulty in the game (only Immortal to Deity is bigger)

To beat AI in science, you don't actually need to beat them into any specific era (they might actually have fewer techs than you if they advance first simply by bypassing techs). Pay more attention to their total # of techs vs yours.

Hubble grants 2 free Great Scientists which are each with approx a tech.

Main thing for advancing to Immortal are build NC early and don't attempt to hand build classical era world wonders.
The next point after the standard beeline after the post Philosophy back fill is Education.

 

[Chunkook]

Critical points:

- Early population growth. Internal trade routes are invaluable, especially for a tall game.

- Diplomacy. Getting the most out of trading will help your early game; Research agreements are a must; being able to trade for gold in bulk is beneficial.

- Science. Concentrate on the upper part of the tech tree, aim for a 3-4 city NC before turn 100.

- Get into the details. Micromanage the tiles your cities are working; consider which buildings are needed more or less; use your gold accordingly.

- Concentrate on a particular aim. You can't build everything or be a jack of all trades like in the easier difficulties - you will have to beeline for the wonders and be efficient in you build orders.

- Spying. Spies are invaluable - tech stealing will be what brings you to the same tech level with the AI most of the time.

- Early trade routes. Caravans or cargo ships to other AIs give you a nice bpt in the early game.

- Cities. You need to get your cities out early. Their placement is very important, especially for a tall game.

- Culture and tourism. Don't neglect it - late game revolutions can set you back quite hard and not being able to get the ideology you want might be a reason to lose.

- Militarism. Same as above - not having at least some units could cause the AI to DoW you.

There are more points, but I'm sleepy. I'd suggest you watch a LP or two to see what the pros do. + If you'd post some screens of a game at maybe turn 1, 20, 40, 60, etc. until, say, 150, and explain how the game is going and what you are doing, it would help us help you.

Overall the main point of the higher level games is that you will always need a ton of population, getting those science techs earlier than later and diplomacy in order to keep the AIs at each other and stop someone from becoming a runaway.

 

[kaspergm]

I agree jump from Emperor to Immortal is huge. Personally I don't like playing on Immortal because you no longer have the liberty to play around: If you want to beat Immortal (and obviously even more so Diety) you need to follow some pretty fixed guidelines. But yeah, to each their own, I do agree it would be nice if AI was a bit better at keeping up in later eras. I think myself I'll try the community AI patch.

 

[KingKong76]

Critical points:

- Early population growth. Internal trade routes are invaluable, especially for a tall game.

- Diplomacy. Getting the most out of trading will help your early game; Research agreements are a must; being able to trade for gold in bulk is beneficial.

- Science. Concentrate on the upper part of the tech tree, aim for a 3-4 city NC before turn 100.

- Get into the details. Micromanage the tiles your cities are working; consider which buildings are needed more or less; use your gold accordingly.

- Concentrate on a particular aim. You can't build everything or be a jack of all trades like in the easier difficulties - you will have to beeline for the wonders and be efficient in you build orders.

- Spying. Spies are invaluable - tech stealing will be what brings you to the same tech level with the AI most of the time.

- Early trade routes. Caravans or cargo ships to other AIs give you a nice bpt in the early game.

- Cities. You need to get your cities out early. Their placement is very important, especially for a tall game.

- Culture and tourism. Don't neglect it - late game revolutions can set you back quite hard and not being able to get the ideology you want might be a reason to lose.

- Militarism. Same as above - not having at least some units could cause the AI to DoW you.

There are more points, but I'm sleepy. I'd suggest you watch a LP or two to see what the pros do. + If you'd post some screens of a game at maybe turn 1, 20, 40, 60, etc. until, say, 150, and explain how the game is going and what you are doing, it would help us help you.

Overall the main point of the higher level games is that you will always need a ton of population, getting those science techs earlier than later and diplomacy in order to keep the AIs at each other and stop someone from becoming a runaway.

thanks
i take good note

 

[Primacide]

One critical aspect of the jump to immortal is in the realm of diplomacy. You must arrange deals that distract your neighbors with a war. If they aren't fighting someone else, they're getting ready to fight you. On emperor, you don't really have to do this.

 

[Acken]

I agree jump from Emperor to Immortal is huge. Personally I don't like playing on Immortal because you no longer have the liberty to play around: If you want to beat Immortal (and obviously even more so Diety) you need to follow some pretty fixed guidelines. But yeah, to each their own, I do agree it would be nice if AI was a bit better at keeping up in later eras. I think myself I'll try the community AI patch.

I can fool around on Immortal
That kind of sentiment usually just mean immortal starts to be your level, that's why you feel you can't diverge from those guidelines.
If you look carefully, even emperor cannot be beaten doing random things and a Prince player will probably feel Emperor to be very restrictive, the same way some immortal/deity players feel immortal is great to fool around while deity is restrictive.

Need more info to know what's wrong with your game OP. Also yes emp to immortal and immortal to deity are the biggest jumps, especially the last by a wide margin. I remember being very happy at my first immortal win and later deity while getting from Chieftain to Emperor was done without a loss.

 

[kaspergm]

That kind of sentiment usually just mean immortal starts to be your level, that's why you feel you can't diverge from those guidelines.

That's a valid point. Still, I like building wonders too much for me to believe that I'll actually play Immortal on a regular basis. I know people say you go conquer wonders, but that's not quite the same ...

 

[beetle]

Did you pass through that rough transition, and what were your major flaws and habbits from Emperor level you had to change to be successful.

Immortal is quite challenging. Have you already given up trying to hard build World Wonders? Are you building National College around turn 100?

Those two things, plus keeping my army small -- but not too small -- was all I needed to work through Immortal victories. I am now really struggling with Deity, and can’t spot my own flaws and bad habits.

How many cities are you founding, and what are your SP choices? I find my trees to be pretty much limited to full Tradition or Liberty, then full Rationalism, with very few picks in the other trees until an ideology. Using Oxford (or more rarely, Rationalism finisher) to unlock Radio is a nice trick. If you lose an city, reload back 20+ turns as needed, so you can learn from mistakes.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Eh, some time ago I tried for whatever reason to dial it down a bit, since I already figured out how to win a Deity game, so here's what happened in my two inbetweener Immortal games:

game one, Celts/Pangaea. I immediately noticed I rolled A LOT of empty space that is just uncommon on Deity, so I was like ok, let's get a liberty/piety/aesthetics thing going. After whoring enough wonders to make Egyptian god-kings envious, (I think my neighbor was Morocco and someone else as likely to go berserking mad) I quit cuz I knew this game would end just about too well.

game two, this time I wanted to give Zulus a spin, aaaand I just simply stomped Monty, Alex and Hiya before gunpowder rolled in. Yeah, and I used to struggle on Emperor.

So the thing is, once you MAKE the transition, it would be as though there never was a gap anyway

 

[budweiser]

The only hard part of Immortal for me is winning between 250-275.

OP - I hope you are trying the Immortal Challenges in the strategy sub forum. The current game as Egypt is a good one to try.

 

[Acken]

That's a valid point. Still, I like building wonders too much for me to believe that I'll actually play Immortal on a regular basis. I know people say you go conquer wonders, but that's not quite the same ...

Give a go to the current Egypt immortal challenge, it can be a wonder fest

 

[z284pwr]

So the thing is, once you MAKE the transition, it would be as though there never was a gap anyway

I know this feel. I think the biggest thing is the fear of the difficulty jump that needs to be over come.

 

[KingKong76]

Immortal is quite challenging. Have you already given up trying to hard build World Wonders? Are you building National College around turn 100?

Those two things, plus keeping my army small -- but not too small -- was all I needed to work through Immortal victories. I am now really struggling with Deity, and can’t spot my own flaws and bad habits.

How many cities are you founding, and what are your SP choices? I find my trees to be pretty much limited to full Tradition or Liberty, then full Rationalism, with very few picks in the other trees until an ideology. Using Oxford (or more rarely, Rationalism finisher) to unlock Radio is a nice trick. If you lose an city, reload back 20+ turns as needed, so you can learn from mistakes.

well usualy I like to play tall founding 3 cities... (if i have no reasons to play wide due to UB or habilities)
always aim for 3 cities (even 2) NC asap...
avoid classical wonders

MIGHT BE MY PROBLEM
POLICIES
Emperor i like to open Trad then Lib (republic, collective rule, Citizenship) then Aristocarcy then finnish liberty, then finnish trad and-or open Rationalism...

I find it quite impossible to manage liberty and tradition at this level... so Im trying to find a trad + honnor or trad+piety... or any other combo that I was using with certain particular civs at previous level... cant find anything that works...

 

[stormtrooper412]

Generally you don't really combo Tradition with anything tbqh, but you can and probably should combo left hand side of Liberty (free settler and the next ones come out quicker) with whatever works best for the Civ you play as.

If you're not going pure science/pure culture, I've discovered that the Patronage opener is very good in swinging the favor of city states. Especially those who have jewels and vases and makes you go, hey what's that call assume thing everyone likes

 

[beetle]

I find it quite impossible to manage liberty and tradition at this level...

One of the disappointments with moving up difficulty levels is getting significantly fewer SP. So you have to be very conservative with your picks.

so Im trying to find a trad + honnor or trad+piety... or any other combo that I was using with certain particular civs at previous level... cant find anything that works...

Much to my disappointment, because it is a fun tree, I was never able to get any traction out of Honor after Emperor.

I will sometimes fill out Piety. There a couple really strong reformation beliefs, but that always delays getting through Rationalism, so there is opportunity cost.

Looking at it clinically, the most significant SP in Tradition is the free aqueducts from the finisher. Nothing boosts your early growth more, so any delay to the Tradition finisher is making your game weaker. It is boring, but the net result is that -- when playing a challenging level -- you need to open and close out Tradition ASAP. Every. Single. Game.

Liberty starts to shine when you have 6+ self-founded cities, but you like to stop at 3 cities, so you should not be bothering with Liberty at all. The free settler is nice, but it is the double-hammer-speed settlers that is the best perk in Liberty -- but to exploit that, you need to be going wide. The Liberty finisher is not so turn sensitive, so one other thing that makes it nice is the ability to dip into Piety (or maybe even honor).

 

[stormtrooper412]

I see Piety as a genuine waste of time on Immortal/Deity, because the Rationalism opener is by far the most useful under the circumstances, and if Secularism is just around the corner for whatever reason, your science output is gonna jump really high. Aesthetics is a must for any decent culture attempt and Patronage opener is really good regardless if Siam/Greece are in the game. This is yet another reason why Oracle is very useful on Deity and why Poland is insanely OP in that regard

 

[tribefaninnc]

I'm roughly at this stage as well, ready for Emp to Imm jump. I'm not sure if this thread is making me more or less confident.

The Egypt challenge is probably a good idea. Wonder spamming always makes me feel like I'm winning even if I'm not.

 

[KingKong76]

thanks for all your advices
I started a new game with Venice yesterday... aplying more thn less of your advices here, and after turn 200: edit:189 in fact

Im 1 tech behind
doing OK with money
succesfully went through a war
having enough army left to rebuild a good defensive army shrt term...

That said Im not out of trouble cause my smileys are freakin low...
and production is horrible (Ihave solution forthat tho)

worst is my spy and some other civ spies told me my 2 direct neighbors are ploting agaist me...
Ill se what I can do with that...

EDIT TURN 197
Babylon and Iroquoi decalre war on us
nothing can to but die

 

[z284pwr]

I'm roughly at this stage as well, ready for Emp to Imm jump. I'm not sure if this thread is making me more or less confident.

The Egypt challenge is probably a good idea. Wonder spamming always makes me feel like I'm winning even if I'm not.

if you aren't to confident try some other strategies on Emp that is out of your comfort zone.....I've always been a Tradition player.

I'm trying an Honor domination on Immortal with Shaka. It's amazing how much harder it is to keep the gold in the positives and happiness without tradition's Monarchy policy. Especially early game while having a big army. City grow is slow and unit upgrades are much more selective when you can't stay happy and don't have the gold.