Frustrated with immortal

[sampsa]

I frequently prefer to go to space than to conquer the world, due to me finding it less tedious (It takes less real time to go to space than to conquer the world). Thus I will have to do some research, resulting in my statement. Obviously my playstile does introduce a bias how I view a situation.

For me, if you play even close to what I'd describe as "correct", conquest is easier, faster and less tedious than space. Cuir conquest is very simple - get the techs, produce units, move them, win.

I do not think that the additional strength is that much better, since Cuirs will attack after Cavs, and thus attack weaker troops. IMO the increased power is the main benefit.

The point is definitely not to upgrade every cuir to cav. You will eventually get there but that is not the point.

I agree that in this situation teching up to Rifling and then stopping research is probably the fastest (in #turns) way to finish the game. Even in this case it is probably more efficient to do some espionage with the Gold, to take out defences, OTOH this adds more tedium to the game. Upgrading Cuirs has a lower priority. Then again directly upgrading and skipping the espionage might be better, I do not know.

I don't think to revolt is necessary, but might be useful somewhere. Why are a few clicks (build spy, move it, use mission) tedious? I would assume if you win space, you need to do many "tedious" things with workers.

If one has democracy (for whatever reason, in most games going for democracy at any time is a mistake) buying Cavs (<360 /cav, if one puts hammers into it first ) might even beat upgrading Cuirs (80 /cav ) (If one has the Mids PS beats US in almost any war). Buving a new Cav costs about 4 times as much as upgrading a Cuir, but provides a new unit. Since a Cuir provides 12000 power and a cav 15000, upgrading a Cuir increases the power by 3000. To match a new Cavalry one would need to upgrade 5 cuirs. Thus buying cavs is more efficient at increasing the power.

You should never have democracy, and indeed most of the time PS > US. Whether buying beats upgrading is irrelevant, because they are not competing. You gain your production via whip.

I've had one game where I tried buying cavs. It wasn't bad surely with an empire that has lots of FIN cottages, but I don't think it mattered much. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-226-victoria-of-england.655742/post-15699763

So while it is the easiest to manage, IMHO upgrading Cuirs to Cavs is a comparatively inefficient way to spend surplus gold.

My conclusion is completely different. There is nothing you can do with except upgrade, that is why it's good i.e. better than all the alternatives. There are no useful alternatives really.

 

[pigswill]

I wonder if you're talking past each other to an extent. Sampsa seems to belong to the cuirstomp>conquest school while A pen-dragon may be more of a conquer to get enough land then go for Space school of thought. Cuirstomp is likely to be the most efficient in terms of victory date, its pretty straightforwards and can become mechanical which is for some people a bit dull: Whip>move>kill>repeat. To each his own.

 

[sampsa]

But why isn't it mechanical or dull to go space? Honest question. Just end the game already.

I wonder if you're talking past each other to an extent

Perhaps, but I thought since he said this

So in the following lets say that there is no further research.

we are on the same page.

 

[jorissimo]

I think we can conclude that the technical phase of games are generally dull. That's why in multiplayer games (i.e., games between real people, whether online or OTB) there is always a way to resign. Would be hard to model this with AI though (or at least it was in 2005).

 

[jorissimo]

But I think the conquest vs. space debate can be boiled down to some people preferring to forgo the thrill of military conquest and just sit back and develop peacefully when they've reached a winning position. The kind of late-career rent-seeking thing.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Lets get a few basics out of the way for going to space.

1) Tech path: You want assembly line early for factories + coal plants, also Infantry. Then beeline Computers to build the Internet. Usually I try to trade for techs on the bottom of the tree (especially Combustion line, sometimes Radio line).

2) Infrastructure: You want to have some cities to produce spaceship parts. In total there are 16 parts, so there is no sense in preparing more than 16 production cities. Production cities will need Factories + Power and Labs, health buildings onyl if required and after production buildings. Try not to starve cities.

3) Civics: For production Caste + SP have great synergy. Unhappiness from emancipation can be mittigated by trading techs away to switch vassals out of emancipation. Production cities should have workshops + watermills all over the place. Keeping towns is OK for research, non-outdated resources need to be modernized, but the rest should be replaced with watermills + workshops. After (or shortly before) research is done towns can be replaced. Btw US is OK since you have democracy, but unless you have the kremlin buying anything is rather inefficient, even with the kremlin it is arguably unseless in this case, since it competes with research.


Now about your current situation, I have a very important question: Did Charly start plotting before or after HC vassaled? This is relevant, because the AI attitude is the average of the attitde towards the master and all vassals, in this case, since he is friendly with HC he is effectively pleased and still can not plot.

Charlies current stack has artillery, cavs and rifles. Unless he gets tanks that can be dealt with with cavalry (attacking a stack outside a city is much easier than taking a city). You can get assembly line in about 6 turns, after that with factories and infantries, a little later tanks you become untouchable. If no one is plotting against you you should not be building units but wealth or infrastructure.

Regarding Machine guns, IMHO these are amongst the weakest units in the game due to not being able to attack. If someone attacks with siege you do not want to sit there and take it but counter-attack. MGs do not help to do this.

Also HC has a few cities left. Trade techs with him and tell him to research stuff that helps you (Astronomy, RR, Combustion, ...). Also he can give you some resources you do not have, especially health ones.

But why isn't it mechanical or dull to go space?

It is, although differently than conquest, it is more of a building game than a wargame, which I prefer. In the end it is a matter of taste.

we are on the same page.

We are for the initial situation, we just do not arrive at the same conclusion. Since this is really only a minor argument, I suggest to leave it at that. In the end the important part we disagree about is the width of the usefullness of espionage, and in the end I think this also is a matter of taste.

 

[jorissimo]

Lets get a few basics out of the way for going to space.

1) Tech path: You want assembly line early for factories + coal plants, also Infantry. Then beeline Computers to build the Internet. Usually I try to trade for techs on the bottom of the tree (especially Combustion line, sometimes Radio line).

2) Infrastructure: You want to have some cities to produce spaceship parts. In total there are 16 parts, so there is no sense in preparing more than 16 production cities. Production cities will need Factories + Power and Labs, health buildings onyl if required and after production buildings. Try not to starve cities.

3) Civics: For production Caste + SP have great synergy. Unhappiness from emancipation can be mittigated by trading techs away to switch vassals out of emancipation. Production cities should have workshops + watermills all over the place. Keeping towns is OK for research, non-outdated resources need to be modernized, but the rest should be replaced with watermills + workshops. After (or shortly before) research is done towns can be replaced. Btw US is OK since you have democracy, but unless you have the kremlin buying anything is rather inefficient, even with the kremlin it is arguably unseless in this case, since it competes with research.


Now about your current situation, I have a very important question: Did Charly start plotting before or after HC vassaled? This is relevant, because the AI attitude is the average of the attitde towards the master and all vassals, in this case, since he is friendly with HC he is effectively pleased and still can not plot.

Charlies current stack has artillery, cavs and rifles. Unless he gets tanks that can be dealt with with cavalry (attacking a stack outside a city is much easier than taking a city). You can get assembly line in about 6 turns, after that with factories and infantries, a little later tanks you become untouchable. If no one is plotting against you you should not be building units but wealth or infrastructure.

Regarding Machine guns, IMHO these are amongst the weakest units in the game due to not being able to attack. If someone attacks with siege you do not want to sit there and take it but counter-attack. MGs do not help to do this.

Also HC has a few cities left. Trade techs with him and tell him to research stuff that helps you (Astronomy, RR, Combustion, ...). Also he can give you some resources you do not have, especially health ones.


It is, although differently than conquest, it is more of a building game than a wargame, which I prefer. In the end it is a matter of taste.

We are for the initial situation, we just do not arrive at the same conclusion. Since this is really only a minor argument, I suggest to leave it at that. In the end the important part we disagree about is the width of the usefullness of espionage, and in the end I think this also is a matter of taste.

Thanks for the advice! I'm not sure when exactly he started plotting, but I only noticed it sometime after HC capped. HC capped on like turn 2 of the war. Charly was pleased with me on the eve of the war. My gut says it was afterwards. The question is who else he could be plotting on. On Ragnar, with whom he doesn't share a border? On 3-city frosty Monty on the other side of the map (who does happen to be his worst enemy)?

About the emancipation thing: I actually only have one vassal, which is HC. There are still 3 independent civs left. They could nag me with their woke indoctrination (just joking folks!). About US: I usually get that for the hammer bonus on towns. Since I still need to get quite a few techs, it seemed worthwhile.

Edit: btw, where would you fit biology in this tech path? It's not a prereq for computers. Is it important to get early or not?

 

[sampsa]

But I think the conquest vs. space debate can be boiled down to some people preferring to forgo the thrill of military conquest and just sit back and develop peacefully when they've reached a winning position. The kind of late-career rent-seeking thing.

Maybe, but then I'd like it if people would just admit it's what they want to do, not claim that it's somehow less tedious. Making a lot of mistakes will make the technical phase tedious, that is for sure.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Re: Emancipation: In my experience if all six other leaders have emancipation the anger starts to be relevant, with only three others it should be possible to deal with it easily. Adopting Caste can increase your production by up to around 20% while running a workshop economy. It is definitely worth the effort to deal with the unhappiness.

A few more things on improvements that I forgot in the last post: Sometimes it even is better to interrupt irrigation chains to replace them with watermills/workshops, yes you lose some food, but if the city is only growing on coast anyway it does not matter. There is no more whipping. The added production beats the food if the city can actually work the tiles. Any possible site on a river should be a watermill, mines should be replaced with windmills (+1 , but more importantl with electricity very decent commerce, for -1 ), any village that is more than ~10 turns away from growing into a town when you get around to it should be replaced.

where would you fit biology in this tech path? It's not a prereq for computers. Is it important to get early or not?

I usually do not research it. Watermills with SP are better than biology farms on riverside in most cases, thus I typically have very few farms, making biology of little use. Biology only becomes important when you want to research genetics or ecology, and that can be delayed a bit. Typically I end up getting it via internet.

About US: I usually get that for the hammer bonus on towns. Since I still need to get quite a few techs, it seemed worthwhile.

It is not. Democracy costs 4550 on immortal. You currently have 61 towns. To pay off you would need around 75 turns. Really the important point in time is the completion of the internet, since that will allow you to switch into it anyway. You are currently 11 techs away from computers, including optics. Optics, RR, combustion can most likely be traded for. Astronomy, physics, electricity and radio maybe. So lets say you have to research about 6 techs yourself and that one tech will take around 7 turns. That is 42 turns of research + ~10-15 (maybe 20, but 15 should be possible on almost any setup) to build the internet. Even in this very favourable setup researching democracy does not even pay off. Also early beakers are worth more, so to be actually an equal strategy you would need even more beakers.

Edit: I do not know how familliar you are with the late-game, so I feel I should mention that laboratories need observatories. Since they also provide a bonus to science it is best to get them up quickly.

 

[jorissimo]

Would you recommend giving Charly some gold to get him to pleased?

 

[a pen-dragon]

Would you recommend giving Charly some gold to get him to pleased?

NO!

The amount of trade needed for positive relations increases with the time you have known an AI. While it is possible to get +4 by giving 20 to an AI you just met, an AI you have known for 200 turns could cost thousands (I do not know exactly). This would be around the amount you need to research a technology!
Also why do you want him to be pleased towards you? He effectively already is and since the game rounds everything down as long as he is friendly towards HC this would not change anything.

 

[jorissimo]

NO!

The amount of trade needed for positive relations increases with the time you have known an AI. While it is possible to get +4 by giving 20 to an AI you just met, an AI you have known for 200 turns could cost thousands (I do not know exactly). This would be around the amount you need to research a technology!
Also why do you want him to be pleased towards you? He effectively already is and since the game rounds everything down as long as he is friendly towards HC this would not change anything.

Oh, I didn't know it discounted over time. That's good to know. There is that slim possibility that he started plotting before HC capped though.

 

[jorissimo]

1750 AD

Spoiler :

It turned out Charly really was plotting on Monty. An overseas adventure. Which I discovered by tracking a transport that was moving westward. A few turns later, Charly declared, took one city and then capped Monty. Ragnar converted to Islam and is now annoyed. The empire right now is sick, angry and starving and I'm building all of the health and happiness buildings the game has to offer in the problematic cities. Admittedly, the situation is now particularly bad because HC just switched back into Emancipation and now I have to wait 4 turns to bribe him back into Caste System. He also randomly switched to Christianity, but I managed to bribe him back into the Buddhist fold with a tech (he's behind me in tech but I need him to tech for me so I figured trading techs to him in exchange for conversions was safe). Charly is still teching like a beast, but I'm little over 3 techs away from the interwebz. Let's see if he'll be able to catch up after that.

 

[a pen-dragon]

A few quick moves can really make your empire look much better. First trade for the modern luxuries that are available. Then IMO it is better to run the culture slider for happiness, if a significient part of your cities are unhappy (maybe around half), since that allows you to skip building infrastructure to deal with it and instead build science, netting you a higher total science output. Running 20% culture I cranked your empire up to 2200 /turn. Doing some Micro, especially getting rid of spy specialists results in almost 2300.

While some infrastructure is good for a space win, some remains very bad. For instance you are running 0% gold, why are you building banks? Also it is fine if a city is unhealthy as long as it does not starve and works its good tiles.

You should workshop more. I would replace around 25 tiles with workshops, post electricity watermills are stronger than workshops, so they should replace riverside workshops. Also windmills post electricity are IMO stronger than mines. RR only help in case of war, and then only a little. They should be a lower priority for your workers.

Furthermore, try for a GA, I know that this situation is not optimal in that regard, but you can maximize your chances. A GA does help to build the last parts quicker.

 

[jorissimo]

A few quick moves can really make your empire look much better. First trade for the modern luxuries that are available. Then IMO it is better to run the culture slider for happiness, if a significient part of your cities are unhappy (maybe around half), since that allows you to skip building infrastructure to deal with it and instead build science, netting you a higher total science output. Running 20% culture I cranked your empire up to 2200 /turn. Doing some Micro, especially getting rid of spy specialists results in almost 2300.

While some infrastructure is good for a space win, some remains very bad. For instance you are running 0% gold, why are you building banks? Also it is fine if a city is unhealthy as long as it does not starve and works its good tiles.

You should workshop more. I would replace around 25 tiles with workshops, post electricity watermills are stronger than workshops, so they should replace riverside workshops. Also windmills post electricity are IMO stronger than mines. RR only help in case of war, and then only a little. They should be a lower priority for your workers.

Furthermore, try for a GA, I know that this situation is not optimal in that regard, but you can maximize your chances. A GA does help to build the last parts quicker.

I have been too casual about a lot of stuff again . It's interesting that upping the culture slider can increase bpt, but I guess I have so much money coming in that I can afford it. That also explains why forgot to stop building banks. And why I'm not building science. And of course I can just pay for those catchy hit singles. About the improvements: I have a lot of Aztec cities with no food resources. Would you recommend shopping over the farms even there? And yes the GA is definitely on the books. I thought I could pull it off with 2 GP, but it looks like I already spent that one.


Btw, those spies are super annoying! Why does the city governor do that?

 

[a pen-dragon]

Would you recommend shopping over the farms even there?

Yes. Farms do not help themself, they only provide two things, namely the ability to work more low-food tiles and making the city grow quicker. At this point in the game your cities should be sufficiently grow, so only leave as many farms as are needed to maintain the population level.

Why does the city governor do that?

I think this is related to spies generating +1 and +4 , so a total of +5. If the espionage is actually useful is another question, and in this case science takes priority.

 

[Gumbolt]

Shame you didn't complete the cuirs rush. It's an interesting map that did force you to rush an AI early on. The AI have performed quite well here. HRE quietly getting on with things.

Giving the AI a lot of free techs can just catapult them to getting much stronger.

Never really use espionage. I should probably be targeting a single AI on my games. Can be nice to steal techs on higher levels. Would I aim for a great spy as a strategy. No. If you build Great Wall it's harder to ignore.

I do look at the city details screen in my games. To make sure no cities are running city governor or have added random specialists. Pretty much most captured cities will be using city governor. City Details is the second drop down option on the city overview screen that lists all your cities.

 

[jorissimo]

Shame you didn't complete the cuirs rush. It's an interesting map that did force you to rush an AI early on. The AI have performed quite well here. HRE quietly getting on with things.

Giving the AI a lot of free techs can just catapult them to getting much stronger.

Never really use espionage. I should probably be targeting a single AI on my games. Can be nice to steal techs on higher levels. Would I aim for a great spy as a strategy. No. If you build Great Wall it's harder to ignore.

I do look at the city details screen in my games. To make sure no cities are running city governor or have added random specialists. Pretty much most captured cities will be using city governor. City Details is the second drop down option on the city overview screen that lists all your cities.

Yeah you really gotta give Charly some credit here. Remember that my first Cuir attempt was routed by him. It instilled in me a sense of awe for his production, technological and cultural prowess for the rest of the game. Also recall that a lot when wrong with the second Cuir attempt. I was initially plotting on Monty, and attacked the turn before an AP vote. Then, after 10 turns, he vassals to freaking Capac. Meaning I had to move my whole stack all the way up to SB. In hindsight, he should have been my first target. His land was the best, and that capital is just insane. It's my number 1 city in almost every respect. Super soft target and really easy to assimilate. So I could have conquered him in the 1200s. That would have been a completely different game. But with all of the contingencies, by the time I capped Capac, cuits weren't going to cut it against Ragnar and Charly. So that's that. But the game is still perfectly winnable.

I think one of the most striking differences between emperor and immortal to me is that on the latter, the game is never really over. AI that you let sit around become insane fortresses. I remember this one game with Darius, one of my better immortal wins so far, the last AI, Gilga, wiped out a stack of 30-40 tanks on turn 1 of the war with antitank guns. It didn't matter, because I ended up winning Diplo shortly after, but it's not like emperor (or immortal quechua rush) where at some point you're basically playing on sandbox mode. Immortal is never sandbox, you can actually undo your own advantage pretty easily.

Btw, I didn't know about that city details screen, will check it out!

 

[sampsa]

Immortal is never sandbox, you can actually undo your own advantage pretty easily.

But please understand that for people who are able to beat deity, immortal is very easy, close to a joke once you get to the ADs safely. It's hard for you now because you are making a lot of mistakes. I understand that many of your mistakes come from trying to listen to everyone and therefore your strategy has been a total mess. Yes, you are able to beat immortal even without a coherent strategy.

 

[pigswill]

I'm interested to see how helpful Internet will be in this game given that Charly is the only AI leading you in tech. On lower difficulties Internet is pretty useless as by the time it becomes available you usually have a commanding tech lead.