Frustrated with immortal

[lymond]

get your scout or new warrior to check further east there. you might consider settling on the gold over there but check to make sure no seafood is orphaned. working gold early can be beneficial but dry desert gold is not as lucrative to commerce. the rice can be chain-irrigated after CS directly from the corn. (edit: ah that corn is dry and city is on a hill but you will want to irrigate the corn later anyway which is simple here)

 

[jorissimo]

T25

Spoiler :

Quick updates on city placement: I discovered fish down near the deer site, confirming it as a second city that will also be great long term. Furthermore, horses appeared to the northwest, but these were quickly taken by Wang Kon. Now I also won't be able to settle on the ivory.

I stupidly lost my scout to a lion just east of my capital (should have moved one tile at a time). That's why I quickly built a 3T warrior while working high hammer tiles to at least get something to fogbust with, given that the worker still had to build the pasture. Then switched to a settler as soon as the warrior was done. It's now 3000 BC and the pasture has just finished. The settler will take 10 turns. Walking to the deer and camping it will take 6 turns, which is when the wheel will finish and I'll be able to build a road to the third city. The elephant site is still open, but it might be hugging Wang too closely. corn site is also nice. Not so sure which one to pick.

The reason I went wheel before BW is that I was getting a little nervous about commerce, as you can see I am making only 9 per turn from palace and capital site. If I go BW first, I will get a third settler out very quickly and there will be no way to build a road for it. I would probably crash my economy. In between farming the wine and roading to c3, the worker will not be idle.

The land to the northeast looks very crappy. My only chance at getting into a decent midgame is probably to elepult, meaning the elephant site is a very high priority. Maybe c2 will go warrior until size 2 and then switch to a settler to get it out asap. Or capital goes second settler immediately and c2 builds a warrior. Will need to think about this.

 

[lymond]

(civ has a way of saving screenshots to a screenshot folder....i think it is just printscrn on your keyboard but there may be a shortcut. I forget now as steam has its own way)

I'd not worry much about the gpt right now. You are going into deficit research after the first city is settled and then you will run 0% research for a while.

I think you may want to settle for ivory first. Not a great city but you want to secure it to kill Wang as he has to go

Land is really not that bad...you have an easy 5 cities, if not a 6 and elepults on Wang seems like a plan.

and there still may be city further E there too

 

[sampsa]

I think finishing the warrior was a relatively big mistake. Since the 2nd city has a 42-tile and it is -neutral, every turn you have the city you generate an extra 43(the 3rd from the city center). Finishing the warrior cost you two turns I think, thus you paid 86 for it, a massive price.

Why do you need to fog bust the east? Archers enter what T50 on immortal the earliest, you have plenty of time to get that warrior into place. The AI are fog busting and fighting barbs on a map this tight.

Not sure at all about the wheel. For me, just chop and connect later, maybe after fishing even. c5-spot is connected via cost anyway (even without fishing). edit: as is c4 after border pops. Hence absolutely no rush to wheel.

 

[lymond]

also, if unsure about a decision, feel free to stop and post back here for advice.

 

[jorissimo]

(civ has a way of saving screenshots to a screenshot folder....i think it is just printscrn on your keyboard but there may be a shortcut. I forget now as steam has its own way)

I'd not worry much about the gpt right now. You are going into deficit research after the first city is settled and then you will run 0% research for a while.

I think you may want to settle for ivory first. Not a great city but you want to secure it to kill Wang as he has to go

Land is really not that bad...you have an easy 5 cities, if not a 6 and elepults on Wang seems like a plan.

and there still may be city further E there too

I'll try to find that screenshot folder. The thing is that printscreen on Windows 11 normally triggers the snippet tool that won't record anything if you don't select the area you want to screenshot.

About the gpt: on my earlier tries with Peter I went AH and BW first and it really slowed me down, took me ages to get to pottery. But I think in one of those games my second city was suboptimally placed.

Yeah I'm really torn between the deer and the elephant. Other than ivory we have no (visible) strategic resources.

 

[jorissimo]

I think finishing the warrior was a relatively big mistake. Since the 2nd city has a 42-tile and it is -neutral, every turn you have the city you generate an extra 43(the 3rd from the city center). Finishing the warrior cost you two turns I think, thus you paid 86 for it, a massive price.

Why do you need to fog bust the east? Archers enter what T50 on immortal the earliest, you have plenty of time to get that warrior into place. The AI are fog busting and fighting barbs on a map this tight.

Not sure at all about the wheel. For me, just chop and connect later, maybe after fishing even. c5-spot is connected via cost anyway (even without fishing). edit: as is c4 after border pops. Hence absolutely no rush to wheel.

My barb skills are bad. Part of it is I'm too careless about moving my units, another is that I don't have the timeline of appearance and entry memorized. I know they enter when the average number of cities is 3, but I also don't really know around what turn that tends to be. I guess I would have been better able to make the judgment call to build the warrior if I had memorized that.

The wheel thing is something I see Henrik do a lot. I started doing it after repeatedly suffering early commerce crunches with non-financial leaders, and it's been working out better. If I can't connect by river I'm not sure how to handle this without the wheel.

Wait, coast connections happen before sailing??

 

[lymond]

Henrik sometimes ignores BW or AH or whatever on Deity. Sometimes, you simply have to sacrifice one over the other, especially on Deity. The cow tile is very strong with corn for worker/settler production, but conversely, ignoring AH may have been a call here since chopping is also strong. I think you are fine on this level though going AH>BW. but there are not many AH resources around. You can also go straight to Writing and avoid TW and Pot for now since you are Khmer

 

[sampsa]

Coast always connects when it's inside your culture. I agree that on very -poor starts you can go wheel before BW, but you don't need to do it often. Also, immortal is way way more forgiving than deity. Less maintenance cost and techs are cheaper.

Do you also now understand why settling 1W T0 was my recommendation? That extra is very valuable.

 

[jorissimo]

Henrik sometimes ignores BW or AH or whatever on Deity. Sometimes, you simply have to sacrifice one over the other, especially on Deity. The cow tile is very strong with corn for worker/settler production, but conversely, ignoring AH may have been a call here since chopping is also strong. I think you are fine on this level though going AH>BW. but there are not many AH resources around. You can also go straight to Writing and avoid TW and Pot for now since you are Khmer

Henrik also does that on immortal though. There's one recent game of his with, again, Peter where he goes TW before AH and BW and settles a second city that's kinda far out.

That writing beeline sounds very intriguing. Would never have considered it. The point is cheap libraries and relying on scientists for research, right?

 

[lymond]

Henrik also does that on immortal though. There's one recent game of his with, again, Peter where he goes TW before AH and BW and settles a second city that's kinda far out.

That writing beeline sounds very intriguing. Would never have considered it. The point is cheap libraries and relying on scientists for research, right?

Yeah, I saw that one Yeah, it really depends on a lot of factors. Like very strong tiles. He likesta cottage early too. And relative safety. Looks potentially like with a couple spawnbusters you may be very safe here from barbs though I don't know what is going on in the far NE

 

[jorissimo]

Coast always connects when it's inside your culture. I agree that on very -poor starts you can go wheel before BW, but you don't need to do it often. Also, immortal is way way more forgiving than deity. Less maintenance cost and techs are cheaper.

Do you also now understand why settling 1W T0 was my recommendation? That extra is very valuable.

Yeah it makes sense. But it was hard to call. Even you were kinda torn between choosing more commerce or the corn one turn faster (which I more than wasted on the warrior ).

 

[Fippy]

If you want to play deity sometime (or just toy around with that thought ), you might as well do now what you'd have to there:
settling ivory first, 1s of them and lock out Wang from further annoying you (and stealing stuff).

On Imm you might get away with going for deer first..but it's still not great imo.

 

[Tecumseh1]

RE frustration. Been there. I was struggling to beat noble in March and pretty comfortable with immortal now with occasional diety. There are some really good players and advice in this thread and forum. It will get easier. Someone back then suggested I jump right to immortal and keep playing there until I stop getting smashed. And it seemed to work.

 

[jorissimo]

RE frustration. Been there. I was struggling to beat noble in March and pretty comfortable with immortal now with occasional diety. There are some really good players and advice in this thread and forum. It will get easier. Someone back then suggested I jump right to immortal and keep playing there until I stop getting smashed. And it seemed to work.

I think I might have seen that post!
Every time I come back from a long civ break I basically have to go back to monarch, and at the end of each civ phase I'm around where I am now. It's a lot of information that you need to have present and our memory is fallible. Apart from skill, which drops back quickly when you don't practice. It's a lot like chess in that regard.

 

[sampsa]

settling ivory first, 1s of them and lock out Wang from further annoying you (and stealing stuff).

I agree that it's good to settle ivory if you can. It's nowhere near mandatory to get it (spoiler: you won't) on deity anyway.

On Imm you might get away with going for deer first..but it's still not great imo.

What do you mean might get away?? It's just 100% won if you settle 4 good cities, no matter if no horse/copper/iron/ivory.

edit: what I exactly mean is that you can start the war at construction with catapults and the first city you capture has ivory. Hence it's not necessary to be able to settle that spot. It would be better to get it sooner for +1 though.

 

[jorissimo]

I agree that it's good to settle ivory if you can. It's nowhere near mandatory to get it (spoiler: you won't) on deity anyway.

What do you mean might get away?? It's just 100% won if you settle 4 good cities, no matter if no horse/copper/iron/ivory.

edit: what I exactly mean is that you can start the war at construction with catapults and the first city you capture has ivory. Hence it's not necessary to be able to settle that spot. It would be better to get it sooner for +1 though.

But that kind of hinges on having copper or iron right? Which we probably do on that unforested grassland square. But IW would be a bit of a detour.

 

[sampsa]

But that kind of hinges on having copper or iron right? Which we probably do on that unforested grassland square. But IW would be a bit of a detour.

No no. You need to be able to take one city from him without metal/horse/ivory units. It's not hard at all with archers, just have enough siege! Hoping he settles on ivory of course, as he did in my game (T28 or so).

 

[jorissimo]

No no. You need to be able to take one city from him without metal/horse/ivory units. It's not hard at all with archers, just have enough siege! Hoping he settles on ivory of course, as he did in my game (T28 or so).

Interesting! What would be a good proportion of cats to archers? 50/50?

 

[sampsa]

Interesting! What would be a good proportion of cats to archers? 50/50?

So you need enough cats to max wound every defender and then you need enough archers to win the fights and hold the city. I'd guess more cats than archers?