Help on Immortal -Washington - American

[Gumbolt]

I have not played very optimally. Exploring has been a big issue. The war did not help!

I have no idea how I have left Ah/IW so late. AEsth was a big mistake. I didn't realise the Ai would tech so slow on this level.

I traded PH for Mediation so Incas could build missionaries. The plan is to build one myself too.

I am tempted to backfill the 2 techs and take a golden age. I need a few turns to prep for it.

I am not sure why I wasn't building the light house earlier. Micromanagement!! Always doing too many things at once too. I am still in okay shape at this stage.

Where should I build the 2 new cities?

 

[Dirk1302]

You're certainly in good shape here no doubt. Micro is just very important but not everyone finds it fun to do. I mostly do but there are limits, i'm not checking every city with a forge if it has exactly 4,8,12 hammers to avoid rounding down of the 25% increase for instance. However whipping in time, having you workers in the right place so as to get new resources up asap pays off and is part of the fun for me. It's one of the reasons for me to play a turned based game actually to have the time to play close to optimally. It's also one of the reasons why i was not in favor of building GW at the start of the thread. Here with stone it was a good call but i often feel this wonder is built out of laziness. Defending against barbs without too much effort is entirely possible but it needs some focus.

Bug mod's alt-M can be a big help in this respect. I frequently use it to remind me of whipping times, also other events like expiring resource deals (to renegotiate for better prices) and others events.

 

[Gumbolt]

Things have taken a turn for the worse. Boudica keeps attacking me. Does she attack at pleased?

I will write up a report tomorrow.

 

[Dirk1302]

Boudica doesn't attack at pleased iirc.

 

[Gumbolt]

Boudica doesn't attack at pleased iirc.

Okay played up to 680ad

Okay didn't need to spread the religion to Celts as it spread naturally. First bit of good news.

250ad took AH. No horse!

325ad I founded Seattle and San Fransico

375ad Great artists found elsewhere. I am guessing someone has music.

400Ad Celts declared again! She was in the mood for another attack and this time she had HA/Chariots/axes/and her GWarriors. I spammed axes/spears. She dumped 2 catapults by my gp farm. For a moment I did panic but the Ai never could figure out a naval assault. The galley just left afterwards. I killed both cats with 2 axes. Phew!!

She also came at me with a stack of 10 units at my new city east of my capital and placed them on a jungle. That same turn she took alphabet for peace (600ad). Pointless war which made me build 3-4 more units! I now have option of gifting her philosphy or CS to get her to pleased. Her stack remains in tact.

425Ad I took a golden age. I reached CS 1-2 turns later but I switched to caste system before I reached civil service. Later I switch to bur and pacifism.

450ad I pop a GS! Philosophy is bulbed and I found Taoism in Atlanta.

520ad and I finally have IW! 2 iron resources found one In Boston BFC and another below Washington. What a production city boston is!

560ad and paper is teched.

620ad I have teched poly. I later traded techs with the incas for lit and archery. Boston is 11 turns off NE.

660ad and I am 2 turns off edu. Liberalism should be in the bag really. I bulbed part of Edu with a second GS.

My new cities are somewhat staunted in growth due to war with Celts and difficulty working resources at war. Not much i could do. My eastern coast has a few barb ships lurking.

Going forward I need to switch to OR and maybe slavery civic. I need to gift boudica Phil or CS to get her to pleased. Should be possible now. Boston is 11 turns off NE. Need to pick a HE site too. Boston??

Okay I couldn't irrigate Atlanta! Need CS first. Shame! Not sure I got the city builds done too well. I really could use metal casting for forges.

The game is not a disaster but I am struggling through.

Techwise once edu is in I have a huge trading chip. I should be able to maintain a tech lead of some sort.

Any more thoughts?

 

[Gumbolt]

3 views but no comments. hmmm.

I appreciate it is not going great but some advice would be welcome even if I don't fully take it all in.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I have followed the thread only loosely, so my apologies if I say things off the track.


If you want to build Oxford University, your 6th city will have its own University much later than your 1st 5.
Maybe you should revolt back to Slavery to speed things up. You will need every hammer you can get, not scientists, in the next 20 turns.


I've noticed you were running 2 scientists in the cities building workers. Maybe you can put them on pause for a while. It depends if you intend to get GPs out of those cities, of course.
I didn't look closely but I guess it will be hard once you have the National Epic in your GP farm, though. Maybe you will be forced to starve those cities during a Golden Age to get said GPs (in which case, emphazising food has its advantages).


You can get Forges + Organized Religion (+ Monarchy + Construction + maybe something else) if you trade Philosophy around.
That may be the way to go. Unless you want a special pick from Liberalism.
That trade would make it more attractive to build Hindu missionaries. Even without it, though, you should build some.


My inclination would be to drop the slider entirely while focusing on infrastructure. I don't know whether Forges 1st is a good idea. Certainly not everywhere. Maybe in some hammer rich cities.


Is there a war plan ?
Your research rate will stall at some point in the Renaissance.


Hmmm... That's not a very well thought out post. Sorry. Don't take things in there for granted. I am truly unsure of what your priorities should be.
Should Oxford University even be a priority ?
Boudica looks very backwards. Maybe postpone the Universities build up, trade for Construction + Metal Casting, build Forges, Catapults, research Machinery, invade ?

 

[Gumbolt]

I have followed the thread only loosely, so my apologies if I say things off the track.


If you want to build Oxford University, your 6th city will have its own University much later than your 1st 5.
Maybe you should revolt back to Slavery to speed things up. You will need every hammer you can get, not scientists, in the next 20 turns.


I've noticed you were running 2 scientists in the cities building workers. Maybe you can put them on pause for a while. It depends if you intend to get GPs out of those cities, of course.
I didn't look closely but I guess it will be hard once you have the National Epic in your GP farm, though. Maybe you will be forced to starve those cities during a Golden Age to get said GPs (in which case, emphazising food has its advantages).


You can get Forges + Organized Religion (+ Monarchy + Construction + maybe something else) if you trade Philosophy around.
That may be the way to go. Unless you want a special pick from Liberalism.
That trade would make it more attractive to build Hindu missionaries. Even without it, though, you should build some.


My inclination would be to drop the slider entirely while focusing on infrastructure. I don't know whether Forges 1st is a good idea. Certainly not everywhere. Maybe in some hammer rich cities.


Is there a war plan ?
Your research rate will stall at some point in the Renaissance.


Hmmm... That's not a very well thought out post. Sorry. Don't take things in there for granted. I am truly unsure of what your priorities should be.
Should Oxford University even be a priority ?
Boudica looks very backwards. Maybe postpone the Universities build up, trade for Construction + Metal Casting, build Forges, Catapults, research Machinery, invade ?

I am not sure what the plan is really. Boudica is a pain and has LB and a stack of 10 on my borders. I can get her to pleased if I gift philosophy. She has Dow'd me twice now.

I like the war idea. There is a chance Incas might join if I declare. I will trade philosophy off to incas for now and head for trebs.

I don't think I am ready for OUni now anyway.

 

[Gumbolt]

I thought I would try out a plan for war. Got a bit carried away.

Didn't build NE built HE in Boston instead.

Missed out on liberalism. Doh!!

Started a war with Celts. She had way too many units!! Longbows on hills were a pain.

I took her 3 border cities and her capital. I lost Seattle. A sleepless moment on my part.

Some of her unit movements were crazy. such as move LB to attack my stacks leaving a chariot to defend a city.

The final stack she left had 5 catapults and a treb on my coast.

Her capital had the great light house and hanging gardens.

Overall my tech rate is dragging. I need nationalism and a golden age asap.

I lost focus a bit.

 

[Dirk1302]

Yes i think you did lose focus. At least all the mines in the neighbourhood of Boston are up. But San Fransisco...... You're building a cottage(?) on a non river tile while working unimproved river tiles. Almost all cities are looking undeveloped, at this stage of the game every tile near every city should be improved also the plain tiles (workshops for instance). That would have mixed very well with caste system and Mids. Philadelphia would have been a very strong city if you had chain farmed to corn and farmed north of the city. Also farm the now unimproved grass tile 1n2e and you would have 5 food surplus more. City could have worked some plain tiles or ran specs with that food. As it is now it looks like a city anno 1 AD instead of 1200 AD. War with celts was a bad idea imo, if you start a war like this be sure you're in a position to finish it. You really need to play well from here to win this game at all, begin by expanding your worker force, that should have been done earlier.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yes i think you did lose focus. At least all the mines in the neighbourhood of Boston are up. But San Fransisco...... You're building a cottage(?) on a non river tile while working unimproved river tiles. Almost all cities are looking undeveloped, at this stage of the game every tile near every city should be improved also the plain tiles (workshops for instance). That would have mixed very well with caste system and Mids. Philadelphia would have been a very strong city if you had chain farmed to corn and farmed north of the city. Also farm the now unimproved grass tile 1n2e and you would have 5 food surplus more. City could have worked some plain tiles or ran specs with that food. As it is now it looks like a city anno 1 AD instead of 1200 AD. War with celts was a bad idea imo, if you start a war like this be sure you're in a position to finish it. You really need to play well from here to win this game at all, begin by expanding your worker force, that should have been done earlier.

Yes the war idea was a bad one given her duns and military build up. Lack of espionage on my part didn't help. I wanted to try something different and it did not pay off in this instance.

I really did lose focus on the worker front. I never really had enough workers from early on.

I failed to expand to key sites early on,

Failed to tech correctly towards alphabet rather than aesthetics.

Lots of mistakes really mostly from lack of focus.

It is a sorry effort really but there is hope.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think it is best to write this effort off as a learning curve due to so many mistakes.

I did wonder on one point. Is running wealth and science long term bad for the economy. On my last 2 immortal games my economy has become almost dependent on it to burn ahead of the Ai tech rate.

My JoaII game seems to be going better. Ironically I had rifles around 1200-1300ad mark on that game. Rifles vs long bow = much better odds.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I did wonder on one point. Is running wealth and science long term bad for the economy. On my last 2 immortal games my economy has become almost dependent on it to burn ahead of the Ai tech rate.

I have a lot to learn on that matter but, in my limited experience, building wealth-science is :
- ok if it helps reaching 1 critical tech.
- not ok if it lasts centuries. Infrastructure should be preferred, then.

Typically, I will build wealth-science in cities intended for military production, at times where I lack the military tech I need. Or to shave off some turns of research to Currency/Civil service.

It is also more efficient for already developped Empires : if you have a lot of (science) multipliers, then the value of building wealth is high. If you don't, it is low.


Then again : I have only limited experience of that matter and I only marginally build wealth-science. Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Mylene]

Imo it depends on the potential of a city.
Let's say you take a location with a plains hill gold + 1 average food ressource like Rice, and there is lots of plains/hills around. Will never get big and trying is a waste of workers, but it will still be useful by building research or wealth through the game. All you most likely need is 2 mines, windmills or workshops.

Similiar to production cities a bit bigger, size 9-11 or so, if there is nothing to build sometimes you just put them on research/wealth.
The opposite would be commerce cities on rivers etc. here you want to get infrastructure from the few hammers they usually make.

 

[vranasm]

^^ very good approach... I usually tend to have a lot of hammer cities (like 50% or more of all) and after granary, rax, forge, stables you can basically switch into building wealth until it's time to leverage the tech edge you got that way ;-)

but still waiting for my Imm win! so what I know ;-)

 

[Gumbolt]

I must admit I have been slow to playing civ lately. I am trying to get a few games under my belt at a higher level now.

In this particular game I let myself get hemmed in by 2 AI and had no real plan to break the deadlock. The constant wars with Boudica did not help me.

I was somewhat holding my ground before I started a final war I could not win out right without some form of espionage or high powered unit.

Wealth and science really do help you to power through the early techs and this game somewhat proved that.

I think I will start a third game with a bit more direction this time. I need to get my strarting strategies right as this will make or break games on this level.

 

[Gumbolt]

Imo it depends on the potential of a city.
Let's say you take a location with a plains hill gold + 1 average food ressource like Rice, and there is lots of plains/hills around. Will never get big and trying is a waste of workers, but it will still be useful by building research or wealth through the game. All you most likely need is 2 mines, windmills or workshops.

Similiar to production cities a bit bigger, size 9-11 or so, if there is nothing to build sometimes you just put them on research/wealth.
The opposite would be commerce cities on rivers etc. here you want to get infrastructure from the few hammers they usually make.

What about running wealth in the capital when you have most key builds?

Production/ military cities make a lot of sense when not preparing or at war.

 

[Dirk1302]

I build wealth/science when
1. I need a critical tech soonish
2. I just got currency/alpha and i just don't have better things to build atm
3. It's rather late game, i go for space race and building markets/banks < just running wealth as
there aren't that many turns left

Generally there are better things to do with hammers than building wealth, After 1000 AD you should have a solid commerce base from cottages or rep specs.

As for this game, i'm not sure if the direction was that faulty apart from the war but the micro/timing was really sloppy sometimes imo. Clearest example was Boston, if you get such a site you really want to get max benefit out of it. But it took you forever to get those mines up there, that really hurts, you missed out on 30-40% production for a long time there, even the best plans can't overcome that.

 

[Mylene]

Don't forget your biggest advantage is how the AI moves during war, instead of wealth you can also build old horse units which can later be upgraded for a Cur/Cav rush.
Knights are good for that, the upgrade is cheap later if you should get guilds.
It can be hard on Deity at times, but at Immortal i can always win like that

 

[Gumbolt]

I build wealth/science when
1. I need a critical tech soonish
2. I just got currency/alpha and i just don't have better things to build atm
3. It's rather late game, i go for space race and building markets/banks < just running wealth as
there aren't that many turns left

Generally there are better things to do with hammers than building wealth, After 1000 AD you should have a solid commerce base from cottages or rep specs.

As for this game, i'm not sure if the direction was that faulty apart from the war but the micro/timing was really sloppy sometimes imo. Clearest example was Boston, if you get such a site you really want to get max benefit out of it. But it took you forever to get those mines up there, that really hurts, you missed out on 30-40% production for a long time there, even the best plans can't overcome that.

To begin with I got Boston wrong. I should of seen it as a production site not a NE site. Same goes for atlanta and phil where I should of irrigated and chain irrigated resources.

In principle I know how to recover an economy and out tech the Ai on immortal around lib time. Maintaining that is another matter.

What I lack is the micro and thoughts on city builds at times. Also on city development. Also early expansion and learning to block off the AI.

Is it better to circle your capital when you explore or head out and find the AI cities?