How to win on Immortal and above???

[Lord Katana]

Hey all,

I've been playing civ a long time and WM since release 6. I still can't beat the computer on Immortal level and beyond. Anybody have any tips how too? I am proficient with Autrin/Svartalfar/Calabim/Malakim and recently Illians. I love mages, and most of the time have a fleet of FireII and either AirII or IceIII as stackbusters.

I either loose an early (pre-mages) war or i loose cause of a culture victory and the inability to do something about it (other island, too many opponents and such).

Anyone got some tips/tricks that work for you?

 

[dommain]

I play custom games and turn off culture victory.

 

[seizer]

Play Khazad as one of the leaders with the "miner" trait. Rush.

 

[Valkrionn]

Play Khazad as one of the leaders with the "miner" trait. Rush.

Unless Sephi gave the trait to another leader when he merged it from RifE, that would be Reorx Veinhunter only.

 

[seizer]

Unless Sephi gave the trait to another leader when he merged it from RifE, that would be Reorx Veinhunter only.

Athel Revus also has it in wildmana (and is the better choice, ingenuity is generally better than engineer).

 

[Valkrionn]

Athel Revus also has it in wildmana (and is the better choice, ingenuity is generally better than engineer).

.......Athel is Miner instead of Slaver? I hope his pedia was not used then, it's rather explicitly slave-oriented.

Edit: After some digging.... Yes he is Miner instead of Slaver, and no he does not have a different pedia. Rather large discrepancy there; Why merge the leader if you change his defining characteristic? What's the point of two Miner leaders? The Slaver trait was designed with an Evil Khazad leader in mind, and his pedia was written expressly for it; Rather like a slap in the face to use the leader near exact as implemented in RifE, and then change the most important thing about him.

 

[Folket]

You don't need to be so bitter. Just send Sephi a PM and ask him.

I don't remember a single game where the computer had more culture then me.

I guess what you need to do is win earlier. Perhaps you let three cities concentrate on size and bards while you walk over the enemy. Or just as soon as you have 4 manas build the four mastery towers.

At which turn do the enemy win?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

one thing you shouldn't have is different isles that's for sure

do yourself a favour and play ErebusContinent with High cohesion, perfect map for FFH2

 

[Sephi]

Off topic

.......Athel is Miner instead of Slaver? I hope his pedia was not used then, it's rather explicitly slave-oriented.

His mining technique is to use slaves

 

[Lord Katana]

You don't need to be so bitter. Just send Sephi a PM and ask him.

I don't remember a single game where the computer had more culture then me.

I guess what you need to do is win earlier. Perhaps you let three cities concentrate on size and bards while you walk over the enemy. Or just as soon as you have 4 manas build the four mastery towers.

At which turn do the enemy win?

Last game was about turn 240 out of 480, so about halfway. And oh yeh... they also had a military 4 times bigger then mine (but mine being 5 times bigger then the last remaining player and i had already killed two civs on my own island)....(balphs as the case may be).

And i'll give the khazad a change....

 

[Valkrionn]

Meh. Not worth the horsehockystorm.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that would be a nice T3 Earth spell methinks.

 

[Tarquelne]

Anyone got some tips/tricks that work for you?

I'm reminded of the epitaph fictionally attributed to Empress Wenxian:

Heaven produces myriads of things to nourish man;
Man never does one good thing to recompense Heaven;
Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!

I find my Immortal+ games much easier if I'm very, very aggressive in the early game toward one opponent. It's tough when the AI starts with a stack of archers, but pick a civ and try to take advantage of any vulnerabilities. Poaching one of the first workers is a favorite. The idea isn't to necessarily destroy the civ - though that's nice, since they'll hate your guts - but to get some breathing room.

Picking a fight that early makes things pretty tense, but it's a lot of fun.

Other tips, based on things I've had trouble with: Suck it up and cave in to demands unless you really are ready for a big fight. Watch the strength ratios in the contacts (?) section of the screen. Make Archery an early tech goal if things look dicey.

 

[iffi]

First of all, the size and type of the map makes a huge difference. I play small Tectonics with 30% water.

Go for Cultists/Ritualists in your pre-Mage era. On immortal, I actually rarely bothered with Mages as they were redundant because of these two priest-classes. And overall, I always find other areas more immeadiately important than going for Mages. I just can't spare the resources on them. They are a luxury item for the lower difficulty levels. Only if I score Spellbooks I go for Sorcery.

Going for the Kilmorph iron mine wonder saves you the trouble of researching deep into the metal line until late game.

Ranged warfare is wonderful. Makes Catapults redundant in most situations. And allows you to beat strong AI units without wasting much of your precious units.

Over/undercouncil allows you to manipulate wars. And gives great diplomatic bonuses, which become more important the higher the difficulty level is.

Dominating Corlingdale, Chalid.

On desperate situations, the Gibbon Goetia can break the game in your favour.

All of these I considered to be overpowered game-breakers at Immortal level, so I did not like to use them. But on Deity, I finally can allow myself to use all the dirty tricks available. Because I have to, just to survive.

I don't consider Religious and Cultural victories as such, so if they happen I just continue playing.