Immortal - Can't catch up

[R17MCMLXXIX]

So I started my first immortal game this week. I usually do marathons, but decided to start doing 750 turn games.

I have no problem on King and have beaten Emperor. I get killed every time on Immortal. I've tried a hundred different strategies and fail. The first game was playing Persia and Greece won diplomatic victory by like turn 480.

Problem is, as you will see in the Game I've included. I have to build units and fast and I still get killed. I changed policy tree from Tradition to Honor, to at least survive. I've managed to make it to turn 300. But I'm not going anywhere.

I usually start off Scout, Warrior, Monument, Warrior, Worker, Settler, Archer, Archer

I usually go Husbandry, Archer, Pottery, Writing, Callendar, Mining, Build a library quickly, Rush to Iron for swordsmen. In my latest game, I had to defend quick. Greece was the most powerful civ, I have the Mod Infoaddict, and they were like 50k I was 25 or so.

The problem for me is, I'm so busy defending myself, that at the later stages of the game, I'm on Longswordsmen, and other civs are on Riflemen. I can't catch up at all. Is my strategy flawed on immortal, or have I got a real tough starting position. On King mode I could fly through science, because I didn't have to worry about invasion as much. The scary thing is, in this game America could destroy me if they wanted.

So what can I do with this game?

 

[vra379971]

Okay, I'll bite. Let me have a look at it.

Will give a more detailed reply in the morning.

Basically, your major problem here is you lack population, and science is driven solely by your pop numbers, and made some highly questionable early game choices by looks of it, in terms of your aggression, or lack thereof.

Quick rundown here:

The city state south there is still alive...why?! Its on prime prime land, with plenty of food and resources. That should have been target #1!

The small city to the north of the capital....why found it? You'd have been better off trying to knock off Athens, which you should have aimed to do a long time ago.

You failed to build the National College, which should have been your first build, and your food poor start hasn't been helped by the fact the things that would help that - Aqueducts etc, were not built.

Food issues. You lack food big time. The production choices you've made here in terms of improvements don't help that.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Just don't take this wrong, but I'd suggest you to drop one level and work things out from there.

Fighting with swords in 1190AD is not something you can allow yourself on immortal. On standard speed you would be dead a long time ago. But since AI is incapable of leveraging slower speeds you're still breathing.

You have some major issues here.

1) Science:
You generate only 29 . Of course you're not competitive with AI.

- You need to build libraries asap after your initial scouts-workers-monuments done and then immediately construct National College in your capital.
- Later on (not much later, but it's ok to invest some time into infrastructure/military/economics) get Education, build universities and fill all the scientists slots. That alone will make the game completely different. Use Great Scientists to bulb expensive techs that will help you to advance.
- Population = science. Feed your citizens. Instead of trade posting everything you should farm everything you can due to a mediocre food start. You have unimproved cattle tiles and riverside forests. Take care of that. Chop forests and farm. Build granaries in cities with wheat, dear and bananas. Beeline food boosting techs like Civil Service and Fertilizer.

2) Social policies:
You make only 9 and have unlocked nothing but Honor tree.

- Monuments aren't enough. Construct temples and try taking SP's that reduce future policies costs.
- In addition you'll probably need to ally culture City States to speed policies acquiring.
- Honor tree shouldn't be your first tree if you plan to go defensive at early stages, something you'll almost always do on immortal difficulty. You'd better pick Tradition or Liberty and Honor will come later when you start going offensive. And even then there are probably more worthy things to choose from.

3) Diplomacy and trade:

- Sell open borders to people that aren't an immediate danger to you to gain more cash.
- Constantly sell excessive luxes for 360 , don't wait untill AI suggests you to.
- You've signed Research Agreements in the past, I assume something AI suggested as well. Learn how they work. Manipulation of the median is required to receive some real benefit. Besides, you don't have neither Porcelain Tower nor Rationalism policy tree unlocked. It means you're getting only half the beakers you can get from RA. If you plan to use RA's heavily you really need to go hard after these two.
- Bribe friendly AI to declare war on your enemies. Washington's ready to DoW Alex for cheap.
- Explore more to meet all potential trade partners and city states.

4) Happiness:
Negative happiness almost stops growth, there is no reason to fall into unhappiness with only 3 cities.

- Build coliseums, ally City states that have luxes you don't. Trade your excessive luxes for different ones.
- Vienna has three of the luxes you don't have and is hostile (doesn't worth much as an ally) , so I'd definitely consider to take it down. On the other hand, Stockholm has one new lux and another one you can sell and overall is a decent city in good geographical location (well defended). You could easily kill one of them. No two, though, it will cause permanent war with some of remaining CS's.
- Notre Dame and Circus Maximus increase your happiness, whenever you can grab them - do it.
- Many social policies also increase happiness. Like Military Caste and Professional Army you've already got. Garrison scout in each city and build walls and this is cheap +6 .

5) City management and infrastructure:

- You cannot win on immortal without micromanaging your citizens and workers. It's just not gonna happen, seriously. You need to learn what to build when and what improvements construct where and not just follow stupid advisor. Turn it off completely. It will help you to start processing information rather than being misled.
- Putting cities on gold focus is not something you should do often. Food or production focus only.
- Why did you build Colossus for? You work only one sea tile. Wasted hammers.
- Usually you don't need barracks in more than one city. Early on you don't need it at all unless you plan to go offensive very soon. Armory and Heroic Epic are really luxury builds.
- Don't start kicking out tons of defensive units from the beginning. You have to concentrate on building your empire. One archer per city and another melee/mounted guy or two will be sufficient early on.

6) Military:

- Japan is military civ and nothing more. You should go offensive, not defensive. I assume you didn't plan it, but you didn't plan the assault either. Beeline appropriate techs. Iron Working to settle city on iron and Steel to upgrade your warriors/swordsmen to samurais.
- Why do you need two Great Generals for? Burn one on Golden Age.
- Give most of your units open terrain promotions, not rough terrain. It's much more effective to attack enemy troops in open terrain where they're vulnerable to begin with rather than on hills and in forests where they get defensive bonus.
- Use Great Scientists to bulb techs that will give you military advantage.
- 1:2 troops ratio vs. the strongest AI is totally fine.


I can also suggest you to watch LP's in the sticky. Although they're mostly Deity LP's, same rules apply here.

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[torfish]

Nice post Pilgrim. Very good tips. Micromanaging my Citizens and Workers is a concept I have not grasped yet. I didn't realize it makes a huge difference. And food seems to be really important for the cities in the early game. Thanks...

 

[R17MCMLXXIX]

Cheers Pilgrim.

I look kinda ******ed in my game, but I'm so confused. When I played King it was easy. I had a strategy that worked. Come into immortal. I miss wonders, I get attacked. Everything gets thrown out the window.

My problem at the start, and why I went the honor treee. Alexander was attacking me by turn 100 and I had like 4 archers and 3 warriors, and still losing. My millitary was so poor in comparrison, obviously.

Its also the first time I've played as Japan, always play science with Aztecs. I do micro-manage to an extent. I always adjust for gold when building settlers, I don't listen to the advisor. But just make some crappy decisions.

I played again today and adjusted a bit, but still going slow. I made a beeline for embarkment, headed to australia and targeted every resource. I started making good gold, but no tech.

I suck at fighting, so I need to learn a lot more about setting up and attacking. You are right. I need to drop back a level, or get away from Japan if I'm looking for tech victory.

Cheers and thanks for the advice. I'm going to give it a go.

 

[fmlizard2]

Honor, as a tree, will put you way behind what you would get from Tradition or Liberty. The only case in which Honor is a good tree is if you have a defined plan to be aggressive and try to take over a neighbor no matter what within the first 100 turns. Then, you can make up for the infrastructure deficits through sheer volume of puppet territory and resources. Honor is a no go as a defensive policy. Heck, you are better off taking Oligarchy under tradition and garrison/bombarding the crap out of invaders.

Emperor is really the last level in which you can muddle around without a victory plan early - if you are good at general empire building. You can sometimes do it on Immortal, but I have had some very strong Immortal empires that lost or did not win efficiently because I muddled around for too long without a victory strategy.

 

[vra379971]

My problem at the start, and why I went the honor treee. Alexander was attacking me by turn 100 and I had like 4 archers and 3 warriors, and still losing. My millitary was so poor in comparrison, obviously.

Yeah..."Heck, you are better off taking Oligarchy under tradition and garrison/bombarding the crap out of invaders."

THIS.

A garrisoned archer with Oligarchy will destroy any invader.

BTW, your game there is actually probably winnable, I'll give it a go later.

The AI is terrible at war. Really. Terrible. Generally, I will build 3-4 catapults, and upgrade them though the ages. Generally, my offensive army is 7 units strong, which by and large is quite enough to take down any empire, given the time and planning.

 

[snarzberry]

Going honour with Japan is fine, often a great plan as they are tailor made for it. But if you do take it then you are basically committing yourself to a sword rush. With early GG and honour buffs you can easily take down the nearest two civs, and then you're looking to get Steel early to upgrade and go stomping with samurai. That's the simple game plan that you should be following if you are Japan and take honour. Hammer early, hammer hard and continue to look to keep the tech advantage so you can maintain the slaughter.

Taking honour in order to defend better is not optimal. Making the most of honour means one thing - attack.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Cheers Pilgrim.

I look kinda ******ed in my game, but I'm so confused. When I played King it was easy. I had a strategy that worked. Come into immortal. I miss wonders, I get attacked. Everything gets thrown out the window.

My problem at the start, and why I went the honor treee. Alexander was attacking me by turn 100 and I had like 4 archers and 3 warriors, and still losing. My millitary was so poor in comparrison, obviously.

Its also the first time I've played as Japan, always play science with Aztecs. I do micro-manage to an extent. I always adjust for gold when building settlers, I don't listen to the advisor. But just make some crappy decisions.

I played again today and adjusted a bit, but still going slow. I made a beeline for embarkment, headed to australia and targeted every resource. I started making good gold, but no tech.

I suck at fighting, so I need to learn a lot more about setting up and attacking. You are right. I need to drop back a level, or get away from Japan if I'm looking for tech victory.

Cheers and thanks for the advice. I'm going to give it a go.

You're welcome.

From what I remember Alex doesn't have a very advanced army. He couldn't be an era ahead of you on turn 100 as well, so your 4 archers and 3 warriors should have been just right. Maybe you need to improve your tactics skills. Defense is usually easy. Especially once you've realized how bad AI is at combat.

Check out Deity LP's. These are 'live' tutorials based on a certain civ, with a very valuable commentary. You can and will learn a great deal from them.

 

[R17MCMLXXIX]

You're welcome.

From what I remember Alex doesn't have a very advanced army. He couldn't be an era ahead of you on turn 100 as well, so your 4 archers and 3 warriors should have been just right. Maybe you need to improve your tactics skills. Defense is usually easy. Especially once you've realized how bad AI is at combat.

Check out Deity LP's. These are 'live' tutorials based on a certain civ, with a very valuable commentary. You can and will learn a great deal from them.

War is my worst trait. I just started again and I played Aztecs, and I got put in the United states so didn't even need an army lol.

I've just got to go on the attack more. I've been playing for a little while now and I rarely attack cities.

 

[vra379971]

I've been playing for a little while now and I rarely attack cities.

That should be your goal. In Civ 5, your goal should be finding good city spots, no matter how far apart they are. Usually, I will ONLY settle on a river, and will only keep a city with river/freshwater/or extensive seaside resources.

 

[R17MCMLXXIX]

Ok I finished it!!!

I basically went to writing, built as many warriors-> Samurai as I could. Went straight to Steel. Took out Alexander by about turn 150/750. Then went to Suileman. I probably was a bit too slow to take my next Civ out.

I was spamming trading posts in most of the cities, except the larger ones. I did start to run into trouble with happiness at some stage. I took out Germany Infantry Vs Lanschnetts, Then took out America with help from Persia.

I'm wondering by this point, around about turn 400-500 Persia was increasing millitary 3X to me. Was there a problem with my science strategy to fall behind later on in the game. Should I have expanded faster than I did and build more happiness buildings. I did make the mistake of auto workers later in the game cos I couldn't be bothered doing it. And noticed they were building 10 Tile roads to City states, and explains why I was going from 30GPT to 120GPT.
Should I have taken out the Honor policy earlier to get my happiness from defensive buildings? Happiness for no maintenance.

Once I got within 10 Techs of the end I started selling all my science buildings for gold.

I can't believe how stupid the AI is seriously. Persia had 30000 Gold and does nothing.

I got a heap of stealth bombers and slowly diminished his army. And then after I nuked his city, he sent in literally 100s of workers into my territory and I stole them all

 

[Glassmage]

lol if Persia is smart with his gold you wouldn't even be here. Why sell science near the end?? Did you have 10 GS to bulb the last techs??? If you somehow have Uranium you can get nukes or Death Robots. AI's suck at war so 2 GDR's can kill bigger army. Of course you can always sell your buildings if the techs you have yet to unlock is Nanotech, Particle Physics, and Future Tech. Those are pretty useless unless you are going for Space.

 

[Rpger29]

Keep this in mind when on defense:

He won't take your cities with archers/siege. Focus all your archers on his melee units first and take them out of the game. City attacks will clean up the rest of the rabble once you've done that.