Immortal Challenge

[Fish Man]

t188 update

Spoiler :

Over the past 10 or so turns my research has doubled, and the hammer economy hasn't even kicked in yet. Once I start building wealth and research with powered factories and caste workshops I expect to reach 6000, maybe 7000bpt at the end of the game. That I have over 40 cities and still am not even at 50% land is a testament to how rigged this map is in favor of the AI. But now I've turned that obstacle into an advantage.

I've marked where I want Seowons with #s. Oxford will go in Moscow. Switched Peter into free religion to make others hate him less, and also reduce revolt chance (did you know that you can reduce revolts from something like 7% to 0% just by asking AIs to switch away from running a religion that the potentially revolting city has?). Looks like my vassals...won't be teching much. But who needs vassals why you got 40 cities?

t188, industrialism is in. Bye phants. Capital is at long last becoming the turbocharged hammer/commerce monster it was destined to be with bio farms (courtesy of Peter) and supermills. Mansa will FINALLY talk (cancelled trades from AP resolution) but unfortunately has hit WFYBTA (that he of all people has is a testament to the disgusting amount of trading done in this game). Not sure what to go next - artillery to trade for railroad from Hannibal, or disregard him as useless for teching hereafter and just go plastics myself? What am I thinking, I'll get RR in 4 turns regardless, better trade for it to get it for free. To artillery we go!

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler Thoughts on warfare :

I think what is frustrating about Deity is how they spam so many units. I have lost 39 units. I have killed 86 units. So just to reduce an Ai back to 7 cities I have spent nearly 40 units. Albeit I have captured 7-8 cities

Some of the warfare could of been better planned.

Main risk to deity warfare.
If they have metal and other resources you might struggle.
You need a much bigger force to start with as the Ai will spam units heavily and have more defenders.
You need to be prepared for the AI to get longbows very early.
With large amount of lands AI rex heavily at the expense of city builds.
The AI I planned to attack was already in war mode.

Even so most Ai here already had units which would stop the usual rush here including phants and UU Cavalry The larger amount of land they can grab usually means more chance of horse, iron, copper and ivory.

So what is acceptable on a normal map for deity win vs losses? I think my losses got worse when LB and phants arrived.

Based on my last save my stack is pretty much used up. Justin has C2 phants with +25% against mounted units.

So maybe I need to settle more GG? Not so many medics and uber units?

The downside to all this is managing your economy vs warfare. Maybe the better move was to play peacefully and try and beat AI to Cuirs. AA tech super fast here and you need some kind of trade bait to stay in touch.

I think I could of used a library and GS sooner. The capital here is really poor. 600ad and size 7-8.

Need to play this on and hope Carthage and Russians don't attack.

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler Thoughts on warfare :

I think what is frustrating about Deity is how they spam so many units. I have lost 39 units. I have killed 86 units. So just to reduce an Ai back to 7 cities I have spent nearly 40 units. Albeit I have captured 7-8 cities

Some of the warfare could of been better planned.

Main risk to deity warfare.
If they have metal and other resources you might struggle.
You need a much bigger force to start with as the Ai will spam units heavily and have more defenders.
You need to be prepared for the AI to get longbows very early.
With large amount of lands AI rex heavily at the expense of city builds.
The AI I planned to attack was already in war mode.

Even so most Ai here already had units which would stop the usual rush here including phants and UU Cavalry The larger amount of land they can grab usually means more chance of horse, iron, copper and ivory.

So what is acceptable on a normal map for deity win vs losses? I think my losses got worse when LB and phants arrived.

Based on my last save my stack is pretty much used up. Justin has C2 phants with +25% against mounted units.

So maybe I need to settle more GG? Not so many medics and uber units?

The downside to all this is managing your economy vs warfare. Maybe the better move was to play peacefully and try and beat AI to Cuirs. AA tech super fast here and you need some kind of trade bait to stay in touch.

I think I could of used a library and GS sooner. The capital here is really poor. 600ad and size 7-8.

Need to play this on and hope Carthage and Russians don't attack.

Spoiler :

I agree with basically your entire sphiel about elepault rushes. On deity they should only be a last resort - as in, you absolutely can't squeeze in more than 3-4 cities. Normally you can with some creativity, even if you think you can't - such as on this map, where I grew cap to size 3 on second approach and then spammed like 3 settlers in a row with chops, using the gold mine(s) to keep my economy afloat and even building a 1-pop settler in the copper-rice city with chopping to beat Peter to the banana gems spot.

As to why elepault rushes are bad - I think you covered most of it. On deity the timeframe before longbows but after construction is very narrow, 10 turns or less. You barely have granaries and maybe libraries in your cities up at that point. It's very difficult to whip an army of more than a dozen units and attack before 500BC, which is what you need to do if you want to avoid some AI getting feudalism and then handing it out llke candy. Also...phants are sloooow. You need to bombard, heal to full, and your stack moves 1 measly tile per turn. Meanwhile the AIs have that much more time to spam units and stack them in that walled hilltop city. And once you capture that city...there's another 4 tiles away. So you move there, and bombard, and at the same time the AI gets 6-7 free turns of production on you. With 10 cities that's...a dozen units, maybe more if they whip. Cuirs skip all this nonsense - you rush fast and rush hard, striking sometimes more than one target at once, blazing through an empire before they have time to respond. And with some expert baiting techniques you can often get AIs to move ministacks of 3-4 defenders between cities, leaving them easy for you to snipe in the open field. As well as strike at their army in the open if you get a chance to lure their big stack on flatland. Finally, most AIs seem to avoid rifling like the plague, or even RP - giving your cuirs sometimes up to a 1000 year window to work with.

I won science t235, and for funsies played on and capped everyone with modern armorspam and stealth bombers t264.

Justin never made it into the industrial era (yes...in the first screenshot those are horse archers marching to war along with my modern armor). Poor guy was pretty much universally disliked from the start.