Immortal difficulty - total cheating?

[Nuwan]

I found I could beat Emperor pretty easily, moved to Immortal and have lost/given up my games when I started with another civ on the same continent, and won the two times I had my own continent (always playing small, continents). I'll keep at it a bit and hope I get better, particularly at warfare. The most important thing is to have fun playing Civ, there isn't anything else you can get from it.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i agree with ense7en. exploits aren't cheating. but if you know how the ai is coded to act and you use it to your advantage it is an exploit, particularly when you know a player might never make that choice. and when certain things defy practical human logic, like worker bait, it isn't just a strategy.

yes, i know historically some definition of worker bait existed in real life, but the civilizations who used that also failed with some of their attempts because they eventually learned it was a tactic and adjusted to not fall for it again. (in Vietnam it only took a few explosive wrapped kids and women for us to learn to not approach those huts in the same way.)

but the ai isnt that adaptive and "falls for it" 100% of the time. that makes it an exploit.

sending my mom a chain email about a kid with cancer who needs money and gets a dime for every person she forwards it to is an exploit. she falls for it every time.

 

[PhilBowles]

There are extremely specific strategies for dealing with the "mass production" AI.

I'd suggest looking up some of the "Let's Play" videos on deity.

You cannot use the same strategies from lower difficulties.

I just wish that the AI actually got more intelligent as you increased difficulty. I've yet to see a game that actually does that. Probably because if you design a smart AI, you want to use it from the beginning. The sad part is that the progress of AI in technology today is absolutely terrible.

The Civ V AI does occasionally surprise me by doing sensible things - I have sometimes wondered if it has a limited ability to learn from successful player strategies. For instance, today's Immortal game had an ongoing war against England, in which Elizabeth consistently attacked/defended with a respectable mix of melee and ranged units, kept her ranged units back, and actively took measures to protect her troops. At one point I had a Swordsman about to attack her Longbowman - she promptly embarked it and attacked with a Pikeman through the now-clear hex. She consistently attempted to bring melee units into flanking positions before attacking. If she had an embarked ranged unit, of the sort I'm used to seeing sitting around in the water while battles go on around her, she would embark it somewhere safe and use it to shoot my attackers.

Yes, her unit selection was crap - even after she accessed iron and horse hexes she didn't develop them and kept spamming Warriors, Pikes and Longbows. And her Pikemen kept running from my Mandelaku Cavalry as though they were the devil himself. But she didn't give me a lot to fault in her tactics, and successfully repelled pushes I attempted against Canterbury and (rebuilt) Hastings before they were in range of the target city.

 

[PhilBowles]

I believe happiness should decrease temporarily if more units are killed, which could help to level things up and make this thing more fair.

Just ended up quitting another Immortal level. I have managed to capture two AI cities (including a capital), and defend myself (only because I'm on mongol civ with keshiks), but my happiness is -9 with almost no gold in. It's only 1000AD, but my opponnents already have frigates and 40+ defence cities. The CIV whos capital I have captured has only 2 cities left, but they are now more advanced and powerful then I am.

It's hard to imagine one can beat Immortal level, unless they start with a specific civ, on a specific terrain, with specific conditions (when they have a chance to eliminate a few rivals very, very early in the game). Otherwise it's a dead end - it's impossible even to conquer a city state )

What's the point if things are unnatural? Bad, bad programming....

I lasted longer in my current Immortal game than I tend to - sometime past 1100 AD. I just lost a city to the Inca, who'd launched an attack after surrounding with cannon and Longswordsmen, only just failing to defend in time. I found that the key is to make heavy, heavy use of diplomacy - I gave a few early presents to neighbouring civs who've been hostile in past games, and paid close attention to what other civs where doing (particularly India and my neigbours the Iroquois) - denouncing safely distant civs if they did, declaring peace with the same leaders, warring against the people who'd declared war against them. I think Militaristic states may actually come into their own at this level as well, since they can help give you a unit boost - in my brief period allied and friends with Belgrade, they provided me with three units.

Next time I'll try to make the most important neighbouring civs even more friendly, not just ensuring they don't attack me, but giving them presents far enough in advance and building up enough favour to gain their military support - either Ramesses or Hiwatha would have been well-placed to protect Timbouctou, but both declined by requests to go to war (although I'd previously made a joint declaration with Hiwatha against Japan - without ever doing any fighting since I never found Japanese territory...).