Immortal game, need advices

noontide

Warlord
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
267
I'm an ok Emperor level player, win 75% of times. I moved up to Immortal but lost a few. In this game I had a luck roll for starting position, was able to wiped out two neighbors. I built GL because I had marble, was able to beeline Liberty. I next chose to beeline Steel, but everyone hates me for some reason and Celtics has a formidable army which she upgraded to riflemen. Now what am I gonna do? I'm afraid any DoW will result in everyone ganging on me.

Please see the save file. Would appreciate advices.
 

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I'll make a few general comments on this game from a quick glance, as it is late and I'm off for the big snooze. I would note that it is a bit harder for folks to improve your gameplay in such late stages of the game, but there are some things we can I assume and some things are quite obvious.

1) As for diplo, my take is you don't work on this aspect of the game much at all. Granted you have attacked some AIs that some other AIs have liked, and you get maluses for that, but still there are a lot of things you can do starting even very early to nurture your relations. First, you barely trade resources with the AI (granted, I do note that you have a stop trade with Joao for some reason). Resources trades benefit you either in more happy/health, but also gold. You should always trade extra copies of resources for something, and possibly even single copies temporarily if not immediately needed. You will build up to +2 relations over time - faster the more resources you trade. I'll touch on civics next, but note that two AIs have fave civics that are good civics (and well, since you don't have CS, Vassalage would do you some good too). Tech trades, of course, will help with diplo and the more you trade or gift techs you can hit a separate bonus besides the fair trade. I see some rejection of demands or requests - always ask yourself if it is not a big deal to just accept a demand.

Now it is important to mention that you often do have to pick sides here. Because of peaceweights and religions, and whatnot, sometimes a leader is just generally hated, but you should always try to foster allies (even if you kill them later), and you can start nurturing this as soon as you meet them.

Also, you have like no open borders with anyone.

2) Civics - I've no clue what your overall tech decisions were over the course of the game, but neglecting to tech Civil Service early is a major major mistake. CS should always be a priority for the human. Bureaucracy is the second most powerful civic next to Slavery, and you have a very nice Bureau cap, that should actually have more developed cottages (and no forests at all..those would have been chopped away very early). Seems you went through Theocracy to Paper/Education. Theo is not something worth teching generally (granted you might have traded for it or received it in a peace deal, but neglecting CS is very bad). CS is something you want to have in your pocket before or circa 1AD.

I'm honestly just plain baffled that you are not in Representation. (can't remember if you built mids or captured it, but even so you should be in at least Hereditary Rule) And Free Speech is a bit odd too, granted you don't have CS.

3) Looks like you mainly just like to build buildings. Only building a city needs is a granary - the rest of the buildings are situational. Why is Susa just now building a granary? Walls? Despite being something a human should never build except in emergencies, at this point in the game they are useless and basically obsolete.

4) You are almost certainly going to get DOW'd by Boudi (and Alex who you should have killed or vassaled) and Peter, probably very close to the same time. I don't see that going well for you, although cannons will help you a lot. Problem is you are barely building any units. You are going to get hit hard and you should be preparing for that inevitability. It may be possible that either one of them may bribe in other AIs as well.

5) Ultimately goal is to always be running 100% research. If you can't then you should either get the gold to do so, or run tax to get it. At this stage with the all the beaker modifiers in place, you can run just enough of the slider this turn to have enough to run 100% next turn to finish Banking. OR just trade something for the gold to finish it now. OR just trade for Banking..ha. Trade stuff, man!

There are probably other things to point out here, but it is important to emphasize here that a lot of your mistakes were made very early. IV is very much about do things right early so they snowball later. If you really want to learn to play at this level, I'd recommend playing games here from the very start. Anyway, as for this game I would look to try to improve you diplo situation as best you can as soon as you can based on some of the things I mentioned earlier.try to get an ally. If you can bribe someone on someone that might help that might help. Start building your best units available now - everywhere - as you work toward Rifles. You probably want generous stacks on both Russian and Celtic borders cause the jokers are comin' at ya. It's a tough road it appears but may be manageable...I'd have to take a deeper look.

on another note:

Spoiler grammar police :
I realize English must be a second language and I usually ignore most little mistakes. heck I make typos all the time though try to edit as best I can. But sometimes usage of certain words can just be painful to native speakers, and I would assume most folks would actually like to know when the usage is incorrect. Plural usage in English is often very confusing for non-native speakers since there is so many odd rules in our language, which though Germanic at its core has been corrupted by so many other languages over hundreds of years, like French. The common usage of the word "advice" is the noun meaning guidance or recommendation. Advice is considered a "mass noun" , as opposed to a countable noun with a definitive value. Therefore, the noun "advice" is both singular and plural. "Advices" is incorrect and does not exist in this context. So just saying "I need advice" is all you need to say whether you want one question answered or many. (Note: A second meaning of advice exists. A type of financial document exists called an "advice" used in business transactions which can be pluralized to "advices". Hope that helps :)
 
My main issues.
1. Are you using whipping?
2. Why would you not switch to HR civic for happiness? JoaII fav civic! +1 diplo with him each 10 turns. Might as well switch to merc too.
3. Ai are out teching you here. Celts likely have rifles and will soon attack you with a stack including these. I would expect rifles around 1500ad on immortal.
4. I would of expanded more early on. Seems to me you didn't build a second city till after French war. Eventually Ai like the Celt/Greeks just stole all the land you should of peacefully settled. French were boxed in any way. 2-3 cities before any war.
5. Too much forest left near capital killing off a bureau capital. Not grabbing Civil service is a huge mistake. Capital should 100% be working the gold resource.
6. Too many buildings. Most not needed. Wealth and research are great builds.

I clcked end turn 3 times and a huge Celt stack arrived which will wipe out one of your cities. I clicked again and a second large stack appeared. Time to start over.
 
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You can still very much turn this around with cannons,
while Lymo and Gumbo are right that a lot can be learned early, you can learn a lot right now as well with this game :)

Diplo i.e. can look much better after a couple gifts and other adjustments.
Boudi will declare on you ofc, her stack already gathered.
But you can gift Charlie paper (almost finished i think, wouldn't give drama) for pleased.
At pleased, begging a small sum grants you 10t peace and he will also never plot on you.

Joao says leave me alone when i try contacting him ;)
Never agree to stop trading requests, unless it's against small & irrelevant AIs.
Those are not requests with a war declaration check, and Joao might not talk to you for ages now.

Back to Boudi, AIs usually use 1 big doomstack that runs from city to city.
So your cannons (and cats, Trebs for upgrades) should gather near Mycenae.
Currently it's not even road connected :)

After coll. damage you can take out Rifles with old units.
But you have to gather units and focus, putting your slider to 0% for upgrades as well, no time to build other stuff now.
 
All very good advice, thanks guys. I'm gonna start again from an early save and post again.

In terms of what to build, I build building because i lack better things to build. It seems I had a strong enough army for the time, so building more units that will soon obsolete seems a waste? Is it my research sequence that's not optimized?
 
November was a really long time ago, and it's easy to forget I guess?

You have been informed at least a dozen times about how important the early game is, and how important chops are.
I personally have also told you at least a couple of times that walls is a really really bad building to build.
So I'm slightly annoyed that these basic errors are still left uncorrected.

But if you are comming back to the game just now, I would recommend that you skim through these earlier threads where you have gotten so much valuable advice.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-advice.637898/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/going-back-to-emperor-level.638060/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/another-emperor-shadow-game-thread.638118/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/another-emperor-mid-game-attempt.638316/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/first-attempt-of-immortal.638576/
 
I thought the name rang a bell. Be interested to see you play this on Mylene. Sure cannons can do a lot of damge to a stack but that second stack is 30-40 units strong. Eakkkk. He is 10 turns at least from rifles.

Maybe with a large stack of cannons first stack can be beaten. It's getting the cannons/upgraded trebs there soon enough. That with Celts further mini stacks of knights and rifles.
 
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November was a really long time ago, and it's easy to forget I guess?
It's not an easy game, and bad habits are hard to kill. But yeah of course you are right, the issues are exactly the same. I skimmed through your links and was proud of my own advice: WHIP, CHOP,TRADE. ;)

In terms of what to build, I build building because i lack better things to build.
If you have nothing useful to build, build wealth/research.
 
Or build units ~~
With cannons, knights or maces are still very useful. All about numbers for cleaning up advanced units.
If you fear getting attacked (which is even certain in this one), you always have something that you should build.
 
I think in a game like this with Celts as a neighbour you always assume you will be attacked. Albeit at pleased she will stay peaceful. Same with Charlemagne. This is why diplomacy is so important. Shared wars/religions and civics can really help.

Come 1500ad you should expect the AI to have 30-40 strong stacks. Although if you had teched towards cuirs maybe you could of had a few more vassals here. Always have a plan to win games.

You probably could fend off his first stack with cannons. Albeit you would be whipping your empire to fend off his stacks whilst the Ai would be teching quicker than you. Lacking CS means no mace. Gunpowder lacking too. You would have knights. Nationalism to draft rifles later would of been good
 
Well, I definitely appreciate that, I think my problem is more of a stamina thing -- I had those principles in mind when I started, but when things got hectic, I kind of lost track. That's why I never "git gut" in real-time strategy games, I'm talking about the days I played Age of Empires on dial-up, I just can't keep too many balls inthe air. I think maybe I should just play 50 turns a time, rest, and come back to it another day.

November was a really long time ago, and it's easy to forget I guess?

You have been informed at least a dozen times about how important the early game is, and how important chops are.
I personally have also told you at least a couple of times that walls is a really really bad building to build.
So I'm slightly annoyed that these basic errors are still left uncorrected.

But if you are comming back to the game just now, I would recommend that you skim through these earlier threads where you have gotten so much valuable advice.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-advice.637898/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/going-back-to-emperor-level.638060/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/another-emperor-shadow-game-thread.638118/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/another-emperor-mid-game-attempt.638316/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/first-attempt-of-immortal.638576/
 
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You are absolutely not alone. I have difficulties getting myself immersed in my games too, and can easily lose focus.

Playing shorter turnsets (about 10-20 turns or 2-3 techs in the ancient era) and then putting the game on hold, thinking about the situation and possibly sharing and asking for advice) certainly helps.

50 turns is a really really long time!
 
You had all those forest and you are imperialist. Yet you went straight for your Immortals here. 50% boost on settlers is huge.

Agreed shorter sessions are much better. Unless you are constantly doing micro to ensure correct tiles are worked and to meet some sort of plan.Beeline key techs. Getting alphabet, currency sooner will often help the economy. Or trade bait like Aesth.
 
I played from the start again, and this time i did better. I chopped all the trees, not working unimproved tiles, whipped population to rush units. I manage to hit Liberty at 1230AD, 200+ earlier than my first play through. Then I beelined Steel and here we are. Celtics has a stack of Doom so I have to take her out first, but when i DoW on Celtics Charlemagne DoW on me, and they are catch up on me fast. And my infrastructure is a mess, everyone is unhappy.
 

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Also, in quite a few Immortal games I feel AI's techs always seem to have this sudden boom once it hits industrial age. A minute ago a city was guarded by a longbow man a few turns later it got upgrade to rifleman, and before you know it zeppelins are mapping your city.
 
Okay you did clear that forest around the capital. Similar mistakes but you do have 10-12 cannons and some maces. Albeit the Celts are building grenadiers. If you plan to war you need to be whipping units and attacking.
Didfn't adopt Hereditary Rule. :(
You went straight to war mode with capital again. No second city. Susa was built 1000ad+
Too many buildings that you simply dont need.
I can't tell if your whipping. Are you using this function at all?
More diplomacy needed with Ai to get to pleased.
What did you do with your 8 great people?
Not sure about your use of farms and windmills/watermills here. Farmed plains are rarely great.
Did you build Ox Uni somewhere? Oh Paris. You do realise with Bureau civic the capital gets +50% commerce and hammers? Not sure you needed the 2nd academy. Even then you have not cottaged Paris. River plains I would be cottaging. Especially around early captured cities if there are no better tiles to cottage.
Why do you keep heading for steel?

Starting save?
 
The AIs are always going to get boosted some as the game progresses. They snowball too, especially with their bonuses. That's why the human has to do more stuff early to counteract that.

There is some improvement here, but still some baffling things like:

1) I still don't understand why you refuse to adopt a Government Civic like Hereditary rule. That's part of your happiness issue right there. And Joao would love you by now. HR is something you adopt as soon as you can, or Representation if you have the Mids like you did in the last attempt. And you still seem not to pay much attention to trading resources..there are two happies available from Peter. And again, trading resources boosts diplomacy.

2) Oxford in Paris? If you are going to build Ox, a good bureau cap is exactly the place to do it. Pers already makes more beakers than Paris, if with Paris having Ox. And Pers is not even working the gold tile nor are all tile properly cottaged like the workshopped FP that should be a town by now.

3) Still too much of a builder mentality. Every city should be building units right now. And keep in mind that unhappy citizens are production. You just whip them away. You have a large empire and can get out a large army extremely fast here. I do see a decent stack in Pars

4) Again, for some reason you decided to leave Alex alive to vassal to someone. Granted Alex aint doing much with one city but still

5) AP may cause some issues here as well. The whole world is Bud, and it may have served you better to be in that religion in this game...and spreading it

6) Not sure your logic in teching Constitution right now. That tech aint going to do much for you here.

Overall, your diplo is a bit better here but could still be far far better, especially with all the Bud. But the fact the most AIs here love each other creates issues in try to foster discord between them.

Boudi has a defensive pact with Charlie, so that means he will auto-declare on you if you attack her. You also run risks of having her bribed pretty much everyone else on you as well, unless you can beg for gold for peace treaties. And then you have the AP vote counter that you need to work around, as Peter will certainly bring a peace vote up for someone.

Although he is getting a bit advanced at this point, Peter may be a better option right now. However, you really needed better diplo here so you get beg for peace treaties with others. You haven't established that. Likewise, declaring on Peter likely means he bribes everyone but Joao on you.

So in general, what I'd say to you regarding the higher difficulties, is that your goal should be about achieving some kind of Military advantage as soon as you can. You used Lib on Nationalism, but did not go for Curs. You rather could have used it for something on the path to Steel, or Steel itself. Your Lib date is still rather late though and that needs to improve. I can't tell enough about what went on previously to see all the issues that caused this. Do you run a Golden Age at some point earlier? Do you trade techs - it seems you may be lacking in good tech trading decisions?

Another piece of advice is the highest difficulties do require more attention to detail. Better worker management, Better tech decisions. Better diplo. Better use of Great People. Less builder mentality. All of these areas need work.

Lastly, I recommend turning off Huts and Events. Huts certainly don't help you on this level, and Events are annoying an distracting.

I really encourage you to play a shadow game from the start as you need a lot more help far earlier in the game.

edit: Ah ..good point Gumbo...I did not notice that. Yeah, noontide your early expansion is terribly slow.
 
Thanks guys. When I read through the replies I was like, "yeah I should have done this", "I forgot to do that", but maybe I should accept that I'm just an Emperor-level player, and that's where my mental capacity maxes out. It's almost a physical thing, to keep all the info in mind and maintain a delicate balance over a million things in the course of 5 or 6 hours. I keep thinking if I read the War Academy articles and posts here and practice I can eventually become a Deity player (having sunk 1,000+ hours in each Civ IV and V). I also watched a few Lain deity games from beginning to tend. I have accepted that I'm just not a good action game player because of my slow reflex, but looks like this game has its natural ability check as well.
 
If you feel overwhelmed (no shame in that, it's a real strategy game :) ) you can set priorities.
I would set diplo as #1.
There are so many benefits, from feeling save (or even bribing AIs on your side in wars) to trading techs.

For diplo there are a couple main factors:
* Reli, can turn -4 into +7 (so 11 difference) with Zealots. Not too complicated overall, try adopting the reli that important AIs follow and stay there.
Also check which AIs care most, Shaka i.e. will only give -1 for different relis while Boudi gives -4 (i think).

* Favorite Civic, those can be almost free points. HR as example given above, you like the happy boost and Joao likes you for running HR = win win.

* Fair trade bonus, up to +4. Consider gifting older techs away for free, if you want more favor with an AI.
What's 1 tech compared to eternal friendship (sounds cheesy i know..) ;)

Others are less important (giving resources away early can help thou, as you lack other possibilities).
So yup that also means those "stop trading with evil AI x" requests can (and totally should be) ignored, as you are not sacrificing the chance to trade with them over what random AI wants you to do.

Games can play out very differently after you get more experience with managing diplo.
 
but maybe I should accept that I'm just an Emperor-level player.

We refuse to accept that for you!!! :D Honestly, I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier myself :lol: ...not like the lady right above me. ;)

Really what it takes is a bit of patience, and willingness just to slow things down a bit. Right now, worry less about the big picture and the long game ..heck, don't even worry about winning. What I'd recommend is breaking the game down into stages. At a basic level, one could break it down into early, mid and late game. But I'd probably take it a step further and break it down based on a certain number of turns like 50, 100, and so on. And importantly, I'd focus on the first 50 or 100 turns right now regardless of how a particular map would play out, even playing the same start over and over. It's the early game where IV is won, and it gets much harder with IV to catch up as the game progresses.

In fact, do that here. Post a shadow game here with normal setting/no huts/no events, Pangaea is fine. Play slowly and get advice after short turnsets. Play up to 50 turns. Then to 100 turns. Take the advice and really work to fine tune the most important phase of the game. At any point, a turnset can be replayed, if needed, to further reinforce some of the concepts.

That's how you learn, and I assure you that you will if you have the patience for it. I benefited years ago in finding this forum and all the great members at the time, and the different activities going on here. Otherwise, I'd be spinning my wheels on Noble, rushing barracks with Great Engineers and slamming axes into longbows.

In a way, while you certainly have a familiarity with the game, you need to relearn quite a few things, and that will take a bit of practice....as opposed to just playing the game.
 
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