Immortal Mansa Help

[southquote]

I have been trying Immortal lately with some minor success (one win, albeit with a few reloads), but a bit of a struggle. I decided to try a game with Mansa since I have found him to be a pretty strong leader. I rolled this interesting start.

Spoiler Initial Start :

I have never seen 5 food resources + 2 FPs in a BFC before (and I do not even see the entire BFC). This seemed a bit excessive for one city so I moved my warrior 1NW with the hopes that it enticed me to settle on the PH 2 West of the Settler. However, this move revealed a bunch of FPs, but none in the BFC of PH. The PH only has Wheat and Hill pigs (and whale but this does not seem relevant).

My current thought is to either SIP and then build some cities in tight to share the food or move to the grassland hill 1E, which loses the pig, but gains fur and also at least one more river tile. The second city can go where the warrior is currently and grab the wheat + pig + eastern FPs.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[Fish Man]

That’s a lot of food . I recommend sip for now. Get agri, fishing, then it’s striaght to BW for whipspam. You can mine the pig for now after improving the food.

PS after BW you can either go pottery for granaries and start cottaging FP. Or trapping + AH for a 5 commerce tile (fur) and finally stop abusing those poor pigs for slave labor in the mines.

 

[sampsa]

Clear SIP for me, too. I think I'd skip fishing for a while, as putting into boats slows down your expansion.

 

[Fish Man]

Yeah, skipping boats is an option. Though I personally find financial coast seafood too good to pass up. If you grow to size 4 you might not even need to whip a settler, as 20 or so production means you can build it in just about 5 turns. OTOH you don’t know if you’re in a rush to grab land.

 

[lymond]

I like AG > BW > FISH > POT here.

 

[Fippy]

I would not SIP here, but move out for that big river Bur-Cap.
Considering you are still struggling with Imm, and i think that would also be good play for deity tries.

Only one tile makes me think about maybe staying, wet wheat is very good ofc especially early, but with 6f corn and pigs still around..
coast & sea resis play no role in that decision, they are always good for later cities (land naturally blocked off, boats are annoying early if you have good food already).
+ moving towards inland usually is good.

So this would be my target tile, unless something more convincing shows up

Spoiler :

 

[Fish Man]

I would not SIP here, but move out for that big river Bur-Cap.
Considering you are still struggling with Imm, and i think that would also be good play for deity tries.

Only one tile makes me think about maybe staying, wet wheat is very good ofc especially early, but with 6f corn and pigs still around..
coast & sea resis play no role in that decision, they are always good for later cities (land naturally blocked off, boats are annoying early if you have good food already).
+ moving towards inland usually is good.

So this would be my target tile, unless something more convincing shows up

Spoiler :

That’s a pretty good idea, except it seems a bit lacking on the production side - and by production I mean food and chops. Plus you have to beeline pottery to get anything out of those FP tiles (there is no use in farming them considering how much food we have). Still it’s up to OP.

 

[krikav]

I play regularly at IMM, but have yet to win my first diety game.
My thoughts about this opening is that I would have massive problems with happy-cap...

It would not have occured to me to wander inland as Fippy suggested, but now that it is mentioned I do like the idea.

However, if I would have played this, I wouldn't have thought of that, but would instead settled in place.
I wouldn't have bother about either whiping nor granary, unless some more early happy-resources are found, but instead "slow"-build settlers and workers at pop5.

There is 8 good 3com water tiles to work, so I think that one can get a decent bur-cap without massive cottage spam.

Perhaps add the answer in a spoiler in case someone want to play this out, but I wonder what map script this is.

 

[Fish Man]

I play regularly at IMM, but have yet to win my first diety game.
My thoughts about this opening is that I would have massive problems with happy-cap...

It would not have occured to me to wander inland as Fippy suggested, but now that it is mentioned I do like the idea.

However, if I would have played this, I wouldn't have thought of that, but would instead settled in place.
I wouldn't have bother about either whiping nor granary, unless some more early happy-resources are found, but instead "slow"-build settlers and workers at pop5.

There is 8 good 3com water tiles to work, so I think that one can get a decent bur-cap without massive cottage spam.

Perhaps add the answer in a spoiler in case someone want to play this out, but I wonder what map script this is.

We can skip the granary for a bit, yes. But not whipping at one point or another is a massive waste of food and will slow us down significantly. I’d actually suggest slow building the first settler with the 4 strong food tiles but then whipping a worker to go along with it. Put the massive overflow into a settler and then get a warrior out while growing from 2 to 4. After you finish the warrior and hit the happy cap, hard build settler. By this time the whip anger should’ve worn off. Repeat a couple times for rapid expansion, maybe whip a granary once you get the fur up. Also at some point you would probably wanna whip a library...

 

[sampsa]

My thoughts about this opening is that I would have massive problems with happy-cap...

Monarchy is not that far away in the tech tree.

It would not have occured to me to wander inland as Fippy suggested, but now that it is mentioned I do like the idea.

It occurred to me and probably is a good play on deity. On all the other levels the value of blocking land goes way down since AI is so weak that early warring is easy in nearly any situation. Also, we don't know how many forests there are in that area so I'd be much happier doing that with an exp leader, but that's not hugely important. You can acquire lot of later and losing 1 here and there in the early game is not the end of the world.

However, if I would have played this, I wouldn't have thought of that, but would instead settled in place.
I wouldn't have bother about either whiping nor granary, unless some more early happy-resources are found, but instead "slow"-build settlers and workers at pop5.

Whipping settlers 6->3 is better with such good tiles (even tiles 4,5,6 are 3). With a granary it's better by a huge amount. Secondary cities can produce workers.

 

[southquote]

Thanks for the useful replies. I will try something this evening--probably Fippy's since that is something I would not have thought to do on my own, and the point of the thread is to try some new things.

I wonder what map script this is.

Pangea

Whipping settlers 6->3 is better with such good tiles (even tiles 4,5,6 are 3). With a granary it's better by a huge amount. Secondary cities can produce workers.

With regards to health, I already see 5 health resources so that should help some, although I might not get the crab depending on where the other civs start.

 

[Gumbolt]

I rarely tend to build workers in my capital now. Settler/settler seems to be better for grabbing land.

I can 100% see advantage of moving settler inland here. Great to have 5-6 food resources but another city can grab this spot later. Bureau capitals can be great.

Health is not an issue here. So many food resources. Some food resources provide 2 health with a granary.

 

[sampsa]

Like I said, is not an issue long term. Depending on how many flood plains and forests there are in the suggested area, can be a short term problem. Like -cap 3 or so with only corn connected.

 

[Fish Man]

Like I said, is not an issue long term. Depending on how many flood plains and forests there are in the suggested area, can be a short term problem. Like -cap 3 or so with only corn connected.

Hmm, that’s reason to settle on coast then? +3 health faster from various food.

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, that’s reason to settle on coast then? +3 health faster from various food.

Well, I wouldn't put it like that. Just saying that we don't know the -cap of the inland spot. I'm sure we can live with it, whatever it is.

+2 from "difficulty level", +2 fresh water, +1 from corn, say -2 from fp, maybe +1 from forest so I guess 4 it is, 3 if there happens to be only one forest. -1 to that if there is +8 flood plains in BFC.

 

[krikav]

We have both corn and wheat, which with granary gives us +4 health.
And also the two types of seafood, and eventually the pig.
We have plenty of health resources.

I did a quick try, enjoyed the buildup but...

Spoiler :

I got a DOW from Alexander who also bribed Isabella on me. Guess I got to carried away with the preparation of a glorious bur-cap.
Curious how you others would handle diplomacy on this map.

 

[sampsa]

We have both corn and wheat, which with granary gives us +4 health.
And also the two types of seafood, and eventually the pig.
We have plenty of health resources.

There seems to be a misunderstanding. We are discussing settling to the fp-area in the north. In that case we have only corn in capital. Yes, after having granary and settling the wheat is not an issue. Hence "Like I said, is not an issue long term. ".

 

[sampsa]

I'm easily baited into playing it seems.

T45

Spoiler :

Well I chose to wander inlands anyway, since I don't like to build workboats. Maybe a poor choice on T1, could have gone 1W of current cap for 2 extra forests and 8 is an unfortunate amount of floodplains on BFC (gives -3 while 7fps give -2 due to rounding down). Agri-BW because I hate to not chop early. Losing 2 in the screenshot due to unhealthiness but past that it wasn't an issue. on Washington because Liz is a likely first target.

T44 founded 3rd and now getting granaries up, hooking up -resources when needed and getting some cottages up. -issues are gone. Since there is ivory plan seems clear. Of course if there are horses, I might get tempted...

 

[ArchGhost]

That’s a pretty good idea, except it seems a bit lacking on the production side - and by production I mean food and chops. Plus you have to beeline pottery to get anything out of those FP tiles (there is no use in farming them considering how much food we have). Still it’s up to OP.

Lacking a lot of chops is probably the only thing wrong with this start, honestly. The food here + The Wheel start makes up for that.

Mansa just so happens to be the only leader that is FIN and starts with The Wheel + Mining, an insane tech combo for early whipping. His pottery path is very short and will pay off big here whether by the massive food or early cottages, especially long term if moving inland blocks off some of the already revealed stuff. For this start I think moving to the river is actually the more sure bet since you will still be able to use the Pig + Wheat and seafood stuff. Could possibly even grab the west FP spot for another cottage city, depending on how close everybody is or what's over there.

Fippy's spot actually can use the pig too so it's not food poor in any way between corn + pig + FPs. And seeing we are down south somewhere (fur), there no reason to look to that direction until later -- should try to push away from the tundra/ice early on.

The only question is when to stop whipping it and swap over to all cottage work. Immediately after 2nd city? After helper cities are placed? Somewhere in between? FIN gives a little leeway in this situation

the SiP spot is a dynamite spot for NE or GT abuse. This land rocks.

 

[southquote]

I played on about as far as Sampsa, stopping at the beginning of T46. There is a little spoiler here since I did research AH already and revealed some horses. I am in a similar place as Sampsa, but city placement differs:

Spoiler T46 :

I settled my first city in the same spot as Sampsa, I initially moved my settler NE so settling 1W as Sampsa suggested would have cost me an extra turn. I settled my second city 1E of where Sampsa settled his third. This puts cow in the first ring, but moves clam to the second. In retrospect, Sampsa's spot was probably better because I end up adding a bunch of desert and losing overlap with Timbuktu for cottaging. Oh well.

I also settled city 3 by T44, but I went North with my third city to block some more land and also help cottage the capital (2 FPs and 1 grassland river tile shared with capital). I was actually thinking of settling a place like where Sampsa put Djenne a bit later since i have the land blocked.

For tech path, I went Agg -> BW -> Pottery -> AH. I am going Hunting -> Archery -> Writing next. I realize most on here do not go for archery (or hunting), but I have needed it on Imm for barbs (and my UU is an archer), and I need hunting for the Ivory and Fur. I have a lot of commerce with the financial + FP so I thought I could put off writing for a slight bit.

City 4 can go where the initial settler was (and Sampsa's Djenne). City 5 will claim the Western FP + horse. City 6 might get the Fish + Crab in the south (hard to see in this screenshot). I lost my initial warrior to a bear so I have not scouted as much as usual...