Immortal Shadow Game: Genghis Khan

[Octapulse]

I've won a few times on Immortal but only playing good leaders with decent starts. I wanted to try a game with a weaker leader and a weakish start- and after some false starts playing alone, I figured I'd post a shadow game to hopefully learn from the veterans here Picked Genghis Khan because I've not played him yet, went Pangaea because my last game was Archipelago and I'm tired of barb galleys. My first start was double gems so I rerolled and got this

Spoiler Start :

And the settings- standard BUG mod except I turn off vassal states. Random climate rolled Tropical.

Spoiler Settings :

Initial thoughts:

-I imagine there's a food resource on that unforested tile to the south but I don't think I can reveal it before settling, the forests would block the scout's vision. This start looks weak but I don't want to blindly move onto the plains hill 1SW and away from the river. SIP?
-Tech whatever's needed for the hidden food resource, then go Mining -> BW and start clearcutting
-Genghis's traits are pretty lame but Agg helps against the early barbs, I've struggled a lot with Immortal level barbs in the past. Still not entirely sure how fogbusting and barb cities work and that gets me in trouble
-I've never attacked anyone pre-Gunpowder on this difficulty so the Keshik and Ger are mocking me. If it looks like a game where early aggression would be helpful, I'd appreciate advice.

Thanks in advance for any input you have!

 

[Fippy]

scout 2s first then we know a bit more, food can also be there.

 

[Octapulse]

Spoiler Intriguing :

No food spotted. I do get a nice glimpse of jungle. Think I'm going to SIP over moving to the plains hill, feel things could go wrong if I'm this close to jungle.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I like to settle in place when I am surrounded by forests. See attached save games.

Spoiler :

Nothing wrong with keshik attack. Your land is good but not great.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Is there a chance of missing food if moving 1SW? I guess missing forest deer would be a big blow. Other than that possibility I'd move.

Bare hill (where scout is on) is likely copper/iron, but I'd rather settle on it than work it.

edit: spoilered

 

[Fippy]

Settling 1w on silk would be 100% safe against losing anything important.
Think i would always do that rather than SIP
Maybe you get lucky with something exciting in the west fog, maybe not..SIP = 1 random with nothing else but forests.

 

[Octapulse]

Spoiler To T21 :

Some great ideas here. My gut was saying go plains hill but I liked the idea of settling on the silks, it's something I never would have thought of myself and I like the idea of 2c city centre. Was I rewarded?

Yes, moving picked up a pig, very cool. Think this locks down my early research as Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry so I can hook up these resources, then go Mining -> Bronze Working. Worker in 15.

T5: Bump into Sitting Bull and Huayna Capac's scouts just SW of Karakorum
T6: Isabella's scout is spotted in the far SW, and my scout makes a shocking discovery: Native American culture! Sitting Bull's capital is right next door. We'll have very confusing brown/brown borders.
T7: I get a good angle and can peek at his capital:

Alas, he's on a hill! Huayna grabs Buddhism.

T10: Agriculture finishes, onto Animal Husbandry
T16: Churchill from the SW. Hinduism founded in Cahokia?? SB beat Isabella to it, mad. Finish the Worker and send it to the corn, start on a Warrior. I'll go Settler when this Warrior completes.
T21: Animal Husbandry in, reveals two horses- one's in our backlines and shouldn't be contested. One's in the far south and near some jungle, might leave the AI to settle that. Set tech for Mining. Montezuma shows up in the NW. Worker finishes the farm.

Overview of the land/putative dotmap:

I want to lockdown the border with Sitting Bull first so I think Red is city #2, it has wet rice and can share the pigs. I've not seen any AIs come from the east so I'm curious if I have that area to myself. There's also a decent spot just north of Karakorum where I can settle a plains hill and pick up tundra/forest deer + ice furs + a few riverside grasslands, but I think that won't be too contested.

I had the sudden horrible realization that I believe jungle can grow on the SW pigs and rice. Scout is sitting on the rice for now, I think that stops jungle spreading? Nothing I can do about the pigs. I put espionage on Huayna Capac since he's the only good techer in the group, not sure there's much point watching ol' Well Poisoner over here.

I appeciate all the replies

 

[jnebbe]

my gut says agri - mining - bw - pottery, going bronze working and ah before pottery will put a lot of strain on your economy but I suppose settling on silk helps. Curious to see what other people think

 

[Fippy]

I wouldn't be sure either..AH gets double discount with hunting & agri, and the worker can at least road towards new cities.
Sadly there's no other 1 tile so settling on silk has no immediate research boost.

 

[sampsa]

I would go SE of rice to get 4 good tiles on first ring. Pottery before BW. Grow cap to 5 and build settler(s) with forested plains hills for IMP bonus.

 

[pigswill]

If you're going pottery before BW for commerce how many cottages are you going to be building? There's only one unforested riverside tile in capital BFC.

 

[sampsa]

One in capital, two in 2nd city.

Probably you can go BW first with no issues though.

 

[Fippy]

Yup the super city spot with rice+pigs has future capital potential.

 

[Octapulse]

Feeling a bit discouraged after this turnset . Not sure the game is salvageable from this position. Think I'll go back and try again but I figured I should post it here, that's what shadow games are for, would appreciate feedback.

Spoiler Abandon hope, ye who enter here :

t23: Karakorum size 2, meet the final AI, Joao, from the south, start pasturing the pigs.
t26: random forest growth on the tile 1N of the rice Karakorum size 3
t27: pasture finishes, move Worker to the bare plains hill in time for...
t28: Mining. Set research to Bronze Working, due in 14 turns. Warrior finishes and heads down to fogbust near this second city site, start on a Settler, thanks to IMP it's due in just 8 turns.
t32: I finish the mine and now the worker has nothing relevant to do, I have it start roading to where the second city will be.
t36: Settler finishes, will take 3 turns to arrive at the site, start on a 2 turn Warrior so Karakorum can grow to size 4.
t38: Warrior completes and at size 4 I'm making 6 turn Settlers, yay. Not really sure where to go next- nearby sites seem very weak, faraway sites don't seem strong enough to justify the cost. I head southeast to grab the resources in that lil cluster, it won't be a powerhouse city but it has some production.

t39: Beshbalik founded, starts on a worker. Current worker has nothing to do at capital so after finishing the road it will start improving Beshbalik.
t40: Bronze Working finishes, will revolt to Slavery when Karakorum finishes the next Settler. Pottery next. Copper is........two tiles west of Beshbalik's borders. No food around there and it's very far from the capital.

t44: found Turfan. Not pleased by this placement but honestly nothing felt great, at least this gets the plains hill centre + the cows in the first ring. The defending Warrior has Cover so it had <5% odds, admittedly a stupid risk to take but I was getting tilted already

t52: Sitting Bull claims the copper and is now Annoyed at us due to border tension. Huayna Capac is also much closer than I thought, his borders are also pushing at Beshbalik.

At this point I feel the game getting away from me and my reporting gets scattier. The economy is completely in the toilet, I limped to Pottery and Writing and am now barely afloat at 0%. Beshbalik is under immense cultural pressure, SB and Huayna both have two cities pushing on it and I don't think the library alone will be enough. Turfan and new city Ning-Hsia are still liabilities. Happy cap is still at base since Turfan doesn't hit the ivory until second ring, which won't happen for ages yet. I've had horrible barb problems despite Agg, I even lost a worker at Turfan to a low odds attack from a barb archer. I missed out on the deer site north of the capital, SB took it, and I'm not seeing any other appealing city sites. Snaketown there is particularly frustrating, my instincts were to secure that border first but now SB has it and is pressuring Beshbalik from all sides. I had to whip Turfan to not die to barbs so it's still size 1. Ning-Hsia was a stupid placement, way too far away, will eventually be good but there was no rush to settle it.

I actually took a break and played a different Immortal game with Alexander, which is going really well, so I can compete on this difficulty with Phi or Fin This feels terrible though, real amateur hour.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler Recommendations :

My recommendation: You should be playing with more aggression. Go back to T28. You have enough production and food - what you need is commerce. Tech Pottery, not Bronze Working. Settle city #3 next to Beskbalik with those floodplains. Build more workers, less settlers - you've hit the liquidity trap of imperialistic leaders. A good heuristic is to have a worker finish a road to the city by the time you reach your settle site. I almost never build workers in my new cities.

Around T45 you should have bronze working - Sitting Bull will have claimed the copper and that's ok. Don't settle current Turfan and Ning hsia spots - these are not good cities in the short run due to low food and lack of commerce. Instead, settle 1 concession city (#4) instead for immediate inner ring horse - you have no resources.

Separately, a city that only features a plains cow doesn't need a granary.

Now you have two options. Option 1: The first one is to start teching HBR immediately, prepare for war. Settle city #5 eventually to split off corn and grab ivory/wine for happiness. You will likely reach Keshiks somewhere between 800 BC to 400 BC, with plenty of forests remaining.

Option 2: You can also consider the option of teching writing before HBR and running two scientists to bulb mathematics -- save your chops for post mathematics to get 50% more Keshiks. Personally, I like to get writing before HBR, but understand that the tech speed here may feel like a tight race if you're doing it the first time.

You will likely conquer Sitting bull or Huyana Capac before the turn of the 1st century.

 

[jnebbe]

Here's my t71, played kind of fast so some things could've been microed better probably but it's still a much better position

Spoiler :

So we can see that there's only 800 land tiles and we find out very early that we're really close to both Sitting Bull and Huayna. This map will get pretty crowded pretty fast and war is inevitable. My tech was agriculture -> mining -> bronze working -> pottery -> mysticism -> animal husbandry. Since both my 2 cities here already have a farming resource for food, getting animal husbandry just for more food is unnecessary. Instead, I'm able to get mining/bronze working to start clearing out the forests and then pottery to start cottaging all the river grassland tiles near my capital. AH is a pretty expensive tech that can really kill your economy if you get it too early. Since I can see we also have ivory nearby I decide to go for a construction/elephant attack; I'll get 4 or 5 good cities then chop/whip a large army to kill sitting bull.

This map will be pretty crowded pretty fast so getting this rice/pig city immediately is smart. I don't need AH here because there's already a rice and 2 flood plains which is enough food for now.

Here's my 3rd city; deer for food, plains hill, and lots of juicy river tiles to cottage.
Sitting Bull and Huanya have both settled really close to me so I tech mysticism after pottery and get a few monuments out so I can keep my strong food tiles.

And my 4th city in the top right. Even though there's no food, it again has a lot of river tiles you can cottage, and some forests as well for chopping an army.

I've had some barb problems too, there seems to be a massive area to the east where they're spawning but overall not too bad.
I'll place my 5th city somewhere around the ivory and then just keep cottaging/building graneries/barracks/libraries in my cities, and tech towards construction.


Looking at your save, you definitely needed a couple more workers to improve your land. Both Ning-Hisa and Turfan are working an unimproved food tile. You have to think what is this city contributing right now? They aren't growing fast yet so they're just a leech on your economy. Ideally you'd have a worker ready to improve the food the same turn you actually settle the city.

 

[sampsa]

Well, you didn't listen, so a well deserved spanking. Immortal is not easy and you can't disregard advice from strong players and rush through games without considering every step.

Read the stuff CPK wrote, like 5 times.