Is it possible to win on Immortal or Diety?

[kitfox]

I've been playing this game for a while. While I can sometimes win on Emperor level, I'm finding anything higher than that impossible. It just seems that around modern era the AI ramps up it's production so much you're effectively trying to hold back the ocean.

In my last game, I was playing Ethiopia on Immortal. I chose Authority/Fealty and was starting on Imperialism. I'd managed to take three cites from Brazil as well as one city Spain had aggressively forward settled. After a war in which I was fighting France, Spain and Russia (the three most powerful civs) combined, France managed to capture Rio which I then captured from France. The war ended and everything was fine for a while. Then Russia and Spain declared war on me. I was was able to hold back Russia for awhile and was even in striking distance of a city when Spain sailed up with what must have been 100 frigates, cruisers and ironclads and laid waste to my eastern seaboard. I had about a dozen gattling guns and cannons defending it, but it was no match for their superior numbers.

It seems every game goes the same for me. Found about five cities in the ancient/classical era, defend and build basic infrastructure until the late medieval, go to war and capture a few cities, have the AI totally hate you despite each of them acting even more warmongery, and then around modern era have them all gang up and dump wave after wave after wave of units on you. There's no way to keep up.

My pacifist games are no better. Around modern era everyone decides they hate you, even if you haven't lifted a finger against anyone the entire game.

I keep wondering if I'm missing something - if there's some basic strategy the game expects you to follow that I am missing, or if it's expecting you to pick certain settings when creating a game and I keep picking ones that are impossible (I was using pangea/standard map size/8 civs/epic pace). Some other threads here talk about 6 cities being 'tall' and ten or twelve being 'wide', but in my experience even being able to found 6 cities is pretty rare and only happens if you have a fairly isolated start and with decent resources.

 

[CrazyG]

Yes! It is possible.

Found about five cities in the ancient/classical era, defend and build basic infrastructure until the late medieval, go to war and capture a few cities, have the AI totally hate you despite each of them acting even more warmongery, and then around modern era have them all gang up and dump wave after wave after wave of units on you. There's no way to keep up.

Try starting a war earlier and conquering more cities. To keep up, you need the AI to be weaker (and you to be stronger). You can lock growth if you face happiness issues.

 

[kitfox]

Yes! It is possible.


Try starting a war earlier and conquering more cities. To keep up, you need the AI to be weaker (and you to be stronger). You can lock growth if you face happiness issues.

I've tried locking growth, but still find I run into happiness issues. Would you recommend annexing or puppeting cities? Or maybe razing them?

Happiness is another issue I have a lot of trouble with, especially late game. I tend to have seven to ten cities with a pop in the low teens which have most of their buildings built. But again around modern era, the happiness tanks as my citizens grow jealous of the foreign cities. Locking growth can help a bit for a while, but eventually I've switched them to gold focus with growth locked at about 12 or so, and I still have massive empire wide unhappniess.

 

[CrazyG]

Did you have a religion? What beliefs did you pick?

 

[crdvis16]

It sounds like you're struggling with diplomacy in your games.

When you play aggressively the AI eventually hates you enough to form coalitions against you.

When you play peacefully the AI eventually dislikes you anyway.

There are ways to be a warmonger and yet still have friends. There are ways to play peacefully and maintain friends with the majority of AI (at least until you get very near winning the game). If you're confused about why the AI turns against you then you need to pay attention to the positive and negative modifiers you have with them. It can be very easy to piss off the AI by doing things you think you should be doing. Allying too many CSs can give you negative diplomacy, for instance. Also, there are times where purposely rocking the boat (such as denouncing someone that everyone hates) is the best way to ensure positive diplomacy with everyone else.

I just recently won a science victory as India on Immortal where I was hardly ever in a war. The majority of war occured once the AI realized I was starting to build spaceship parts. I managed this by paying close attention to diplomacy.

 

[kitfox]

I think you're right. I tried again on Immortal, with Korea this time. I was lucky enough to get a patch of land cut off from everyone else by mountains. I tried using progress/artistry/industry, and managed to found nine cities before running out of space. Only war mid game was me capturing a city state after their ally declared war on me.

The very end of the game was dicey. Because I hadn't conquered any neighboring territory, I had no oil or uranium, which meant no air force, tanks, nukes or nuclear subs. Austria rushed me over the mountain range and by sea when my spaceship was half done and I had trouble defending. Managed to hold them off long enough, though.

I guess the game is built to really punish you if you warmonger too much.

 

[kitfox]

For my religion with Ethiopia, I went with Theocracy (because of the culture bonus from shrines - but they're really all pretty similar IMHO) and Orders. I enhanced with Cathedrals and Zealotry. Thought I could pour the faith income back into new units. And Cathedrals is always a nice gold bonus because gold is always tight up until the end game. No enhancer belief, but then it's pretty rare that I'm able to grow my religion enough to earn one.

 

[CrazyG]

With that religion and authority, you should be fighting wars more often and starting earlier. With that many resources devoted to military, you want constant war. try warring earlier and skipping some infrastructure, such as aqueducts. Military strength is really important, and you want gold and science to support your army. Food isn't that important (especially because fealty will provide a lot of it).

No enhancer belief, but then it's pretty rare that I'm able to grow my religion enough to earn one.

I assume you mean reformation. Especially with Ethiopia and Fealty you should be able to reform. Try warring earlier, if you attack a civ with no bonus faith early on he or she should miss religion, and that should make reforming easier. Potentially you can conquer enough that just your own cities + city states can be enough to reform.