Mansa/Imm on a great map

[MeowZeDung]

I've made some significant strides in my game lately. Through a combination of offline games, archived NC/IU/SoM games, and some of the better Let's Plays, I've managed to go from being a consistent-ish Monarch player to one who can pretty reliably beat most Emperor games (assuming my leader/land isn't crap). With that in mind I thought, "Why not push myself a bit harder and start exploring Imm difficulty?". So I did, but I thought I'd give myself a break and choose a good leader, roll a decent start, and stick to Pangaea.

This game is the result, and it was a doozy. I will tell my story in spoilers so anyone who wants to play it doesn't have map details they might not want. Let's just say that, although it's not a crazy double gold, triple food start like some HoF maps people roll, it has good land, room to comfortably expand to seven cities (more if you're not a noob like me), and no psychos on your doorstep DOWing you in the BCs.

The start:

Spoiler :

Honestly, the early game felt like noble or monarch to me. I Oracled CoL, expanded to seven cities quite comfortably, kept a pretty major tech lead, and libbed MT in 960AD.

I knew the fun wouldn't last though I am not that great at war to begin with, but my tech advantage helped of course. I got HC, Sury, and Darius to capitulate with cuirrs/trebs and then cav/cannon, but I drew the process out far too long. DG and Toku were vassalled to Mao, but they had 4 and 2 cities respectively, so it was basically everyone vs. Mao when I dowed. I was cocky with my 50 or so cavs and infantry on the way. I didn't respect the immortal ai apparently, because Mao unit spammed unlike anything I've ever seen. I took a couple cities, but had to take peace in order to regroup.

The rest of the game was a nightmare. I couldn't get Mao to capitulate because he was up to par on tech and production (but mostly because I suck at war, especially industrial/modern). HC got out of control and would eventually break free. I won't go into too much detail, but suffice to say I nuked the heck out of three ai before it was all over, to no avail. I had the tech lead to the very end, but it just wasn't enough.

A padowan still am I. Much to learn, I still have.

TL;DR I lost my first IMM game ever after a stellar early/mid game performance. I guess I'm still an Emperor player, but I will definitely be trying IMM again soon.

I'd be interested to see how some of the better players around here handle this. Here's the save; I use HoF mod, and don't know of a way to make the save available to those who don't have it (sorry). Enjoy!
View attachment Mansa Musa BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Apricottage]

I think the problem really is just war errors. If you're ever ahead like that, the rest of the game is usually just a shoo-in as you kill everyone's stuff. A few things come to mind: I generally avoid using much if any siege alongside Cuirs, and if I do, it's just Cannon. Trebs take way too long to do anything. I just spam Cuirs into enemy cities, upgrading the first few to Flanking and the rest to Combat. Something you may have wanted to try when things started getting out of hand was to split off some Cavalry and start pillaging Mao's territory, especially production. Were you doing a lot of whipping/drafting? That may have helped. If you can overwhelm parts of Mao's territory, that helps a lot.

This is speaking as someone who just capped Mao on Immortal as Monty, primarily using Cannon/Muskets with some Cuirs mixed in later on. Didn't find it very difficult, just a bit slow going at times. It was my first war of the game, too. Libbed Steel and DOWed. So either those vassals were more important than you think, or there was some problem with your warmongering. Possibly you didn't have enough siege. I can't think what I'd do with 50 Cavalry without Cannons, especially not with Riflemen out.

 

[pepe26]

well, unless the map isnt super easy, that was an impressive jump to give an IMM AI this much of a contest... well done! couple of things i'd like to point out, tho:

apri is absolutely right about the trebs! with cuir beeline and mass whips, there just is no room for trebs. they make things this much less efficient and slow. they are very vulnerable, only half as fast and just eat into your cuir numbers! i'm not sure if you knew, but gunpowder units such as cuirs are NOT affected by walls or castles... only the culture defense will increase the city's strength. thats why there is abosolutely no need for trebs and thats why the cuir beeline is so effective in the first place.

about the the MT timing at around 1000AD... it's certainly not a bad time, but on a good map, you can do much quicker. good player can be at MT at around 500AD (provided some good land). look into the bulbing strategies around the forums and on youtube (AZ's channel is very good for this purpose). let me know if you want me to go into more detail regarding this. people like cseanny have kinda mastered this strategy and are always happy to help. i can share a little bit of their wisdom at least, tho

also consider pre-building HAs or WEs during the teching process. then using money from GM trade missions to mass upgrade the units when MT hits.

 

[Apricottage]

Related to the above post, makes me wonder if it would be reasonable to build Horse Archers or War Elephants up to one turn before completion, switch to something else, and then finish the Cuirs once MT hits. Eh, just an idle idea. I generally don't have a GM at the time, so I just whip out tons of units as soon as the necessary tech hits. Turns out that you can get a 15-20 unit stack in 3 or 4 turns out of the standard 6-8 cities if you don't mind waiting a while to regrow.

 

[pepe26]

ya whipping is definetly the way to go, as soon as MT hits. doing the GM thingy will not always work, especially if you havent gotten TGL, parth and/or MoM but if you can get out 1-3 GMs along your 2-3 GSs then the initial push is a lot stronger

 

[MeowZeDung]

doing the GM thingy will not always work, especially if you havent gotten TGL, parth and/or MoM but if you can get out 1-3 GMs along your 2-3 GSs then the initial push is a lot stronger

When I'm using a spiritual leader like MM I will sometimes switch into CS just long enough to pop a GM for the trade mission upgrade gold. If I'm not spiritual it's just another good reason to win the music race and start a golden age.

Thanks for the advice. I know I still have a lot of things to learn, but I wanted to share a fun map as well as my excitement in actually competing at a high difficulty level

 

[pepe26]

i know the feeling... i was proud too when I realized that after finding emperor to be unbeatable for a long time (then i came to the forum) that i would actually be able to beat immortal and recently even rake in my first deity win

 

[Apricottage]

You'll make it work next time, I'm sure. Just a matter of pushing your cities to the limit even more so that you can rake in that win. Such a shame that vassals tend to be such worthless war allies; I generally find myself wishing I just had their cities to use on my own. When I first showed up on this site, I used the War Academy to get me from Monarch to Emperor. These forums have gotten me fairly comfortably into Immortal, and I'm just solidifying my position (especially in regards to barbarians) before I take that final step into Deity. One day I will conquer Deity using Boudicca, and my journey will be complete. All you need is a bit more practice in wars, and you'll be well into Immortal. Sounds to me like this last game was just a hair's breadth away.

 

[Izuul]

I think you had everything at your disposal to win the game. Really what you want to do in that situation is take everyone out that you can with cuirs while using city capture money to tech to Rifling. It sounds like you did that. Turn off the slider for awhile to upgrade your cuirs to cavs, and go after anyone else that that's still vulnerable. Cavs can still take out AIs with rifles even without siege support on Immortal in the right circumstances. It's probably bad to try it against Protective AIs or big unit spammers, but so long as the AI doesn't have a ton of rifles around you can do it. Using espionage to incite one or two city revolts can greatly help with this too.

Once you are hitting that point where cavs alone can't cut it anymore, start building some rifles and tech to Steel if you haven't already. A stack of cavs + rifles + lots of cannons can be effective against everything up to, and including, infantry. If you are having trouble with this, build more cannons! Most of your casualties will be cannons, and you really can't have too many cannons.

And for the future, start working on improving your Lib and attack dates. 960 AD isn't bad at all considering you just moved up to Immortal, but I'm certain you can do better with more practice. Just being able to launch your initial cuir attack 200-300 years earlier will make the game much easier.

 

[pepe26]

always keep in mind, that the war efficiency is very important. only promote the attacking units just before the attack, so that you can maximize the benefits from the correct promotions. dont ever waste units, it'll likely come around to bite you in the butt later unless you're tremendously far ahead... IMM und DEITY AIs are unfair cheaters! they can produce units at a rate that a human cannot keep up with LONG-TERM! although short-term whipping and drafting production by the human can in fact outproduce even deity AIs, this kind of production will start to falter when populations in all cities are whipped down and/or unhappiness arises...

thus, efficiency in warfare becomes extremely crucial. if you haven't been able to produce AND preserve an overwhelming military until the mentioned break point hits, it's all downhill from there... the AI will catch up very quickly, then take you over in military power and also out tech you quickly.

 

[Apricottage]

Oh man, I forgot to mention promotions. The only promotions you should be making are to units you expect to be defending. If units are attacking, you wait until the turn of the attack to promote them. This was an unbelievably difficult habit for me to break, but break it I have.

Something important about stack warfare! A big stack of units will face less losses than a small stack. So if you take the above comment that humans can outproduce any AI in the short term into account along with this fact, you can immediately create a very big stack that you don't need to replenish as quickly as the AI needs to replenish their units. In addition, as you start gathering your third and possibly fourth upgrades on some of the stack units, you will trade even more efficiently. If that wasn't enough, it also means that it's easier to instantly take a couple of cities and thus set your opponent's production back.

To summarize: whip out big stacks! It makes everything better. Enter war intending to win overwhelmingly, or do not enter at all. To use the oh so very appropriate Military Tradition quote: Victorious warriors win first and then go to war. Defeated warriors go to war and then seek to win.

 

[Izuul]

To expand on the promotion thing a little further.. If you are getting really big odds attacking with an unpromoted unit, don't give the promotions until after that unit has attacked. You can use the promotions to heal a lot of the damage the unit takes.

 

[pepe26]

yeah, when my odds are over 95%, I do the same as Izuul says...

 

[MeowZeDung]

build more cannons!

This is why I lost the game. Like I said, when I dow'ed Mao I had a huuuuuge stack of cavs... but so did he it turns out. Cannons would have tipped things in my favor, down goes Mao, conquest victory for me.

And for the future, start working on improving your Lib and attack dates. 960 AD isn't bad at all considering you just moved up to Immortal, but I'm certain you can do better with more practice. Just being able to launch your initial cuir attack 200-300 years earlier will make the game much easier.

I just started another pangea/imm game with Suleiman and am working on exactly this. It is going incredibly well thus far. It's 640AD and I'm tied with the territory leader at 11 cities, and I am the tech leader at 7 turns from nationalism with lib researched to within a single turn of completion. One ai who is at pleased and not giving me WFYABTA won't trade music at the moment because they're building SC, so I imagine they will get it done shortly. If they won't trade it by the time I have Nationalism I can start on Gunpowder until they are done with SC. No one else even has paper yet, so I'm not stressed about it.

I would have hit 500AD, but the diplo is... interesting. I will share all the details tomorrow or the next day when I have time to finish said game, but I'll leave you with this: my neighbors are Monty, Shaka, and Napoleon, and the remaining three are Izzy, Cathy, and Justinian! Mind you I made the game with all random leaders except for my own, so it's crazy that I drew just about the worst possible combo of psychos, unit spammers, and religious fanatics. Shaka dowed me in the BCs, and I held him off fairly easily to my surprise. I had a big fat stack of archers, axes, and cats that were keeping him at bay before he took peace. Everyone hates Napoleon, and he had two very nearby cities that were quite vulnerable. Since I saw his stack a good distance away, I seized the opportunity and thus acquired cities 10 and 11 without ticking off anyone but Napoleon (who is my cuirr target anyhow). In retrospect, I think an earlier Lib would probably have been better, and the axes/cats would not have been wasted due to being upgraded to rifles/cannons later. Oh well, I'm still poised to beat 960AD by about 200 years, so I'm happy It's nice to know that my performance in the previous game wasn't just a fluke

Thanks for all the warring tips guys. I knew some of it, particularly relating to promotions, but some was good new info.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Hey Meow, your opening paragraph sounds like me. I've won on IMM a couple of times, but still prefer Emperor.

My first "proper" Immortal victory was on fractal. I beat up one guy early on and then went up against Alexander. I had a strong defensive position and he spammed units like a madman. All this resulted in was a really epically long war in which he lost hundreds of troops and ran up a colossal war weariness. When I finally managed to move in on him I got 2 cities as part of the peace deal! I was then the biggest but I teamed up with one of the others to beat up on the other others. This then gave me a domination victory.

Hope that gives you some encouragement! Sounds like you are learning from mistakes which is #1 important thing for progressing with this game, or anything you put your mind to.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Yep, definitely learning from my mistakes.

Regarding my second IMM game... it didn't turn out so well, but this time I'm blaming the map more than my skill level. Probably should have reloaded a new game when I saw who I was up against. The jist of it is that I libbed MT in 8?0 (forget exact date) which is a slight improvement, though I was slowed by shakas early dow. Diplo was just all sorts of screwed up. I was going to attack napoleon because he was universally hated, but then shaka capitulated izzy, who everyone was at war with resulting in peace all around. I bribed everyone onto each other and declared on shaka in 10?0 (again I forget the exact date). I quite easily took four cities and decimated his stack that was returning from war with Napoleon... who shaka vassaled!!! What the crap ai vassal mechanics? Explain to me why Napoleon capitulates to the civ getting his teeth knocked in? Whatever. Izzy breaks free from Shaka as expected, but now I have to take more cities to get napoleon to break free and shaka to capitulate. I can do it no problem. Plenty of cuirrs, more coming, and Shaka and Napoleon are weak... but I forgot to bribe monty on someone new when he made peace with napoleon after he vassaled... Shaka remembered though... and brought the rest of the world in on it to boot. I'm amazed he was able to bribe since he was only ahead of izzy in tech.

So, yeah. A dogplie consisting of me vs 6 of the games biggest psychos on IMM? No thanks. I mass whipped cuirrs and tried to hold for a turn or two for the lulz, but monty meant business and I couldn't get my main force to his stack before he took two cities.

I'm still happy with my play though. Just gotta keep working at it.

 

[Apricottage]

That's pretty nasty, yeah. Missing that bribe sounds like it hurt a lot. In such a situation, it might even have been the better idea to focus on defending (get up a good number of Cannon and Machine Guns at a couple of strategic locations) and teched like crazy. The thing about warmongers is that they suck at teching, and so you could potentially get Artillery when they were still on Rifles.

 

[MeowZeDung]

I wasn't to cannons/mg yet, but you are right about a little focus on defense. Even before he dowed and was at friendly I should have loaded my cities along monty's border with 3-4 longbows each just because he's monty. You are right about him being backwards though. The quality of his units (mostly ha/jag/chariots) weren't the problem, it was the sheer quantity of them that made the game a lost cause at that point.

 

[Apricottage]

I wasn't to cannons/mg yet, but you are right about a little focus on defense. Even before he dowed and was at friendly I should have loaded my cities along monty's border with 3-4 longbows each just because he's monty. You are right about him being backwards though. The quality of his units (mostly ha/jag/chariots) weren't the problem, it was the sheer quantity of them that made the game a lost cause at that point.

That's why you prepare city defenders with First Strikes and use Siege to soften up the stack the turn before they hit. If you're running into lots of problems with THEIR Siege, you can also do something crazy like use Horse Archers and Knights to do suicide flanking runs. Generally something to avoid, though...

Oh, another trick is to whip out Walls when the stack starts moving in to gain another few turns for defenders to show up. They really slow down bombardment and give you a chance to defend properly.

 

[MeowZeDung]

I never even thought about this sort of defensive stuff on Monarch or even Emperor really. Thanks for the tips.