My First Immortal Game

[budweiser]

I was defeated at turn 45. I’ll tell you everything I did, since it wasn’t much, so anyone else can avoid these errors.

I chose the Mongols on a standard pangea. I wanted to be aggressive and win via warfare, but also give the AI a chance so I chose pangea.

I settled in place on a river with marble and gems in my BFC. I chose to research AH first to reveal horses. This gave me 2 sets of 2 inside my cap and a group of 4 on a city site up north. I built a scout. This was good.

My warrior went north and found Siam, he also finds spears in a hut. He is real close, there is room for like 1 city between me and him. On like turn 8 or 10, Rammy complains that my army is weak. No duh.

I build a second scout to double my map exposure, one goes east, one goes west. England is south of me, and I meet Russia and Egypt and tons of city states.

I build a worker and a settler and I slow build a barracks, while my spear man stays close to home. I chose Honor for my 1 SP. I research BW, Pottery and The Wheel. I spend 200 gold on a research pact with Egypt. I settle my second city in the space between me and Siam. This pisses off Siam and on turn 42 or 45 he invades me with 4 warriors and 2 archers. I have 1 spear and no money.

 

[wurstburst]

Wouldn't have taken much of a difference to survive even that early of an attack (using my perfect 20-20 hindsight ability!)

The second scout should have been a warrior instead. Use that to scout around near your capital and bring it home when the nearby areas are done - don't send it too far away.

Instead of building a worker and barracks, you should have gone with a third and forth warrior. Grab your first worker from a nearby city state if you must have one (it's nice-to-have but not must-have in the first 50 turns).

4 warriors + scout > 2 scouts+warrior+worker+barracks

That's it. You'd have easily held off Ram with those 4 warriors.

One other thing - why did you research BW and pottery before getting horseback riding? What was the point of revealing the horses if you aren't going to beeline horseman production?

 

[DaveMcW]

Don't build barracks.

Don't buy early research pacts.

 

[budweiser]

One other thing - why did you research BW and pottery before getting horseback riding? What was the point of revealing the horses if you aren't going to beeline horseman production?

The point is to know where they are incase you need to make a second city to pick them up. If yes, you could go Liberty. If they are in BFC, then you can improve the tile right away. In my case I won on both counts.

I think for Mongolia, and most others you want writing so you can make better research. The UU comes at knghts, pretty far away.

The big mistake was making city 2 right on Rammy's doorstep. This is a big taunt.

If you notice, he taunted me very early on before I even made a move towards any strat. I think at that point he started making his army.

The research pact was definitely a mistake. Less so the barracks I think, especially if I could have purchased a unit. I should have taken archery or The Wheel for a chariot. My research path was less than inspired though.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It's the build order that killed you. The gold spent on the research pact would have been much better spent on making friends with a Maritime, but that problem would have taken a while to come home to roost. You are just begging for an attack if you have a nearby neighbor and no credible military deterrent.

You have several options for how to survive here:

- Bribe Rammy to attack someone else, then aggressively PoS him. That will keep him busy.
- Warrior rush Rammy, or spam Warriors and play defense while beelining Iron.
- Beeline the Wheel and build some Chariots, or beeline Horses, build one and buy another, thrash the invading army, then rush. You could also build Archers, but that requires an extra tech.

Long story short, if you have a nearby neighbor then Scout -> Scout -> Worker -> Settler -> Barracks is bad policy unless you plan to abuse diplomacy. Even then, building a Worker and a Barracks is pretty dubious. Workers are plentiful and should be stolen, not built.

 

[elthrasher]

The big mistake was making city 2 right on Rammy's doorstep. This is a big taunt.

No, the mistake is doing that and not rushing him right away.

I never play below immortal and have built maybe one or two barracks ever. It's not worth it in the early game. 15xp or two warriors or a horseman. There's no contest. You need the units. They will get xp. You don't need a crappy building for that.

The barracks made sense in Civ IV when you were planning an axe rush with 10+ axemen, but when your early rush consists of four or so units, it just doesn't pay off. Also in Civ IV you'd produce new units throughout the game. In Civ V you just upgrade your existing ones. Barracks doesn't help there.

 

[neilkaz]

I play Immortal on Small Pangaea type maps and I don't expect there to be a large difference in strategy and tactics with a standard map. Anyhow, when playing Emperor level, I could get away with all sorts of things that would be mistakes when playing Immortal and quite often lead to my downfall.

My primary reason for losing some of my first few Immortal games was lack of military and lack of aggression. With that in mind and noting that I play this game differently from many others here, I'll do my best to comment and hopefully you can restart this game and do better.

1) It sounds like you have a fine start. I don't understand what BFC means, but are those luxuries within your initial capital boundaries or will it expand to grab them? Anyhow, that matters little in the overall scheme of things.

2) With the very aggessive Ramalamadingdong nearby and allready joking about your lack of army, you have to change your focus to deal with the likelyhood of quickly being at war with him. With that in mind...

3) DON'T make the 2nd scout. What ever this scout can do for you, pales in comparison to what a 2nd warrior can do, or what doing something else with those hammers can do. A 2nd scout is a luxury that one can't afford when a civ is nearby on Immortal.

4) OK you built a worker and I assume the first thing he did was to put pastures on those horses? You're Mongol, this is Immortal so use those OP horsemen ASAP. You want the HBR tech finished by the time you're first pasture is built. Then, as was needed here due to the proximity of Siam, you start making horsemen.

5) If you want to make a settler before horsemen I can understand, and often you can do so, but make sure that the second city is settled right on that 4 horse tile. Then you wouldn't have needed that early worker unless grabbing a lux. Anyhow, 4 reasonably early horsemen can make a mess out of an AI taking a city or two and often bring home some slave labor (one or two of his workers or a captured settler that rather than making a city for him, becomes a slave worker for you).

6) Expanding near a nearby AI often leads to an early war and here it seems Rama knew that you were nearly defenceless. Unless you were better prepared to fight him early, it would be prudent to settle in a direction away from him. My early expansion is often towards nearby CS and they can help form somewhat of a buffer and this is less likely to anger AI's.

7) Your research started out like you were going to HBR Rush, but then became INCONSISTANT and this contributed to your early demise. You had only 1 warrior and were planning HBR so you don't need AW early. You also don't need pottery quickly here with no calendar resources and no time to yet build libraries from writing. Staying alive first must have priority.

8) The 200 gold spent on that early RA is a luxury that you can't afford. I almost NEVER make early RA's since the tech I'll get in return usually isn't costing that many beakers and since the gold is much better spent on CS or units if in a war.

9) I'd NEVER build a barracks that early. It is simply a luxury that you can't afford yet and that you have to pay gpt for all game. The initial promotion isn't close to worth it yet.

10) I agree with Honor for SP since it was clear that you'd be fighting early.

Sorry for the caps but I am trying to make a point to help you when you reload this game from the initial autosave to try again. That will be a great learning experience for you and you can pretend to have no knowledge of the map and start exploring in the same manner as this game to be fair to yourself. I'll note that it seems that you started in a risky spot, but this risk is lessened by being prepared and eventually fighting Rama.

Nearby AI's will attack if you build near them and don't have an army to defend. More army means a better game for you on Immortal. That being said, when not threatened, I often make a rather quick mini-ICS of about 5 cities but then you have to crank out some units and especially once the "your army is pathetic" taunts start coming. When in doubt on Immortal, build a military unit.

Just my opinions and experiences on Immortal .. neilkaz ..

Edit .. I forgot to mention that when using horses and in wars I often have Chivalry researched before I have Bronze Working ! The OP mention AW did he mean BW or IW?

 

[budweiser]

neilkaz - BW

I think everyone makes a good analysis here. I wont replay this map, but I will start another Immortal game tonight and try to live past turn 45.

 

[bobshiznit]

As others have said the early barracks is a no-no.
Building a second scout is not bad. The scouts are cheap and can keep barbs from spawning in your back yard.
The jump to immortal calls for more warriors. Whether you plan to war or not you'll need them.
Diplomacy is key. Get Rammy to hate someone else. Then PoS him.

Your experience reminds me of my first diety game. I started 15 hexes from Oda and didn't build enough warriors. I shouldn't have quit during his invasion so I could get the trophy for getting destroyed.

 

[JudgeDeath]

On Immortal I tend to stick with expansionist (Warrior/Scout/Settler/Settler and steal a CS Worker - then go for a later rush), but any strategy has to bend the knee to pragmatism. If you're hemmed in you need to get aggressive real early.

 

[MykC]

I just tried my second serious go at Immortal. This first was an ICS with Darius that just didn't work out. Just didn't make enough progress quick enough to get the GA machine going early enough and get to rifle quick enough to turn those Pikemen into Rifles. Although, the second go was with Babylon going rifle rush which went better but not great.

Tech Path:
Mining
Bronze Working
Pottery
Library
Iron Working (bubble)
Various land imporvements
...
Steel
...
Rifling T130 or so
...
Back fill tech

In stead of back filiing, I should of got Dynamite first. I really started to move slowly and play defensively (giving up a couple of cities) because of the numbers I was upagainst. I need artillery to deal damage while not putting my rifles at risk.

Build Order (capital):
Warrior x3
Settler
Settler
Monument
Library
...
Warriors
Granary
...

Great Scientists:
I had my capital making GS on a need basis, I only used 4 GS by the time I got to rifling. 1 for Iron Working, 1 Rifling, 1 for the one prior to rifling. I could probably put more focus on creating GS to have an extra one ready to bubble steel.

Policies:
4 Policies in honor
1 Point in freedom
4 Points in science

In retrospect, I think most people hold all their points until they unlock science and just get scientific revolution right away. You won't be able to do that starting with next patch so... I like Honor because you can take down Barbarians that much quicker which is just more convienient not having them around and an easier time to send a single warrior to deal with a encampment to earn some points with nearby city states.

In the end:
I'm at like Turn 170 and I'm under a lot of pressure. I've lost a few of my super soldiers. I had like 8 and I'm down to like 5 with 2-3 new rifles on the field. My army is divided into two teams of 4 each with a general and I'm all defensive as I'm up against equal tech for at least one civ and their numbers require me to play in my borders around terran I can use to avoid loses as much as possible. Artillery would of been the solution, I would of need probably 2-3 one front that I could advance on and 1 on the defensive front. I believe that even against even tech I would probably be able to move forward effectively.

 

[neilkaz]

MykC said, "In the end:
I'm at like Turn 170 and I'm under a lot of pressure. I've lost a few of my super soldiers. I had like 8 and I'm down to like 5 with 2-3 new rifles on the field. My army is divided into two teams of 4 each with a general and I'm all defensive as I'm up against equal tech for at least one civ and their numbers require me to play in my borders around terran I can use to avoid loses as much as possible. Artillery would of been the solution, I would of need probably 2-3 one front that I could advance on and 1 on the defensive front. I believe that even against even tech I would probably be able to move forward effectively. "

Please do continue this game as it sounds like quite the fight! It doesn't sound too late to tech to Artillery and I agree that you'd have done better to get it earlier and prior to backfilling the tech tree. It sounds like you could do with at least a couple more military units on each front.

On Immortal, when in doubt, build military as it will always come in handy.

Later on I'll post some real details of my first French game yesterday on Immortal. I started unconventionally since I'd noticed that the AI don't usually rush for Stonehedge. I had two calendar resources in my capital and rushed for Stonehedge and while my starting progress was slower than my normal mini REX/mini ICS start, it was nice to soon have much of the honor and liberty SP's due to +8 culture per turn and the GA from that early GE didn't hurt either. This became a rather quick and easy domination victory (243 turns, no reloading either) since I built units and went after Askia before he ran away with the entire eastern part of the pangaea (I was stuck in the middle) and got too much money and tech.

Anyhow..rifling and artillery are crushing advantages if you get them quickly. CiV is war when playing Immortal. Best of luck in your conflict and I hope to read more about how you did.

Oops forgot to mention that the tip here to not quickly totally eliminate an AI civ has merit. I left Hiawatha with one city (not his cap) and even though I'd razed a city I wasn't hit with warmongering taunts and could still trade fairly with at least one other nearby AI.

 

[neilkaz]

In hopes of continuing this thread...

Budman..how have your next Immortal games gone? Hopefully better. I think you'll find, as I did, that your playing strength will improve from being put under the pressure of Immortal after a couple of games.

MykC ..I hope that game of your's had a happy ending?

Anyhow, I just want to relay a couple more experiences from tonight's game, my 2nd with the French on Immortal small pangaea.

I started in the southwest and with Ghandi in the northwest and Siam far to my east with some choke points inbetween. This is a good setup since once I get rid of Ghandi I can pack that side of the map with cities (I don't think I ICS as compactly as I should for optimal ICS play) I didn't go for a quick calendar/Stonehedge this time, but did note that the AI builds Stonehedge rather later again. Stonehedge is like having 4 monuments with the bonus of GE points.. maybe I should go for it most games, but here my plan was war vs Ghandi and the goody hut upgrades to spear and archer helped that along with 4 horses.

Ghandi was sent to his grave, although I took some losses to elephants and other stuff. I was surprised since I conquered his 3 cities, that no AI complained about my warmongering for 50 turns and the only one to do so was Wu. I didn't raze any of those cities but just puppetted as usual and incorporated them into my road/trace/meritocracy grid as always. Usually when I elimate a civ, the warmonger cries are heard from most other civs and sometimes more than once. However, if you raze any of those cities when eliminating a civ, then your surely viewed as a warmonger.

OK..perfect..Bismarck wants me to join him fighting Siam and while he seems to be dominating in the east, I have to fight Siam anyhow this game so my horses and terrain enhanced and upgraded crossbowman (a nice unit that was my scout) and GG and get into position and he tells me my 10 turns to get ready have expired so it is time for war with Rammy. Rammy can't hold us both off and loses 3 cities to me, but I can't hold his capital but lose it with no units lost. He pays me for peace and 10 turns later I DOW him again and take his capitol and another fine city. Rammy is ruined now with 1 city left.

Anyhow... now Bismarck decides to DOW me !!! (He's been insulting my army strength nearly every turn so this is no surprise)

France's first UU is the Musketeer and with 20 strength is a very nice upgrade to a 16 strength Musketman.

I will be OK here since, while it was clear that I didn't need more army to crush Rammy, I know from bitter experiences that all my Immortal losses were due to lack of army or non aggression with an army when I needed to put the beat down on someone. I saved to post here and get some sleep, and am so happy to have 4 more Musketeer's in production and money to buy 3 or 4 more.

Bismarck will be in for a quite a surprise since I am building army, rather than 100% concentration on tech and infrastructure. Sure, I'd like to have more tech and more infrastructure, but my trade routes provide good income and I am #1 in tech anyhow while only running scientists in Paris. I think I lead Bismarck by a tech or two and everyone else left in the game has been fighting and is weaker. If this were Emperor, I'd need less army and could just tech and build buiuldings as the AI's wouldn't be so advanced and wouldn't make so many units...but it is Immortal and this is a war game when civs are nearby.. so make lots of quality units and use them.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[ezysquire]

See here for a guide to play at immortal level:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=399656

 

[budweiser]

In hopes of continuing this thread...

Budman..how have your next Immortal games gone? Hopefully better. I think you'll find, as I did, that your playing strength will improve from being put under the pressure of Immortal after a couple of games.


.. neilkaz ..

It seems I am on a bit of a break now from Civ V -- I just started a Dragon Age replay.

I'll play another immortal game after awhile and report back on how it went.

 

[bryanw1995]

The point is to know where they are incase you need to make a second city to pick them up. If yes, you could go Liberty. If they are in BFC, then you can improve the tile right away. In my case I won on both counts.

I think for Mongolia, and most others you want writing so you can make better research. The UU comes at knghts, pretty far away.

The big mistake was making city 2 right on Rammy's doorstep. This is a big taunt.

If you notice, he taunted me very early on before I even made a move towards any strat. I think at that point he started making his army.

The research pact was definitely a mistake. Less so the barracks I think, especially if I could have purchased a unit. I should have taken archery or The Wheel for a chariot. My research path was less than inspired though.

no, what you should have done was beeline hbr, not sign any research pacts, and settle your 2nd city on top of that 4 horse tile. you could have rush-bought a horse if necessary to defend against ram's aggression if he dow'd you too soon. I never build barracks unless I'm going for heroic epic, and even then I only keep them if I know I'll be building lots of units in that city. you were actually very lucky with that start, you probably could have just built 4-5 warriors and warrior-rushed ram. he's easy in the beginning but one he gets chivalry and some $$$ he's very dangerous.

 

[MykC]

neilkaz

My battle did not go well. While I did go back to researching Artillery, I hadn't made enough progress and one of the AI had gained enough of a lead to where they had a superior tech. Even playing fully defensive it wasn't enough to stop the lead immortal AI from running over me (and the other AIs who decided to declare war on me once I fell behind enough).

The next game I did much better, but I lost again. I took control of most of the map about 60-70% and eliminated all AI except. The final AI and I were equal tech but he had started to make a spaceship. As I started to advance into his territory I couldn't make much progress capturing a couple of cities. I was brought to a stalemate as his production vastly exceeded mine. Anyways, he eventually built his spaceship as I couldn't get to his capital in time.

Basically, if I can't continually make progress I will lose. You need to be at 1 least 1 tier ahead of the AI to be able to move forward without fearing that your super soldiers will die each turn.

Anyways, I played a third game with Ghandi and won, I probably only one because of trading cities for big $$$ which allowed me to develop the infrastructure and happiness I needed to grow my empire in the mid game.