Stuck on immortal game

[planetfall]

I'm playing an immortal game with continents and it's me and the Aztec on one continent. I've tried several approaches and all are failing and looking for ideas on what to try next. Standard world size and 5ai's.

Run#1 scout first and explore map
Tech: mining, animal, archery
Turn 28 154.80 {aztec.germany} [3 eagle, 1 slinger vs 2 warrior, 2 slinger, 1 scout }
Turn 28 game over

Run #2 slinger first and no explore
Tech: mining, animal, archery
T53 295.140
T53 295.145 Aztec declared
T54 285.117 [3 warriors, 4 archer ]
overwhelmed so retried

Run #3 Build 2nd city asap
T52 295.140
T54 323.160
T57 348.140 Aztec declared. [My military: 4 warriors, 3 archers]

Run #4 Straight to archery initial build slinger
T09 127.20 meet aztec
T20 127.35
T21 211.75
T29 211.67 aztec attk
T30 202.55 [2.1 warrior, 1 arch vs 4 eagles and 1 slinger]

See screen shot. Does not look possible to hold to me. The eagle warrior is so strong, even a river cross does not help.

 

[planetfall]

Well darn, never mind. Tried one last approach and it worked. Loaded up on slingers and upgraded to archers and put city 2 in minimum workable tiles but also limited tiles to attack from.
Meet Aztec in turn 55
305.210 meet aztec [3 warrior, 6 archers

Now have additional protection of dark age, the horse resource, and shortly iron as well. I have dicovered that having the horse resource, even before horsemen, delays an AI attack.

 

[planetfall]

Opps forgot to give new layout

 

[DeckerdJames]

I'm playing an immortal game with continents and it's me and the Aztec on one continent. I've tried several approaches and all are failing and looking for ideas on what to try next. Standard world size and 5ai's.

Run#1 scout first and explore map
Tech: mining, animal, archery
Turn 28 154.80 {aztec.germany} [3 eagle, 1 slinger vs 2 warrior, 2 slinger, 1 scout }
Turn 28 game over

Run #2 slinger first and no explore
Tech: mining, animal, archery
T53 295.140
T53 295.145 Aztec declared
T54 285.117 [3 warriors, 4 archer ]
overwhelmed so retried

Run #3 Build 2nd city asap
T52 295.140
T54 323.160
T57 348.140 Aztec declared. [My military: 4 warriors, 3 archers]

Run #4 Straight to archery initial build slinger
T09 127.20 meet aztec
T20 127.35
T21 211.75
T29 211.67 aztec attk
T30 202.55 [2.1 warrior, 1 arch vs 4 eagles and 1 slinger]

See screen shot. Does not look possible to hold to me. The eagle warrior is so strong, even a river cross does not help.

Well, don’t forget when you meet a civ, if you invite them to visit, will show them your closest city. If you meet them early with only the capital, they will gain visibility of your capital. That often means they will immediately denounce you and attack on deity.

Keep it secret. You can sometimes use your units to slow them down by occupying the hexes that bring them closer to your city, or by occupying hills or hexes across rivers to force them to take a longer way. Their early war script kicks in if the declare war on you. So…if it looks like they will see your city, you can declare war on them first. Then they play differently. Usually they will attack a visible unit if it is near their unit but if they lose the combat, they will often withdraw from the area.

Even if they do see your city afterward, they don’t automatically attack and seem to be a good deal less aggressive. They still could become aggressive I believe so watch out.

If you want more distance between starting locations, unfortunately there is not a setting for that, but you can pick a larger map but keep the number of players lower for that map size or pick a map type that likely starts each civ on their own landmass. Better chances for more space in the beginning but sometimes the game will still start you close.

Remember that you claim tiles with your city borders but you can claim space beyond your borders with loyalty pressure, so you could settle an early city near high food tiles so it will grow quickly and make tiles further out more loyal to you. That will help keep them back sometimes.

 

[planetfall]

Good comments, usually where I have trouble with sneakers is before early empire so no border enforcement. I have learned don't share capital info and unlike lower difficulty versions, do not automatically go crazy with exploration until you have a good enough military.

In current game, Aztecs sued for peace and are down to one city. So definitely found a workable solution.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I have dicovered that having the horse resource, even before horsemen, delays an AI attack.

That does not keep the AI from attacking you to my knowledge.
This needs to be tested a lot further than just concluding that "I got horses and they delayed their attack" is a causal relationship, as it could be another factor that influenced it (most likely).

Also from your screenshots it seems to me that you should work on your tactical game, as a situation like the one you posted is terrible for you.
Generally you want to avoid having your capital sieged at any cost, because that means it cannot heal itself up anymore, and if it cant heal then you cannot whittle down his eagle warriors by outhealing the damage.
In order to avoid getting sieged, you need to take control of key tiles and delay the assault as much as possible, ideally trading favourably as you slowly retreat.
I say "retreat", because you cannot beat a deity warrior by attacking into him in that situation (they have an innate +4 combat strength), and especially not eagle warriors that have a base 32 combat strength vs your warrior's 20.

The key tiles in your case are:

• The hills tile across the river to the southeast, where you want to have a warrior fortifying for two turns before they attack (which yields him a defencive bonus of 29 combat strength, slightly less than an eagle warrior, but you get to heal on home terrain so you outtrade that). If you start losing trades on this tile (you risk having your warrior killed), you retreat him into the city to heal him up.
• The forested tile where you archer is standing. This one you should not retreat from, as this is a key tile to prevent your city getting sieged. Have a warrior double fortifying here, and if he gets low, swap him with a healty warrior that keeps this tie under your control. Your archer should not be on this tile at all, he needs to be behind the city where either your warrior or settler is. That gives him range to hit the attackers, but being safe from a counterattack due to the river. A very strong position for an archer.
• The two tiles left of your city where you have warriors. The lower one (in the bend of the river) is exposed, and should be treated like the hill tile in the first point above. You try to keep this for as long as possible by fortifying and trading well. Try to fight harder for this tile than the first one, before you retreat, as this tile is very strong for an attacker and it gives surface area on your city for coordinated attacks. The tile above that (where you warrior is) should under no circumstance fall.

Also your warrior near the volcano on near 0 health - why on earth is he over there? He needs to evacuate towards your city so that you can heal him, not run towards a volcano where he gets trapped. Always keep your units in a position where they can evacuate safely, as you cannot afford to lose units at this stage.

Remember that you claim tiles with your city borders but you can claim space beyond your borders with loyalty pressure, so you could settle an early city near high food tiles so it will grow quickly and make tiles further out more loyal to you. That will help keep them back sometimes.

This doesnt keep an attacker at bay to my knowledge, and probably needs a lot of testing to verify.

 

[Pengwin7]

I always two step my meet with Montezuma (Aztec):

1. Send them immediate (same turn) delegation: 25 gold.
2. Sell them your luxury and check their count. I believe - if you have less luxuries (maybe even 'same') as Aztec, they will like you. If you have more, they hate you. Pretty sure it's a key AI relationship programming.

For me, I play peacefully with minimum military units - so establishing a friendship by moving my luxuries to Aztec is usually worth it. Once you are friends, you can rebuild your luxury count.

 

[DeckerdJames]

This doesnt keep an attacker at bay to my knowledge, and probably needs a lot of testing to verify.

Loyalty pressure doesn’t prevent or slow an attack unless the closest cities are more than 10 hexes away from each other. Loyalty pressure will slow their expansion toward you because they will let their cities grow larger first. Though sometimes they are more aggressive and risk the flip.

Even Amani the diplomat with emissary can hold back expansion for a significant number of turns and that is only a -2 pressure for a 9 tile radius, but the governor can draw an attack on the city or city state he is in if he has that skill. A useful skill and strategic. You could delay the AI from settling a large island, for instance, by putting him into a city state.

I just included the information because good play with loyalty pressure can really help but since it is a lens, new players don’t always consider it.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I always two step my meet with Montezuma (Aztec):

1. Send them immediate (same turn) delegation: 25 gold.
2. Sell them your luxury and check their count. I believe - if you have less luxuries (maybe even 'same') as Aztec, they will like you. If you have more, they hate you. Pretty sure it's a key AI relationship programming.

For me, I play peacefully with minimum military units - so establishing a friendship by moving my luxuries to Aztec is usually worth it. Once you are friends, you can rebuild your luxury count.

They like luxuries so much that a gift of a luxury might make them immediately friendly. Worth testing.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I have dicovered that having the horse resource, even before horsemen, delays an AI attack.

I think having a larger treasury seems to detour or delay an attack. I have no proof of it though. Horses are worth gold and gold is worth units. Not sure about how the AI evaluates. We might expect a human to take into consideration what resources and their value that a civ has before a war.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Loyalty pressure doesn’t prevent or slow an attack unless the closest cities are more than 10 hexes away from each other. Loyalty pressure will slow their expansion toward you because they will let their cities grow larger first. Though sometimes they are more aggressive and risk the flip.

Even Amani the diplomat with emissary can hold back expansion for a significant number of turns and that is only a -2 pressure for a 9 tile radius, but the governor can draw an attack on the city or city state he is in if he has that skill. A useful skill and strategic. You could delay the AI from settling a large island, for instance, by putting him into a city state.

I just included the information because good play with loyalty pressure can really help but since it is a lens, new players don’t always consider it.

That is completely new information to me.
Do you have any evidence of the AI basing their choice of attack on whether or not you have loyalty in the area?
Asking because this is not something that I've ever seen happening, then again I havent been looking specifically at it either.

 

[DeckerdJames]

That is completely new information to me.
Do you have any evidence of the AI basing their choice of attack on whether or not you have loyalty in the area?
Asking because this is not something that I've ever seen happening, then again I havent been looking specifically at it either.

What I wrote is unintentionally misleading. The 10 hex gap between cities is about where a new meeting with a civilization will cause the dialogue option for “exchanging” location of the capitals. Typically it is safe to exchange information at that distance but there is potential for that to change on the next turn if they were about to settle closer. If the civ has normal movement speed, they never seem to attack immediately if there are more than ~10 hexes between cities but, if they learn the location of your capital they often try to forward settle for space. If they settle closer, which might happen quickly if they were already headed your way, they can attack. I have seen civilizations with movement speed buffs attack from further.

Loyalty pressure has nothing to do with that mechanic as far as I know but if it delays them setting closer than 10, it probably will delay their declaration of war. 10 hexes is a long distance but a couple of city states between you and a rival could cause him to have to settle on your side of the city states. In such a case there might be strategic value in actively raising loyalty pressure.

 

[planetfall]

Wow, thank you all. Reviewing the screen shot I noticed the turn was obscured. It was turn 32.
Here is my log of that game:
m08c animal,arch. slinger
t09 127.20
t10 127.35
t21 211.75
t28 211.75 [3 warrior, 1 arch]
t29 211.67 aztec attk
t30 202.55
t32 184.75 abort

I was caught by surprise because I haven't had an issue with Aztec before. I tried trading and something about that old game it didn't help. So I fell back into keeping distance from Aztec. Clearly did not work with first attempts at playing this game.

Yes the warrior to SE was fortified for several turns. Retreating archer is in bad position because of 1t/tile rule. Other movement was blocked by units who could not get out of way that turn. Staying in place meant certain lost with 2 eagles adjacent, so pulled back to sacrifice archer and have one eagle not attack city center.

Revisiting the map, other than the forces by capital, Aztec only had 3 other eagles and 3 cities, so if survived initial attack I would have probably been ok. I was using archer in key position to block capture of settler as I really needed 2 cities to counter the strong advantage of the eagles. Since the quickness of the attack caught me off guard and I expected attack about 5 turns later, I decided it was better to abort and replay to see if could have stronger defense.

I really love this forum, you all are great educators....

 

[DeckerdJames]

Wow, thank you all. Reviewing the screen shot I noticed the turn was obscured. It was turn 32.
Here is my log of that game:
m08c animal,arch. slinger
t09 127.20
t10 127.35
t21 211.75
t28 211.75 [3 warrior, 1 arch]
t29 211.67 aztec attk
t30 202.55
t32 184.75 abort

I was caught by surprise because I haven't had an issue with Aztec before. I tried trading and something about that old game it didn't help. So I fell back into keeping distance from Aztec. Clearly did not work with first attempts at playing this game.

Yes the warrior to SE was fortified for several turns. Retreating archer is in bad position because of 1t/tile rule. Other movement was blocked by units who could not get out of way that turn. Staying in place meant certain lost with 2 eagles adjacent, so pulled back to sacrifice archer and have one eagle not attack city center.

Revisiting the map, other than the forces by capital, Aztec only had 3 other eagles and 3 cities, so if survived initial attack I would have probably been ok. I was using archer in key position to block capture of settler as I really needed 2 cities to counter the strong advantage of the eagles. Since the quickness of the attack caught me off guard and I expected attack about 5 turns later, I decided it was better to abort and replay to see if could have stronger defense.

I really love this forum, you all are great educators....

I can add some tips but they may or may not be the right thing to do in a particular game.

Military tactics is important. If you are going to war early, it can save you. The flanking and support bonuses are very significant. It is 2 points per adjacent unit of defensive support or flanking bonus. So an archer or catapult surrounded by warriors will add 12 strength. It is actually a game changing tech because it changes how you position your pieces.

Sometimes if you know an attack is coming if they see you, you can build an encampment in a strategic place and stick an archer or even a slinger in it. Even if you have no walls they tend to go around it in the early game, allowing sniping.

Suppose you researched to state workforce and then went to early empire. While going to early empire you built the government plaza. It is possible to have Victor at rank 3 for the free promotion before political philosophy. That adds combat strength.

 

[planetfall]

I typically go for State workforce, early empire and build a govt plaze in either city 1 or city 2. I have not used Victor much lately. I was using him at first but switched to Moksha to get hand laying for rapid recovery. I'll try going back to Victor to see which I like better, or chose based on map.

Thanks for the idea. I have neglected Military tactics as didn't really get flanking and support bonus. Got to try it.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Stay away from Victor, you are wasting a ton of governor promotions for very bad returns on investment.
If you need Victor (and encampments, as suggested further above) to stay alive, then something is really wrong with your game, and either way you're setting yourself behind by going down that route because of the opportunity cost.
Besides, Moksha (as you say) is a better defencive governor anyway because of the instant healing, and he also synergises well with the rest of Moksha's kit (especially if you are gonna leverage faith buying of districts).

Almost all problems with the AI on deity can be solved with manipulating the AI, and having a strong tactical understanding of positioning for combat.

 

[DeckerdJames]

Stay away from Victor, you are wasting a ton of governor promotions for very bad returns on investment.
If you need Victor (and encampments, as suggested further above) to stay alive, then something is really wrong with your game, and either way you're setting yourself behind by going down that route because of the opportunity cost.
Besides, Moksha (as you say) is a better defencive governor anyway because of the instant healing, and he also synergises well with the rest of Moksha's kit (especially if you are gonna leverage faith buying of districts).

Almost all problems with the AI on deity can be solved with manipulating the AI, and having a strong tactical understanding of positioning for combat.

I can’t attest to the usefulness of Victor as I have not tried myself. I haven’t tried to make a snowball. I only mentioned it because it is possible and 7 cs might be helpful. I did try the encampment thing and with some success at saving my capital but I can’t remember which speed I was on and I don’t need to do it now, I got good enough that it wasn’t necessary. Now, the build order doesn’t even matter. A can build anything I want first. Monument, scout, slinger, builder. It doesn’t matter. I can still get very unlucky with a cramped start and lose immediately but sometimes it is just unlucky. If I think of anything better I will post it.

 

[planetfall]

Yes, I just can't use Victor in early game. Other choices are better. Rarely do I have time for an encampment. It's more get a ton of archers, play defense at first and hopefully get a few swords. Then there is opportunity to have a range of options open.

 

[planetfall]

Just for others. The reason Victor doesn't work is he's too weak. He needs 3 to 4 boosts to be most effective and even then he's only good vs 1 unit. Now look at Moksha, only 2 boosts and heals as many units as you can pack into a city border 100%. What this means for gameplay is you can sucker AI units into city borders, weaken with bombard and then finish with a weak unit without worrying about it being eliminated next turn as it's back to full power.