Stuck on Immortal

[Sleepwalker91]

Currently trying my Domination game with the Zulus. Even if I can play and win Emperor with little difficulty, this immediate following level is definitely my black horse, although I can get to win scenarios on it. I think my biggest problem is no doubt the early game development.

If I concentrate on military production, I get outteched and by the middle ages I'm facing trebuchets and LSs with catapults and swordsmen (if I manage to get some Iron spawned nearby, that is). Even Impi seem not to be enough.

If I concentrate on science, I literally get suffocated by countless units which are fairly on my same tech level, but I'm still outnumbered 5:1.

What pisses me off the most is the HUGE advantage the AI gets on this level. They can pump out early cities with barely no effort, catch twice or thrice as many ruins as me, beeline for wonders WHILE keeping a very high science output and spawning military units like flies. I don't want to be bit**y, I know it's made to be challenging, but I still feel frustrated since every game with Emperor has gotten quite easy, and I feel I'm not that good as CiV as I thought to step on to the next level.

I restarted many times to find a favourable position and my last attempt was quite promising: in a desert with wheat, two luxuries (2 incense, 1 silk, more incense in the vicinity), a river and food plains (no production though). Map was Pangea, large, 10 players, only domination victory allowed.
Sent my warrior exploring west and - surprise! Askia's capitol is only a dozen of tiles away. Of course they've grabbed all the ruins in my vicinity and have 4 citizens when only my second one is born.

Building/acting order:

- Scout, I do some exploration north, east (mountain chain) and south (sea), find some ruins. ALL suck (crudely drawn maps, recent activities of barbarians, etc. ), my scout gets upgraded to archer, which is fine, but not as good as a free tech, the +50 faith, the +20 culture, and so on...
- Monument + Shrine. Adopted Liberty --> Republic --> Collective Rule (the only way to get a second city before the AI has four or five). I meet Jerusalem first, that gives me a +8 Faith and allows me to found a pantheon first, I pick Desert Folklore and start pumping out +5 Faith per turn;
- The Great Library, it's always my first wonder, took around 25 turns to build and then free tech --> Philosophy for National College;
- The Pyramids, around 21 turns to complete, with bonus workers (I only had one before, stolen from a CS) start to build farms and luxury improvements in both cities;
- National College in the Capitol, after rush-buying a library in the second city. Takes around 20 turns as well;
- Religion founded, picked Initiation Rites and Holy Warriors (my absolute faves). I think HW has been nerfed since G&K though, now units need much more Faith;
- Made friends with Mongolia, started to sell my excess luxuries for gold & happiness;
- Askia has three cities with 6 pops each and is now amassing an army. I start building up units, but by turn 80 I only have 2 swords, 2 spears and a catapult (HW didn't really help that much). My gold output starts to stagnate due to all the land improvements (only farms and plantations, one iron mine), I had no time to build/buy caravans;
- I adopt Honor, go for Discipline --> Military Chaste, next step is Professional Army (-50% cost on all upgrades);
- Askia declares, it's a swarm of spearmen and warrior meat-walls against 5 well-trained units. The siege of my capitol takes long, losses on both sides, I quit in frustration as in the meantime Askia has founded two more cities and brought Mandekalu horses to the feast. (I was only 10 turns away from Civil Service though)

I'm trying to understand what the flaw in my strategy was. I think I shouldn't have focused on religion that much, since Holy Warriors proved quite useless (with a +10 Faith output, I could get a spearman in 11 turns and a catapult in 15, nice in the long run but not great for early warfare). Probably I did something wrong with the Wonders too, I reckon I could have built the Temple of Artemis, but The Great Library seemed necessary to me to cover the tech gap. Should have probably ignored Pyramids and build Terracotta Army instead.

Any tips?

 

[dragonxxx]

- The Great Library, it's always my first wonder, took around 25 turns to build and then free tech --> Philosophy for National College;

I think this is your biggest problem + the choise of beliefs for the religion seems rather odd. Also, you build swordsmen instead of CB ... I don't think you need swordsmen with the Zulu at all.

 

[Blicero]

A few quick pointers while I'm on the train.

- First you should accept that at immortal and diety difficulties the AI cheats and don't let that piss you off. It cheats because it has to in order to provide a challenge to the best players. It has to because it doesn't have the smarts that you do, and as you play you'll find it to be rather stupid, particularly when it comes to how it fights.

- Secondly I would search for Moriarte's liberty opener thread, study it, apply it chapter & verse a few times till you start to understand the core of what it's trying to do.

- Next, I would give up wonders. At Immortal and later on Diety, you'll have to learn how to play without building them. Let the AI build them for you and take them later.

- Askia being 12 tiles away should be a good thing, provided his cities are not buried in jungle or choke points. He will declare on you (saves you the trouble of doing it yourself, and offers you that expansion opportunity that you claim you have difficulty finding. How to get it? Well...

- My short feedback on how you played this particular game is 1) you wasted to much turns / production on wonder building, when you should have been building units / infrastructure.

- 2) The army you built is not a good one. What you want is 6-7 archers and 1-2 melee. With the archers LET Askia come attack you. LET him throw his massive army at your capital's walls (hint: walls). The archers (and as quickly as possible composite bows) will shred him. You should be able to decimate his army this way without losing one unit. And once you do... Well the you can expand. After all, he is only 12 tiles away.

 

[livsbrand]

Askia always seems to be a little late getting those units out, I think he prioritizes his UB. If you make a quick CB rush you should be able to get Gao instead of Great Library. Usually a much sweeter deal.

 

[Lunco]

Great Library is worth it, even if you are going for a CB rush (I assume you get Library tech before you do that?). The free tech outweighs the extra production turns, because it gets you a much earlier NC. The fact that it's risky is a whole other discussion. While that is being built you can tech up to CB - you'll probably be able to squeeze an Archer or 2 in there as well. I think OP messed up with building the Pyramids - just steal more Workers.

The biggest issue I see is not getting CB. How he was planning to conquer a capital with 1 ranged unit and all melee is beyond me. I don't even see this working on lower difficulties.

 

[slowcar]

Waiting for a DoW is no longer needed (and sometimes also not feasible), you get the big diplo hit by taking cities anyhow. And even if you settle close some AIs randomly decide to send a caravan and hesitate attacking you.
It is also usually easier to fend off the few units that come after you declare war than to beat off the coordinated (well, as much as the AI can coordinate anything) army marching on you.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Don't build wonders, build units and settlers. Finish NC at around turn 80 and you're good.

 

[kb27787]

btw, no, as far as I know they did not nerf HW; the units still cost the same It's all your imagination

 

[joshua43214]

I think these are the major issues.

On immortal/deity the GL is only gettable under rare circumstances. If you are relying on it to win, you are not quite ready to play this level. Building both GL and pyramids means you spent 46 turns on wonders rather than infrastructure. Pyramids are good and gettable very often. ToA is good and gettable very often, but is a special gambit. People build the ToA to aid growth, not for the improved build time for range units. I mean if you are building so many range units that you need the wonder, then you are building too many range units.

Holy Warriors? just don't unless you can make >30fpt.

Honor? Don't do it...

Lastly, 2 swords, 2 spears, and a cat are not a defensive army, it is the beginning of an offensive one.

You get the tech advantage by being better at teching than the AI, this means you have to play smart and build a solid core to work from. There are many ways to achieve advantage/parity with the AI, at high level none of those reliable ways relies on the GL.

Lastly, I am wondering why you went for iron working with the Zulu's and not civil service.

 

[Sleepwalker91]

Ok fanatics, I've learnt something from each one of your tips and here is my current game:

Spoiler :

I apologize for the bad quality

Before taking out Oda I've let my CS spar until 3-4 of them got Logistics. I'm thinking about settling another city, too bad this would be a bad unhappiness hit, expecially now that I have both happyness/gold under control.

I settled Bulawayo right next to Old Faithful (a sweet +2 science per turn), my pantheon belief (Goddess of Hunt, +1 per camp) really helped me a lot to grow my capitol quite good. Built the Pyramids, but only because it took me just 9 turns thanks to the huuuuuge amount of hammers I get from my capitol. Right after rushed NC with Liberty GE.

Filled Liberty, now I've got Commerce opener to get some gold, I'll probably beeline to Protectionism to get that huge happiness boost. (not interested in Patronage, at least before some mercantile CS comes in sight)

Now back to the military: just repelled a combinated attack from Harald and Askia on my southernmost city. Who should I pursue and attack now?

Askia is weak. Somehow he didn't manage to build other cities outside his capitol, and he's lagging back in Classical Era since all he did was throwing archers and warriors at me. Besides, I don't even think he managed to get some horses.

Harald is somewhat dangerous. I don't really want to face Berserkers, although I have Impis they can still be a challenge, expecially if they attack from that lake. The problem is the big jungle between my city and his.

Btw, thanks to all of you

 

[joshua43214]

I am pretty sure the devs put Askia in the game so we would always have an easy-to-puppet civ...
Take his capitol and ignore him, he usually will not recover enough to be a treat. He will occasionally run away, but pretty rare.

Harold usually only gets going by accident. I have never seen him get anywhere near winning even when he takes over a large part of the map. His UU's are pretty powerful, best to take him down before he gets them.

I would do a holding action with Askia cause he sucks, and push back on Harold first.

 

[Steeltank]

I agree with other posters you should stop building wonder, they are crap except for brandenburg gate. I'm a domination players and here's some quick tip.

1. Your main capital have the highest production so always build troops and buy the rest to catch up, maybe sneak a build in here or there.

2. Always steal workers never never build them.

3. Computer do cheat cause when fighting multiple wars, they will work together and get you. Haven't you notice the City State attack you aggressively when they are ally with AI but stay dormant when they are your ally. Keep in mind you are playing against the whole game program, not just one AI.

4.Go with liberty, it help with manage your happiness better. When doing domination game, the only things that slow me down is happiness not the AI.

5.You said if you go science than your military will lag. Here's a important tips...a domination victory is in essence any victory you want it to be. Just concentrate on taking cities and puppet everything. You will notice that that as your empire grows your science start to grow real quick eclipsing the leader both in culture, gold, and science. This hold true for immortal, on deity there's always one that is tech leader and you can't catch up. I just kill him first once i get flight.

Enough for now, will post more when i have time.

 

[redwings1340]

On Immortal and Deity, the computer is going to have huge advantages over you at the start of the game. My advice is, don't give up early. It's a shock seeing how far behind you are early in the game, and your immediate reaction is to think you've done something wrong, but that's not usually the case. You aren't going to cover the tech gap at the very start, so even when you're getting as much production, science, and food as possible and it isn't working, never give up.

 

[MarshalN]

Why would you settle another city if you want to hit someone soon? Save the happiness for their capital. Speaking of which, is it even profitable to keep Osaka?

 

[klaskeren]

composite bowman with logistics, never had that before

 

[UnofficialJoe]

I feel adopting anything but liberty or tradition is mistake, unless you have a very specific "build" that relies on piety or honour. Also always avoid early wars with the AI, just play defensive and you'll have a massive defender advantage

 

[joshua43214]

composite bowman with logistics, never had that before

I just upgraded 3 logistic CB's, 1 has march, and another will soon. You just don't work them hard enough lol.

I stole a worker from Monty, he was very unhappy and did not like being my worker farm. Since I have more important things to make, I stuck with my 3 archers + a horseman. Many turns later I have 3 puppets and razed 4 of his cities. Have three GG's and I'm debating ringing his last city with them just for fun

 

[FrostK]

Screen position for immortal is absolutely ok. Just want to notice that I nearly never buid aqueducs... Really what for? Better build caravan, more units or smth.

 

[IBYCFOTA]

Screen position for immortal is absolutely ok. Just want to notice that I nearly never buid aqueducs... Really what for? Better build caravan, more units or smth.

What? Aqueducts are crucial for growth which equals science / production / workable specialist slots. If you're not going Tradition, Aqueducts should be a top priority once you research engineering.

 

[joshua43214]

Aqueducts are important no matter what VC or how tall the city is going unless its a 1-2pop filler.
Aqueducts mean the enemy can step all over your food tiles and unless you suck at war, you can get your food back before you starve down a pop. It also makes getting to that critical 5 population sooner on new cities.