Understanding Power: An open discussion of immortal strategy

[Jorunkun]

Just a quick headsup that the first version of the laundry-list is online. You can find it in the third post of this thread, here.

It's not easy getting the right balance between being so general and high-level as to be useless and getting down into too much detail. Also, there are exceptions to any rule, so I expect this will draw some flak. Which may be the real value of the list, stirring up controversy and crystalising our thinking.

Also, this will probably sound very obvious to the more experienced players on CFC. Hopefully, we will look back on this in a few weeks time and think so too.

Anyways, let me know what you think, points I missed or got wrong etc. Also, if you have any favorite links to ressources and documented immortal games, please put them in.

Reproducing the post here (sans formatting), as a way to keep track of iterations.

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General advice for playing immortal
Version 1

This is a summary of general, high-level advice for playing immortal games under the settings outlined in the opening post of this thread. It is directed at players who have mastered emperor and want to test their skills on immortal.

The list is a work-in-progress, the result of the ongoing discussion in this thread. If you disagree with any of the points, have something to add or a question to ask, jump right in and help improve the next version.


1. Leverage your strengths, exploit AI weaknesses
Unlike the lower levels, immortal games do not allow for much choice in playing styles and strategy. Play the cards you are dealt: Leverage any advantage the lay of the land and your traits give you. As long as you are not a major power, anticipate and respond to the strategic direction the AIs are taking.

2. Focus and efficiency
Immortal AI boni to research, production and upkeep ensure that you start at a disadvantage. As long as your empire is smaller than theirs, the gap will widen with every turn. Play efficiently, make extensive use of chopping and whipping to accelerate expansion and conquest.

3. Expand while you can
Scout and expand quickly to secure space for at least three cities. If you start close to an AI, on a peninsula or with the opportunity to seal off a backfill area, consider settler first or warrior/settler starts. Accelerate your first settlers with chopping and rushing. Extensive investment in improving your capital before founding a second city only pays off on island starts.

4. Attack early and deceisively
Early military rushes are the high road to power. Beeline for copper and/or horses and hit the AI while it is still weak. If you have a military advantage, press it as fast and hard as possible. Beware of chokes, worker steals and super early rushes though, as the AI starts with three archers. Later in the game, drive and exploit inter-AI wars.

5. Deferential diplomacy
Do everything in your power to stay on good terms with the AI, especially your near neighbours and in the early game. Open borders, trades or (temporary) gifts of unused ressources, giving in to requests for gold or tech and converting to the majority religion of near neighbours all help to reduce the risk of surprise attacks, the most frequent causes of losing a game. Pamper your friends and create joint enemies.

6. Research for trade, not for need
You start out behind in tech and research and can expect to stay there for at least the first half of the game (renaissance period). Research and lightbulb to tradeable tech deeper in the tree that the AI doesn’t prioritise, such as alphabet, literature, philosophy and astronomy. Don’t be shy of trading the alphabet early; unlike on emperor you won’t have a monopoly on it for long.

7. Don’t count on grabbing early religions and wonders
Assume you won't get any of the early religions unless you start with mysticism and are prepared to stick it out until Judaism if necessary. The Oracle tends to get built around the same time as Stonehenge (around 1000BC) and chances at getting the Pyramids are very remote. However, wonders which require an existing city improvement such as the the Colossus, Great Library, and Hanging Gardens are possible if you have the appropriate resource.

 

[uberfish]

What do you consider to be the hardest map types in terms of the strategic challenges they present for the whole game?

Continents/fractal. Dynamics on pangaea are a lot more predictable, since you know you will meet everyone early (tech trading is disgustingly powerful here.) Archipelago is easy, the AI sucks at naval warfare.

What role do wonders play in your immortal strategies?

Pyramids with stone/industrious always worth considering, great lighthouse with good coastal sites, oracle is a possibility but I only play CS slingshot if I have gold. I plan for all these from the start. I also try to build great library if I have marble or a large headstart on Literature from delaying trading Alphabet. 8 GPP/turn is really powerful.

Cultural victory – when is this even possible?

Almost any isolated island start has the potential to be won this way so I'm guessing most starts in general. I recommend researching up to at least Rifling or Military Tradition if there are any aggressive civs in the game, before turning off research.

How do you most effectively shape AI diplomacy?

Bribe them to attack each other. It permanently screws up their relations, and then you can get them to declare more wars later. Spiritual is great for temporary religion switches to convince AIs to do things.

Give tribute for 10 turns then cancel if it won't harm your position to do so. Don't give advanced techs to the leader unless you're really scared of being overrun.

Share tech with weak friendly allies, so that they can research things you can trade them for.

And: What do you look for when “reading the game”, as Mutineer suggests?

Once expansion space runs out, the AI starts military buildup.

Check diplomacy regularly, see who the AIs like and hate. The big thing to look out for is in the diplomatic screen where an AI has "not right now, we have too much on our hands" which means they're preparing to attack someone.

Estimate when your enemies are going to get to the 2 key defensive techs in the game: feudalism and rifling. Very important for timing your wars.

 

[acidsatyr]

I can beat Immortal about 9 of 10 times, and I have to say that strategy I employ on this level is not really different than the strategy I play on emperor.
Two key elements of the game is war (and always war), and figuring out who your friends are (they can offer you money and techs for free). With enough friends you can get money in one turn that equals a mission of your GM.
The key in the beginning is land grabbing trough early war. I've never found that it is advantageous to build more than two of your cities (one to get bronze or horses, no matter how far it is), rather than start capturing other ai cities.
You also need to be creative in your actions, as well as make risks. For example, in my last game I traded two whole advanced techs to a non - spiritual civ that was preparing a huge army (power double the size the power of next civ, and 6 times power of my civ) in exchange for it switching to pacifism. By the time they could switch back to theology, their GPT went so low that most of the new military had to be disbanded and power line was halfed.
Well that’s just an example of what you might not consider doing on lower levels..

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

For example, in my last game I traded two whole advanced techs to a non - spiritual civ that was preparing a huge army (power double the size the power of next civ, and 6 times power of my civ) in exchange for it switching to pacifism. By the time they could switch back to theology, their GPT went so low that most of the new military had to be disbanded and power line was halfed.

Nice! I never thought about getting civs to switch civics as a weapon.

 

[uberfish]

I did say philosophy was useless to the AI didn't I? Apparently it can be worse than useless

Hey acid, you planning to return to the SG scene?

 

[acidsatyr]

Soon my friend, very soon .
I want to beat deity in SG, remember?

 

[ic41213]

Lessons i learned from Immortal: (I usually play Normal Size Pangea, Normal Speed)


-Start with bronze or horses and rush your first enemy after building a few workers, one settler and barracks (chariots or axemen).

-I suggest going for a specialist economy, try to build the Pyramids after the first rush - dont forget this will almost garantee you some very useful great engineers!

-Blitzkrieg is not always optimal, especially in the later game! If you rush one or two cities right after declaring war, the enemy often starts a huge counteroffensive against the vulnerable newly conquered cities, often resulting in huge losses. instead, hide in your culturally protected border cities and wait there for the enemy attack. Dont hesitate to declare a war early, before your offensive force is ready!

-Especially after the first and second war, build enough workers to make your new cities useful fast.

-After the first and second war you can have some rounds without war while building barracks, courthouses, workers - after that you should have permantly at least one war going.

-Play consistent and balance your game! You have to advance your economy/science cities and fight a war at the same time.

-Police state can be very useful (if you got pyramids).

-Most of your cities need barracks and courthouse ONLY.

-Dont "wait" for new military technologies - keep building units (dont neglect musketman, crossbowmen etc..).

-Bribe your fellow civs into war as much as possible.

-The optimal city has a lot of hills and floodplains - foodresources are very useful, workshops can be useful.

-Dont found a religion.

-Dont forget you can often get tech/gold for free from "pleased" civs.


Right now i struggle with huge map/deity/marathon and the endless streams of barbarians..

 

[voek]

-I suggest going for a specialist economy, try to build the Pyramids after the first rush - dont forget this will almost garantee you some very useful great engineers!

This doesnt seem possible?!

 

[MrCynical]

I've known the Pyramids be built before I've even had time to complete the first rush, so you'll certainly need immense amounts of luck to build it at a later date.

 

[JerichoHill]

A few things I learned from the last immortal game I played.

Caste System + Rep + GP farms = lots of super-specialist goodness. I think at this level you must maximize what you can get from the SS's, and it seems the AI primarily uses priests for temples, and everyone else for golden ages. In particular, the GE is a game-breaker...Its an easy way to ensure that you get a few extra wonders without sacrificing production. I think that's huge on this level.

So for all that, I think the Pyramids are very close to a necessary evil.

Another thing is that the AI does not use Pacifism well. When trading techs, if its lopsided, get them to switch to pacifism (especially the warlike civs). It totally messes up their economy.

 

[HectorSpector]

Boni? Do you mean bonuses?

Apologies for the pedantry.

 

[Chillaxation]

Check diplomacy regularly, see who the AIs like and hate. The big thing to look out for is in the diplomatic screen where an AI has "not right now, we have too much on our hands" which means they're preparing to attack someone.

When does this show up? When you call them up for diplomacy, or elsewhere? I've never seen this.

 

[Mutineer]

Hover cursor on correspondent diplomatic line.
In this case line declare war on some one will be red, if you hower your mouse on it is will show reason why.

 

[jkp1187]

Boni? Do you mean bonuses?

Apologies for the pedantry.

x2

 

[Jorunkun]

Boni? Do you mean bonuses?

Apologies for the pedantry.

Erm ... isn't boni the proper plural of the latin "bonus" ( -i, m.)? Not a native speaker of english, so apologies if this is incorrect.

 

[Samson]

Erm ... isn't boni the proper plural of the latin "bonus" ( -i, m.)? Not a native speaker of english, so apologies if this is incorrect.

I thought that, but I assumed that the poster knew that bonus did not have a latin root. If it is greek for instance boni would be incorect (as octopi would be).

 

[Jorunkun]

... and btw, apologies for abandoning this thread in the past few days, been swamped with work all of a sudden, and spending all my civ time on GOTM 10.

Have been playing quite a few games on immortal in preparation of the gotm though, and my top three learnings for moving up to this level from emperor so far are:

1. Leverage copper or horses for a very early rush if at all possible. You need to take cities and claim land early, or you will fall ever further behind the AI. In general, I am getting used to taking more risks militarily as compared to my emperor games and found that I can actually do more with less. Maybe i was too risk-averse before ... but then on Emperor you could afford to be.

2. Beeline through the techtree to trade as much as possible - the most useful techs for this have pretty much all been mentioned in the postings above. I used to be really paranoid about falling behind on Emperor, but on Immortal its sometimes inevitable, especially if you are at war, and not the end of the world as long as said war is successful.

3. Really know the AI, its preferences in diplomacy and its habits in war. Again, there have been some excellent examples of what to look for in this thread. I've been able to put some of them to good use in the GOTM as well; probably the area where I have progressed the most from my earlier playing style.

With a bit of hindsight, I now understand Acidsatyrs post better - Immortal strategy is like emperor strategy, only more so. And obviously, any successful strategy on Immortal will be backwards compatible = work on lower levels as well. But my game has changed through playing Immortal; it has eliminated a number of builderish habits that worked well on emperor, so for me personally, this more aggressive, risky and AI-aware playing style is what moving up to Immortal so far is all about.

 

[lilnev]

1. Leverage copper or horses for a very early rush if at all possible. You need to take cities and claim land early, or you will fall ever further behind the AI. In general, I am getting used to taking more risks militarily as compared to my emperor games and found that I can actually do more with less. Maybe i was too risk-averse before ... but then on Emperor you could afford to be.
...
But my game has changed through playing Immortal; it has eliminated a number of builderish habits that worked well on emperor, so for me personally, this more aggressive, risky and AI-aware playing style is what moving up to Immortal so far is all about.

This has been exactly my learning experience in moving up to Immortal. I used to play "build first, get a tech lead, only go to war when I run out of open space." I've gotten a lot more aggressive, generally fighting at least one war (sometimes two) before catapults.

The other thing I've learned is the value of the limited war. Attack, swipe a city or two, sue for peace. Repeat as necessary. I used to not go to war until I had overwhelming force, with the plan of conquering the entire empire in one sustained campaign. In my current game I took one city from Cyrus, then two from Hattie, then one from Cyrus, then two from Hattie, before launching a full-scale war (against Tokugawa).

peace,
lilnev

 

[Chillaxation]

Do any of you guys have the link to the article on AI research preferences?

I can't find it anywhere.

 

[Chode]

boni is not a real word, but bonuses is