What are the things you learned climbing from Monarch to Immortal?

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Hey guys,

I am actually play my first games on Emperor and it works out quite well. Maybe I can grow to Immortal sooner or later. My strengths are in the early game so far (micromanagement, worker optimization), but I lack experience in midgame and lategame. Additionally it seems I am not really strong in espionage and diplomatics.

What are the skills you learned, which let you climb from Monarch to Immortal?
What are strategy articles, which helped you at most?

 

[Jellybug]

1. How to balance grabbing land with not going broke.
2. The difference between a goal and a distraction. Why wait fifteen turns to have what I can have now? Will the great scientists from GLib matter if I can conquer half the world with maces?
3. Diplomacy. Still a major point of improvement because I find it very hollow to just mimic what the robots want and give in to demands so I don't really enjoy that part of the game. But employing your tech lead to either start a war (get Monty off your back and slow down Hannibal, for instance) or end one (major power about to vassal my next target? woah, slow down, those are my cities big dog...) can make a huge difference in how hard the game is.
4. Not developing Jungle gems. Most of the time better to go to war to yoink them from another rather diligent sucker than take the time to improve them yourself.

 

[jorissimo]

It's hard to know your strengths if you haven't played on your target level. It might be that playing on Immortal you realize your weaknesses are in the early game. I recommend my frustrated with Immortal thread, which is a gold mine of info and which links to other, equally informative threads. At the end of my Sury shadow game, I wrote down a list of learnings which for me were essential for moving up.

 

[a pen-dragon]

On Immortal there is still a lot of leeway for different playing styles. Basically only when playing on Deity will you need to master most game aspects.

I would say for Immortal, you need to master one out of: Early game development, warfare or your own economy and will do fine as long as you have an idea of what to do in the other areas. I do not think that Espionage is in any way relevant, except for minor things and thus does not influence the bigger picture. Diplomacy can really help you, but it needs a strong base and is thus less important. What you really need to know about diplo is to trade resources, only trade for techs you need, and to know when an AI is plotting, to know to prepare for war.

For example back when I was playing on Immortal, I think my econ was really good, my warring style OK (I frequently went for mixed sword/axe rushes...), but my early game was lacking, as I did never use slavery. At this time I was not on this site and thus never read any strategy articles.

Btw, I would recommend playing a few games without slavery, maybe on a lower difficulty level, and see how well you do without it. It is just so strong that using it can hide a lot of mistakes. This can help in seeing where your weaknesses are. Ofc this changes a few things about city placement and makes food less valuable. No slavery makes the rest of the early game more important. Arguably, it also makes you fall behind and forces you to play economic catch-up in the middle/late-ish game.

1. How to balance grabbing land with not going broke.

+1. The entire early game revolves around this.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

It's hard to know your strengths if you haven't played on your target level. It might be that playing on Immortal you realize your weaknesses are in the early game. I recommend my frustrated with Immortal thread, which is a gold mine of info and which links to other, equally informative threads. At the end of my Sury shadow game, I wrote down a list of learnings which for me were essential for moving up.

You mean this thread?

Thread 'Frustrated with immortal'

Oct 9, 2024

Hi all, I have been an on-and-off civ 4 player since 2006, and when I say on-and-off, that includes a hiatus of around 8 years. I'm currently moving up to immortal and have achieved some great wins on that level with strong leaders the likes of Mansa, Willem, HC, Pacal, Elizabeth, Darius, etc., as you can tell, all financial leaders. I am now trying to get my first win with a non-financial leader, but it is tough. I usually have to play out a number of early games and then pick the best one to have any chance at winning. I've been playing as Peter. On the first try, the land was mediocre...

• jorissimo
• Replies: 286
• Forum: Civ4 - Strategy & Tips

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

For example back when I was playing on Immortal, I think my econ was really good, my warring style OK (I frequently went for mixed sword/axe rushes...), but my early game was lacking, as I did never use slavery. At this time I was not on this site and thus never read any strategy articles.

Btw, I would recommend playing a few games without slavery, maybe on a lower difficulty level, and see how well you do without it. It is just so strong that using it can hide a lot of mistakes. This can help in seeing where your weaknesses are. Ofc this changes a few things about city placement and makes food less valuable. No slavery makes the rest of the early game more important. Arguably, it also makes you fall behind and forces you to play economic catch-up in the middle/late-ish game.


+1. The entire early game revolves around this.

You climbed until Immortal without whips? That surprises me, that something like that is possible. To perfect the whipping (food vs hammers calculation) is still one of my sticking point. I take the suggest for this challenge. This is interesting.

 

[a pen-dragon]

You climbed until Immortal without whips?

Indeed, but it took a lot of time. I started playing this game in 2010 (I think) and started playing single player games on immortal maybe in 2018-2019? And I did play a lot.

 

[soundjata]

This game does not get old. It can not get old.
I've just made a super rough calculation over How many different maps can the game generate?. The answer is pretty big: greater than 10^1000.
The number of All possible games of CIV4 is terrifying

 

[a pen-dragon]

I am quite certain that this number is in fact much smaller. This is because it is just as random as the RNG involved. The rng is probably based on 32bit integers and thus can only provide up to 2^32 different numbers. It also probably is a pseudo rng, meaning that given a specific seed the result will always be the same. This in turn probably implies that the first random number fixes all future random number and is thus the only random event, fixing the total number of possible maps at the total number of possible random numbers, i.e. 2^32, or about 4 billion.

That is still quite a large number.

Edit: One additional decision is the map choice, which can be made by hand. So 4 billion different situations per different map script.

 

[soundjata]

Only 4 billion maps? Quite disappointing
I assumed all maps = all possible tiles ^ (number of tiles in map) but there are patterns of course.

Doesn't the map generator fix the (1,1) tile first, then the (1,2) tile, etc... ?
Each new tile having constrains relative to the already placed tiles, but still some freedom (on the order of ten possible outcomes)
@a pen-dragon are you saying that once the first tile is fixed all other tiles follow?

 

[a pen-dragon]

I do not know the details of the map generator, my argument solely relies on the RNG generator. As long as a given random seed produces the same map (This can be tested), the number of different maps can not exceed the number of different random seeds.

This is an artifact of how I presume the RNG is coded and can be generalized to any structure formed by a pseudo-RNG. If you want to know more, take a look on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator

are you saying that once the first tile is fixed all other tiles follow?

No, as different random seeds will have to produce the same initial tile as there are much less different tiles than different random seeds.

I assumed all maps = all possible tiles ^ (number of tiles in map) but there are patterns of course.

That would be the case if, and only if, the map generation were truly random, which it probably is not.

 

[soundjata]

What a shame, we can only see an infinitesimal fraction of an ocean of beauty then

 

[Gumbolt]

Back in the days of civ 2 I doubt there was that many maps. I remember playing the same maps many times.

I thinking whipping is key.

Early expansion too. Grabbing land early on. Learning to share tiles with capital to build size 12-18 size capitals.

Micro of cities helps too.

On monarch you can afford more errors as AI still slowish to expand.

 

[Jellybug]

also if you're having any success on Emp, I'd say just bump it to Imm. They aren't that different. AI builds a few more units, and stacks do get noticeably bigger starting in industrial era.

Imm is more difficult early with maintenance and happies, so that city placement and tech decisions have a huge impact on your early outlook. Barbs are more threatening as well (still tame compared to deity but I did find the barb difference between Emp and Imm significant.) The reason I'd recommend bumping it up is, as @jorissimo mentioned, it would expose your weaknesses more pointedly, whatever they are, so that you can address each as it arises.

One side note, if you have a normal, cottagey start with a decent plug and play capital, the two difficulties are pretty similar. It's the mediocre to poor starts, the animal husbandry resource surrounded by forest, on a civ without agri or hunting or mining, where you really feel it.

 

[jorissimo]

also if you're having any success on Emp, I'd say just bump it to Imm. They aren't that different. AI builds a few more units, and stacks do get noticeably bigger starting in industrial era.

Imm is more difficult early with maintenance and happies, so that city placement and tech decisions have a huge impact on your early outlook. Barbs are more threatening as well (still tame compared to deity but I did find the barb difference between Emp and Imm significant.) The reason I'd recommend bumping it up is, as @jorissimo mentioned, it would expose your weaknesses more pointedly, whatever they are, so that you can address each as it arises.

One side note, if you have a normal, cottagey start with a decent plug and play capital, the two difficulties are pretty similar. It's the mediocre to poor starts, the animal husbandry resource surrounded by forest, on a civ without agri or hunting or mining, where you really feel it.

Yeah hard to overstate how much this was an engine of improvement for me. Immortal is still a respectable level for me but I don't dread it anymore. I was getting overrun early by the AI every other game but now that has become quite rare (although it still happens from time to time). I feel much more in control.

 

[jorissimo]

It's the mediocre to poor starts, the animal husbandry resource surrounded by forest, on a civ without agri or hunting or mining, where you really feel it.

This literally happened to me today with JC. Coastal start with one dry rice and a plains cow surrounded by forest. Didn't play it terribly but you do get punished much harder for your mistakes. 5th city with only ocean fish before your construction rush? Forget it. Flicking in sailing for 1 ocean fish and 2 lakes? Big mistake. Masonry before Writing because of a marble? Dude. And suddenly you find yourself with 43 bpt on t93 still having to research math.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

You climbed until Immortal without whips? That surprises me, that something like that is possible. To perfect the whipping (food vs hammers calculation) is still one of my sticking point. I take the suggest for this challenge. This is interesting.

Also impossible for me, but someone did it on deity difficulty

Thread 'Nobles' Club 334: Suleiman of the Ottomans'

Jul 31, 2023

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Suleiman of the Ottomans, whom we last played in NC 292; we last played the Ottomans under Mehmed II in NC 331. The Ottomans...

• AcaMetis
• Replies: 13
• Forum: Civ4 - Strategy & Tips