What should i do? Incan Immortal advice desired!

[ense7en]

I'm in some trouble.

Got off to a really slow start in my current immortal Inca game, and am trying to claw my way back.
I think it might be a bit too late though, so advice is welcome.

Screenshots are 2560x1600 resized to 75%, sorry, so i'll hide them all.

My territory.

Spoiler :

I've been at war with the Mayans for pretty much the entire game.
They declared on me earlier on when all i had was slingers; i pushed them back and got a decent peace deal, and then again when i was running composite bows; again slightly better than white peace deal.
Then i attacked them with crossbows/cannons/pikemen mostly, but i really couldn't do enough to them due to their tech advantaged units and super strong cities.
Finally with Artillery + Gating Guns (every one used to be a slinger) + Riflemen i took out their three main cities and made peace, leaving them with their worst city (still not a bad one though!)

Up north, former Mayan territory i just acquired.
Note Persia's capital location.

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Here where the trouble comes in.
Persia has runaway with the game. They've eaten up other AI's cities all over the map (though haven't wiped anyone out) and are already in ATOMIC era.
I just completed Industrial.
I've signed very few RAs all game due to not getting the Porcelain Tower and frankly, not having enough gold due to the eternal war with Pacal i finally ended (for now).

And Byzantine's territory, to the east.

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Theodora is actually well ahead of me in the tech tree as well, but apparently based on literacy score i have more low techs researched.
She's been wonder spamming like wild, as usual.

Tech tree

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Demographics. Note Persia's military numbers...

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Policies:

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I went Tradition opener and Aristocracy (which turned out to be a waste of time) and then finished Liberty. Then i went back and finished Tradition; got four free Opera Houses.
However, after doing Tradition+Liberty in my last few games i've decided i really do not like going both Tradition and Liberty as it takes too long to finish both, and the free great person from Liberty isn't free anymore either, which ruins timing others.
Also, the growth boost and aqueducts come WAY too late to matter.
Anyway, doesn't matter now, i've finished both.
I'm very likely going to have to open Autocracy next as i don't see much choice otherwise.


So, right now my thinking is that i need to attack Persia.
Obviously though, he has HUGE tech advantage. Due to the aircraft showing bug, i know he has a large (at least 10ish+ last it was showing) number of Great War Bombers and, and he's in Atomic

I'm going to get to Flight, but it'll take me a while to build planes due to lack of being to rush buy them.

His stupid Dakyanus city he plopped down beside me has to go.
Bactra is right near my recently acquired Mayan cities and has Macchu Picchu in it, which would be extremely helpful as soon as i get the roads hooked up to the Mayan captured cities (and they get out of resistance).

I do have a decent army of Artillery and Gatling Guns and Riflemen, so i'm rather inclined to try to grab those two aforementioned cities.

But pushing toward Pasargadae + Persopolis will be pure suicide i know.
I just really don't want to wait until he gets nukes either though (which with my luck will be the turn after i DoW), as then i really won't have half a chance against him.
The other issue is that he's allied with 95% of the city states in existance by a huge amount.
So they will all attack me as well if i DoW Persia, which makes it a lot more annoying.

Now if i could/can somehow make it to Pasargadae + Persopolis, i'd then head over to the Byzantines in an effort to relieve her of all those wonders.

The other option i suppose is to somehow hole up and hope i can somehow beat him to a space race, but considering he's only getting a bigger and bigger tech lead with time, i just cannot see it being possible.

If, and again, huge if, i was somehow able to cripple Persia and then Byzantines a bit, i think i'm fine for a science win as the other civs are on par with me for tech roughly.

Or if the war effort actually goes better than i think it will, i could then try to for domination i guess?



Ideas are very welcome.
I honestly usually abandon games like this well before i get to being this far behind, but i'm trying to do not do that to get better at playing without a tech lead.

Oh, and save, if anyone wants to see how badly i've mucked up the game.

 

[smallfish]

You have artillery. Take out Persia before he gets enough Bombers to make your artilleries' life hell. Since you have Gatling guns, front them in front of your artillery and/or Lancers/mounted units and make a push into his lands.

I am doing the same in Immortal game as Harun; America is tech runaway, and he is going after B17s.

Spoiler :

Also, if worse comes to worse, you can just use the OMT feature and get Domination win. You will likely end up controlling everything on Pangaea by then...

 

[smallfish]

No, none of that surrender talk.... rip through Bactra. Then plant a Citadel towards Pasargadae.

KILL ALL PERSIAN UNITS THAT COME TOWARDS YOU

Be wary of his GA bonuses, which means fronting all your Gatlings as screen for your fast cavalry/lancers and artillery train

 

[ense7en]

Yeah sounds like a good plan.

I have three GGs, so i can definitely use citadel(s) to help if he swarms me with units once i get Bactra.

 

[smallfish]

Yeah sounds like a good plan.

I have three GGs, so i can definitely use citadel(s) to help if he swarms me with units once i get Bactra.

Persia getting nukes isn't as bad as him bringing out Bomber stacks - those will really rip your artillery train to shreds, and you need them since your own Bombers will take sometime to produce (and gain XP).

Take Persepolis, then once you have gotten peace deal, smash into Byzantine through Nicaea. By then you should have some bombers (and fighter or two) - use them to negate Theodora's GW.

 

[Tachii]

You look fine as it is, to be honest. 400 science is decent for T230~ assuming it's at Standard.

Like said already, you can probably blow Persia with Artillery. Having more than twice your military count is nothing when you consider a couple of your guys can wipe tons of units before you're even threatened since he'd think he has the advantage and just charge forward stupidly. Of course bombers will help even more.

Personally I would have just picked liberty for an Incan game instead of also filling Tradition. A Pangaea-like setting with Inca pretty much mean you can dominate since the beginning with your hill advantage. Once Liberty is done you can get Legalism if you still want then go for Rationalism. You don't really need food bonuses when you will be conquering.

 

[ense7en]

Well, it's been a very long slow battle.

I tried jumping into war with Persia a few turns later instead of waiting until i got Flight and Refrigeration, and it went horribly.
His Great War bombers absolutely destroyed me, and soon i was retreating back.
I plopped down a citadel and the NEXT turn he'd pillaged it and swarmed units across toward the former Mayan capital.
Meanwhile the city states were sending tons of ships to ruin all my valuable coastal resources.
I lost Palenque, and exited the game...


I then reloaded to the same spot as when i posted here to see if waiting longer for war against Persia would work.

I teched toward Flight then Refrigeration (needed subs to protect my coast as Persia is allied with every single city state in existence).

I built Barracks, Armory, Military Academy in my main four cities.
And also Brandenburg Gate and Heroic Epic in my capital.
Then i started pumping out Great War Fighters, and Great War Bombers.

Sometime just before i got Ballistics researched i DoW Persia.
This time i had fighters to intercept his bombers, and subs to kill off the city state fleets that kept heading toward my shores.

Then i went Ballistics to upgrade my ex-Slinger Gatling Guns into Machine Guns.

The war was really tough initially, and you can see i used three GGs for citadels as i needed every bit of help i could find.

The silliest thing is that Persia did have atomic bombs, and later missiles!
He moved his a-bomb(s) around, but never actually used them.

I kept hitting next turn thinking my entire pushing army was going to get wiped out next turn, but he never used them.
I captured at least two or three of his cities that had an atomic bomb in them IIRC.

And of course he wisely put all his bombers into the front city i was attacking, so when i got it, it took out almost all his air power...

He still had a gajillion land units to clear out, and having to fight every single city state out there from all sides didn't really help things out.

But eventually i got Persepolis. Theodora kindly decided to jump into the war with Persia against me , so it took me a while to finally be able to push toward them as i was dealing with Persia, two billion city states, and Byzantine units...

Persia has finished i think all the boosters and are still way ahead in tech. I've made peace with them for now while i work on Byzantine, but i know Persia will pop out the parts in one of his many other cities (already has for one).

It's going to be too tough to win via Domination as it'll take forever to get to all the other capitals i think, so i'm really just trying to make sure Persia and Byzantine don't beat me to the spaceship (as they are presently both well ahead in that regard).

Current landscape looks a lot better.
Not as much Persia...he still has a ton of other cities elsewhere though that he acquired...

Spoiler :

Just got Theodora's cap.

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Policies

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Tech tree

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I am almost done Apollo, and will try to make sure i cripple Persia enough they have trouble finishing their parts.

 

[smallfish]

Interesting - he was allied with every CS? That might explain his high military ratings...

Careful to leave him with any production cities. Grab everything that he settled and just leave him with puppets (those Korean ones would work), so he won't be able to build parts when you get peace.

I also guess he didn't want to escalate. Not really sure why AIs more hesitant in expack to use nukes - they will use nukes, but not as much as I would like. This would be something to do with their Nuke RNG per game, it seems (Darius isn't much of a nuker)...

 

[ense7en]

Pretty sure military rating has nothing to do with CS allies, etc.
He just had a TON of units, and atomic firepower, etc, being calculated.

Here are some more details from the battle.

T269, i DoW. Dakyanus needs to go ASAP and then it's Bactra time.

Spoiler :

T270
One down, many, many more to go

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T273
Look at all those GW bombers, and oh lookee, it's a nuke.

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T274
Another one, yay. Every next turn i was expecting to see my army all wiped out...

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T276 pushing inwards

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T287 progress...so many damn city state units to deal with from everywhere...

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T290
Cape Town steals a Persian city back.
I don't have the screenies, but Sydney took Gordium and Ergili both back a bit later and razed them. Admittedly i somewhat let them as i didn't want the cities, but it would have been tough to keep them anyway.

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T298. I didn't have much trouble with the city state fleets, but Persia actually sent in a good sized naval fleet i had to content with. I'd already killed a few of their ships before this screenie.

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And current (T303) demographics after taking Constinople.

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[smallfish]

I'm not sure if it affects military demographic numbers itself (though having that many bombers does boost it massively), it could be some hidden modifier to bulwark AI resistance against surrender... I heard it from somewhere else, and it does fit with what I'm seeing when I have AIs fighting me despite having been beaten down to only 1 puppet and 1 production - because they have multiple CS allies (and thus, their militaries). Certainly needs more analysis... but I will note that AI CS allies tend to coordinate their attacks a lot better (or with greater coherency) than your own ones.

For now, could you identify which one of these pictures closely fits one of your lategame Immortal attacks?

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[ense7en]

Not sure, sorry. What's the correlation?

 

[smallfish]

Not sure, sorry. What's the correlation?

I'm just trying to figure out the highest number of AI units on Standard Immortal v. Quick Emperor, GnK-wise, because thus far, they feel kinda the same to me and the only difference on QE is that I can spam as many units as AI can (not so on Standard 'mortal)...

From what I've seen, there's never anymore such things as this (those unseen tiles? Also units on them):

Spoiler :

 

[ense7en]

Ah the carpet spam. Persia had multi-front wars going on IIRC, so he had units kinda all spread out actually, instead of the massive carpet.

T306, my spy confirms my suspicions. UN is being built...well, we can't have that happen.

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LOL. The roads, seriously, wtf were his workers doing!

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Peace treaty with Persia is over; it's time for another round.

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He didn't want to give me peace, and i have to make sure he cannot make UN or other parts, so more Persian eradication...
At this point i have nukes. For some odd reason i am being nice and not using them...i guess because it'd be serious overkill at this point, and he didn't use his on me.
I sold Suwon to my pal Songhai (been friends with Songhai/Babylon/Korea almost the entire game).
I donated one of Byzantine's cities to Korea to keep him alive, and another one later too i don't have screenie of.

I'd like to keep pushing w/ domination sorta, but i also really don't want to have to wade thru all of Songhai's cities and have to beak up our friendship, but it might be faster than science (well it'll take longer due to me being slow in war, but it'll be fewer turns.

Spoiler :

 

[smallfish]

I think at this point, you could just go ahead and thrash the Songhay. Since its likely they will have their own carpet of doom spam (I just witnessed this in case of German navy - every tile a unit!), just use nukes. Use them without hesitation. Then once Gao is yours, quickly switch to take out Nebby ASAP. 150-def cities might be a problem, but you have 20+ Logistics Bombers amirite?

You can certainly fight at -33% combat penalty, especially with the power of atom at your disposal!

 

[smallfish]

Ah the carpet spam. Persia had multi-front wars going on IIRC, so he had units kinda all spread out actually, instead of the massive carpet.

Hmm, would this be closer to what you were facing?

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[ense7en]

Okay, it took me a while, but i finally finished this game (thankfully before the patch came)!

I took a break from Civ5 to play BL2 for a while.

I won via domination on t330.
I was also one turn away from bulbing the last three techs i needed to get to the last spaceship part, in case the war effort failed.

Since the last time i posted, i continued raping Persia until he had only one city left, in a far away and difficult spot to reach. I kept a spy in there to make sure he didn't work on anything like spaceship parts or the UN again, and he didn't.

I waited till my RAs were up with Songhai and Babylon and then declared war on both of them.

With my many nukes it was rather easy going against Nebby.

Songhai had a lot of cities i had to wade thru so it took a while, but his units were busy doing stupid things like fighting Persia and his bajillion city state allies, so i didn't face too much resistance.

I had made sure to bleed him dry of cash on hand before attacked him because i didn't want him to be able to rush buy nukes (he had a couple).
He used one on me, but it couldn't really hold me back that much.

This was definitely the most grueling time-consuming game i've ever played, but it was very nice to be able to beat down the runaway civ and actually experience a modern war.

And some screenies

Home sweet terrace farm home.

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Tech tree. Three scientists were waiting to bulb those last three needed techs.

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Social Policies.
I love Autocracy in war-heavy games

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Religion (only really was able to keep my own cities as the Mayans and their Christianity was everywhere).

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Apollo was a popular choice.

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Spoils of Babylon

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What Songhai gave up

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[Buccaneer]

Very nice work! I'm glad you learned and thought about the way forward instead of simply quitting.

 

[ense7en]

Well i cheated with a couple reloads as mentioned.

But i learned how imperative flight units are and that putting your planes and nukes in range of AI cities own nukes is bad.

 

[Good2B]

I had a runaway Ethiopia bring no less than 25 planes to a city on my border in one game... and I definitely didn't have many planes yet, if any. Ended up rushing 4 or 5 anti-air, put one in my closest city, and the rest overlapping each other around it, with a couple upgraded troops around the city to ensure he couldnt penetrate through. He bombed the hell out of that city, all the way down, but he lost 19 of those planes in two turns and couldnt take the city either... I was able to soon counter-attack and ended up steamrolling him, he just lost too much military power in those 2 turns. I thought I was doomed, but it was fun to fight through and win.