What would you do?? Ethiopia / Immortal

[igloo8]

Hi everyone – Big fan of this forum and this is my first post

I am playing as Ethiopia / Standard / Immortal / Fractal. I have three cities. 1360AD.

I am on a continent with Korea / Spain / Ottomans / Babylon. Arabia are on their own island. The huns now own an entire island thanks to wiping out Indonesia.

What should I do in this situation;


Korea are running away with their science and have so many wonders, I need to stop them. I have just met all other civs and proposed ‘scholars in residence’ to give me a bit of a boost. I am also bee-lining towards scientific theory for public schools and have started rationalism. I have no army. There have been no wars on this continent yet – the only one I know of is Huns v Indonesia.

Have geared up my costal city to start pumping out ships (it has all costal buildings / workshop / barracks) – which I will do on the next turn. I have no iron so will buy a city state with iron in order to build frigates. I shall build a load of privateers to steal a navy.

Should I declare war on Arabia or Attila and puppet their entire island to boost my economy? Or should I try and do something about Korea first?

My gut feel is to take an island and level up my Navy in the process – then turn it on Korea whilst giving me a chance to build up some ground forces to try and stem the land onslaught (I would turn on them once I have the Ethiopia UU for its defence in friendly territory). Korea only have 3 cities as well so my UA is not in play.

HELP

 

[Kriogen]

..
Should I declare war on Arabia or Attila and puppet their entire island to boost my economy? Or should I try and do something about Korea first?
..

No, you should not fight. Looks like your army is nonexisting. Not yet anyway.

Bribe anyone/someone to attack Korea.
Bribe more so there lots of fighting.
Bribe some more.
Well just bribe something so theres some action going on. Bribe so all hate each other (but no you).

While others fight, you go for Frigates/Artilery. When you have, bomb Korea back into stone age. Take a couple of good korean cities (capitol plus any city that has WW), but don't exterminate.

Don't forget to bribe someone/anyone/all to also attack Korea (so you get "we fought a common enemy" diplo perk).

Think I forgot something ... oh, bribe someone to fight. The more they fight in pointless wars, the less they wonderwhore and build ship parts.

 

[igloo8]

ok - I am about to instigate WW1

I have turtled up a bit and am about to pay Spain to declare war on Korea . I may be able to nip in and take a city if they kick the sh*t out of each other enough

will report back

 

[igloo8]

I could not get Spain to declare war - so I negotiated Korea to declare against Spain

During which time I founded Autocracy ideology and picked up two combat tenants closely followed by an added XP tenant on the second tier

after about 5-6 turns into the Spanish Korean war - I declared on Korea. The Ottomans are still in with me - I was worried it would spark something much bigger.

Picture below is the state of play - Busan is cut off from the other two cities by Barcelona and so cannot receive a lot of reinforcements. I cant get close with my frigates at the moment because they have a cannon stationed there and they destroy ships in one turn whilst combined with the city bombardment. I am using them to pick off ground units which come too close.

I have three cannons on the outskirts of Busan and as soon as I have Artillery I will make my move on the city.

Just finished refrigeration and have sent a lone sub around the top of the continent to start weakening their Navy

 

[zxcvbob]

Do you have any oil? How close are you to getting battleships? You won't be able to take a 84-strength city with a few cannons and frigates (unless they have range promotions; even then it will be tough) and rifles. Artillery or battleships can do it; battleships are a lot stronger than artillery. Good luck

 

[igloo8]

Busan has fallen - Korea founded a fourth city which activated the UA of Ethiopia

Sustained pressure from Artillery did the trick. They had a battleship stationed and a bomber which threatened to turn the tide - lost a few units in the process but now I have it and it is cut off from the rest of their empire.

Gained Broadway / Machu Piccu / Rock of Gibraltar




He wont negotiate a peace treaty so I think I will march on his capitol now.

Subs are outside his Eastern borders destroying every ship - I am about 17 turns away from Battleships still but will make some frigates to upgrade. I can see '3 oil' around my lands. Will need to source some more

 

[igloo8]

I had to use a great scientist to rush for Artillery otherwise it would have all been in vain

 

[zxcvbob]

You're doing better than I usually do at Immortal. How friendly is Spain?

Ideally, you want to capture Seoul and Jeonju, and let Spain take Daegu last (so the rest of the world hates Isabella instead of you.) The next-best scenario is a city state captures the last Korean city

If Seoul has a battleship in the city plus some aircraft, it will be very hard to capture. Not sure if they've research dynamite or not (Great Wall) but you can get to battleships and Great War bombers without it. Maybe let Spain grind on it for a while and then you swoop in with a lancer or privateer.

 

[Nick31]

Not to rub salt in the wound, but the main problem with your game is that your science is pretty awful . 133 on T196 is not going to cut it. To put it in comparison, I'm on a 3-city German Immortal game right now and am at 250 by T160 and just bulbed into Industrialization. Getting to an Ideology ASAP is so crucial, both to your economy/science and to your happiness. Ooof, and I just saw that you're at 300 on T254... Good luck

So, first suggestion to you would be read up on the Improve Your Play threads about learning how to do a 3 or 4-city Tradition game. With Ethiopia, and the faith, you really want to try 4 cities, even if squeezed, as the extra faith from Steeles means you can buff a religion to strong with happiness. Internal food routes, stockpiling gold to do some buying of buildings or buying a Merc CS for the +10 happiness.

In this particular game, your best option was indeed to overwhelm Korea with Artillery. The AI doesn't know what to do against Artillery until they get planes. Take all of Korea (screw the penalty, you need all the cities your happiness can stand), and really focus on economy. At the moment, your science is dismal and you'll need a far bigger economy and science engine.

 

[igloo8]

Spain are really friendly at the moment - I know that can change in the blink of an eye

It's got a bit nasty now - I am around three turns away from taking Jeonju and will then roll on the capital - they have about 10 wonders there.

Babylon / Ottomans / Huns have all declared war on me - Ottomans are the only one I am worried about at the moment. The city state next to Adwa is allied with Korea too so they are giving me a few problems.

Next step is to take the two big Korean cities then stop - make peace with the city states and see what happens to the economy after the resistance in the capital

---------------

Yeah science has been poor this game - I haven't had the best population since I was sort of boxed in to my start location - there wasn't any unique luxury resources and I would have been able to cope with anymore cities early game

 

[igloo8]

Its over

I held Jeonju for two turns / happiness plunged to -10 / Arabia landed a lots of infantry on my continent and declared war on me / huns took an important allied city state so happiness went down even more / Korea took Jeonju back and wiped out my artillery

Game over for me

It's a learning curve - I can win Immortal on Epic speed but have only just moved onto playing it on standard and so far have only won one game

Back to the drawing board

 

[x2Madda]

Its over

I held Jeonju for two turns / happiness plunged to -10 / Arabia landed a lots of infantry on my continent and declared war on me / huns took an important allied city state so happiness went down even more / Korea took Jeonju back and wiped out my artillery

Game over for me

It's a learning curve - I can win Immortal on Epic speed but have only just moved onto playing it on standard and so far have only won one game

Back to the drawing board

Even though you lost, I apprechiated your write up about how things were going. I hope you make more posts like this and in future, if you can, try to keep a save file for when things are about to get nasty, we here on cvfanatics love playing through things like that

One thing you could have done (although to late now and you may have tried anyway) is bribe the country you want to kill, to attack EVERYONE (or as close as they are willing to go) for every resource you have, then immediately declare on them to get your stuff back.

This hurts your kingdom much less than trying to bribe someone else, since you then have to give up resources for 30 turns.

 

[Nick31]

Yeah science has been poor this game - I haven't had the best population since I was sort of boxed in to my start location - there wasn't any unique luxury resources and I would have been able to cope with anymore cities early game

Hey, so it's your call on how much you want to practice certain things, but my suggestion to you if you really want to improve your Immortal game is to rethink your conclusion.

Growth is everything in this game. If you can't grow, you won't excel. You can manufacture happiness (particularly with Tradition). You can keep your surrounding cities quite small, maximize hammers, build shrines, temples, and coliseums and pump your capital (Tradition capital is everything). With Ethiopia, those 4 free Steeles are worth the squeeze. With 8 quick faith you can shoot to a great religion and then choose things like Pagodas and Temple happiness. That's 4 happiness per city. Tithe will help you once you spread to your neighbor, as the gold will help you buy a Merc State.

By the way, if you weren't Ethiopia, a good strategy when squeezed is go 2 or 3-city NC and then rush and swallow up a nearby CS. The luxury and the extra city will be key to your mid and late game.

The key to good Immortal play is that you can play around a bit in the first 100 turns to set up your later game, because you aren't going to face a serious rush (unless you're on an island with an AI desperate for war. Korea certainly isn't going to do it. But by "play around" I mean really map out what you want your empire to look like by T170. There are lots of threads on how to maximize a good Tradition game (even when squeezed). In short, this game gave you a pretty good idea of how different your thinking needs to be in a boxed in setting with a few less Lux than ideal, but you really can excel from this position (particularly with such a strong civ choice) if you tweak your conceived notions about it.

 

[Chum]

By the way, if you weren't Ethiopia, a good strategy when squeezed is go 2 or 3-city NC and then rush and swallow up a nearby CS. The luxury and the extra city will be key to your mid and late game.

Ugh, why do people say this?

It's almost never worth taking over CS's. Just found another city. Warmonger penalty plus possible CS weariness minus an ally later in the game that can give you culture/faith/food/happiness/units.

That's not a good trade.

 

[Nick31]

First off, there isn't a warmonger penalty if you take it out before you meet other Civs. That is why it's an early game strategy for isolated starts. Isolated. Did you see his map? It's him and Korea. Secondly, if you're on a small continent, and want 2 coastal cities, and are surrounded by CS, it is 100 % worth considering.

 

[inthesomeday]

It loses half its population, and normally CS locations are terrible. Plus then it's extremely more costly than a founded city, either for happiness or gold, two resources that are somewhat important not to run out of early game

 

[Nick31]

Look, you don't have to ever conquer a CS ever in any game. It is certainly a viable strategy, however, for a strong Immortal game. I've got 2,000 hours in this game, the huge majority of them on Immortal, and I assure you it is viable. Optimal is a matter of debate. Viability is not.

From his position you can do all kinds of things. His map makes it tricky to go 4-city Tradition with 2 Coastal. Not impossible, but tricky. He asked what to do. Any good Immortal player can win his game doing all kinds of things, including going 4 cities self-founded, or taking out and absorbing Korea, or staying 3 - city Turtle into T170 ish Ideology and then decide. But taking out a CS early is yet another winnable strategy. And if it's a Faith or Military CS, the opportunity cost is quite low. Obviously, you'd like to save Cultural, Food, and Merc if possible.

 

[inthesomeday]

The title of the thread is what would you do, and I'm not attacking you personally, I'm just informing the OP I very rarely take a CS for anything other than tactical purposes. Economically it's less optimal than founding your own city. CSes can be tributed for gold generated from nothing, obviously used for their general purpose, and can provide you votes in the congress. Puppets or annexed cities can do none of these things, increase your science and culture policy cost, and can never be as good as a founded city.

 

[Chum]

First off, there isn't a warmonger penalty if you take it out before you meet other Civs. That is why it's an early game strategy for isolated starts. Isolated. Did you see his map? It's him and Korea. Secondly, if you're on a small continent, and want 2 coastal cities, and are surrounded by CS, it is 100 % worth considering.

Might wanna check that map again, because there's Barcelona in there, and a path to Babylon. Unless you're completely failing scouting, there's plenty of people to meet.

Prague is a cultural CS, it's absolutely not worth taking over. In pretty much no game will losing 12 cpt and a free lux be worth losing just to have another city. So if you're going to take over anything, it would either be Mogadishu or Korea. Why take over Mogadishu? Mogadishu isn't going to win the game. Ally them, get some military units from them and hit Korea. Why would you bother with any plan other than that?

You're going to get an extreme warmonger penalty from hitting either the CS or Korea's capital, so why would you take that penalty (when you've already met a couple other civs) when all you get out of it is terrible dirt?

 

[sixty4half]

I had to take a Mercantile CS today. I was kind of sad. But they're on the side of my small continent on a Peninsula which has several spots where I'll be able to get +5 culture from my Moai. It hurt, but it's going to be producing about 30+ Tourism just from Moia when I hit Hotels which is justified in this game.