Winning at Immortal+: Accepted Tactics or Exploits?

[mercury529]

I started playing my first Immortal game recently and seem to be doing well enough. However, I wanted to refine my gameplay, so I revisited some of the strategy articles. I did not read them in depth enough the first time through and felt I may be missing out on some valuable suggestions.

After browsing through the articles again, I had a few questions. I am curious if all of the info is still relevant and how prevalently it is used by Immortal+ players. I am trying to gauge what needs to be done to improve my game, and if not using some of these strategies is putting me at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the civfanatics community.

1.) Do you still receive hammers for whipping based on the lowest multiple of 30 needed to complete it?

2.) Can you still exploit (1) with the "Axeman" whip where you get 60 hammers for a 1 pop rush because of the 25% bonus from a Forge for instance?

3.) If you can still use (2), is it commonly used by Immortal+ players to compete?

4.) Is the technique for getting maximum gold for a resource (gifting 2 gpt until you hit a cap, then canceling after 10 turns) commonly used by Immortal+ players?

Thanks for any help you can give. If anyone else has similar questions, feel free to contribute.

 

[tycoonist]

i think the whipping engine might have been changed in bts???

 

[lilnev]

The infamous "whipping bug", your point 2, got fixed a long time ago (early Warlords or a late vanilla patch?). It now works as it should:

The lowest multiple of X needed to complete it, where X is 30 on standard speed modified by whatever hammer modifiers you have. If you have a forge, X will be 37.5, etc. So if you have a forge and something is 30/100, it will cost you 2 pop and take you to 105/100, providing some overflow next turn.

If you're still playing a version of vanilla with the bug (the example above would cost 2 pop but give 90 hammers), I think the latest patch and/or the HOF mod will fix it?

peace,
lilnev

 

[SnowlyWhite]

4 is dubious; anyway, the new trade seems... extremely dubious. They come with a deal... if you don't accept and propose them the same deal they say bah... really I don't understand what they wanted out of the new trade. Recently I found trading to be totally tedious.

otherwise, the gpt exploit... never used it tbh bar testing if it works a long time ago; even the overbuild one I don't use though meh... seemed like the only viable part of a protective civ(the overbuilt walls that is...)

 

[vicawoo]

gold trading thing was patched awhile ago, as was the whipping. You won't be able to trade for your gold gift back.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

gold trading thing was patched awhile ago, as was the whipping. You won't be able to trade for your gold gift back.

This kind of angered me though, because the fair value of the resource is much higher than the AI has per turn, almost always. A happy resource is worth way more than 4 gpt!

 

[Winston Hughes]

A happy resource is worth way more than 4 gpt!

Depends who you're selling it to.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Depends who you're selling it to.

I know that. But 4gpt is so weak for almost any resource (which, by late in the earlygame time frame essentially means 1 higher pop per city if it's a happy resource) that it wouldn't be worth trading at that. I understand that the AI would be screwed if we could get it to bump its slider down just for some resources, but trading resources for gold now seems so weak. That's a shame, because before doing so added strategic depth in terms of where you'd conquer/settle/hook up resources because resources could potentially allow your economy to recover instantly if you had enough .

 

[oyzar]

I know that. But 4gpt is so weak for almost any resource (which, by late in the earlygame time frame essentially means 1 higher pop per city if it's a happy resource) that it wouldn't be worth trading at that. I understand that the AI would be screwed if we could get it to bump its slider down just for some resources, but trading resources for gold now seems so weak. That's a shame, because before doing so added strategic depth in terms of where you'd conquer/settle/hook up resources because resources could potentially allow your economy to recover instantly if you had enough .

I find that i sell spare resources for just 1-2 gold just fine.. And thats at immortal...

 

[Betruger]

That's probably because happy resources don't make a difference to AIs running hereditary rule at immortal+.
Trading them health resources however is a major mistake.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

it makes a ton of difference; ai doesn't enjoy any bonuses anymore(or more like, you don't have any more handicaps) in bts. And when you check his cities after he suicides his sod on your troops, you'll notice their pop. tends to be quite unhappy. Actually they're often unhappy even without war due to ai tendency of overgrowing the happy cap

 

[Betruger]

Err not really. AIs get minimal War Weariness on high levels, and they always have lots of garrison troops in their cities.
AIs overgrowing their happy cap was a case in Warlords maybe, but not in BtS for sure.

There is no simple way for AIs to obtain additional health.
They can't simply build more military police to increase the health cap, which is the case regarding the happy cap.
That's why health is the only limiting factor for AI growth on Immortal+

 

[vicawoo]

there was some post on some deity with blake's mod sg, acidsatyr was team leader, where one player had strong feelings about why changing the gold valuation would dramatically change game balance.

Oh, and you can buy resources for gold anyway, although not for as little, and renegotiate trade deals. The AI doesn't have so much gold on hand, so it seems fair enough.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

war weariness was changed too; now it's 60% on immo and 50% on deity. Further, no clue.

Anyway, give yourself at great spy and look at his cities - you'll notice that most often then not, even if he'd pay a double digit sum, he'll probably come out better from the deal.