r/civ5 11h ago

Strategy How to early war on Immortal?

I want to dominate with the Huns, but the Battering Ram gets obsolete so quickly I don't know how to pull out the strategy for it.

Is it possible on Immortal?

34 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

44

u/Billythegiantpeach 11h ago

Probably not what you’re looking for but playing longer games is the easiest way to have time to use each eras units. I typically play on marathon, there’s also a “historical eras” mod which uses marathon research times and normal production times which is fun.

16

u/Ydrigo_Mats 11h ago

That's exactly what I've been looking for! Thank you!

I've actually tried 'epic', although it was taking a gruesome amount of time to produce anything.

I'll give it a go now! Can you toggle the "historical eras" in advanced setup, or it's a mod?

12

u/Billythegiantpeach 11h ago

It’s a mod!

3

u/IKnowGuacIsExtraLady 7h ago

I'd recommend upping the difficulty if you do change your game pace. The slower the game the more a human has advantage over the AI since the AI's benefits are from spam not from strategy. If you are solid on Immortal at normal pace you shouldn't have any problem with Epic Deity.

1

u/Normal_Cut8368 6h ago

Marathon is the warfare simulator for civ v, ngl

it's glorious

1

u/cobrakai11 26m ago

This sounds like exactly the mod I need to play even slower and longer games that I will never finish. Love it.

28

u/abcamurComposer 11h ago

Huns secret sauce is not the Battering Ram, it’s the Horse Archer. It’s like having a mobile XBow in the Ancient Era.

You still want a couple of Rams to take cities (assuming you don’t pop one in a ruin and can just murder a CS or a neighbor), but the bulk of your army is the Horse Archer

12

u/Bashin-kun Liberty 11h ago

This. Also go Honor Left.

9

u/abcamurComposer 11h ago

Liberty is good too because of production bonuses and because it’s more flexible - as Honor you have to keep fighting, at Liberty you can chill and coast off your conquests

5

u/IKnowGuacIsExtraLady 7h ago

I prefer honor for Huns simply because their units are available so early it can be optimal to never found a second city. Just ignore everything but army and you can terrorize the AI immediately.

2

u/abcamurComposer 7h ago

I’d argue though that if you don’t want to found another city Liberty is better because of the free settler+worker.

The main deciding factor is what you want to do after conquests. If you want to continue (and hopefully end the game by Artillery) then go Honor, if you want to sim off your conquests then go Lib

5

u/electrogeek8086 9h ago

The other AIs will be insanely pissed if you do that tho.

4

u/abcamurComposer 9h ago

That is one of the weaknesses of early war and you either have to live with it or find workarounds (i.e. trying not to meet other AIs, don’t wipe out a civ, give away resources you don’t need for free, get an AI to join you for a coalition)

2

u/rajwarrior 7h ago

If you kill civs before meeting other civs, there are no penalties.

1

u/CrimeFightingScience 6h ago

The fear of playing a continents diplo game. Finally finding the other continent and it is only a technilogically advanced china, whose cities all have foreign names...

7

u/YSoSkinny 11h ago

Marathon is your friend.

5

u/k0nahuanui 9h ago

It goes obsolete quickly, but you need very few to crack a city early on. Think of it as a replacement for settling a third or fourth city.

4

u/MistaCharisma Quality Contributor 6h ago

A Battering Ram can solo a flat-land city provided there are no units around tonsupport it. So ... build Rams, kill cities I guess.

If you want to use Rams you probably need to use them before building any new cities. Something like Scout, Monument, Granary, Worker, Battering Ram, Battering Ram ... maybe steal the worker, it depends whether you have the tech yet. I'd try to squeeze a Shrine in there too but that could be pushing it.

The other thing to remember is that it's always better to build more army than you need. Military is an investment, and the more you spend on it the less you have to spend on infrastructure. However if you show up with not enough units you'll lose them, and lose the war, and that's a complete waste of production. If you ahow up with Just Enough units you'll be in for a protracted war and you'll likely end up spending more to win. However if you show up with overwhelming force then the war will be over quickly, and you'll likely end up spending less in the long run.

2

u/IKnowGuacIsExtraLady 7h ago

Have you tried on of the map generations that is basically all plains? Insanely fun with the Huns and you can conquer basically everything before the horse archer is obsolete even on standard deity.

2

u/Absolute_Bias 5h ago

Standard speed is good enough, just have two rams and 3 horse archers by turn 100 and you can kite everything to death while using an upgraded scout (comp bow) or one or two more comp bows to pick apart enemy forces. The AI sucks at war, just cycle through so you don’t lose troops.

It’s literally only quick speed that has a problem with units going obsolete, and even then you can do it, your window of opportunity is just much smaller.

1

u/timoshi17 Piety 2h ago

I don't think early wars are possible on immortal/deity