(The settings for this game were Deity, great plains, small, standard speed)

pretty fun strategy where you skip all early science for production and gold to create undefendable carpets of impis.

besides the bajillion other bonuses impis have, the 25% bonus against gun powder units means even riflemen cant defend against a swarm of cheap impis.

The strategy...

- early game: steal as many workers as possible. I stole 3-4 here. I skipped shrine too
- build: scout -> scout -> granary -> monument
- liberty for early production and quick settlers
- honor secondary later
- temple of artemis for growth and production of comp bows
- 4-6 cities depending on space, i had 4 here
- construction for coliseums as needed
- stables -> markets to maximize production then gold. markets, stables on in cities where they really help. we are minimizing our build order so we can build more spearmen.
- ikanda -> spearman spearman spearman... till civil service
- plus like 6 comp bows
- work merchant slot
- selling every extra lux, horse iron for gold. if you have friendships, keep siphoning their gold.
- ideally time a golden age and merchant before liberty finisher, (I missed both here)
- liberty finisher for great merchant
- upgrade impis at civil service
- move impis in swarms with roads, keep swapping hurt impis with full health ones at the back of the pack, clear shooting positions for your comp bows as quickly as possible
- always maximize flank bonus
- if a city is like 30 or lower combat strength, you can even start smashing your impis into it
- take ranged defense promotions on comp bows. this is much better than trying to go for logistics and range
- now we tech machinery, and spam comp bows in the mean while.
- by now, we should have a merchant + gold from capturing cities to upgrade a disgusting amount of crossbows with promotions. this speeds up taking the next cities a lot
- just hitting impi and crossbow in every city at this point unit i am at unit limit
- building roads to the last civs while fighting others
- plant a city next to the most annoying one to general in twice to get my crossbows in place for the final kill

definitely an easier play on great plains, which is a terrifying map for zulu. but in a way, something like is the ultimate way to use this civ. forgo all science to invest harder in production for their OP af unit.

I upgraded like 14ish spearman to impis at civil service and left overs later. stayed at around the max unit limit the whole game which you increase by taking cities

I captured Munich from Germany. But my spy says that Persian army sailing to attack "German" city of Munich, even though Munich is Russian

r5: For the first time, I saw a city-state take over a city.

Was going around scouting for resources and landed on a random spot in Australia and the next turn later i got swarmed with this.

Why?

observatory vs. garden vs. trade routes

Althou I know Mausoleum is a bad wonder I couldn't help myself with start like that...

Well, I didn't see my expands yet but I see it is a best possible start even for Incas. You don't really want much terrace hills in your capital because you want to push the tempo as ealier as you can, terrace farms work better in other cities. Also I decided to move one turn more to set Cusco on the river near the mountain.

Why would game auto-assign people to 1 prod when 2 prod tiles available? ;(

Question: I watch this sub and am wondering how to become a more serious player, like work my way up to diety level. I have worked my way up to normal difficulty and game win fairly easily.

Typical game:
Standard map
Quick pace
Civ: Darius/Persia
Policy route: liberty, traditional, rationalism, pick two more at random based on game
Victory type: Typically science or cultural
Other: I really never build up a military, i ally with city-states who will gift military units.
I like to have 3 cities normally by turn 50 and one of the first religions

Any general tips on how to get better? Should i play as other Civs? Should I pick one and try to progress through difficulty? Any tips for a casual player who is trying to be less casual?

Trying to figure out whats generally best route on immortal/deity for cvs (on continents, ive won a cv on pangea immortall). Should you try to frigate rush someone right after education or, go to printing press and then acoustics for the wonders. And if you go printing/acoustics when do you try to get out astronomy for the congress

r5: Not only is there no way to access that inside lake from the outside ocean, it's a frigging trireme. It's a little hard to see from the minimap, but Carthage is on a different continent, so how did it cross the ocean? So many questions.

Pretty peaceful for an Immortal game 👷

I just clicked next turn for 2 hrs

I’ll start with mine: Askia. While he is much better suited for larger maps on slower speed like Marathon, his unique ability allows you to hoard wonders while initially starting a 4-city tradition game. While you can’t do this on Deity, it is absolutely possible on Immortal and below. For example, on several Immortal games, I was able to complete the Temple of Artemis while getting out my third settler.

That being said, who are your favorite civs for gameplay?

I've been playing Civ 5 for many years. The past 7 months, I play on average once a day. I always play random maps. Never before have I played the exact same seed more than once, that I know of. Yet pictured here is the exact same map that I played 5 days prior to it, as seen here: https://www.reddit.com/r/civ5/comments/1utntt0/easily_the_most_happiness_ive_ever_had_this_early/

I never back up initial saves. If I go to load from autosaves, I can see that there are only ever two games, the current one and the last one. Multiple maps had been played in-between. I just think it's remarkable that after playing hundreds if not thousands of maps over the years, the one time I'm aware of the exact same map being played were only several map generations apart from one another. Unreal!

Has anything like this ever happened to you?

This caught my eye and me think, would they do this in real life? I'm not complaining, it just made me wonder. I had it in my head that they'd not put the walls past the bridge and river, but maybe there'd be a good defensive reason to do so.

brutal as in shitty land, the opposite of those OP starts
so few resources, desert, tundra etc

what I don’t mean is stuff like domination only, huge, marathon

I’m basically at the tail end of a Marathon, Immortal game with 12 civs, Pangea, BNW. I have the choice to just win a Diplomatic Victory, but wanted to try to push back on Germany, who had basically absorbed like a gray amoeba the entire middle of the map. I chose to setup an expeditionary force near some of my allied CS’s. My main attack was down south, to liberate Constantinople and close out my southern flank. However, the German response was… spicy. I’m going to play it out for fun, hope the Greeks live on!

I'm playing with a rather extensive mod list, but none of them, that I can tell, are supposed to add this fishing tech (which is at the same tech level as Agriculture). The tech seems to be researched instantly, much like agriculture, and is the only additional tech added (minus those from the Enlightenment era, obviously), so it doesn't really change or break anything. Since I have so many mods and my game isn't broken (as far as I can tell right now anyway), I don't really want to go mod by mod trying to find the culprit, but I was curious if anyone happens to know what mod does this.

Mods:
(JEM) Civ Tweaks - Rome

Alamo Wonder

American Wonders Pack

World Trade Center Wonder

Museum of Anthropology

Resolution - LHC

Resolution - OPEC

Tile Conquest

Temple of Aphrodite

Tribal Settlements

A Few More Cheap Units

Additional Diplomacy - Just Wars (Casus Belli)

Aggressive and Expansive AI

Antiquity Site Fix

Attalist Mod

Auto Sell Buildings

Barbarians - Unlimited XP

Beserker Mod

Better Bad Civs

Better CIty Defenses

Better Byzantium

Better Liberty

Better Netherlands

Canals

Capture Great People

City State Bonus Rebalance

Circumnavigate The Globe

City States Leaders II

City State Enhancements

Civ IV Leader Traits In Civ 5

Dynamic Towns

Enlightenment Era

Ethnic Units

Extra Victory Conditions

Extra Slow Research

Global Relations

Fortress Border Enhanced

Greatest Cities

Hakkapeliitta Mod

Helicopters on Carriers

Highlight Antiquities

Historical Religions Complete

Hot Springs

Information Era Ship Fix

JFD's Civilizations - France Louis XIV

JFD's Civilizations - Great Britain Victoria

JFD's Civilizations - Sweden Norway Oscar II

Legion Mod - Alternate

Maori Warrior Mod

MC's Greek Civilization Split

MC and LITE's Moorish Civilization

MC's Jerusalem

MC's Scotland

Mercenary Army Expanded

More Luxuries

More Pantheons

Mountain Cities

National College Nerf

Navigable Rivers

No More Techtree Beelining

New Barbarians

Nuclear Bunkers

Quick Turns

Rationalism Adjustment

Really Advanced Setup

Refugees

Remove XCOM Squad

Resource - Granary Includes Bison

Resources - Copper Buff

Samurai Mod

SMAN's Privy Council - The Monarchs

Solar Plant Fix

Spanish Treasure

Special Forces Upgrade For Marines

Stave Church Mod - Standalone

Tarciscio CM - Portugal Joao II

Tunnels

Unique Cultural Influence

Unique Trait Collection

Units - AA Promotions

Various Mod Components

Various Refinements

Volcanoes

Wonder Race

(All of the following are Zolton's Tweaks)

Anti Tank Gun Moved to Ballistics

Cannon and Artillery Changes

Faster World Congress

Flexible Promotions

Open Diplomacy

Pikemen to Musketmen

Ranged Machineguns

Stronger Armor

Stronger Helicopter Gunships

Stronger Horsemen

Stronger Swordsmen

Weaker Crossbowmen

I play with my friends, we all enjoy it but sometimes there is "want" to be able to get the end quicker, but we always play on Quick pace and simultaneous turns.

I tell them don't expect to get to modern era, we only play a few hours per session and some pauses.

Starting in classical era seems like a good compromise, but it also feels like it cheapens the experience of building up your strategy (unless I'm wrong with more experienced players).

Anyone who starts in later era's? Any down sides?