Version 1.5

I. Introduction
II. The Guide
--------- A. The Early Game
--------- B. The First War
--------- C. The Endgame
III. Legal Stuff


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I. A Guide for those who have trouble winning on prince.


Just to be clear, this guide is written for those who are trying to make the jump from Noble to Prince, and hare having trouble compensating for the AI bonuses. I came here looking for a guide on this subject, and didn’t find one.


I should also state that this guide is by no means an end all guide. Other strategies will work too. It’s intended to provide you with useful experience you can use on Prince games on normal maps. The same strategies will work, but you’ll have less control over the variables. That being said, on with the guide.


One thing above all else. Be more aggressive. Keep military pressure on other Civs to keep their research down.


This guide is geared towards getting your first win on Prince for those who have struggled with it. If you’re anything like me when you tried to make the jump, you found yourself horribly behind in technology, and felt a financial squeeze when you tried expanding like you would on Noble. By getting your first win, you learn a whole bunch that can be applied in later games. And this guide should help you get the first one. By no means is this the only way to get a win. Just a method I had consistent success with.



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II. The Guide

A: The Early Game

First, start up a custom game. Choose Pangaea, with high sea levels. This should give you some thin strips of land that will serve as chokepoints and thus make defense much easier. Go with three or four opponents. Whatever civilization you choose is up to you. The first time I used this strategy I went with random and got Victoria.


First, plop your settler down in the most advantageous place. Start building a warrior. Look at other guides regarding early moves for more help here. I went warrior-worker-building/wonder. Take your warrior and go exploring. Knowing the immediate lay of the land is incredibly important, as you need to discover any and all and nearby chokepoints, as you will be building cities here. Hooking up key resources like copper or horses should take first priority, but these are second. They’ll serve as your defensive cities, and should block off the AI from land. You can build cities here straight away if you want.


If you’re lucky enough to stumble across an enemy civilization, and try finding a hill you can stand on top of, or a lake to look across to see if they have any defenders yet. If not, take them out. (You also can just march right into their territory to see, and reload if they have a defender, but some frown on that). But if you can, destroy them. They’ll just be a problem later. And in this, you’ll see a hint of what’s necessary to win on higher difficulties: more aggression.


You can completely forget about trying to found any early religions. They aren’t necessary. You should not focus on wonders either. Starting to build them is great. You’ll want to get some, but ideally you’ll get beat to the punch on a couple and should get a bunch of gold out of the deal (think of it like an early form of wealth). You’ll be needing gold too.


But you do want at least one early wonder. I won my first game having only constructed Stonehenge. You’ll want to try to get one of the cheap early wonders for the Great Person points. Prophets are the best, as super citizens they provide a solid financial and production boost. Again, forget about founding religions. They can be more trouble than they’re worth. Once you’ve mastered Prince, you can try founding one, but don’t do it while you’re still new to it.


As for your research, go straight for bronze working. It gives you a great early edge. You need to know where copper is ASAP. If you have some already in your borders, forget archery for awhile and build exclusively axemen. You also get the ability to chop forests for their hammers. Use this for rushing settlers, and your early wonder(s). Then go for the worker techs you need to exploit your resources. Then beeline to Alphabet. Alphabet will let you trade for techs, and you should be able to pick up a lot of the older, cheaper techs if you’re the first to get Alphabet. After alphabet, the important techs are currency, code of laws, iron working, and construction. These give you money, and boost your military. Don’t be shy about chopping forests to rush courthouses or markets either, as they’re worth it.


As for your economy, cottages are your best friend. Don’t automate your workers, as they’ll build more farms then you could ever need. Have them build cottages after you hook up your resources. Try to get your cities to work these cottages, as they’ll expand and give you much needed money.

As for religion, do what the AI does and convert to the first one you get for the bonuses. Ideally this will be the one the most powerful Civ has, and will help keep them off your back. If it’s not, switch to match the most powerful Civ when possible.

You’re going to want to start building up your military throughout early game. Build walls in whatever chokepoint border cities you’ve set up, and guard them with multiple axemen if possible, archers if not. Axemen are great on offense and defense, so if you have copper in your borders, forgo archers altogether until the tech is really cheap.


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B. The First War


Take the time to expand to three, four, or maybe even five cities (depending on your land and budget) and secure all the useful resources behind your chokepoints. At the same time, you should start to build a military. Once you’ve got your core cities up and running and have a sizable military, go on the offensive. Ideally you’ll have catapults to start the war. As long as your enemy is still using archers when you start the war, you’ll be fine. Overwhelming numbers is the key to victory here. Archers fall pretty easily to just axes and swords, and you can easily bring down long bowman and crossbowman with axemen, swordsmen, and catapults if it ever comes to that. Once the war starts, you produce exclusively military units until peace breaks out. While at war, you only produce units, and lots and lots of catapults.


Choose your victim carefully. Go for your most powerful direct neighbor. Not the top dog in the world, but the next step down. Ideally they’ll have a good holy city or useful wonder like the Pyramids. You won’t win the war right away, so make sure you can retain all the cities you capture. And do capture all of them, as the AI will just rebuild the ones you raze anyway, and you’ll have to take them again. Only take weaker out cities until you have catapults. Once you do (or if you did from the start) go straight for the core of their empire, as once you destroy/capture their most productive area, they’re totally crippled.


The war will not end quickly, and you should call for a cease fire (NOT peace treaties unless you get useful tech out of them) multiple times throughout to regain your strength. I often found myself taking one after I take a couple of weaker out cities and defeat their standing army, another after I take a couple of cores and/or the capital, and another during cleanup. You don’t need catapults to take the outlying cities, but make sure you have them for your assault on the core cities. Use catapults to bombard defenses down to zero, then throw a few into a city to soften the defenders for your soldiers. Once you gain a noticeable upper hand, try to sue for tech. Wait for the turns to expire, and repeat until they are finished. It’s fine if you run a huge deficit during the war, as taking cities nets you plenty of gold. But try to never let your research drop below 70% for prolonged periods. If you can’t do this, you probably don’t have enough cottages. Also, if you can exploit your unique unit during the war, then by all means do so. It’s there so you can have an advantage.


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C. The Endgame


Once your enemy is gone, solidify your new empire. The war should end well before gunpowder. Place what is left of your army on your new borders, and build infrastructure and culture. From here, you should be in good position for the rest of the game to pursue whatever strategy you like. You should be pretty close to the remaining Civs in tech, close enough to be in good shape to pursue whatever victory condition you like. From here, games play much like they do on lower difficulties. You’ll end the war behind in tech, but with your new cities, you should be able to build up a sizable science base that will allow you to catch up and eventually surpass them.


With the cities you captured from your enemy, you’ll easily have the resources necessary to win the game however you want. If you pursue Domination, remember to always use siege weapons to reduce any city’s defenses to zero. If you pursue a Space Race, make sure you keep constant military pressure on your rivals. You don’t need to be at war with them, but someone should. As long as the AI is on a war footing, it keeps their tech spending down. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.


Good luck, and I hope this guide was useful.



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This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.


Copyright 2006 Jonezee

I am trying for my first win on Prince. I started as Elizabeth, on a far-north peninsula. Trouble is, I'm blocked into a very small land space by the Japanese. As soon as I got Construction, I started a war and took their capital. My tech is far behind as a result. The Egyptians are on the other side of the Japanese, and are more than willing to trade. This is difficult, however, when they have all the technology, and I have none.

I've attached my most recent save. I've just sued the Japanese for peace (and Priesthood :)) Any advice as to where to go from here would be super.

Good article, I completly agree.
I usually try to play peacefully, only building enough military for defense and rarely declaring war. So I ran into some trouble when I jumped to prince.
I've been winning fairly consistantly when I eliminate a neighboring civ early on prince. One thing I dont think you mentioned that I always do, is if I have a problematic neighbor (Montezuma, Ghengis, Isabella, Tokugawa, Alexander) who I just know are going to give me headaches sooner or later, I'll target them right away.

Every time I tried to do everything Toku wanted, even switched to his religion etc, he still backstabbed me at a random moment for no apparent reason, no matter how favourable our relations were. Indeed, not one to ever trust.

I Think that will work fine when you set up PANGEA/HIGH SEAS map. But even so, there will be a problem expanding your empire and keeping up with military as well. The minute the AI notices the your building settlers and workers, it will come to chew on you. Specially if you managed to get iron and/or copper inside your territory.

My Hint in this case is: BUILD SETTLERS AT THE SAME RATE YOU BUILD UNITS, at the expansion phase you must act as if you were at war. Or else there will be a huge weakness gap where the AI will have lots of fun rapiing and pillaging your cities.

Every time I tried to do everything Toku wanted, even switched to his religion etc, he still backstabbed me at a random moment for no apparent reason, no matter how favourable our relations were. Indeed, not one to ever trust.

And attacking him quickly is difficult, at least for me. As an aggressive leader, his units get instant access to second-level promotions, making his archers difficult to deal with, even for my axemen.

Time for more catapaults, I guess. I think I may have to start this game again.

And attacking him quickly is difficult, at least for me. As an aggressive leader, his units get instant access to second-level promotions, making his archers difficult to deal with, even for my axemen.

Time for more catapaults, I guess. I think I may have to start this game again.

The Persians are a great choice for taking out aggressive neighbors early, with Immortals 2 movement points, cheap build cost, and bonus against archers. The Incans and Romans are good for this as well of course.
But you are right, if you dont have a good early UU, you either have to have vastly superior numbers and/or more experienced units from barb hunting. If you dont have that you almost have to wait for catapults.

Ok. With my new game I'm doing a lot better (I think). On one side I have Napoleon and Asoka. On the other, I have Mao, Monte, Khan and Peter. I'm worried about Monte, but Mao is acting as a buffer between me and him. So I'm kissing up to Mao a lot.

I plan to take Napoleon, and am massing catapaults, axemen, and soon a few macemen as well. Hopefully, I can bribe him long enough to stop a pre-emptive attack - my cities are pretty defenceless. I'm mostly moving axemen out to the border cities, and relying on Galleys for naval defence.

Can someone take a look at the save for me? How well am I doing?

The Persians are a great choice for taking out aggressive neighbors early, with Immortals 2 movement points, cheap build cost, and bonus against archers.

Cyrus also has the Creative trait which means more culture and your cities expand more quickly. :)

I got my first prince win today and I did it peacefully. I played as Catherine for Financial and Creative. Financial because I knew it would be hard to keep up in science, and Creative to save me building obelisks etc before being able to fully access resources. I barely used Great People or Wonders. I used universal suffrage, state property, and free speech when available.

EDIT: This was on continents, normal speed, everything default.

My strategy was to build as many commercially focussed cities as possible, and one production city on a river (for watermills). City improvement planning is crucial. You should try to build at least four cities that will eventually have enough food to reach size twenty. I ended up with only 6 cities in total, two of which could only reach size 12, but were justified by their access to several gold and wine tiles, which meant they more than effectively paid all my maintainance costs in the early game despite their slow growth.

For the commercial cities, towns are more valuable than extra specialists, so dont build more farms than are necessary to provide an eventual 40 food (when all the land is improved, with biology and state property helping out too). This may well mean no farms at all except on bonus resources. Don't be lured by insane growth, you will only max out health/happiness and end up not even using the farms, which could instead have been prospering hamlets destined to provide 8 gold each. You should use watermills and windmills wherever possible to boost productivity, and if productivity is going to be less than 12 hammers at size 20 (excluding universal suffrage) build some workshops or you'll never get all the research buildings done. Also, any city on the coast has to be commercial anyway as it will never have as many hammers as an inland city. Build cottages early and make sure they are used asap. I usually build them on plains first to keep the hammers coming in, as bonus resources tend to take care of early growth. Obviously build research buildings asap.

For the production city its even more important to know where the food is coming from, as its easy to end up with a stagnant workshop/mine-fest. Watermills are awesome while workshops are still in their rudimentary form. If you need more food to make up your 40 (again, going over 40 is counter-productive as for every three hammers you sacrifice by not building a workshop, you can at most gain two back from an engineer), a windmill and a workshop (+1f +4h) beats a mine and a farm (+2f +2h). Don't build libraries, markets etc here, just build barracks first, cater to health/happiness as necessary, and pump out units the rest of the time. Ironworks and Heroic Epic will make sure you never need to build them anywhere else.

A final note on where to built which improvements. If total gain in f and h is equal either way, try to favour extreme tiles eg. 1f3h + 3f1h is better than 2 x 2f2h.

If you can manage this, you will stay ahead on tech, and still have the units to defend should you be attacked by a jealous rival. If you manage to found a religion, use the production city to build missionaries and spread the word to others before you convert, to avoid friction.

Hope this all helps someone, its 2.45am now.

I won my first Prince game last night. I wish I could've done it peacefully - I find warmongering to be one of the most tiresome aspects of a Civ game. But when you're sandwiched in between Napoleon and Montezuma, there's not a whole lot of choice.

I went for Napoleon first, and asked my good friends Peter and Mao to help me out with the Aztec problem. Monte still beat his way awfully close to me, so I had to stall my war with the French to deal with him.

This eventuated into two problems:

1. Peter was doing well against Montezuma. Too well, in fact. Well enough that he was taking all the Aztec land and beginning to beat me in score as a result. Many of the Aztec cities I took were swamped by Peter's culture, making them useless.

2. By the time I had wiped out the Aztecs, Napoleon had upgraded his defences to the point where it would be difficult to mount another attack. He continued to be annoying, right up until the end of the game.

As Elizabeth, I went cottage-crazy, and tried to have a few commerce cities, a couple of production cities, and a GP farm. The Aztec capital turned out to be a fine example of the latter. :)

The Kremlin was really, really handy. Both for rushing wonders, and rushing units to defend against the French hordes.

I won a comfortable spaceship victory. Peter and Asoka were the closest behind, so I had spies and nukes at the ready. They weren't needed - I was about 4 techs in front at the end.

I got an Ivan the Terrible rating. It seemed to be about halfway down the ladder, so I have plenty of room to improve. My suggestion - if you're going to war with someone, make sure you finish the job!

Thanks for the heads up. I am about to graduate from Noble (its getting too easy for me) and this article is of a big help. I struggled and struggled on Noble at first (mainly at techs -- at least one AI researched liberialism & then built Apollo Program before I even had a chance to even get there), but as soon as I got agressive on researching certain techs (i.e. beelining to Bronze Working/Liberialism/Rocketry) and started to specialize cities, Noble got too easy for me. I'll tell you how my first Prince game goes.

Ugh!!! Prince is a tough level indeed. I am going to try Prince with settings that I am used to -- I don't like all of my rival civs cramped up into one small continent.

Well, I won my first Prince game. I had the highest score when time ran out. All victory conditions were enabled.

Basically, I was the Prince of Persia. I built immortals to get rid of the Spanish. It took me 3 wars to get rid of the Spanish first going after Coroba, then Barcelona & Seville, and finally Madrid & Toledo. Unfortunalely Jonzeee, your strategy of getting rid of one civ failed. I was making good progress on tech, but as soon as I started a war, America & Egypt dramatically zoomed ahead in tech having learned most of the medieval techs while I was stuck in the late classical era!

Fortunately, Egypt & I had the same religion (Judaism). I evenually founded Christianity with a great prophet but was smart to stick with Egypt's religion. Unfortunately, not so for America. America's religion was Confucianism which caaused problems for me!

Later in the mid-medieval era, America declared war on me -- with Riflemen & Calvary!!! I was going to go on a campaign to get rid of the Aztec with Knights/Maceman, but America wiped out my enire army I had in Seville! :mad:

To make matters worse, the Aztecs declared war too!! America is now after Barcelona & Susa. I reliazed that if those two cities gets captured, its all over. Barcelona is a major commercial city, Susa is a military city with the Heroic Epic (and eventually West Point). All I could do was to pop units in Susa and Persioplis and garrison them in Susa & Barcelona. Fortunately, I got Engineering and was smart to build pikemen. That kept the American calvary busy for a while. I then went for Gunpowder and with the pathetic show the AI did during battle, I was able to hold my own agaist the calvary. Even worse was the peace phase. After a long, long battle, America demanded Barcelona for peace. I waited for an opening and I discovered Chemistry (to get grenadiers) and guess what? America didn't have that tech!!! So I gladly taught the Americans Chemistry and they left me alone for the remainder of the game. I eventually made peace with Aztec too, but they attacked me once again eventually.

After Egypt adpoted Free Religion I did the same and voila, America is no longer mad with me!!! America then went after the Aztecs and asked me to join which I gladly did. I then drew Egypt in and all three of us easily defeated the Aztecs. After that it was a photo finish between Egypt and me and I barely won over Egypt on points!!!! I am so proud of myself!!! :D

One question, how in the world do you catch up on tech in Prince? Obviously, the agressive approach failed and city specialization was just not good enough. So how do you keep up with the AI in tech?

I rushed the Great Library, and developed my cottages. When I got Great Scientists, I built academies.

As for Diplomacy, I traded techs to several different AI civs at once. That way, I could trade one tech for many others. I never traded techs that the AI needed for the space race, though. I made them wait as long as possible for Rocketry.

As a Financial civ, I went straight for Communism and the Kremlin. I already had Universal Suffrage from the Pyramids, so getting to Democracy quickly wasn't a huge deal.

Basically, I used civics that gave me extra beakers, and any civic or wonder that enabled free specialists. After I got the Kremlin, I started rushing Universities, Observatories, and labs eventually.

The most important thing for tech, however, is having a decent economy. One that can handle prolonged periods of 100% research. That was important for me.

Well, I won my first Prince game. I had the highest score when time ran out. All victory conditions were enabled.

Basically, I was the Prince of Persia. I built immortals to get rid of the Spanish. It took me 3 wars to get rid of the Spanish first going after Coroba, then Barcelona & Seville, and finally Madrid & Toledo. Unfortunalely Jonzeee, your strategy of getting rid of one civ failed. I was making good progress on tech, but as soon as I started a war, America & Egypt dramatically zoomed ahead in tech having learned most of the medieval techs while I was stuck in the late classical era!

Fortunately, Egypt & I had the same religion (Judaism). I evenually founded Christianity with a great prophet but was smart to stick with Egypt's religion. Unfortunately, not so for America. America's religion was Confucianism which caaused problems for me!

Later in the mid-medieval era, America declared war on me -- with Riflemen & Calvary!!! I was going to go on a campaign to get rid of the Aztec with Knights/Maceman, but America wiped out my enire army I had in Seville! :mad:

To make matters worse, the Aztecs declared war too!! America is now after Barcelona & Susa. I reliazed that if those two cities gets captured, its all over. Barcelona is a major commercial city, Susa is a military city with the Heroic Epic (and eventually West Point). All I could do was to pop units in Susa and Persioplis and garrison them in Susa & Barcelona. Fortunately, I got Engineering and was smart to build pikemen. That kept the American calvary busy for a while. I then went for Gunpowder and with the pathetic show the AI did during battle, I was able to hold my own agaist the calvary. Even worse was the peace phase. After a long, long battle, America demanded Barcelona for peace. I waited for an opening and I discovered Chemistry (to get grenadiers) and guess what? America didn't have that tech!!! So I gladly taught the Americans Chemistry and they left me alone for the remainder of the game. I eventually made peace with Aztec too, but they attacked me once again eventually.

After Egypt adpoted Free Religion I did the same and voila, America is no longer mad with me!!! America then went after the Aztecs and asked me to join which I gladly did. I then drew Egypt in and all three of us easily defeated the Aztecs. After that it was a photo finish between Egypt and me and I barely won over Egypt on points!!!! I am so proud of myself!!! :D

One question, how in the world do you catch up on tech in Prince? Obviously, the agressive approach failed and city specialization was just not good enough. So how do you keep up with the AI in tech?

You should be keeping your research high. Try to never let it drop below 70% for prolonged periods. If you're short on money, build cottages, and either chop or pop rush markets, harbors, and courthouses.

I never found myself falling too far behind, as I had a pretty good economy running. You can always intentionally lose wonders too. I've run pretty far in the red (up to -25 per turn) and can usually take it in stride.

You don't always have to flat out destroy the enemy, just break his back. Once you have his core cities, he's essentially done for. Just look at the production of your core cities compared to your newer ones. And try has hard as you can to match religions with the one civ you don't want to attack you.

You should be keeping your research high. Try to never let it drop below 70% for prolonged periods. If you're short on money, build cottages, and either chop or pop rush markets, harbors, and courthouses.

I never found myself falling too far behind, as I had a pretty good economy running. You can always intentionally lose wonders too. I've run pretty far in the red (up to -25 per turn) and can usually take it in stride.

You don't always have to flat out destroy the enemy, just break his back. Once you have his core cities, he's essentially done for. Just look at the production of your core cities compared to your newer ones. And try has hard as you can to match religions with the one civ you don't want to attack you.

The problem is here is that there were 2 threatening civs (America & Egypt). I can't please them both (due to religion) so I decided to please Egypt.

I just moved up to Prince this weekend. The settings I was using were, Continental, Huge world, Temperate, Marathon game speed.

I noticed in the several games I started that most of the time I was put on a continent with 4 or 5 other civs. Normally 2+ of them are pretty aggressive. I could almost always get 2 Religions right off the start but found that ended up hurting me more than helping me. While my first religion was spreading nicely and sometimes spreading to 1 neighboring Civ, by the time I found the other, it is in a closer city to the other Civs thus usually a different neighboring Civ will have that one spread to it. Thus even if I have founded 2 religions, I will have 1 neighbor under 1 and 1 under another. This would end up hurting me because no matter what I do, one will start disliking me right away. Trying to get them to open boarders to spread my religion is hard enough but have found it basically impossible to even get the option to tell them to convert once you do have religion in their cities.

What I might try and do is postpone settling a second city until both are founded then forcefully spread just one of them quicker.

Hmmm... Over all I am doing this because not having 2 neighbors under the same religion does hurt me more than anything else and I just want to prevent them from getting them.

Money was also a problem but building cottages did help a lot and I found myself at 70% research most of the time but did drop to 40-50% at times which I think I could do better by ajusting what I was researching first and not settling so quickly. It seems to be a balance. Because of you wait too long, the AI just over runs the place where you can settle. Maybe I just need more workers.

I am getting the hang of Prince! Just won a Terra, Renaissance start game by building a spaceship. In this one, Greece and Mongolia were the clear frontrunners. I had to do a lot of kissing up to them while at the same time construct my ship. Mali actually got Apollo Program first, but was making slow progress. I (England) got it next, then Mongolia, Greece, and finally France. When Mongolia got it, Mongolia started to construct parts like there's no tomorrow!!! Mali was then defeated by Greece and I was able to pop out parts like crazy in London. Eventually, I was able to construct the last SS Casing to win before Mongolia could construct ther last part, the SS Engine.

Below is a replay of my glorious game!

I learned alot from this game and some of this wisdom is what Jonezeee said -- be more aggressive. If you're playing a Renaissance start game, beeline to Liberaism and if you manage to get it first, use the free tech to get Economics!!! On an Industrial start game, beeline to Physics! If a civ wants Rocketry in a Space Race game, tell them to learn it themselves!!! Also be sure to fortify ALL of your borders. I fortifed the Mongolian Borders very well at York, but neglected the Incan borders. During an anarchy in order to get US, Em, & SP all at the same time, I was thrown back to Judaism state religion and during the Anarchy the Incans cancled our Open Borders agreement! They then preceeded to declare war on me and took the border city, Nottigham in which I paid dearly for since Nottingham had an academy and the second highest research rate in all of England! They even used catapults to bombard my city, which I found odd since usually the AI attacks with catapults, not uses them to bombard the city! I eventually got it back though before Mongolia got their grubby hands on it and managed to snatch an Incan city from Mongolia peacefully thanks to Nottingham's culture!

It is this kind of thinking you need to do in order to master Prince!! It is not an easy feat, espically for a peaceful player like I am. but it is very doable.

Well I tried Prince again last night with a Huge Map, Marathon, Temperate, Continents, etc...

I ended up with 5 other Civs on my Continent. Was able to to get Hinduism and Judaism first. I was able to get Judaism to spread quickly through the other Civs...VERY fast in fact since no one on this continent had discovered Buddhism. one Civ did actually convert to Hinduism but thankfully I was on good relations just prior, got open borders and was able to spread Judaism to 3 cities thus he ended up switching.

Over all I did well but failing to get Stonehenge or Oracle right away (because I was messing around) did hurt me in the long run because the Great Prophet I would have gotten to put up a shrine would have been some serious cash (having 2 shrines would have been the nail in the coffin for the AI). Not doing this put my maintenance too high even with Cottages. There were just not enough people to work them and keep up with production as of yet. Even though I think I could recover some what now that I have advance to cover my costs....I think I am too far behind the leaders to ever catch up.

i.e. Building cottages is ok but unless you have people to work them...you are SOL. ...though I will take another look to see how I can maximize those. I figure I must be doing something wrong.

wow... i just switched from noble and man what a difference. I like the challenge though. And find state property to be essential in late game "tech support." What a boost to the economy for warmongering expansionists such as myself. Even with this added boost though I still almost always just squeeze by a space race victory.-until next time
by the way this is my very first post on a helluva good website

I'm getting to the point now where Prince is even too easy for me (although it is hard to compete for tech superiority if you're non-financial -- try competing against Huyna or Washington in the tech race -- both of them kicked my tails at tech in a Prince game -- especially Washington).

But nevertheless in my most recent games my score is way higher than my competition. I'm not ready to go to Monarch yet though -- and anyways the AI gets a free worker in Monarch and that scares me a little bit.

Well I tried Prince again last night with a Huge Map, Marathon, Temperate, Continents, etc...

I ended up with 5 other Civs on my Continent. Was able to to get Hinduism and Judaism first. I was able to get Judaism to spread quickly through the other Civs...VERY fast in fact since no one on this continent had discovered Buddhism. one Civ did actually convert to Hinduism but thankfully I was on good relations just prior, got open borders and was able to spread Judaism to 3 cities thus he ended up switching.

Over all I did well but failing to get Stonehenge or Oracle right away (because I was messing around) did hurt me in the long run because the Great Prophet I would have gotten to put up a shrine would have been some serious cash (having 2 shrines would have been the nail in the coffin for the AI). Not doing this put my maintenance too high even with Cottages. There were just not enough people to work them and keep up with production as of yet. Even though I think I could recover some what now that I have advance to cover my costs....I think I am too far behind the leaders to ever catch up.

i.e. Building cottages is ok but unless you have people to work them...you are SOL. ...though I will take another look to see how I can maximize those. I figure I must be doing something wrong.

This a big part of what wars are for.

Anytime an AI is at war, their tech spending drops considerably. You don't need to actually fight the war yourself, just try to keep your rivals on a war footing as much as possible.

I got my first win on Prince tonight, by domination, on a standard map. I took the advice of the people here. I drew the Romans randomly, and although I'm very glad to have gotten a win with them, their UU seems sick overpowered.

The key: aggression, aggression, aggression. Out of the gate, I searched for copper, chop-rushed 4 axemen, and took out the German capital. On the banks of the Tiber, they say, Romulus killed Remus. Clearly the AIs were expanding like crazy and I had little room. I only ended up founding three cities!

Frederick down, and no sooner had the banns been read between the Hohenstaufens and the Gracchi that Mao declared. A longer war, that, against the greatest power on the continent, but our glorious legions prevailed.

Thirteen city-states, and much of the home continent now under our heel, we set out to make our citizens happy and pull them through the medieval era. It was only seven hundred years later that our legionnaires, now armed with rifles - but keeping their expertise at wreaking havoc in cities - took on the Malinese for total control of the continent. It was building up to this that was hardest: when to attack is subjective, but I feel a guideline is that I'll never start a new war on Prince if I'm not breaking even at 70% research.

Mali was tasty, and we had accepted Saladin's demands to convert to Buddhism. But by this time the world was truly a globe, and Isabella hated us for heathens. She attempted to put us to the sword, but our riflemen had now become infantrymen. Her enormous invasion force, sent with - I shudder - galleons became mincemeat on the shores. Eventually we built iron clads to protect the coast, then came the refitting of the navy to destroyers to dominate the sea.

From there it was a long build up to infantry and tank warfare, and the domination win in 1904.

It was really satisfying, and I owe you guys thanks. I don't think I would have been half as aggressive if you all hadn't counseled beatdown from the start.

I just play it the same way as Monarch. Don't have a problem.

One thing I do though is to turn off tech trading in the game though (no matter the level). It just feels like the AI is cheating me and trading favorably with other Civilizations while refusing to trade equitably with mine.

I just play it the same way as Monarch. Don't have a problem.

One thing I do though is to turn off tech trading in the game though (no matter the level). It just feels like the AI is cheating me and trading favorably with other Civilizations while refusing to trade equitably with mine.

I'd love to see some stats worked out for whether the AIs have a tech hive mind. It's certainly not the "If you're as advanced and can pay, you got it" hive mind of Civ III.

Just to note, I've posted my first revision of the guide, streamlining it and incorporating more strategy.

Well, I won my first Domination victory on Price level (Pangaea, Small map, 5 civs). I chose Napoleon for the job. I took advantage of his traits (Aggressive & Industrious) and built lots of units & wonders.

I built only 5 cities, but took over two barbarian citites as well before Germany can get their grubby hands on them. I had access to copper in Paris, so I took Jonzee's advice and skipped Archery and went directly to building Axemen.

When the Classical Era began, Bismarck demanded that I teach him Code of Laws. I rejected thinking he would forgive me. I was wrong -- he immediately declared war!!! I was ready though and immediately took Frankfurt away from him. Germany tried to go after Rhiems (a city heavily focused on commerence), but failed.

Later the Spanish declared war (I hate the fact that you have to have the same religion as the Spanish to get along) and almost managed to take Frankfurt away from me. I them declared peace on Germany and eventually Spain and peace reigned in the game for a while.

I then went after the Spanish as they hate my guts. Spain delared war on England and Elizabeth gave me an invitation to join which I gladly accepted. It took three tries, but in the early Industrial Era, I took every city away from Spain.

I then signed a Permanent Alliance with Elizabeth and went after my biggest competitior in the whole game -- the Incas who had a tech lead most of the game but didn't focus heavily on military!!! I used a spy on one of his cities and decided to declare war!!! Germany eventually joined and I wasn't too thrilled about that as he took the Incan Capital. Anyways, after taking every city excpt the islands, Elizabeth & I managed to get a Domination victory in the 1930s and on top of that got the title of Augustus Caesar!

Thanks a lot Jonezee: I just won my first Prince game (cultural/Elizabeth) last night and much of my improved strategy was thanks to your article. I went for the early bronze/forest chop, then did Pyramids and Stonehenge, and built new cities at a controlled pace until I had around 10. Catherine tried a sneak attack at my capital around 500AD, and Montezuma and Roosevelt both did a mad rush at me shortly before victory, but I really particular about upgrading my troops and was able to deflect anything they could throw at me. Here were some of my impressions:

1. Keep your neighbors broke! Even though I was going for cultural, I was ahead in techs up until the Industrial age and kept on selling my neighbors worthless technologies so that I could keep my commerce to gold at 0%. As a result, when the Aztecs and Americans at my borders did declare war on me (as was inevitable), I had my units all upgraded to infantry and calvary, and they were still using knights and grenadiers. No comparison.

2. Barbarian surge? In this game and the other prince games I've tried, I get a massive surge of barbarians coming at my cities from about 500BC to 500AD. Has anyone else noticed this, and is there any way to prevent it?

3. First religion: I got into the religion business with Phil/Taoism; which worked out well because I could get the Phil/Pacifism bonus for GPs (unfortunately the AI beat me to the puch with Parthenon). This allowed me time to important techs like Alphabet and Drama (for culture) without spending critical early research time trying to get ahead on religion. Any thoughts on when or if you should go for first religion?

Again, great article. Next game, I'm going warmongering for the Dom victory. I'll try out the rest of your reccomendations then....

2. Barbarian surge? In this game and the other prince games I've tried, I get a massive surge of barbarians coming at my cities from about 500BC to 500AD. Has anyone else noticed this, and is there any way to prevent it?

Best way since SMAC to prevent random hostile generation is to post sentries along your borders (hit S rather than F, you're likely going to have to choose to engage the enemy in another tile anyway). Array these so that you have a as long a "frontier" as possible that forms a continuous space with your lands. Barbarians cannot generate in places that are under observation by any civ - even AI. Some say that barbarian cities save you settlers, but since barbarian settlements seem to show up randomly rather than in the ordered way a civilized tribe would settle, the cities are usually picked more poorly. Combine this with the fact that you have to wait until they get a second pop point and then massacre the garrison the second pop point will churn out, and I'd really rather just keep them from spawning. Your mileage may vary, but I find I have much less trouble with savages that way.

But on Prince they definitely can be extreme. I can't imagine taking Prince + raging at this point, since it seems like barbarian settlements can sometimes gather enough to send combined arms forces of 5 units complete with axemen and swordsmen, even without raging. I might do it before I jump to Monarch, just to make sure I'm fully ready for the bonus unit mojo that Monarch will be throwing at me. I somehow doubt that with raging barbarians you can use sentries as easily; I have a feeling that raging barbarians would eat isolated units for breakfast.

Did anybody play the OCC (One-City Challenge) on Prince yet? OCC is tough on Prince -- by the 21st century, Japan had learned every tech and kicked Mali & my tails!!! And I couldn't convert to any of the Japanese religions, because they didn't reach my city! So I had to settle for making friends with the Mali. Golly, I hate playing against Japan and I cringe every time Japan is in a game, because I always know that they will pull something.

Best way since SMAC to prevent random hostile generation is to post sentries along your borders (hit S rather than F, you're likely going to have to choose to engage the enemy in another tile anyway). Array these so that you have a as long a "frontier" as possible that forms a continuous space with your lands. Barbarians cannot generate in places that are under observation by any civ - even AI. Some say that barbarian cities save you settlers, but since barbarian settlements seem to show up randomly rather than in the ordered way a civilized tribe would settle, the cities are usually picked more poorly. Combine this with the fact that you have to wait until they get a second pop point and then massacre the garrison the second pop point will churn out, and I'd really rather just keep them from spawning. Your mileage may vary, but I find I have much less trouble with savages that way.

But on Prince they definitely can be extreme. I can't imagine taking Prince + raging at this point, since it seems like barbarian settlements can sometimes gather enough to send combined arms forces of 5 units complete with axemen and swordsmen, even without raging. I might do it before I jump to Monarch, just to make sure I'm fully ready for the bonus unit mojo that Monarch will be throwing at me. I somehow doubt that with raging barbarians you can use sentries as easily; I have a feeling that raging barbarians would eat isolated units for breakfast.

According to the manual, the only bonus unit the AI gets on Monarch is a worker (which is a big bonus anyways!) On Deity, the AI gets a free settler!!!

Finally got around to registering so I could post to this thread.

I just finished my first full Prince game. I lost with 4 turns left... beaten in the space race.

This is how it went down:
I played Gandhi, on a standard (Continents, temp, etc) map. I began with securing Hinduism (it would only be fitting, right?) and scouting like mad. Then the typical BronzeWorking/Pottery/Alphabet lineup. I hadnt met anyone by the time I began research on Writing, so I figured there was noone on my continent. Panic struck. From my experiences with Civ3, being alone meant no early tech trade and falling irrevocably behind.

So I focused my wonder/building production and research towards tech/commerce, with an emphasis on getting to Caravel quickly. When I found the other civs (who were all on the same continent), we had researched different enough techs to make trade very lucrative. And since I was the new guy, I acted as the tech merchant.

My peachy setup came crashing to the ground when I realized that I had neglected my military for too long. I had slowly began increasing defense in my cities when I found the first civ, but it wasn't fast enough. Julius Caesar came and took the jewel of my eastern cities. But after a few turns and researching Gunpowder, I booted him off.

The mid-game was spent desperately keeping up with tech and building a navy. This was working well for me, though my military efforts were purely for defense, since by this point I figured the best shot was a Space Victory.

Well I thought I had it until the late game. The 1990s and 21st century were spent battling almost every civ. They all spontaneously began attacking me, and I was mired in building SS Components. At that point, I fell behind in tech and Mao beat me to that last SS piece.

So I lost. And I learned the importance of a navy. And being aggressive on Prince. And don't trust Julius, and Mao will never trade anything.

I have a few questions though. Whenever I woke the sleeping giant and began militarizing, I would fall behind scientifically. And this would often spell my demise. What tricks do you use to keep up scientifically while still churning out units in your cities. Please be as specific and detailed as possible, though I am a devout Civ fan since Civ2, I'm still not up on all the lingo.

Danke

Specialization. Focus 1 or 2 cities on building military (a city with a lot of hills/forest plains will do nicely). Have some commerece cities (at least three) and build cottages on all of the radius' plot squares as early as possible. Later, they'll develop into towns and produce a mean commerence. Anyways, you'll want to build libraries, universities, observatories, laboratories, & monasteraies in your commerence cities as they all increase your science rate. Once Oxford is unlocked, build it in the city with the highest science rate (press F1). And use your great scientists to buid academies (50% science rate). If you learn to specialize, the game will become much easier.

One of the best ways to keep yourself from falling behind militarily is to never start. Once you can start churning out axemen and chariots, do so until you have a healthy military. Don't forget to add the occasional archer and spearman in too. Early game units, when combined with catapults can hold their own against everything up to macemen and knights. Macemen and knights combined with catapults can in turn hold their own up to riflemen.

Once you have your military, then go after city improvements. Once a city has a granary, barracks and forge I build units until I feel I have enough. When you need to upgrade, slide your science spending down to zero for a few turns so you can afford it.

So in essence, build your military from the get go. Hope that helps.

Bump.

I just moved up from Noble to Prince and have been getting my butt sorely kicked, so finding this thread was like manna from heaven. Most players elsewhere on the forum seem to be in either Monarch and above or Noble and below. Nice to find some others playing in the first of the AI-advantaged levels, and achieving success.

What I find as I move up through the levels is that each time, I have to pay more and more attention to some additional, finer points of gameplay. Things I could be sloppy about on lower levels, I must give greater focus on the next one up. In Noble, for example, I found myself paying a lot more attention to unit promotions and seige weapons in warfare, and to fine-tuning city specialization by more carefully allocating National Wonders.

On Prince, I'm finding that early-game land grab to be cruicial. I've read through this and other threads for additional hints, and I'm reassessing the potential value of things I neglected previously, like watermills, State Property, Stonehenge for a non-cultural civ, Persia, converting rather than founding a religion, bribing other civs to war on each other, and so on. I've been a little too addicted to making every city coastal as well. And yes, aggression, aggression, aggression.

Thanks, and when I finally win on Prince I'll be back to brag.

This guid sounds very well. :cool:

I have still some questions :

in the part A: The Early Game, it is written
"Start building a warrior... I went warrior-worker-building/wonder."
I suppose this list is dedicated for the capital, isn't it? What is your standard list for the first cities settled?



What if the map is not Pangea with high seas levels?
The chockpoints are infrequents with other maps. Do you think this method is adaptable for other map type?

Well, I just played my first game on Prince today, and was able to come away with a domination victory in the 1600's. I was kind of surprised, I was expecting the AI to be a little more difficult than they were. Standard Pangaea, I think 6 other civs. I guess it might have been a little easier because I turned off barbarians. Makes it a little easier to explore and expand in the early game without them.

I played as Qin, for the Chinese UU. I was lucky and had copper in my capital's borders as soon as I discovered bronze working. My build order in my capital was something like Worker>Worker>Settler>barracks>warrior>warrior. After which I started building the Oracle. In my second city I went straight to barracks and started producing axemen. I looked over and saw my closest neighbor, the Mongolians, only had two warriors and an archer in the city they had just founded, which was in a pretty good location close to my borders. Once I had 5 axemen I declared war and easily took the city. After I took over all 3 of his cities, I was number 1 in score and never lost it the rest of the game. Took out Toku and Ghandi with Cho-ko-Nu, then finished off Napolean with cavalry. I was building theatres in the cities and I had just captured when I hit the domination limit :D

I just played and won my first game on prince using this guide. Thanks a lot!:king:

Here is my strategy slightly improoved after reading some posts on this forum.
The golas are:
1. Make 2 great cityies in early game
1.a. Found at least 1 religion in early game
1.b. Build at least 3 wanders in the early game
2. Keep up with the AIs in science
a. Go for tech with bonuses, such as liberalism, Phisics and so on.
b. Go for tech necesary for the space race.
3. Win the space race.

If you manage to fulfill all those goals, step by step, you can win the game with random civilization, no matter the speed, no matter the size or the type of the map, not being agresive (no need to declare war).

But how can you achieve those goals?

1. Make 2 great cities in early game.
First, usual place the fisrt city right on the spot. Usulay there is the best place to build. The ideal first city wold have around it either flood plains or oasis or other tiles that can provide 3 food and some gold from the beginig of the game. If you don't have the ideal city, no problem, you can catch up later.
What would you build first, depends on the surroundings and the techs you start with. If I start with huntig, I build the second scout. If I start with fishing, and I have a costal city and probably some sea resouces nearby a build workboat firs, but most of the time I end up building warrior.
If I have "the ideal city position", it will grow very fast to size 3. Than I start to build the settler. If is not ideal, I start to build a worker at size 2. And do some research needed to improove some bonus tiles around.
The first tech for reserch depends of the civ you play with, and of the general conditons. If I start with Misticism as starting tech, I go straight to Politheism, if not I start reasearch Misticism first then researching Politheism. It is possible, this way to found the Hiduism. If I don't have a spiritual leader, I don't convert to that religion just yet. Depending on conditions you may need to research some worker techs (agriculture, hunting, animal husbandry) or fishing. But I always head for Monotheism. It is the 3d religion that can be found and usualy the AIs don't rush for it. There is 99% chance that you will found that religion.
While the city grows and the research is done, I explore the surroundings and I am looking for at least one of the vital resources (stone and/or marble) if it is not already within 3 tiles from mi city. If you can't find neither stone or marble, this strategy will not work and sould find something else
Next thing I am looking for are other civs and the best place for my second city. Ofcourse goodie huts are a good chance to get some free techs or units, or at least money. That is why I prefer to train second scout if it is possible insted of warior.
When the city is size 3 I start building the settler. If I have allready spoted de good place for the second city, I prepare the path to get to it.
By the time it is being built set the research for monotheism but be careful to finish this research only after the second city is built. When the research on Monoteism is finished the Judaism will be founded in the second city, giving it a cultural boost. Definitely convert to that religion.
By the time you do all that, you have figured out if you are alone or note on that continet (island), or who are your neighbours. Knowing that you can decide what to research next, a military tech or priesthood. If I don't see an iminent threat I go for priesthood (to be able to buid the oracle). If you go for military, go for BW, to chop forests, that is imperative if you don't have acces to stones.
In the first city, after the settler you may whant to build some defence (if is not already there). Build an warior and then go for the piramids, but be sure you have at least one worker.
After secured the second city, start building Stonehenge there. Be sure you build a quarry on stone tile and connect it to the capital. If no stone, don't build quarry on marble, go for choping trees.
You mai fail building Stonehenge, but try not to fail the Piramids, it is vitale in this strategy.
Finished one, start the another wonder. Parthenon is a good option for the capital and the oracle for the second city.
If you have both marble and stone in your city radius it is a good chance to build all 4 early wanders, if not, you will probably build only 3. From now on you have to concetrate on exploiting your leader skils.

2. Keep up with the AIs in science

To do that you need to expand your borders and to maximaze your commerce and science. Trading technologies with other civs is a must so researching alphabet should be a piority.
Having early 2 wonder cities is very helpfull. Try to maximize the great persons production. If the leader is Philosofical, this should be the main focus.
Don't bother to build large armies. At this point it would be suicidal to go with an aggresive war. Concentrate on defensive units. Build some offensive units for the barbarian cities if necesary. Keep in mind that wile the AIs build and stack their units you can keep building some cities. Make friends, if is possible, by spreading your religion. Keep good communications betwin cities and be preapared for eventual defensive war.
Actualy, a defensive war may be profitable, after a wile, the civ that declared war would be willing to negociate the peace, be sure you take all techs available and some cities too, but don't be greedy, just 1 or 2 cities would be enogh.
Keep your economy on track, build courhouse, and Forbinden Palace. Build everiting that helps making more money or more research.
Go for Liberalism when possible and get the free tech Nationalism or Astronomy depending on the situation. Always check the progress of the other civs and just keep up.
Keep building wonders whenever it is possible.
Use diplomacy often. Trade resouces, and techs. Try to make friends and try to make the other civs to declare war to eachother, this will slow their research and building, as they will keep building only military, and research military, and the upkeep will keep growing

3. Win the space race.

To do that you must haveat least 4-5 cities with high production and you need to start early. Forget about techs that don't help you with this goal. If you need them, you can consider building the internet. But is better to concentrate on space race tech. Keep trading with other civs and, keep the diplomacy. Keep waching the others progress. If some civ is dangerously close to space vicory, you may rather consider make them declare war to others, or others declare war to them. All AIs have some enemies, and mot probaly you are friend with one of them. No matter the cost. Just make them beat each other. This will give you the chance to fhinish your space ship first.

I've won a handful of games on Prince now and can confirm that early aggression does indeed seem to be the key.

Early Game

Things I've been doing early on that seem crucial to a successful game:

- First tech: Bronze Working (and its pre-req Mining if it's not one of my starting techs). Not just for chopping, but for copper and Axemen.
- Following techs: worker techs for nearby resources, then Mysticism for Stonehenge, Wheel for roads, and Archery for city defense.
- Build Worker - Warrior/Scout - Settler. The Worker chops the latter two.
- Starting Warrior/Scout explores far and wide. Built Warriors explore nearby; when first barb warrior appears, he heads home.
- Exploring Warriors stick to forest/jungle/hills whenever possible. Scouts end turns on those tiles.
- Based on starting territory, start thinking about best victory to pursue.
- Build Stonehenge in capital if I'm not Creative. Chop if possible.
- Build Worker in new cities, then chop Settler.
- Connect cities and resources with roads.
- Build Axemen as soon as they're available. Use them for city defense/barbs at first; replace them with Archers when I'm ready to go to war.
- Find neighbours. Select one to attack, based on: likelihood he'll do the same (Monty, Alex); presence of holy city; presence of desireable Wonders; score level (choose higher-scoring opponent to take out a big threat early).
- Build 3-4 cities before going to war, preferably close to my intended opponent, at chokepoints, or in a position to lock off territory for later backfilling. No Open Borders until mid-game.
- Go to war mode: build barracks, then best offensive unit, nothing else. Build roads to enemy territory, move units into position. Research Iron Working, then bee-line Construction.
- Go to war. Capture all enemy cities, only razing if city's in a very bad location. If another enemy is nearby, go after him too.
- Nurse along a few units to Level 4 so I can build Heroic Epic. If possible, nurse a couple of units to Level 5 for West Point.
- Take out at least one or two rivals. If I'm Rome, take out 3 or 4.

That's pretty much it. Along the way, of course, I'll get Alphabet and tech trade, as well as Pottery and start building cottages around my core cities. I may sue for peace if I need to solidify my position and bring up reinforcements, but only if I can get techs in exchange.

If the war's going REALLY well--I'm losing very few units and can spare some production cycles--I may try to build the Oracle for a slingshot effect (either Code of Laws or, if I'm feeling very lucky, Civil Service). The Pyramids I usually hope to capture, but if I have stone, I may try to build them. I rarely bother with the other early Wonders except maybe the Parthenon. I may try to build it if the war is nearly over, it hasn't been built yet, and I have marble and a good production city going. If I gain all 4 of the best early Wonders AND win an early war, I give myself a big pat on the back.

Mid Game

When the war is over, I start building courthouses in the most far-flung cities, then Forbidden Palace. I may also move my Palace to a more central location; often on Prince I tend to start on one isolated corner of a continent. This is followed by cottages and libraries in cities with good commerce potential.

What I'm trying to do is catch up; focusing on military and conquest has likely put me behind the other Civs in tech. I'm usually high in power rating, so I will probably leverage that and try to get tribute (techs, gold, resources, whatever) from weaker civs I'm not planning on getting along with. I will decide who my friends (I try to pick two) and enemies will be at this point.

Around this time I will reassess my city specialization strategy in light of the cities I've captured. I probably already have a science and production city going. A captured capital, though, is also good for this, so I may change that role. It's also time to decide where I'm going to have my GP farm. I will start backfilling territory with cities if required.

Unless I'm on a Pangaea map, I'll research Optics, build two Caravels, and send them out in opposite directions. I like to get that +1 movement bonus for circumnavigation, but even if I don't, I'll meet the remaining Civs and do more tech trades/tribute demands.

If I still have a strong, dangerous neighbour, I will probably do something I never did on previous levels: fight a medieval war. Waiting for Riflemen like I used to just gives a strong opponent time to get stronger. I'll bee-line to military techs (Civil Service/Machinery for Macemen, Guild for Knights, Feudalism for Longbowmen), change civics (the lethal Vasselage/Theocracy combo), either use a GM or lower the science slider for a few turns to upgrade my veterans, then go to war mode again--though my core cities usually go back to peaceful pursuits pretty quickly, leaving the border and newer cities to pick up the slack.

I also start dedicating myself towards my chosen victory condition at this point. If it's domination, that medieval war becomes crucial. If it's going to be a tech/space race, I'll look to solidifying the position I have through military and diplomacy. If I'm going for the space victory and I don't want to fight a war in the late game, I usually have to build a lot of destroyers and battleships and position them around my coast to deter attack.

The ideal situation is to find myself on my own continent by mid-game so I can choose either type of victory, but that seems to be rare. With the 1.61 patch and the change to Prince, the game seems to prefer plunking me down on the biggest continent with the most rivals. Gee, thanks.

Overall, I find myself fighting a lot more wars at this level--often four: early (axes, swords, catapults), medieval (macemen, knights, catapults), renaissance (riflemen, cavalry, cannon), and modern (infantry, tanks, air units). No wonder I haven't tried for a cultural victory on Prince yet!

I can imagine Monarch and above will be even more of the same.

Just tried your plan to the letter and ended up with a time victory and was not far short of domination, there was only me (Togukawa) and Cyrus left! I only built one wonder myself (pyramids) and didn't bother with a religion (accepted the first that came along and then battered the founder, Isabella). My first victory on Prince. In the early game i manged to annex a piece of land with two cities and back filled it, farmed axemen and then went for the nearest neigbour with a vengence. After that it was plain sailing as i had so much land nobody could keep up with my military production. I never caught up with Cyrus in terms of Technology so i befriended him and avoided any conflict.

One trick i have learnt is that when you get a great artist keep them in reserve. Once you have taken a neighbours city, move the artist in, construct an academy and watch the borders explode. Is the most effective land grab i have found.

I just won my first Prince game as Mali via Space Race is 1987.
I actually whomped Rome pretty well... to the point of Capitulation. Forget what era that was in, though. After that, I buddied up with the two other Civs on my continent and decided to cease diplomacy with any other Civs. This way, I wouldn't get the "You traded with our worst enemies!" modifier to our relationships. Gandhi loved me.

I think the key to that was getting Civil Service so early... I basically just researched the techs I needed for worker duties and then hit up Priesthood, started building the Oracle, and managed to finish researching Code of Laws on the same turn that I finished the Oracle. Boom, pow, Civil Service and farms all over the place.

Specialization is also key -- I find that a single GP farm combined with a number of commerce-only, production-only or commerce/production hybrids is the way to go. In this game, I only built six cities total - I ended up with about twelve or thirteen. Thanks, Julius! ;)

Anyway, I'm playing a Huge Terra as the Vikings now. Same idea... Code of Laws, early Civil Service, beeline to Machinery, and the grotesque BERSERKING of all foes. The Vikings are amazing. :)

Question. the tech trading has been working well upto late renaissance. But as I go after the second target (1st has been eliminated), the politics kick in, e.g. my trade partner (friendly) took the target in as a vessle state and then no one wants to trade anymore (all got annoyed).
Any suggestions?

Tech-trading. Probably 'you've traded with my (our) worst enemy'. Its a bit late to change the trading you've already done. Ways to make AIs happier without tech-trading:

Religion is an obvious one tho if they're in Free Religion that cuts no ice and you stand to make as many enemies as friends depending on religion spread so you have to be careful.

Changing to an AI's favourite civic can certainly help and there are no penalties for heathen civics.

Giving them stuff can also help though not always as much as you think.

Giving into demands.

Even if you get the AIs up to cautious they may still not trade :'we fear you are becoming too advanced' because you've done too much tech trading (and nothing to do with how advanced you are, so that's a bit confusing). AIs are often unwilling to trade a monopoly tech or a tech that allows them to build a wonder.

Edit: Its been a while since I played Prince but having some kind of overall strategy (a set of objectives for each phase of the game) makes a big difference. For instance, you've got plenty of land with no AIs nearby so expand rapidly while researching towards Code of Laws (or Oracle slingshot for CoL) followed by restoring your economy then teching towards maces and cats and building an armyready for a second war against nearest/weakest/least popular AI. Or you're hemmed in but you've got copper: build a couple of cities and a stack of axemen early, invade to capture a few cities (maybe raze naff locations and replace with your own settlers) followed by consolidation growth. The overall strategy for a particular game will depend on civ/leader/map/resources but its worth deciding on a strategy early on and sticking to it. One nice thing about Prince is that you still have a good chance of building Wonders; the main thing to consider is how a particular Wonder forms part of the overall strategy rather than building it just because you can.

Bump.

Still getting my bottom kicked on Prince. I find Alexander will come after you sooner or later, no matter what you do, and he will always have a bigger military than you. :(

Bump.

Still getting my bottom kicked on Prince. I find Alexander will come after you sooner or later, no matter what you do, and he will always have a bigger military than you. :(

Don't give up. Focus on early expansian and prime real estate becomes more important than on noble. Just play like on noble, but a bit faster on building up.;)
Try using 2 workers for your capitol and 1 for your other cities. Quick development of your land can keep you safe from warmongers. Except from monty and the french.

Hmm, I thought that's what I was doing. Maybe I'm too scared to found new cities early on because of fears about running out of money.

Also I tend to raze conquered cities instead of keeping them - is that still a good tactic? I find having to defend them means my army can't progress and take other cities.

Hmm, I thought that's what I was doing. Maybe I'm too scared to found new cities early on because of fears about running out of money.

Also I tend to raze conquered cities instead of keeping them - is that still a good tactic? I find having to defend them means my army can't progress and take other cities.
Think carefully before you raze.

If the city is well-placed, especially to gain access to a resource you don't have, keeping it will save you a settler later. If it's a holy city or contains a wonder, you should definitely keep it.

Also think about long term relations--each city you raze earns you a -1 diplomatic modifier from the civ you're fighting. If you're planning on wiping out that rival, you may not care. But it's entirely possible for the situation to change and for you to want that enemy to become a friend (or perhaps a friendly vassal), at which time you'll regret any negative diplomatic modifiers and will have to overcome them somehow.

In any stack you should have units you can leave behind to garrison captured cities. Make this part of your planning & building before declaring war; in other words, don't just build and bring attackers, bring defenders too. Remember that you can also shift garrison units from former border cities that are no longer vulnerable.

Also, while you're at war, don't stop building units. You may start working in civilian builds, but at least alternate them with military ones. Most players have a good to great production city with the Heroic Epic building almost nothing but units. Also remember that certain civics lend themselves to military builds rather than civilian ones. If you're running Theocracy, for example, keep churning out units until you switch away from it to max out the +2 XP benefit. Organized Religion is better for civilian builds; shift to it later in the war when your HE city is able to carry most of the burden of military builds.

Sisiutil:

Phew! I have to build a LOT more soldiers. I knew about not razing a holy city (although I took my eye off the ball in my last game and accidentally did it, thereby earning myself Monty's undying hatred - although Monty's not easy to please at the best of times) and about hanging onto wonders. But the point about bringing along defenders, and about moving defenders into new border cities is an excellent tip.

It was hard moving from Warlord to Noble because of all the things you suddenly had to think about. I'm finding the process is being repeated here. Still, I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

(BTW, your basic strategy guide and your ALC threads have been very useful - thanks! :goodjob: )

PS Could anyone correct the spelling of the thread title (should be 'your first win')? It's a bit distracting for pedants like myself. Easy mistake to make, I know.

[EDIT: Sorry, forgot to say 'please'.]

Can you copyright something to your Avatar?

I know this is an old thread, but I'm still fairly new to the game.

Anyway, just played Prince for the second time. The first time I played the Incan empire, and I came close but lost out to a space race victory near the end.

The second time, I used the advice of this article and was much more aggressive in the early game (not typical for me). I played Japan on a standard pangaea map with a high sea level, epic time. My closest neighbors were the Romans, Peter, and Mansa. The romans were essentially stuck into a corner, but I made friends with them from the get go (he established Hinduism ... I converted). Mansa was far enough away that we did not interact much. Also in the game were Alex, Vicky, and the Arabs. Alex helped me out a LOT in theis game by keeping Mansa, Vicky, and Saladin busy (even though he was furious at me for pretty much the entire game ... probably because I kept enticing his neighbors to go to war with him).

I finished bronzeworking and Lo! I had copper right by my capital. I started pumping out axemen and went to war against Peter, who had two cities by this time. But the war did not last long. Essentially, this gave me the space for two civs to spread out in. I also somehow mangaed to build a couple of the early advantageous Wonders (Oracle, Parthenon).

With these I had a significant early tech advantage (helped considerably by beelining to alphabet and trading for all of the lower level techs).

I firmly established my base and my tech dominance. I also was able to post a few sentires and keep the barbarians form appearing ... this was huge as I never had to deal with a barb rush.

Once I received my Samurai and had built up my military strength, I went after my friend, Julius. I took out all of his continental cities (except one, which was small and on the opposite side of my empire from where the bulk of his empire was. This gave me about 1/3 of the world, and huge production, tech, and military advantages.

I then worked on converting Vicky to Hinduism, as she, Mansa, and the Arabs had formed defensive pacts. They had kept slowly hammering at Alex (although he never lost any cities). Saladin was ticking me off because he kept finishing Wonders just a few turns before I would. Once the British became devout Hindus, the defensive pact dissolved,and I sent waves of troops to take out Saladin. Vicky even joined in on the war for awhile. My first wave landed, took over one of the main cities, then were themsleves wiped out. The second and consecutive waves proved to be too much, though, and I rolled through the Arab country, not even pausing for a temporary cease fire.

Once the arabs were gone, I had several of the Wonders I had wanted (such as the Kremlin) thanks to Saladin building them for me! I also was knocking right on Alex's front door, and he had been significantly worn down by Mansa and Viky (who still only managed to take one city from him), and who was woefully behind in tech. When my bombers, tanks, artillery, and mechanized infantry rolled against his riflemen and cannons ... it was a quick death. Then some churning out of theaters and sliding the culture slider to 100% and voila! Dominance victory in 1905! Also the highest score I ever acheived on a non-duel map (Augustus)!

I agree with the main premise of this article, and that is to annex another empire as quickly as possible.

The main difference I noted between Noble and Prince (I play all games on Prince now, working on getting to the next level) is that you have to be much more aggressive in basic playing style. Whatever victory condition you're striving to meet, it's important to 'militarily persuade' at least one neighbor to become a part of your empire, for reasons of size, resources, room for expansion and a less crowded continent.

One tip I would stress - after your first war, focus on infrastructure to stabilize your economy. Then you're in a good position to either pull ahead scientifically, culturally or to start another war.

I saw someone asked for a Brazil leader... who would that be?
Brazil is represented by the empire that made it... Portugal.

Speaking of which, that brings me to my first Prince game. I am using Joao II for the first time. Here are my settings:
Tectonic
Normal Wetness
70% water (earth like)
Marathon
18 AIs

I hope to win... I think I will... I just kept playing Noble to death.

Anyhow, I often play for the long game, finding the short, warmonger games to be too easy/cheesy. I extend my gaming you could say.

Here is how I build my empires...
1 - Regenerate map until I have a river to start on, with some hills, some forest (gold or ivory at the beginning can be awesome!)... ALWAYS found your city on the first turn, ALWAYS...
2 - Research Bronze Working (if you have to do mining first, so be it)
3 - Build worker first, hopefully by the time he gets out, you have BW...
4 - Build Settler, rushing the settler by cutting forest
5 - Now that you rushed a settler, found the 2nd city close as you can to some worthwhile resources
6 - In your capital, start building the Great Wall, the capital needs to be your GP farm for ENGINEERS
7 - In your 2nd city, build a worker, rush it with cut forests
8 - 2nd city now builds a settler, rush this also...
9 - repeat steps 5, 7, 8 until you have several cities (10 or so if you can squeeze them in)
10 - When building wonders, build the same types of wonders in the same cities... have your spiritual capital (probably where you found your first religion), your engineer capital, your merchant capital, your art capital... don't build random wonders in random cities, stay consistent. You will get more GP that way...

This will get you a good base, you won't have to worry about military right away, because Barbs won't attack and AIs tend not to attack too often until free land runs out... you will be twice as large as the other civs early on... keep your science at 100% as long as you can, letting your scout/warrior from the beginning discover gold huts... If you have to go to war at some point, you will win, because your number of cities will always be higher than your competitors using this method.

Techs I make bee lines for...
Bronze Making
Priesthood (build Oracle for free tech)
Alpabet (should be a gift from the Oracle if you planned it right)
Currency
Code of Laws
Liberalism (also for free tech)

Wonders to beeline for...
Capital = Engineer farm = Great Wall, Pyramids, Hanging Gardens (requires an aqueduct), Hagia Sofia
Oracle, 3 Gorges Dam, Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Great Lighthouse, Apostolic Palace (its good to be the Pope!)

In noble I would end up at least 3-4 times higher in points than the nearest competitor, just letting them live basically. I always ended up at the top of the leader scale when I won (the AP victory is kind of easy too)... The world will be your oyster.

I guess to some extent, the chop/rush technique of expansion could be seen as cheesy as well.

Every time I tried to do everything Toku wanted, even switched to his religion etc, he still backstabbed me at a random moment for no apparent reason, no matter how favourable our relations were. Indeed, not one to ever trust.

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

I won my first game on prince today! Epic low sea level pangea.

I got 2 cows + horse in BCF, chariot rushed Joao, he only had one warrior guarding his capital lol!?!? This was around turn 45-50. Also stone in BCF -->all the mids are belong to me.

I expanded into early happiness and commerce, 2 gems in south, 2 gold in south east, lots of overall luxury resources waiting for calender to be tapped into. Also built statue of zeus because its a . .. .. .. .. . to fight against aggressive civs that possess this wonder in the early times. I also got Great library in capital + national epic-->GP farm. Oracle slingshoted into Code of Laws, I got a religion which proved useful later.

Meanwhile, mr Wang the Korean had expanded his puny cities around me, I started a big swords+ axes building program. Later cata-spam would follow. Wang had surprisingly crappy armies, I never really checked power graphs or anything but I rolled over him. I only knew of 2 civs on this pangea, russkies in the south, and mayans somewhere in the unknown and koreans in the east.

I took Wang's best cities easily in the south and south east, but his crappier cities in the north east where I was militarily weak, Wang had a crescent of cities with some defensive units, I took later. It turned out that Mayans were behind Wang in the east.

I kept teching pretty well during the war. bulbed some techs on the way to lib, I had decided I'd take gunpowder asap from Lib, Janissaries just too good to wait for. I saw that I had crappy relations to russkies in the south, I tried to reinforce my border cities with the reds, immediately after I had captured Wang's core cities.

I traded some tech for feudalism with Mayans, whipped some L-bows and started churning out Janissarys from capital and other good production cities. About 4 turns later Russkies declared war and they had the terrible war elephants among their ranks :D. Janseys beat them off pretty good though.

teched to cannons, Catherine's cities were a . .. .. .. .. . to take coz of Chichen Itza, and catapults had a hard time bombing their def. down :lol: Didn't matter much though. I killed his best stacks and took Moscow pretty quickly. Russia was reduced to a 1 tile island just off the coast. I had no boats and vassals were disabled so I let her live.
Pacal then turned into Confucianism, the religion that I had bulbed. I went from free religion to Confucianism and our relations grew friendly and he was really a "useful idiot" especially since he buffered my right flank against other civs during the Russian war so I could whack Catherine.

I started recovering from this war, my economical techs were really lacking at this point having, taken gunpowder from Lib, not the best choice if you look at the beaker cost and so on. I focused on getting railroad next and factories after that. I WANTED that Mining Inc.! From there on, I got my factories rolling, population boosted significantly as I next took biology and went for cereal mills.

Eventually I had garnered a huge tech lead with most of the modern wonders, statue of liberty, 3-Gorges Dam and so on. My production capabilities were eventually huge with cereal mills and mining inc in every city, I built Wall Street however in a sub optimal city, Christian Shrine city.

I had a good city site on a river + flood plains and hills, it was a shrine city for Confucianism AND Taoism, but I had only other sup optimal city cites for ultimate production, so this cottage center was turned into Heroic Epic + Red Cross city. The other ultimate production city in the south, Seoul, a former Korean city was given the honor of Ironworks + West Point.

I eventually got space race in 1950s, pretty slow I guess. I had beelined after the industrial era and corporate techs, into robotics + bombers. (weird combo eh?)

eventually I was pumping out modern armors in single turns and so on, even my worst cottage cities were pumping out modern armors and jet fighters in 2-3 turns. By the end of the game I was running good Oxford and Wall Street cities, plus 2 good production cities and the economy was turned into CE for the rest of the cities, and I also built a couple of filler cities in the middle to get more of my tiles worked.

@Kochman

Those are some good general rules for Prince level, but by no means are they necessary or always right. If your neighbor is close by, you'll be needing some soldiers. You need to research some techs for the Great Wall. Great Wall gives a Great Spy not a Great Engineer. Sometimes, wonders aren't worth it at all.

Prince seems to be the easiest level to adapt to. I had a few failed games and then went straight to having 90k - 180k scores consistently. Chop/whip lots of workers and make sure to war EARLY with a lot of axes or chariots (sooner with chariots) with your closest neighbor. Unless, of course, he's REALLY far and expanding away from you.

Workers are really the key, though. Getting cities and resources up and running ASAP can be the difference between tech parity / tech superiority.

LAST GAME: Nearly a tundra start with Willem van Oranje. Early war / tons of workers = domination win in 1400s.

@Kochman

Those are some good general rules for Prince level, but by no means are they necessary or always right. If your neighbor is close by, you'll be needing some soldiers. You need to research some techs for the Great Wall. Great Wall gives a Great Spy not a Great Engineer. Sometimes, wonders aren't worth it at all.

Prince seems to be the easiest level to adapt to. I had a few failed games and then went straight to having 90k - 180k scores consistently. Chop/whip lots of workers and make sure to war EARLY with a lot of axes or chariots (sooner with chariots) with your closest neighbor. Unless, of course, he's REALLY far and expanding away from you.

Workers are really the key, though. Getting cities and resources up and running ASAP can be the difference between tech parity / tech superiority.

LAST GAME: Nearly a tundra start with Willem van Oranje. Early war / tons of workers = domination win in 1400s.

how far is too far? I got monty somewhere near, 8 squares between capital BCFs borders, but im gonna claim Iron with my second city that's even closer to him. Around turn 50 epic speed, im gilgamesh and I was just thinking about killing monty right away again, Tokugawa is way up north and is probably more loyal if we get same religion or something.

I should say that I got a dream start for my capital, dream start as in excellent GP farm, 3 IRRIGATEd CORN (OMFG) and ivory in BCF.

how far is too far? I got monty somewhere near, 8 squares between capital BCFs borders, but im gonna claim Iron with my second city that's even closer to him. Around turn 50 epic speed, im gilgamesh and I was just thinking about killing monty right away again, Tokugawa is way up north and is probably more loyal if we get same religion or something.

I should say that I got a dream start for my capital, dream start as in excellent GP farm, 3 IRRIGATEd CORN (OMFG) and ivory in BCF.

Definitely take Monty out as early as possible! 8 tiles is nothing. That is extremely close, actually. If you can grab iron with a city that's even closer to him, there should be no question.

Monty is one of those AI leaders that will DoW on you even if you are significantly higher in the power ratio than him with pleased relations. If he spawns anywhere near you, it's a good idea to remove him ASAP.

Grab a second capital maybe 1 more good city, raze the rest and go from there. Economic recover (via Currency / CoL), and spam settlers/REX. More economic recovery with tons of workers/cottages, then perhaps prepare for your next war (if it is viable). If you can grab a second capital early on Prince, you should be smooth sailing the rest of the way (barring a Tech Whore or War Monger Psycho like Shaka). I find that cottage heavy economies on Prince are extremely powerful. I used to be a Specialist Economy monger. Now, I've found that it only really pans out well if you have TONS of food on your map... I mean tons. The cottage economy is easier IMO. Farms / food resources until your city is fed well, cottage the rest, move on. Of course, you'll want a GP Farm and some production cities, but all your economic cities should line up farms to feed, mines on hills, cottage the rest (preferably riverside tiles first for the extra 1 :commerce:).

The 3 irrigated farms are awesome (like seeing 3 fish and a rice on a coastal start). Use that city to whip up a nice army to take out another rival. I've found the whip/conquer/whip/conquer strategy becomes overpowered on Prince games and is actually how I got most of my 150k+ scores on Prince.

Yes, Montezuma always has to be dealt with as soon as possible, or he will just slow you down and occasionally even have a chance at stealing a city away!!! I can't stand that fool!
:mad:

Worked like a charm. Many Thanks. :goodjob: