After beat Noble on both Diplomatic and Space Race (The Diplomatic victory was clearly hands down, I was less than a percent away from a domination victory and could have had that if I'd wanted to take the time; the Space Race was not so clear cut, with several other countries also building space ships and me only average size) I've started playing Prince. I've started using Washington, because I'm a big tech guy, and I find his Organized and Financial traits very useful. But the problem is I have trouble expanding to a decent size even with it. I've played two games with him on Pangea maps, and both times I've end up with a much smaller empire than most. This is frustrating, because with founding two religions I had plenty of cash to spend, and was running at 90%-100% all game. In the one game I played all the way to the modern age I was even keeping up in tech for most of the game, until Huayna invaded me.

The only thing I can think of is that I've had to fight a lot of wars in both games, even early, against both barbariens and the AI. (I hate Isabella with a passion) Isabella has been a big enemy in both, which leads me to believe that a good many of my troubles can be layed at the feet or religion; specifically that I've chosen an unpopular one. So, should I lay off religion for awhile (Or at least making them official) even though they are later ones (Confucianism and Christianity) or is there some other gaping hole in my strategy?

I could use some help guys, before I go get my butt kicked again.

Since you have the tech lead, you can benefit from it by bribing the AIs to attack each other.

It is generally a good idea to keep your neighbors happy with you, and keep those who don't busy with invasions from elsewhere (plus yourself sooner or later).

There are 2 easy ways to keep neighbors happy:

1) Tech Trades, while giving away some extra beakers. Modifier goes up to +4.

2) Same state religion. Modifier goes up to +8 with time. If you are aiming for high difficulties later, it is a good idea to practice "forget about religion techs as a whole". You will get the pilgrimage money by taking the holy city through military actions, if they are close to you. It is just a bonus. As long as your empire is large enough, you will get enough money to pull off in tech anyways.

Isabella is actually one of the best religious allies I could find... she is so aggressive that she attacks anywhere I point my finger to. :)

As of your topic...

As long as you are not playing an isolated map, get a worker and research Bronze working. Find copper, claim it, and chop axeman like crazy. Kill (I mean, kill) at least one of your neighbors and occupy most of the nice cities. You can stop when your research rate drops below 50%. That should give you a nice-sized kingdom to work with for the rest of the game.

Thanks for the advice.

The trouble is I don't always have the tech lead, as time goes on my lead rapidly diminishes, although while I have it I trade techs a whole lot. (I usually bee line for Alphabet)

It sounds like religion is my problem; I'll try spreading my own religions (Or not founding them) before switching to them.

Also if your in a corner, or there is 1 civ between you and the rest try and convert them (semi-obvious), but they can act as a sheild and a buffer zone from the other aggressive civs giving you time to react and apossible ally in the war making the enemy fight two separate forces.

Also I believe that if you spread your religion to their capital they will most surely switch to it, so I tend to focus on that city then spread to their surrounding cities. Though the problem arises that your neighbor creates his own religion in which case you may need to adapt tot he situation which seems the norm in civ IV.

A disappearing tech lead... I think it means you need a larger kingdom to collect all the research money. :)

Again, when you have the tech lead, you can make the AIs busy by bribing them into attacking each other. That really hurts their research. They had no time to build research buildings, and their improvements are pillaged badly by each other.

After beat Noble on both Diplomatic and Space Race (The Diplomatic victory was clearly hands down, I was less than a percent away from a domination victory and could have had that if I'd wanted to take the time; the Space Race was not so clear cut, with several other countries also building space ships and me only average size) I've started playing Prince. I've started using Washington, because I'm a big tech guy, and I find his Organized and Financial traits very useful. But the problem is I have trouble expanding to a decent size even with it. I've played two games with him on Pangea maps, and both times I've end up with a much smaller empire than most. This is frustrating, because with founding two religions I had plenty of cash to spend, and was running at 90%-100% all game. In the one game I played all the way to the modern age I was even keeping up in tech for most of the game, until Huayna invaded me.

The only thing I can think of is that I've had to fight a lot of wars in both games, even early, against both barbariens and the AI. (I hate Isabella with a passion) Isabella has been a big enemy in both, which leads me to believe that a good many of my troubles can be layed at the feet or religion; specifically that I've chosen an unpopular one. So, should I lay off religion for awhile (Or at least making them official) even though they are later ones (Confucianism and Christianity) or is there some other gaping hole in my strategy?

I could use some help guys, before I go get my butt kicked again.


Ah, ok, Washington on Prince on Pangaea map. You should pwn.

Here's your problem--you do not need religion. As a matter of fact, I would not only not found any, I would not even adopt a state religion. All you're going to do is give your neighbors a reason to hate you. If I didn't wait until Free Religion, I would take the religion of the neighbor I wanted to use as an ally.

Generally if you're having to fight too many wars you're doing two things. With the barbarians, you need to have some archers or axemen out on your borders on hills to push back the Fog of War. Barbarians don't spawn if you can see their tile. For other nations, it's either opposing religions as explained above or allowing yourself to become too weak.

On Prince difficulty on a Normal map, you shouldn't be allowing yourself to ever drop below second place in strength for any length of time without a good reason. If you do, the buzzards will be circling.

Rather than researching the religions, I would be starting with the Mining--Bronzeworking routes, then, Wheel and Pottery, worker techs and up the Literature, Music and Education tracks. (With detours to Currency, Monarchy and Code of Laws when it becomes necessary.) If coastal, I'd throw in Sailing and Optics along the way.

Make settlers fast, chop them if necessary. Consider making two workers for each of your first four cities. Spam cottages in the spaces you've cleared by chopping forests. I would aim for about 7 cities on a normal sized map by 550 AD or so (either settled by me or taken from barbarians or enemy civs.)

Read the Strategy Article about the Catherine Cottage Spam. It works very well with Washington, too.

Washigton is actually one of the easiest leaders to win on, but it looks like you're not playing to his strengths, but rather to a predetermined plan that worked for some other leader at a lower difficulty level.

Tom

A disappearing tech lead... I think it means you need a larger kingdom to collect all the research money. :)

Again, when you have the tech lead, you can make the AIs busy by bribing them into attacking each other. That really hurts their research. They had no time to build research buildings, and their improvements are pillaged badly by each other.
Exactly, but when you're constantly at war with two people with higher score than yourself, it's hard enough to hold onto what you have without expanding.

Thanks for all the replies everyone; I think I get the message: Leave religion alone unless pretty much everyone has the same one/Don't be the only one with a certain religion. I'll give it a try, thanks guys.

Its seems that you're not expanding enough. I expand until my science drops to at least 60%, sometimes lower. I grab as many resources and as many good city spots as I can before running into my opponents borders. I think 6 productive cities is a good minimum goal on a standard map.

I build tons of cottages, and have only 1 or 2 military production cities for every 6 cities. I don't chop for military, I chop for settlers and workers. With Washington you'll have no problem sustaining a large empire.

And it's good that you've decided not to bother with religion. Not necessary if you grab happiness resources in your initial expansion and/or research drama.

I agree with the above post, especially not taking a religion. The big negative is that you do not get the 25% build bonus for orgaized religion. City effieciency can handle this.

Some might say that you have a negative for not getting the +1 happiness from having a state religion. This is not really a negative, since (1) you must spend the effort (production and possibly ressearch) to make sure cities get your one and only state religion and (2) when you get to free religion all religions give you a +1 happiness (even the ones that came through the trade networks) and (3) You will not have the AI hate you for it.

Has anyone else ever had Isabella as a neighbor, and you take her buhdism to keep molified, only to have her switch to her second religion and feel her wrath.

Has anyone else ever had Isabella as a neighbor, and you take her buhdism to keep molified, only to have her switch to her second religion and feel her wrath.

Take Buhdism, get open borders, spread the religion you founded to all of her cities. Convert back to your founded religion and then convert her to your religion. :)

@ Larz

Not a bad plan, however I now do follow my own advice and do not found, accept or pimp any religion in the game. I would do something like that if after you first took a state religion, you could then switch to no state religion as a choice. The only way is through free religion and I would need the capability earlier.

Religion's importance depends entirely on game speed. I last played marathon 13civ and noble just for fun and made a point to chop stonehendge and pyramids. With a philo civ, use the first prophet to make Solomon's temple and watch Judaism spread across the world. I had about 35-45% of the worlds cities believing in Judaism. Everyone except Isabella, Gandhi, and Washington believed in Judaism. Having half the world believing in your religion is a powerful tool. I could pressure any war I wanted.

Given, this was on Noble and so it doesn't matter that much, but the point is... religion can be a powerful boost depending on the game speed. Having an early religion is more important on marathon.

if the empires get large enough the cash bonus can be wonderfull, at one point I had a game going where all but three cities in the world (out of about 50) I was running with 100% sciene and I was still pulling in a wide profit margin.