I keep failing in my transition from Noble to Prince. It's incredibly frustrating not only because the difficulty goes up, but also because it takes away many fun aspects of the game. I'm constantly behind on techs, my empire starts tanking at 4-5 cities, and no amount of cottage spamming can help me catch up. A related irritance is the complete infeasibility of early war, as I can barely afford to pay for my own cities, much less trying to take over others' cities. Should I cottage spam like a maniac, I am so low on production that a warlike AI runs me over in no time flat. Even if I get a head start on a tech and start making the wonder associated with the tech, I often can't complete it. The only way to remain economically feasible is to agressively milk a religious shrine in the early game. Overall, I find it incredibly unsatisfying, and it's making me lose my interest in Civ. I'd stick with Noble difficulty, but I find myself with an insurmountable lead about halfway through the game and the rest is just a relatively boring slide into victory. So what am I supposed to do? Even the AI set to agressive and additional AI civs (creating more cramped spaces and more conflict) don't seem to do the trick. What would you suggest?

how well do u feel u abuse:
slavery, are u looking to whip as often as practicable? do u understand how how many pop each early unit/building takes to whip? do u reorganize ur worked tiles between/after whipping?

cottages, are u working hard to develop atleast ur capital w/ cottages. do u overlap cities so they can help ur capital prework cottages.

research, are u researching things that u dont need. techs u might not need: agriculture, archery, horseback riding, mysticism, priesthood, polytheism, fishing, sailing, hunting.

expansion, in general # of cities is tied to when u attack. if ur not gna build any settlers u want to be conquering stuff ~3000 BC. if u build 2 extra cities, maybe 700 BC, if u build 4 extra cities maybe 1 AD. or what have u. also dont build cities that are low on food, unless they grab multiple resources or copper/iron. slavery/cottages both work on the concept of food, and its all u really need early.

improvements, mine the hills, cottage everything else, except the special resources.

buildings, only build the ones u really need. a trait of all good strategic play is not doing things that u dont absolutely need. most ppl just spam buildings based on availability, this is inefficient and seriously cuts into ur early army.

For one game, try playing as Capac and rush Meditation, and make sure you get stonehenge (Capac is industrious, some advantage). Once you get your first Great Prophet, build the Buddhist Shrine, and, like you said, milk it for all it's worth. I found that Capac was a very good transition leader (and very strong leader in any case :)).

All I would advice is don't give up. Instead of refusing to play Prince because you're not good enough (yet) just means you will get less out of the game. You should definitely try to heed the advice of others on these forums like yavoon and read around, hopefully to learn some new strategies. I agree that dominating on noble is not at all fun. The fun part of the game is to challenge yourself when faced with once before insurmountable handicaps. So just keep at it, and try to have fun ;).

I struggled to make the bump up to Prince at first. I dropped back down to Noble and focussed on managing a few things better, especially specialization, slavery and war-mongering.

The other thing is to be more aggressive, either militarily or strategically (or both). Don't be wishy-washy about what you want to do. Even if going for a 'peaceful' win (e.g. culture or diplomacy), follow that path with focus and use your long term goals to guide all your decision making.

Finally, learn from others. There are some great guides in the strategy section. More importantly, there are some really good played-through games by the likes of Sisiutil (the ALC games), aelf (the Emperor's Challenges) and others that can really teach you a lot about the game and the various strategies.

It sounds to me like you're building cities too fast, without letting their population grow. Trade routes can be more important than cottages.

Also, you can't do it all. I wouldn't try to build wonders, found religions, spam cities, AND go to war all at the same time. In fact, I wouldn't even do so much as two at the same time. You have to pick the things you want carefully. As the difficulties go up, you have to pick ONE wonder (maybe two if you're industrious, or lucky), if at all.

Also, when warmongering... you simply can't take all the cities. You have to learn to raze the costly ones.

Also, this thread might help you improve your strategic thinking: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181733

I'm playing at prince now and having a pretty easy time of it. Here is what I do.

Usually settle in place, buy I may redraw the map until I see a start I like. But most starting locations are good anyway.

Look at my starting terrain and decide which tiles I will work first. My goal is to improve 1-2 tiles that will give me the most food. Then see which techs I will need to work them. Build a worker first, while I am developing those techs. Get bronze working next, so that I can mine, chop and get slavery. But, I'm not good at slavery yet. I think you need to hold off on the whip until you know your cities will be happy after the whip cracks.

After the worker is out, build 1-2 units while the city grows to 2. Then, build the second settler and use a warrior to cover the approach to the second city spot.

Continue to build up from there until I have 4 or 5 cites and my tech rate goes down to 50-60%.

Meanwhile afte bronze, I get pottery and writing for a library. Build that in the capital and then put up 1-2 scientists as specialists. By now your pop should be 5-6 so you should be able to handle 2 scientists. This will get you going towards a great scientist which you set to build your academy.

If you are growing good then happiness may start to be a problem so I go for monarchy next after writing. After the king comes, do something to decreas your costs; ie, code of laws and courthouses.

All the while, make sure you are making enough units so that you can defend yourself. Make them in your secondary cities. Barracks are optional and probably a luxury at this point. Since you got bronze working so early, then you should have no problem hooking up bronze and making a good force of axemen. If not, then you need to pick up archery before too long. I think the barbs start coming around 1500BC, you need troops better than warrioirs by then.

Thats how I do it. Priorities are food, more cities, science in capital with defense from second cities, happiness, lower costs in that order. That should get you off to a good start.

Keep at it -- don't give up! When I made jump to Prince it took me 17 tries to attain victory (no kidding). And it seems you're on the right track (reading the forums). There are some great, experienced players on here. Good luck!

I've sucessfully made the jump ONCE for a time victory. Prince still dogs me, though I'm not having a difficulty with early war. Usually I have two sucessful axe and sword campaigns. They're just never enough to destroy a Civ, only enough to weaken it to two non-capital cities.

It's the post war period I have a problem with. I end up having to destroy military units to prevent or end a strike, get far behind in science. By the time I finally have courthouses built where they should be, my neighbors get itchy trigger fingers and swarm me with Knights (while I'm still dealing with archer/sword/spears), knocking me out of the game.

Yes read the forums. Read on Succession games. You can learn a lot from them since they usually involve experienced players. If you have a neighbour nearby, axe rush! Provided you have metal (copper or iron). I found Prince to be too easy really. Almost guaranteed a victory each time.

EDIT: One of the most important things concerning the tech race. At the beginning research what you need for resources, Bronze Working is almost always a priority but not necessarily the first tech you should try and reach. After that, try to monopolize Alphabet for awhile so you can trade while others cannot as AI tends to stay away from Alphabet for a long time. If you research BW and find no copper in your immediate area near your borders, research Iron Working and you'll probably have iron, if you don't you probably have either horses or elephants. After that, research techs AI doesn't usually research, try to stay away from researching techs the AI research such as (Mid-Game: Guilds, Feudalism, Civil Service, Mathematics, Calendar) and research less AI researched techs like Machinery, Metal Casting, Literature, Drama, Engineering, Banking... etc etc.

Why not start a game thread with screenshots and saved games, asking for advice every few turns? I've learned a lot from doing that, and posters on the board love playing armchair quarterback. Even though you may get some contradictory advice, you can learn a lot from how experienced and successful players think.

Every new level since Noble has kicked my sorry butt during the first few attempts. Then I gradually adjust the way I'm playing the game and eventually become more successful.

Patience, grasshopper. ;)

Yeah, there's such a HUGE wealth of knowledge on these forums. It can actually be very fun to discuss and learn. Read other peoples' Game Reports. Often, it's the first 100 turns or so that you really need to step your game up.

This is exactly how I feel about monarch. I have beat Prince many many times but every attempt at monarch leads to me either

A) Failing in every possible way.
B) Having the AI declare war on me as I cannot build enough to keep up in tech AND military at the same time.

You know one thing thats helped me when I lept into prince games? Slowing down or taking a walk around/snack/deep breath when something gawd awfull happens. As I have a very annoying tendancy to start to play the game like its a real time strat game when Im in the middle of a pitched war. Which doesn't help me at all believe it or not.

And I still do it despite my knowing about it. But at least I catch myself doing it now and can force myself to, once again, think farther ahead than just omg omg Oliphants at the gates lets run my spears 8 tiles over to defend!



:cool:

I did manage to beat Prince last night with a space race victory as the Vikings, but it did take a lot of cottage spamming to achieve my goal and a breakneck catch-up game towards the end. Very tough. I think I'm starting to get a grasp on things, but I'm still having some difficulty with proper expansion throughout the game. Obviously, over-expansion really hurts. But if I can't go out and conquer, how do I hinder rival civs that are otherwise going to outpace me? Even just going around razing cities costs me lots in unit support costs alone.

I did manage to beat Prince last night with a space race victory as the Vikings, but it did take a lot of cottage spamming to achieve my goal and a breakneck catch-up game towards the end. Very tough. I think I'm starting to get a grasp on things, but I'm still having some difficulty with proper expansion throughout the game. Obviously, over-expansion really hurts. But if I can't go out and conquer, how do I hinder rival civs that are otherwise going to outpace me? Even just going around razing cities costs me lots in unit support costs alone.

Pillage! A simple three-unit stack (Axe, Spear, Chariot) can pillage with near impunity, especially if you never leave them on a tile next to a city. Pillage roads too--not only will it slow your enemy's recovery, it makes it harder for him to attack the pillagers. The gold from pillaging will pretty much pay for the units' maintenance costs.
Stifle! If you fortify a unit on a good defensive tile in a city's fat cross, the AI will not send workers out to restore the tile improvements you've pillaged. And the AI will waste units trying to dislodge your parked one. Ideally, the stifling tile should be a forest or jungle hill in the fat cross' second ring (i.e. within the fat cross but not adjacent to the city), and the stifling unit should be a melee unit with Woodsman and/or Guerilla promotions.
Ally! Get other civs to attack your enemy, stop trading with them, etc. Bribe them with gold and/or techs, get them to convert to a different religion, change to their favourite civic, do whatever you have to do.
Use religion! Spread a religion to your enemy civ, or to their neighbours, so that one of them converts (you can bribe them to do this, or if you get there early enough to spread the religion to most of their cities before any other, they'll do so on their own). Once they have different religions, watch the tension mount.
Trade! Trade a happiness or health resource, even several, to your enemy. Let a few turns go by (minimum of 10 is required)--watch, if you can, for the size of their cities to increase. Now cancel the trade. With luck, this will hit some of their cities with a health or happiness penalty.
Trade some more! This is a nasty one and borders on an exploit, but then again, so does taking advantage of the slavery rounding error, and I have no qualms about using either. If your enemy has some gold per turn to trade, gift them 2 gpt. Check to see if the gpt they'll offer you goes up; if it does, keep gifting them 2 gpt until the amount they'll offer stops rising. Now offer them a resource for all their gpt. They'll accept. Keep repeating this until you have no more resources to offer them. After 10 turns, cancel your gpt gifts, but leave the resource for gold trade in place. You get extra gold for the cost of a break-even trade for 10 turns, while the AI will now likely be running at a deficit and have to lower its science slider. And you probably earned a fair-trade diplomacy point from them. That sound you hear is the spirit of Niccolo Machiavelli slapping you on the back.
Change civics! Later in the game, be the first to discover Democracy, then change to the Emancipation civic, which gives all civs without it an unhappiness penalty that grows over time. This one may involve some careful planning on your part, as you're giving up the very powerful Slavery civic. This works best on civs for whom neither Universal Suffrage nor Emancipation are favoured civics (so not the Americans, the Indians, or Frederick of Germany), as they'll make Democracy a lower priority tech.

I'm in the same position as the OP - but for me it's the jump to Monarch ;) :D

You'll get there, just keep reading the strategy section and playing.

I'm in the same position as the OP - but for me it's the jump to Monarch ;) :D

I'm still hit or miss on Monarch.

I did manage to beat Prince last night with a space race victory as the Vikings, but it did take a lot of cottage spamming to achieve my goal and a breakneck catch-up game towards the end. Very tough. I think I'm starting to get a grasp on things, but I'm still having some difficulty with proper expansion throughout the game. Obviously, over-expansion really hurts. But if I can't go out and conquer, how do I hinder rival civs that are otherwise going to outpace me? Even just going around razing cities costs me lots in unit support costs alone.

Congrats! All the advice Sisiutil gave you is great. I found that managing expansion, especially expansion through war, to be the main challenge of the game.

I like my wars to be short and furious. If you prepare properly, you can usually manage that. Build enough units, especially siege, and take 3-5 cities at a time, in 20 turns or so. On a standard map, that's usually about half of a Civ. Declare peace, and get as much gold and/or techs as you can in the deal. Pause for digestion - build some courthouses, etc. to deal with the expansion, get your city maintenance under control. Then declare war and take the next batch of cities, and finish them off. You should absorb at least one Civ in this manner, I usually take at least two. At this point, you are probably in the driver's seat tech-wise and power-wise. If there is a Civ that by some miracle is still competing with you in tech (like a Mansu Musa), then you can crush him (take or raze his cities) or cripple him (pillage) at will.

The advantage of this approach is you minimize war weariness (and the accompanying hit to your economy), you never try to digest too many new cities at a time, and you reduce the amount of time you are vulnerable to other Civ's declaring war on you. You are also able to maintain a good tech rate more easily. One of the downsides: You get more diplo penalties for "You declared war on our friend.", since you aren't taking all of a Civ's cities in one bite.

You can pretty much choose whether you want a domination, conquest or diplo win at this point. Cultural is something that usually requires a different kind of game plan.

Read the threads in the succession game forum, you will learn a lot of how other people play.

Play as the Zulus and you will find that war is a lot easier than with other civs!

You can notch up the difficulty of Noble games by adding aggressive AI and rampaging barbarians.

^ ^ You should do this. Play a few games on noble with agressive AI, raging barbs, no tech trading and permanent alliances. All these settings make the game harder, so once you can complete noble with them all on, then you should be ready for the step up to prince.

(Obviously you've got to disallow yourself from making permanant alliances, just use it so you've got strong late game opponents).

to train yourself, you can play a semi-prince difficulty. turn off tech trading, play epic or marathon speed. also you can play with max # of opponents allowed - this stops you from over expanding, and forces you to tackle warfare sooner, something you have learn for higher difficulties. don't get sidetracked by extreme tactics like cottage spamming or tech slingshots, they aren't even necessary on monarch. keep your production up and build your army instead of concentrating on wonders. conduct your wars wisely to preserve your army while killing theirs. i win 9 out of 10 monarch games just by playing a balanced style, and with any civ. so try my advice with the semi-prince difficulty and you'll soon be able to move onto prince

to train yourself, you can play a semi-prince difficulty. turn off tech trading, play epic or marathon speed. also you can play with max # of opponents allowed - this stops you from over expanding, and forces you to tackle warfare sooner, something you have learn for higher difficulties. don't get sidetracked by extreme tactics like cottage spamming or tech slingshots, they aren't even necessary on monarch. keep your production up and build your army instead of concentrating on wonders. conduct your wars wisely to preserve your army while killing theirs. i win 9 out of 10 monarch games just by playing a balanced style, and with any civ. so try my advice with the semi-prince difficulty and you'll soon be able to move onto prince

epic/marathon makes the game easier.

I already play on epic, normal goes too quickly and makes lots of modern-ish units obsolete too quickly for real use. I beat Prince again last night with a diplomatic victory as the Celts (god their UU and UB suck, but spiritual and charismatic are great traits). I think I'm getting the hang of it. For me, it's getting to be about being more careful in how I plan and prosecute my game as well as making sure to build up enough economic infrastructure (in Noble, I could afford to go for food and production first and then build up my economy later. Not so in Prince).

I already play on epic, normal goes too quickly and makes lots of modern-ish units obsolete too quickly for real use. I beat Prince again last night with a diplomatic victory as the Celts (god their UU and UB suck, but spiritual and charismatic are great traits). I think I'm getting the hang of it. For me, it's getting to be about being more careful in how I plan and prosecute my game as well as making sure to build up enough economic infrastructure (in Noble, I could afford to go for food and production first and then build up my economy later. Not so in Prince).

When you get to higher levels you need to balance growth/production/income so that you can maintain a good research rate but have enough production for building units and city improvements.

You can also use slavery to whip out units when needed. This becomes necessary when you reach Monarch. You just won't have enough units if you don't make use of the whip in the early game.

With my first three cities I like to have one really good production center and a good commerce center. The third can be a either one or a hybrid of the two. The forth city can either be built or captured if you have a close enough rival.

epic/marathon makes the game easier.

uhh yeah that was my point, to make his prince difficulty easier

uhh yeah that was my point, to make his prince difficulty easier
That's a good point. My two wins out of a dozen attempts at Monarch have been at Epic speed.

But keep in mind that slower game speeds tend to favour warmongers more than builders. The main advantage of Epic or Marathon is that it extends the useable lifespan of the various military units. When I've tried to focus on building on those speeds, I get impatient with the more expensive techs and buildings.

I actually like playing on normal speed. It's makes playing on Emperor slightly more challenging when you're not quite ready for Immortal. You still get to use a lot of same unit just not for as many turns.

In a game as Romans, Praetorians will work for long enough to defeat two or more rivals if you're efficient enough in your conquest. Having your workers building road networks is essential to getting your troops around. You also want to get Engineering early on for Trebuchets and increase speed on roads.