Hi all:

I've recently switched over to playing on Prince level and have run into a few problems. I was hoping that some of the more seasoned players could provide some advice.

I prefer to warmonger. Cultural wins are OK but I cannot get the hang of that playstyle. Besides, I don't like it that much. The good news for me is that, from what I have read here, is that more aggressive play is needed to win on higher levels.

I mostly play Capac (Incan) because financial is so useful.

I usually go for very early wars if an enemy is near or wait for axemen if the distance is too great.

I can consistently win until the game goes beyond the Medievel era. After that time I run into these problems:

My empire has grown too large and upkeep is killing me. My research stays at 30 - 40% for a long time and the other surviving civs get a large tech lead on me. Furthermore, newly conquered cities have very low levels of production - courthouse can take 40 turns or so to pop.

On the other hand, if I simply raze cities after conquest, I allow neighboring civs, who not at war with me or my rival, a chance to quickly expand their borders - either through expansion of cultural borders to by the placement of settlers.

Furthermore, I suspect that my tech strategy is causing some of my long term problems. I usually go BW, (needed techs for resources such as AH or hunting), writing, CoL, Alphabet, MC, Machinery, CS, Guilds, Gunpowder, Chemistry. The problem is that on of the other civs that are not at war with me (Cyrus is good example) will discover Liberalism around or near this time. My tech and control of resources goes to hell at this point given the cultrual domination this entails and the universities that start popping up everywhere.

So how do I successfully manage my empire so that I can translate my early warmongering success with axes, macemen and catapults into a civ with 60 - 80 research rate without ceding large amounts of territory or resources to rivals?

Without knowing the specific game, here are some ideas:

• Keep fewer cities. Before you take a city, evaluate its fat cross, just like you'd evalute placing your own cities. The AI is not usually that great at picking optimal spots. Raze what isn't great, keep only the prime cities. It's easier to raze if there isn't another civ ready to swoop in an plant a city ... so try to capture and raze in a way that will prevent easy grabbings by the other civs.

• Don't get too down on yourself for having to reduce the science slider. I've had games where I spend my early-mid war period with science down to 10%, but once I've rebuilt my infrastructure, I can once again become a tech leader.

• Use chops to help build courthouses.

• Get rid of low-level military units after the war is over to keep upkeep costs low during peacetime.

Your thread is incorrectly titled. You're doing fine at warmongering; what you need help with is your economy and, by extension, your research.

I addition to using chops to build courthouses, you should also consider using slavery--for all builds, in fact. Especially during the war, it's very handy to just whip away any unhappy citizens remaining after the city emerges from revolt to get a courthouse done. Or if the courthouse is too expensive, learn how to whip citizens into overflow to help build it.

I didn't notice a mention of Currency among your targeted techs. I place a high priority on getting it shortly after my first conquest so that I can build Markets. Cottage spam is great, but it really needs the commerce multipliers to take off.

If city maintenance is a problem, get the Forbidden Palace built ASAP and consider moving your capital.

I'm usually the first one to Liberalism; the AI places a lower priority on its pre-requisite techs, so if you're getting beaten to it on Prince level, you are indeed falling way behind. I'll usually research it before some of the other techs you mentioned such as Gunpowder, Chemistry, and even Guilds. Remember that Education's Universities will help you research all those techs much faster. In addition, because the AI often delays researching things like Paper and Education, they're useful and valuable for tech trades in mid-game. (Just wait until AFTER you've won the liberalism race before trading them.)

Are you specializing your cities? Are you prioritizing building the Great Library in your science city, capturing a holy city for its shrine income, and so on? Generating Great Scientists with the help of the GL is a key part of my own strategy in most games; I usually pop the first one for Philosophy (a pre-req on the Liberalism race), use the 2nd for the science city's Academy, and settle the rest in that city. The science city often de-prioritizes production, so the GS' extra hammer is as helpful as his flasks.

To expand on Sisutil's post, I'd recommend using the whip for several buildings in a newly-captured city. In no particular order: Theater (to pop boundaries and fight cultural pressure), Courthouse (to cut costs), and Granary (to recover from all the whipping, among other things). If any are too expensive, you can whip cheaper buildings you may want anyway (e.g. Barracks), and put the overflow hammers onto your expensive building.

Note that reducing the population through whipping will also cut your civic costs, so you win in more than one way. When you've captured mid-to-late-game cities (10+ in size after capture), that population is going to starve soon anyway, so you might as well get a couple of buildings out of 'em.

as a prince player stepping up to monarch, I've been facing similar challenges. In my most recent game I pushed the early war as far as I dared and found that even though my units went on strike and I lost 3 swordsmen due to upkeep costs before I finally got out of the red, the "capture, chill, focus and build" strategy worked in the end.

basically I did this -
-ended the war I was in after capturing too many cities to support.
-set my workers to build cottages EVERYWHERE (I had neglected this in favor of a more production oriented farms and mines system).
-set EVERY city square available to a cottage EVEN THOUGH it meant that 2 cities went into starving.
-wait.

after 10 turns or so, my units were off strike and I was 1 or 2 golds into the green. another 10 turns or so and more cottages were built and growing and I could start stepping the slider back up. got to CoL and chopped or pop-rushed courthouses in EVERY city and all of a sudden, everything was fine again.
I was still 5 or 6 techs behind the leader but the point was twofold:
1) I was once again researching and
2) I had MORE cities to do it with.
the courthouses allowed the FP to be built which added another nice little economic boost and allowed me to once again begin slowly building back a decent military for the next rush.

Everything is said above.
Most important IMHO are those 3 points:
- keep only the best cities
- tech to currency : CoL is good, but you need to pay for those units, and a courthouse is not paying anything, it just reduces maintenance. Good for faraway cities, but not leveraging your financial trait. Markets give you more cash than what you could think. 4 cottages, =1 for free ;) For a financial civ, that's 3 Gpt minimum. How many cities do you have with more than 6 gpt maintenance? + this way if, you build the markets in your best cities, they pay for other cities.
- cottages! you're financial! You need those river cottages everywhere!

Just won my first Monarch domination game. This may sound like strange advice but I'd recommend skipping Prince - I faffed around with it for too long. Noble is great for getting used to the mechanics etc. At Monarch you are forced into doing some of the right things cos you die quickly and horribly otherwise! Though I'm sure some of the Emperor/Immortal studs will be along in a mo to say the same about Monarch...

I played Caesar - first time I've really taken a non-financial for a spin. Praetorians are awesome - my algorithm was: build worker/settler/barracks in city one, worker/barracks in city two, research BW/IW and start whipping/chopping out praetorians (adding a granary in due course once I'd back tracked for agriculture). Wait till pop gets to 4 then whip back to 2 again. One praet each to guard cities, I like to have a unit on "homeland security" as well i.e. to roam around protecting my iron source etc from incoming barbs. Stack of 6 praets is more than enough to invade with.

Took Alex all the way out very fast, bribed Asoka to beat up Monty while I took Victoria out. I was behind in tech for some time but having taken my pick of two other civs' best bits was enough to boost me back out ahead. I research Drama virtually as soon as I can (non-creative civ - theaters are a great first build in captured cities), then go guilds (for knights) - gunpowder - chemistry - steel (the AI seems to avoid chemistry and go for rifles instead: but grenadiers get +50% against rifles and being the first with cannons is a Good Plan). Won in the 1700s with 30,000+ points. Had a great GP farm, two great prod cities and lots of good commerce. A high point was capturing one city (victoria's) with the pyramids, the parthenon and stonehenge all together!

Wrt the OP: courthouses, marketplaces are crucial (I also like to get banking as soon as I reasonably can and build banks everywhere: every city gets CH, MP, bank and forge). Don't sweat being behind in techs for a while and do research techs the AI doesn't so you can trade for those you lack. Never trade away military techs and try to trade the same tech to multiple civs in the same turn. HTH.

Oh and just before declaring on someone demand some gold from them if you need some. You'd be surprised how often they give you some, and since you're about to eat them for lunch it doesn't really matter if you upset them.