[BNW] Moving up from Prince

tl;dr

I just bought the game and beat it on Prince. I like playing Tall. What do I need to know to play King and above?

Longer

This was my first time playing Civ since CivNet many years ago. I played a standard map as Byzantium on Fractal map, took mostly FPT powers. I started with Tradition, opened Piety (Organized Religion only), Patronage (Scholasticism only early, finished it later), Aesthetics (Cultural Centers early, finished later), Exploration (Louvre only), Rationalism (Secularism only), and Freedom.

I ended up building three cities on the main continent, rushed Philosophy, then rushed Education, then Radio, Scientific Theory, then Internet, then came back for Radar. I was too late on Printing Press to get Pisa.

Never fought a war with the AI the entire game. I kept scouts on their borders and bribed them to fight each other every time I thought they were massing troops. I had 50 FPT pretty early and 100 FPT by the end of the game. Eventually built a 4th city off on an island somewhere that had missing luxs and only city states (all the AI civs were on one large island). I could have easily won a diplomatic victory, all the City states were allied with me by the end of the game, but I had been going for culture from the beginning so I didn't bother to try to bribe anyone for World Leader votes, though with city states I had 34 of 39 needed anyway and probably just needed one civ to vote for me to win that way.

Challenges: I was broke for most of the game, I never had enough specialists to spare to make merchants (trying to keep University and the guilds full always) and also keep my population growing. I was never sure if it was worth it to build Workshops. It seemed way slower to get things built than I read in guides here. Oracle built by turn 65? How?

I have a feeling that reading the high level guides are different than playing on prince, because you can't steal workers from a civ that makes them at the same speed as you (instead of much faster), and the civs have less gold to trade to buy your extra luxs. Stealing techs seemed like a complete waste of time, I left Dynamite behind in the dust on the push to Internet and it would have taken 40 turns to steal from the Chinese and only two turns for me to research myself. Only got three Great Scientists by Industrialization and I switched to bulbing with them. None of my cities were on Fresh water so I never made a Gardens / Hydro Plant etc.

Thanks in advance for all tips / thoughts!

durron597 said:

tl;dr

The civs have less gold to trade to buy your extra luxs. Stealing techs seemed like a complete waste of time.

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1) The AI has, in general, less maintenance and more Gold in the higher levels, so they will indeed have gold to trade for your luxuries

2) If you're playing at the higher levels, there is a very good chance an AI will be the first to reach the renaissance (and giving everyone spies) - free techs just from a ''click-and-forget'' mechanic seems fairly decent to me, especially if you go after their 2nd/3rd biggest cities (as the AI generally only stations a spy to defend in their capital against espionnage).

Also, make liberal use of bribes to make the AI fight amongst each other.

I woudl say that going for Trad and finnish it is a very common and logical choice for any level...
Then, depending of what you want to achieve, I would mostly open only one or two more... especialy if you are going for cultural victory. Opening Esthetic and rishing the 1st 3 policies is a must... THEN ASAP, you open Rationalism... ALL THE TIME! if you are in a peacefull game you might wanna rush the resseach agreament lesxt of the tree... if not, pretty much every thing is extreamly usefull in that tree... you finnish it and then you can buy great scientists...

For science, maybe not on King, but definately on Emp and I assume later, I think you will have to balnce your trees a bit more... still focussing on top one for obvious reasons, you will still want to keep a decent army even in peacefull games to discourage AIs and prevent sneak attacks.

Even if King is highly easy to beat, you also may want to build only (mostly) the wonders you really need according to your strategy (type of victory you are aiming on)
That have been (still is) one of my biggest flaws when I reached Immortal... tending to build everything when its available just because I can negleting getting some buildintgs and units I really need.

as for workshops, cant wait to see other comments, but IMHO, you REALLY need them. They will allow you to cut by A LOT you production time in some cities and allow you to catch up workshops production time (or even buying cost) just a few more building. plus it will allow you to build IronWork (NW) that is an important production addup and multiplier in your capital.

You indeed did something a bit wrong here to be broke in a peacefull prince level game.
did you build all your available trade routes? Did you sell (and negotiate well) all your extra lux and strategic ressouces?
Considering you didnt build workshops, its certainly not vause you built all buildings no matter if you get a benefit or not...

Building cities, even if you want it tall and peacfull is at least 4! maybe even 5! rush 1st 3. Then go for NC before turn 100, then a 4th and maybe a 5th.

oh and BTW, stealing a worker (even 2) to a CS or other civ is ALWAYS good idea. at least not reterning one you saved from barbarians.

hope it helps...
BTW if you do most, not even all of that stuff, you should beat King pretty easily.

Just focus on the right stuff early in the game, and you will be ok.

It is generally considered optimal play to fill out tradition as soon as possible. Any policies you get before renaissance are to be invested into patronage. Once you hit renaissance it's all rationalism until you get an ideology.

Tall with 4 core cities is the way to go.

I played over a thousand hours on king and can tell you a thing or two about my favorite level. The ai gains pottery to begin with, not a big deal but it will probably enable them to found a pantheon before you do. You will need to streamline more for example time NC right before you plop another city. Internal trade routes are also a great way to boost your beakers and look at overall opportunity when picking a spot for your capital and always settle it adjacent to a mountain if possible. Also know that even though you're up a difficulty you can still wonder whore and go for the GL philosophy combo. If there is anything you need some advise with on king there are also plenty of nation-based guys out there but remember king is nothing more than a competitive prince difficulty

poekie70 said:

...for your capital and always settle it adjacent to a mountain if possible...

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Only if it is in otherwise a good spot. Try and not get swayed by observatories at all costs. The +50% only translates to an increase of 25%(in the city with the NC, %33 in all other cities). The maximum buff to science is %200(ideologies aside) and %50 is a quarter of that.

poekie70 said:

...GL philosophy combo...

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Settling 3-4 cities then building the NC pre t80 is much better than a GL/NC combo before t60. Aside from the fact you may loose an excellent spot to the AI science comes from population size.

My tips:
Location is every thing so scout, consider moving your starting settler to see if there may be a better spot. You may want to play without barbarians on for a while whilst yo get the hang of this(assuming you don't already). Ideally you want to settle next to a river/mountain with some hills or some other form of production, especially your capital as you want a garden in there.
Early growth is more important than production, especially in the capital. Although expos may need to stagnate a while whilst they build a library.
Lock tiles. Get into this habit now you won't regret it.
Believe it or not excess food can get translated to hammers when building settlers so trial and error is needed to get the maximum output. The food-> hammer translation isn't linear and there is a thread somewhere that discusses this.
Chopping forestsforest on: hills->chop, plains->chop, tundra->keep, riverside grassland->chop, grassland->you decide.
Chopping junglejungle on: hills->chop, plains->keep, riverside grassland->chop, grassland->you decide, bananas->never chop. Note there is no bonus to food as there is to hammers when you chop forests.
Petra Don't get swayed by this wonder unless there is desert marble/stone/hills/sheep and a lake(or oasis-don't know if farms surrounding that get the civil service buff).

Farms on tiles next to oasis do get the Civil Service bonus.

Some good tips in this thread thanks!

A few takeaways:

you will still want to keep a decent army even in peacefull games to discourage AIs and prevent sneak attacks.

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Early on maybe, but once you have good scouting and a diplomat in your neighbor's capital won't you always know in advance? Then bribe them to fight each other.

For science, maybe not on King, but definately on Emp and I assume later, I think you will have to balnce your trees a bit more... still focussing on top one for obvious reasons, you will still want to keep a decent army even in peacefull games to discourage AIs and prevent sneak attacks.

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So getting the Internet before Railroad was wrong, then?

You indeed did something a bit wrong here to be broke in a peacefull prince level game.
did you build all your available trade routes? Did you sell (and negotiate well) all your extra lux and strategic ressouces?
Considering you didnt build workshops, its certainly not vause you built all buildings no matter if you get a benefit or not...

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Well I wasn't "broke" as much as I was making 10-15 gold per turn, which I often had to trade away for happiness lux or get people to declare war on each other. 10 GPT takes a long time to buy anything useful. Plus a Caravan costs 390 gold and it takes just as long to hard build as a Library... each. So if I get 12 gpt back it would take 30 turns just to pay for itself... Plus several of my sea trade routes were plundered by barbarians and I was always working on more important things like opera houses than wanting to spend time on caravans.

How important is it to build a granary or a workshop in your new cities where it takes like 60 turns to build a granary? Or should I always be building on a hill or plains to get some early hammers?

Chopping forestsforest on: hills->chop, plains->chop, tundra->keep, riverside grassland->chop, grassland->you decide.
Chopping junglejungle on: hills->chop, plains->keep, riverside grassland->chop, grassland->you decide, bananas->never chop. Note there is no bonus to food as there is to hammers when you chop forests.

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This is really helpful. Thanks!

Sorry for intruding but I have a question regarding forest chopping on plains. Isn't 1 food 2 production (3 with Scientific Theory) more useful than 2 food 1 production (3 food with Fertilizer)?
Also about the copping of jungle on hills and non riverside grassland. Isn't 2 Science more useful than 2 food (with Fertilizer) or 2 production?
I am not a very experienced player and I mostly chop as phillipwyllie said, except in the above situations. Which is better and why? I understand that many times it is situational, but for an overall balanced city (decent food and production) what is the better strategy for chopping forest and jungle?

Getting Internet before Radio on King shouldn't be a big deal. Your goal should be to get as much of the science techs on the upper tree without falling behind in military so far that the AI is DOWing you (and overrunning you ).

Imo King is the last difficulty where you can go wonderwhoring, everything above King is just too risky in most cases. Although even on Emperor it is possible to get the GL first by chopping, the tradition bonus and the wonder pantheon.

Guides for Deity are often not really useable on Prince, you are correct there. Try and read more about religions (especially with Tithe) and internal traderoutes, that should solve all your money issues.

You can spam wonders even on immortal with egypt. otherwise it's just easier to take other people's wonders.

^I don't see how you can get internet before radio, unless they've changed the tech tree.

Getting up from prince is just a matter of optimizing the build order if you're a peaceful player. I would recommend finishing tradition asap with maybe piety opener. Workshops are useful not only in the 10% boost but also the fact that you can make ironworks. Unless you're Iroquois....

claudiupb said:

Sorry for intruding but I have a question regarding forest chopping on plains. Isn't 1 food 2 production (3 with Scientific Theory) more useful than 2 food 1 production (3 food with Fertilizer)? ...

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You're right, I've still got deer on the brain. If there is deer on plains chop away otherwise decide what's best.

claudiupb said:

...Also about the copping of jungle on hills and non riverside grassland. Isn't 2 Science more useful than 2 food (with Fertilizer) or 2 production?...

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Unless I've got many hills I'll leave a jungle hill to last. Although 2f2b is nice I prefer to get my food from riverside farms.

Keep something in mind, keeping your cities healthey growing, especialy if you have only 4 or 5, is where most of your incomes, production, science and culture will come from.

so for this, you need to:
1. choose a good spot to found them... hopefully a hill, next to a river, 2 lux ress, with a few good production tiles and good mix of groth tiles. also look for horses, sheeps, deers etc etc etc

2. help them to grow with buidings... for exemple a granary can provide as much as 5 food in the right city. (sometimes more)

3. work your cities. you need AT LEAST 1 worker per city... try to never let your city work an unimprouved tile. Every turn they do, you loose at least one ressource per tile...
make it 2 unimprouved tiles per city, 4 cities, you loose at least 10-12 food-gold-hammer... if you take 50 turns to catch up, it might be 600 food-gold-hammer you just lost.

3. anything that can improve your production and-or food is a must. (stables and forge are exceptions in most cities... unless you can build them at a point where 1-3 hammers mean something)

4. maxing your number of available trade routes asap is close to be a must too. example: 5 trade routes avg 12g is 60 gold!!! plus your 10-15, its 75. Make sure path is clear for them from barbarians. Indeed those have a cost. Dont risk them. If you cant send them to other cities safely, use them as internal trade routes to GROW your cites or increase PRODUCTION. (oh recuring terms here That said, to be able to do that, you need GRANARY and WORKSHOP... (ohhhh those freakin 2 again!!!

Grosso modo, message here is that anything that will help you to later build-buy those important building like opera houses you were taking about is PRIORITY. They might be some exceptions, and moving foward and learning the game will unshadow those exceptions, but if you do that, 90% of the tie you are right... and, playing King, if 90% of your actions and decisions are right, YOU WILL CRUSH THE AI big F***ing time.

Army and Science....

well diplomats and even plain AI attitude will help you to determine if a civ will attack you soon or not... point is that they will take in consideration you vulnerability! Especialy at Emperor and over... but still true before.
That means not enough units, or previous generation units will trigger the AI thirst for blood, almost sure shot!

As for the thech tree developement, I know some poeple will praticaly ignore the bottom one, but I never been succesful at doing that... I prefer to YES focus on top 3. Get the science tech that will help me to go further faster in the tree tech to achieve my goal, but make sure the AI is never to much upfront of me in the bottom tree. ESPECIALY after renaissance.

Happy if it helps...

Sessy said:

You can spam wonders even on immortal with egypt. otherwise it's just easier to take other people's wonders.

^I don't see how you can get internet before radio, unless they've changed the tech tree.

Getting up from prince is just a matter of optimizing the build order if you're a peaceful player. I would recommend finishing tradition asap with maybe piety opener. Workshops are useful not only in the 10% boost but also the fact that you can make ironworks. Unless you're Iroquois....

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It was before RAILROAD, not Radio

So it sounds like from this discussion that King is pretty similar to Prince, but Emperor is where the strategies start to diverge. Does that sound accurate?

I don't really care about what it takes to beat Prince (or King), Prince was easy and King sounds easy. I want to learn about what you really have to do differently when it stops being easy.

same basics for emperor should make you win with a good civ on a good map...
then to beat it with any civ on any map, it need more optimization... im doing that now... starting from the top with Moroco and going all the way down on random maps... Im at Russia now... then I think I will have see pretty much every possible situation and will be ready to attack Immortal effectively.