Silly Prince

(please tell me at what point in the game this turns around...is it a technology, a building, moving to a different age, or what)

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It turns around when you reduce your costs and increase your beakers or gold output. This means building commerce improvements with your workers, building courthouses, libraries, markets, just growing the cities out, etc.

You should never let your slider drop to 0% and get your units disbanded, though. You can expand quickly without that happening if you emphasize commerce in your cities. Also if you're going for a quick expansion strategy (without war) then you should make sure you aren't paying anything in unit costs. You can't afford to pay both extreme city maintenance and unit costs at the same time. Also, don't use high upkeep civics like organized religion, vassalage, or even hereditary rule (only medium I know).

But generally speaking I wouldn't advise a fast expansion strategy. It's best to find a balance. With enough games you'll figure out how quickly you should expand on a given map with a given strategy and then when to go to war to expand again. It sounds like you did much better in the second game.

In a pinch you can also go into anarchy, which prevents armies/workers from disbanding (cities don't build either, but workers do chop and units are not affected). This can be useful if you either have workers building key improvements or you're about to finish a major military campaign....

ohioastronomy said:

In a pinch you can also go into anarchy, which prevents armies/workers from disbanding (cities don't build either, but workers do chop and units are not affected). This can be useful if you either have workers building key improvements or you're about to finish a major military campaign....

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That exploit is banned for GOTM. Read the stickies.

Anarchy isn't banned, just perpetual anarchy .

Renata said:

Currency is a huge tech; it practically doubles your income due to the extra trade routes, and that's even without any markets.

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Huh? At the point you get Currency, you usually only have domestic trade routes, so this is +1 commerce per city. Maybe +2 at most. This isn't anywhere near "double": you need to have a lot more than 2*(number of cities) commerce.

Ainwood said:

(or maybe a Civ4 SGOTM )

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Ok, don’t even be joking about that! I’ve been hoping they would start up a CivIV SGOTM ever since IVOTM came out.

You can't do anarchy forever in GOTM, correct. I was referring to a stopgap usage of it, which is permitted. Basically, get at peace, finish up improvements, disband excess units, shuffle worked tiles, etc. and then get out of a critical gap.

Shillen said:

But generally speaking I wouldn't advise a fast expansion strategy. It's best to find a balance. With enough games you'll figure out how quickly you should expand on a given map with a given strategy and then when to go to war to expand again. It sounds like you did much better in the second game.

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Fast expansion is okay as long as you make sure the next city will cover the cost of expansion either immediately or in a short time. This means you are expanding to terrian that can generate a lot of commence easily and have the worker to make it happen if needed.

Typically, this means water, commence resources and cottages.

Of course, there will always be a time when further expansion is definately a cost to the empire and that is when it should be considered carefully if there is enough future potential and/or strategic purpose to build another city.

Fast expansion is okay as long as you make sure the next city will cover the cost of expansion either immediately or in a short time. This means you are expanding to terrian that can generate a lot of commence easily and have the worker to make it happen if needed.

Typically, this means water, commence resources and cottages.

Of course, there will always be a time when further expansion is definately a cost to the empire and that is when it should be considered carefully if there is enough future potential and/or strategic purpose to build another city.

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I find if you can settle another city and have it cover its cost immediately, then you're not expanding very fast at all. If you expand fast then your cities will not be paying for themselves even with some decent commerce tiles to work. It doesn't take much to drop down to the point where you're at 20% science and losing money. Also I think people put too much stock in the fact that a city will "eventually" pay for itself. I find a great amount of time you're better off keeping a strong economy now than hindering it in order to make a better economy later. Also, a great many people just look at the maintenance cost of that one city and say "hey great, it can pay that off on its own" not realizing or just plain ignoring that the maintenance for all other cities went up as well as civic upkeep.

DaviddesJ said:

Huh? At the point you get Currency, you usually only have domestic trade routes, so this is +1 commerce per city. Maybe +2 at most. This isn't anywhere near "double": you need to have a lot more than 2*(number of cities) commerce.

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It was exaggeration, and a stupid thing to write without qualifications, but in my own defense, I was very tired that day. It depends a lot on the map and one's play style as to how big of a boost currency gives in and of itself. I've never found it to not be noticeable, though.

So is obtaining the currency tech the biggest thing in turning around the financial woes of a growing empire?

It's a start. Beyond its trade route benefit, it also lets you sell tech for cash and resources for per-turn cash, which is sometimes lucrative. Investing in cottages is also vital, though this should have started much earlier. Getting courthouses built is important; so is switching to cheaper civics if that's what's running you into the ground. Also exploration -- you can't get trade routes to civs you don't have a visible road connection or coastal connection to. (Unless they have such a connection to you, but you can't count on that.) And Open Borders. And probably a dozen other things.

You have to do them all; there's no easy cure-all.

denogginizer said:

So is obtaining the currency tech the biggest thing in turning around the financial woes of a growing empire?

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Depending on what kind of map, what kind of strategy, and probably a LOT of other factors...

Yes, it can be. In most Noble games I'm to far ahead to notice the difference, but now that I'm playing Prince (highest level I've had a win on) it can sometimes mean the difference between financial ruin or victory. That being said, in other games it can be useless. It all depends.

Comming back on Prince being 'to hard' because of the AI cheating more. Yea. Sure. But with the AI being as bad as it is in planning anything long term Prince is (for me) the level at which it is 'even'. I'm not saying it can't plan, but at times I scratch my head at the insane things I see (or read on CF) it doing for apperantly no reason. I agree with one of the first posters...

Having a brain is the biggest cheat. ^^

Shillen said:

I find if you can settle another city and have it cover its cost immediately, then you're not expanding very fast at all. If you expand fast then your cities will not be paying for themselves even with some decent commerce tiles to work. It doesn't take much to drop down to the point where you're at 20% science and losing money. Also I think people put too much stock in the fact that a city will "eventually" pay for itself. I find a great amount of time you're better off keeping a strong economy now than hindering it in order to make a better economy later. Also, a great many people just look at the maintenance cost of that one city and say "hey great, it can pay that off on its own" not realizing or just plain ignoring that the maintenance for all other cities went up as well as civic upkeep.

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Well, exactly the point, the common mistake when moving from civ3 to civ4 may be over expansion initially. But next, it could go the other extreme of under-expansion by players artificially restricting themselves to n number of cities. The thing is that there is no magically number for this. If there is a gold mine nearby versus a cow nearby, the city with a gold mine next to it could easiy pay for itself since it generates 8gc++. while the cow may just produce alot of hammers and some food but is unable to generate enough commerence to support itself. And to make it worst, some players expand without a worker support such that even cottages are not build. A inland city with no river, no cottage and no commence resource is simply just a cost to the empire in terms of $$ even if there are several resources like rice, cow, horse etc to it.

Also, note that I use the work immediately or in a short time. Planning for a size 20 city when you have immediate problems surviving is just not right. I wouldn't even try to plan for size 8 when I put down a new city.

And you are right on the maintenance. And to add to that, the maintenance is not just city maintenance, your Civic maintenance increases as well when you have more cities.

solenoozerec said:

@Frendon - Do not worry, our kind and wise GOTM stuff took care of not so strong players (me included) in 3OTM. They devised three different classes, conquest, open and predator, where conquest is being for the new and weak players who never scored in top 50%. This class is giving bonuses to human player (e.g. additional units, money, etc) allowing these players to win on harder levels. There is a score penalty for taking conquest class, but as I understand from your message your are concern with a victory, not the score.
Discussions in 4OTM threads indicate that the stuff is going to implement this concept in 4OTM soon. So when 4OTM difficulty levels will go up (and I hope they will and I hope they will go up a way higher than prince), you will be able to play it and still have a reasonable hope for a victory. However, I do not recommend you taking conquest class frequently. Believe me (there are reasons you should), you will learn much more about this game by loosing on the higher levels than wining on the lower levels.

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Thanks for answering and sorry if I sounded negative there. I know that losing sometimes helps. But losing always doesn't. This conquest sounds like a good system and I would like to see it added. I don't mind high difficulty games, I'll even play above prince if they aren't every game, it just kind of sounds like some people want only high difficulty ones. I will stick around and for several months and give it a chance, but I know some people will just play one and walk away.

I really love what you guys are doing. However my first impressions is that there is an elite class who can just walk all over everyone else in the competitions. I'm not saying that is wrong and you seem more than eager to help us newbs which is great. It just gets discouraging. It is painfully obvious I am not on the same level as you. Some sort of device to level the playing field without penalizing the skilled players would be welcome. It sounds like you have found this in the conquest games you mentioned which is encouraging! Also remember some people are still having difficulty on Settler. Maybe post a settler game along side a prince one and forbid those who play the prince one from competing in the settler game.

I did learn a lot from playing GOTM1 even if I only got a time victory. And I have learned alot from these forums. I will post my results for #2 even if I lose, but I'm sure many people will not. It's part of human nature. People want to win the game even if they don't win the competition.

What I would like to see in addition to the conquest mixed in with the Prince+ games is some Warlord games that force the most skilled players to use strategies other than what they are used to. This would give those of us who do not know the best strategies yet a fighting chance. Even I would find it interesting being past Warlord now to go back and see how the game was changed. Just some ideas off the top of my head that may or may not work:

• A no aggression game. Human players are not allowed to initiate a war or capture any cities (recapturing lost cities is ok).
• Speed game. Bonus points based off how early you win.
• Slowest game. Have to finish as close to 2020 without reaching 2020.

I know I may not be completely clear, but I've been at work for 8 hours, it is 6AM and I am running on mountain dew so I hope you get my point.

PS I've seen mention of the SGOTM games several times, but have not found the definition yet.

Flendon said:

PS I've seen mention of the SGOTM games several times, but have not found the definition yet.

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SGOTM is short for Succession Game Of The Month, and any information you desire can be found in the SGOTM Reference Thread. Please note that these rules currently apply only to the Civ3 SGOTM game, as one has not yet been started for Civ4.

Edit: In case you do not know what an SG is please check the What is a Succession Game thread. Note that these rules are located in the Civ3 Succession Game forums. There are no rules/guidelines located in the Civ4 SG forum.

@Flendon - there is indeed a group of highly skillful players. But do not wary about them, after getting some gold medals, they will go for Eptathlon awards (worrying more about different fastest victory types and not score). After that they will pursue pervasive type of games such a No War, Ancient Age Conquest, One City Challenge, etc.
So hopefully after some time they will clear the top for other players, including you if you will do just one thing: stick around for a while

Until we develop smarter than human artificial intelligence, the only way you will get a decent challenge is by giving the AI bonuses. It's a lot better than in civ 3 when the AI was all-knowing and all-seeing. Playing at noble permanently isn't fun as victory soon becomes a foregone conclusion. The higher difficulty levels is where the fun is at, as you have to play smart to come from behind. A Prince victory is so much more satisfying than a Noble victory.

There are many games that make the AI 'smarter' (read: gives the AI more strategic options or allows the AI more time to discover strategies)

The best example is a simple game like Chessmaster. The computer knows more about chess than you, and will beat you every single time if you let it. The difficulty settings allow the computer more time to think of a move. On the easiest level, the computer only gets time to evaluate about 35 different moves, and takes the best one. On the most challenging (and not actually possible to beat) level, the computer looks at every possible game outcome from every possible move, and chooses the move that gives him the best chances to win, negating anything you might try to do.

Playing against an AI like that is educational, and helps you improve your game. Another example (that is more like Civ) that uses smarter AIs is the Age of Empires franchise. The higher difficulties do not have to give the AIs and advantage, they only open up new strategies for the AI to use and make the AI more agressive. Again, this is an AI that you can learn from when you lose.


I got talked into it. I played the GOTM on Prince. It was not fun. I was completely trounced before 100AD, and the whole time, everytime something negative happened to me, I knew that I'd be doing well if the computer had not been given unfair advantage over me. I knew that every lost unit was one that might have stayed in my army if the dice had not been weighted against me. I learned nothing more than a stronger dislike of what Sid Meier's team passes off as 'difficulty levels', when they are, in fact, handicap settings. Maybe I'd be less agrivated if they actually presented it as a handicap slider, instead of a 'difficulty'.

I love this game, but I can't enjoy playing it like that.

As I said in the opening post:

It's fine to make it more difficult by changing the other settings (like putting many Civs on a very small world) but the actual difficulty slider is pointless, and takes away from the enjoyment of the game.

Indeed on the higher levels AI is not smarter, it is simply given advantages. I wish at some point game developers will design AI that can learn and adapt to a particular human player. But you do not even need such an AI, since you can play against other humans. Or, alternatively, you will not need humans if you have such an AI (this thought makes me trembling )

GOTM is about a competition between human players on beating stupid AI. It reminds me Spanish corrida. But here on higher levels the bull gets bigger, not smarter, just bigger. And you, human, is given less and less tools, so that finally you have to face this bull with only your hands and make this bull to commit suicide.

You do not learn from the bull how to kill him (though observation of his behavior is helpful), you learn from other people how to do this. This is exactly what is happening in GOTM.
Like it or not, this is how it is. Personally I do not want to kill a rabbit with a nuclear bomb in every game if I think I might have a chance against a wolf with a knife. (Independent of a difference between intellectual capabilities of these animals.)

Disclaimer: I love animals and I do not like corrida. This is why I am killing AI. Above example is just an illustration of a point that I am trying to make.