First full game on Prince setting

[joehempel]

Yeah, I'm not ready for anything higher, LOL.

I started as Japan because..well...I just finished the Oda Clan in Shogun II, so why not?

My question is, how early do you guys start attacking or implementing your strategy?

I'm on turn 185 or something. I went to war against the Iriquois at the request of Persia, and took the city, and now have the Great Wall. So I've got 5 cities, and a decent amount of iron and horse coming in. Got a couple groups of Samurai, and a catapult or two, with some crossbow-men. As I was exploring the sea, my Open Borders pact with Jin ran out, and now I have two ships stuck, so I may have to declare war on them to get my units back.

I'm trying to win via Culture or Science, but every time I try to build a wonder to get increased culture someone always..ALWAYS gets to it like 5 turns ahead of me.

I've also noticed that Persia is expanding fast...lightning fast! To the point where I almost decided to declare war to raze a couple of his cities and then go for another peace treaty.

Anyway, I'm hoping that I can just get rid of Jin in the next 50 turns or whatever just to get my extra units back...a catapult and swordsman LOL.

 

[joehempel]

Well that sucked....I got crushed. I just decided to go about my business and North China attacked....they had the best army, I had one of the worst....holy suck batman.

 

[Revoran]

I'm confused - Jin are only in the Mongol Scenario, Japan aren't in that scenario nor are Persia or the Iroquois.

 

[joehempel]

Is not a scenario. Its a new game I started. And played as Japan. Till I got my butt kicked lol.

 

[Babri]

I'm trying to win via Culture or Science, but every time I try to build a wonder to get increased culture someone always..ALWAYS gets to it like 5 turns ahead of me.

You should aim for Domination as Japan because of their UA & UUs. If you want to achieve Science or Culture, then try Babylon or India respectively.

 

[snarzberry]

You're doing what all new players to the game should do. Just muck around on Prince level learning the game. On that level you're not under the pump to play optimally in any area of the game. You can just advance through the eras without a specific set of goals or much of a grand strategy in mind and still turn it into a win in the late game. This is how you learn the systems, so just keep doing it until you feel like you know the game. Then step it up levels until you can see what you're doing isn't focused enough and you're losing. That's when you really start to fine tune your game and work out where you're doing wasteful things that aren't contributing to your current plan.

If you're Japan then there's really no superior early game strategy than taking out a neighbor or two with a samurai rush, on levels like prince and king it's possible to keep that rush rolling and win the entire game on a pangaea map. Taking out the two most suitable nearby civs will leave you with their cities and lots of land to expand into should you choose. You could turn the game into any win you like after you completed the rush.

To rush samurais use Meritocracy for a Great Scientist/Library and a couple of RA's to get Steel, or if you don't want to block techs or don't know how to then the National College alone and a focused tech path will get you there soon enough for your samurai to do the damage. Stay at one city if you have iron, two if you don't. On prince no one will be able to stand against your samurai if you get them out even medium-early.

 

[joehempel]

So you are saying I shouldn't take my time getting the tech tree going for primarily steel before going for other techs?

 

[snarzberry]

Yeah that's a strong early game option for Japan. So with your initial warrior and a scout you look around and find what other civs are nearby. Then you decide which one is your target based on civ specific traits/units, wonders they might have built, terrain, proximity and resources.

Tech something like Pottery, Resource-tech, Writing, Philosophy(If you want to do RA's, if not then start on the Mining, Bronze, Iron line).

Build something like scout, worker, (rush-buy library) National College. Or you could steal a worker if it's on and build a granary instead.

After you have the NC build you could beeline steel and during that time build three more warriors to add to your initial one which will all get upgraded asap to samurai. If you decided to use RA's then sign two of them if you can after Philosophy is finished and that will take care of Metal Casting and Steel. Now you can focus your real research on universities or something else important. If you didn't use RA's just natural research beeline to Steel will work fine on prince.

With 4 samurai that early in the game taking out a civ or two is pretty easy.

 

[snarzberry]

Obv after Iron is revealed on the map you'll have to work out how to source it if it's not in your city radius. The options are settle on it, trade for it or ally with a city-state for it.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Obv after Iron is revealed on the map you'll have to work out how to source it if it's not in your city radius. The options are settle on it, trade for it or ally with a city-state for it.

Or, if you have a really annoying civ nearby...

 

[PRCouture]

A warlike Japan, i'd imagine would be a lot of fun.
I play very aggressively&warlike as the Romans during the Classical Age, and i've stomped every civ to the ground at one point in my games.

One exception though--- The Japanese controlled about 3/4 of this large formation that spread out to the ocean, and i was in his way of conquest. Quite possibly the hardest civ i've ever been to war with, when i JUST got a formidable army of Legionnaires and Ballista, he already had several samurai. he was a teched mofo; And i lost more infantry than i've ever lost in any other game combined. He was truly a honorable opponent. he used every strategic asset he could against me, not only that but his ENTIRE nation was mountainous, it was hell to cross and with the catapults against me i should have been defeated. But, eventually my persistence dragged on and i came to victory... noticing it was then the year 1500 and i was stil in the Medieval Era... fail

 

[joehempel]

Obv after Iron is revealed on the map you'll have to work out how to source it if it's not in your city radius. The options are settle on it, trade for it or ally with a city-state for it.

How do I find that? I saw that it was available on the map, but didn't know how to see it.

 

[snarzberry]

How do I find that? I saw that it was available on the map, but didn't know how to see it.

Each samurai you build or upgrade requires that you have access to 1 iron resource. So if you have a 6 iron mine in your city radius then after you've built the mine with a worker you have the ability to build up to 6 samurai's or other units that require iron, like catapults.

One of the big things in this game for early warfare, maybe the big thing, is access to iron. If you don't have it you can't build any of the strong units like longswordsmen. So if you have a source of it inside your borders then nice, just mine it and make your samurais. If you don't then use one of the other methods outlined above.

 

[Unhappy Ood]

Hi

This might give you some ideas [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tbCgX0N6Cg

I also found it useful to use Ctrl+R to Show Resources Icons

 

[Teperi Blaze]

This is almost always happening to me, as Caesar or Oda, my iron are miles away.

NEVER EVER got iron in first or second city.

So there is the start-bias save, you might be luckier.

 

[joehempel]

I also found it useful to use Ctrl+R to Show Resources Icons

Ahh....that's what I was looking for!

Thanks!