Isikien attempts Prince #1 (complete with video commentary)

[Isikien]

Yes, for those who saw it, I finally figured out the kinks out of my computer, buckled down and recorded myself playing Prince. The results plus commentary are thus here

http://www.youtube.com/user/Isikien#play/user/8DB0075238C344F8

The idea of this game is... I NEED YOUR HELP. Prince is a new venture for me, so I don't know how different I should be playing from Prince.

I will attach the save if people want a closer look at my game

To answer some questions ahead of time:

1: Yes I got progressively more drunk as the game progressed
2: Yes I'm aware of some really stupid mistakes I made (via annotations)

Remember this is also for the purpose of entertainment as well. I made this videos because all we have to answer for in terms of media are the MeInTeam's brilliant walkthroughs (which you should check out by the way as well, since he also gives a better idea of how to play the game especially on higher levels). Check his signature for that if you want the link, and believe me, you'll find him in every thread so that wont be a problem.

Back to my playthrough, each time I reach a juncture, I will ask for your advice (drunkenly it seems inevitable). It's only 75 BC and I already hit a stepping stone, which you'll be sure to see.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Forum side comments:

-Every thread huh....
-The cow tile is by far your best and should be prioritized in research...workboats after
-Shaka is probably the worst person to see in a game...close or far
-Mansa has the highest trade cap in the game (20), so is the LEAST stingy w/ tech
-The gold city was a little food poor to settle early. That said...believe me, I know how hard it is to think these things through while recording! Anyway you'll want to farm rather than mine to work the gold tiles, which have a good enough early turnaround to justify doing so.
-Granaries are priority buildings in cities, the #1 infra investment in the game and the only one that goes in every city. Growing onto improved tiles is important!
-Most any prince AI is vulnerable to warrior rushes, actually!
-Sully, mansa, and augustus all don't declare @ pleased!
-Although blocking helps try to settle cities in an order that lets you work their special tiles shortly after settling, too.
-I'd probably attack sully since you're there anyway now. Cut the iron ASAP then take the holy city. Reinforce and look @ the capitol, if it looks tough then call cease fire there, let him shuffle troops, then take it with more troops. The worry is not construction, but rather feudalism...before that all he has is archers if you cut the iron.

 

[miked1991]

I'm gonna watch this and jot down my thoughts as I go, so I'll probably end up giving you far too much detail to cope with! Anyway, I'm a Monarch player so nothing special but Prince is far too easy for me now (Funnily enough I found the jump from Noble to Prince very easy, but the jump from Prince to Monarch very hard! I couldn't feel much of a differance moving up to Prince, its funny how some people get caught at differant levels!)

Starting to watch now, I'll just post either when I stop or at a suitable point.

 

[miked1991]

Starting off I thought Alex is a decent leader to land, and the start is very nice. 3 Clams and a Cow thats +8 food so you can easily support a couple of early scientists from your libriary with that and still keep good production. A good way to make use of the Philosophical bonus and you've got the hammers and tree's to get the Great Libriary for even more scientists Bulbing to Liberalism shouldn't be difficult!

First "mistake" I thought was the worker. He's doing nothing until you get the techs in and I'm betting he'll be standing around for a few turns at some point or another early on. I'd be doing at least 1 work boat to start with, you even start with fishing Big key is your city will grow whilst you build it so more production for when you finally make that worker. I'd start with the work boat, making sure to work the hammer heaviest tile as you build. Once its done, switch to working the upgraded clam tile and make another boat. The city will hit size 2 maybe 3 before its done and then you can do the worker with 2 upgraded clams already in place, to seriously speed up its production. In that time you'll have mining and AH (good choices) and will be well on the way to Bronze Working when you get that worker (all but 2 of your land tiles required BW to upgrade, so the workers fairly useless until you get it!).

After you teched Mining and AH, you chose to go for The Wheel instead of BW. Roads would only have connected up those cows for you, plus one health. Check out the city screen at this stage and you'll see you hit the happiness cap before the health cap, so at this point you gain nothing from roads besides a bit of movement. I'd only get the wheel that early if I'd revealed horses and needed to connect them up. Meanwhile BW will give you the abilty to improve every tile around the city (mine up those hills for the hammers).

Tip with your first settler. Grow your city to size a bit more before you start building it. Your cities at size 2, so the production of it will be very slow. A bit of a follow on from neglecting the work boats early on. Nevertheless, you have 3 improved tiles at this point, all good ones to work so getting the city to at least size 3 would be best. Personally I don't like to build a settler unless I'm right up against the happiness cap.

Third settler built whilst you still only have one worker. As a general rule, one worker per city. I would have Pottery researched after Mysticism and be cottaging up the land around that second city.

Seeing Ceaser that close, a couple of points there. Firstly, a lesson in exploring around your starting position better. You've seen a lot to the south and north but didn't go east at all for a long time. You had 3 cities before seeing that land... you could have explored it to find 2 great city spots that you could have taken straight away. At the start, exploring in rings around your capitol. Second point, notice he has the Great Wall (very obvious on the map). That means all the barbs are going to come at you so you need plenty of units, something your lacking a bit at the moment. Also as you mention he gets the Praets, so you want a good power rating to try to prevent him declaring and using those Praets against you. I'd put my espionage into him now as he's going to be the main problem for some time now. Finally, had you seen him earlier you might have been able to rush him Pre-Praets and completely avoided that problem.

I'll stop there for the night, I've watched the first 3 of the videos. Very basic summary, more workers, more military and not so many scouts. Hook up either Bronze, Iron or Horses as soon as you can as the Warriors + Archers will struggle against the barbs.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

-Sully, mansa, and augustus all don't declare @ pleased!

So you don't remember EVERYTHING correctly after all

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So you don't remember EVERYTHING correctly after all

Oops, you're right. That's pretty bad, too, considering I corrected someone else in such a way in immortal toku...which wasn't even 2 weeks ago yet.

Is it that I don't remember, or I just make stupid mistakes though? I don't know. Anyway, AI is right here----> MM will declare at pleased, but generally won't do it unless there's a tech involved . Usually. The RNG can do some funny things though.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Isikien, just from looking at the initial part of your videos couple of things.

New cities should build a granary 1st, Then a Monument, Put this on a hot key Control 1 is mine. I usually have Granary, Monument, Library, Forges and Courthouses with a barracks. If the building is unavailable, its just skipped when adding to queue.

Mature cities build workers/setters.

Settle high food sites, or food to work resources sights.

swords own archers, forget the Unique Unit, its an axeman, with a bonus v's horses.

Sea food provides not only food, but commerce for researching faster.

Settlers and workers are speed up by extra food, not extra hammers. ie bonuses apply to food applied.

you only need to road the resource, not work it for the bonus to apply.

Capital, should be used as Initial Research driver, until you can found your Main Science city. (those 4 sugar, look excellent prospect)

Oh yeah Aussie Aussie Aussie. Oi Oi Oi, killing the 1st ashes test..

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

to improve science, build farms and not cottages about the 2 gold mine city. You need 5 farms 4 to run mines, 1 for growth. Cottages won't match a gold mine BEING WORKED.

Library in that city, as well as capital, run Scientist in Capital, on the basis of Sea food.

2 cities to drive science, the others can drive conquest. Use you army, take out Suleiman's Capital, use that as a 3rd science site.

Hook up that Iron, should have done it, once you teched iron working, immediately work to connect iron resource. Swords are far superior against archers, Shock promoted, can take on axe men in a city, remember they have a built in 10% city raider bonus.

Phalanxes, are really stack protectors in the open. Whip a barracks and use the over flow for 1st units.

Roads to targets, pillage the road to stop resource usage, but re connect road once you've taken city, for your own use, or better yet, backwards connect it to your lands.

Chariots, for axes, Phalanx's for chariots & melee, Swords for taking cities.

Build order for new cities, Granary No1, Monument (if no Stonehenge, or religion), forge (if Available), Library (if food), Lighthouse (if coastal)

In peace turns, hook up iron, build roads to conquest, beware of Caesar back stabbing.

 

[Isikien]

Isikien, just from looking at the initial part of your
Oh yeah Aussie Aussie Aussie. Oi Oi Oi, killing the 1st ashes test..

Convict! And thanks for the help

I will make an update soon. I have a review script im working on for something else at the moment but I'll reboot soon, stay posted

 

[Dagenham Dave]

I only watched a couple of clips, but I have to say I'm impressed with your enthusiasm. To make a fight between a scout and a barb animal seem like an exciting event is jolly well done.

 

[Isikien]

I only watched a couple of clips, but I have to say I'm impressed with your enthusiasm. To make a fight between a scout and a barb animal seem like an exciting event is jolly well done.

SIGGED MY GOOD SIR

You wait. Later I'm going to throw in a ton of references... oh yeah... pop culture overload