Just got owned on Prince?

[DST1348]

Hello,

I just "finished" my first G&K game. More precisely, I was finished. I played as Rome on a Standard Continents map on Prince difficulty. In Vanilla, I played at Emperor, so stepping down seemed like a good idea.

I quickly encountered France, Egypt and Russia. Russia already having two cities at around turn 20. While I thought at first that they got a lot of culture from ruins, I noticed that other civs started to expand pretty aggressively too. On turn 90 I got DoWed from France and Egypt. So far, CiV as usual. However, France had about 4 Archers, 1 Swordsman, and 4 Warriors, and Egypt joined with 6 Horse Archers, 4 Warriors and 1 Catapult. A few turns later, I had my own "Fall of Rome" scenario.

This sounds really tough, given that it is only Prince difficulty. I don't even know if it is possible to produce this many units and several cities in that time.

So I wonder, am I the only one who experienced something like this?

 

[ghenry27]

My first game on Prince went as normally as always... maybe a bug? Setting it to Diety level??

 

[DST1348]

Setting it to Diety level??

No, I checked, and it says "Prince" when I hover my mouse over the "4" in the loading screen.

 

[Sleepless CiVr]

Yeah I'm having an issue too on Prince but I generally play a different way than most people but have had to learn Civ from a more traditional method. This is my first "Axe to Space" game in a very long time, not since Civ III. Am I in for a rude awakening.

 

[Landstander]

I was surprised to be out-teched in my Prince game. I normally play King and it's competitive for me. I assume my struggles had to do with focusing so much on faith and other new aspects of the game and not placing due focus on building my all-important libraries. Normally, I'm on par or ahead in the tech race on Prince with even trying.

I also had problems with happiness, which has kept my city sizes fairly low.

Militarily, I've dominated my continent, but I imagine the tech-advanced Civs across the ocean may put up more of a fight.

 

[gunslinger6792]

i was playing on prince to today on continents as ethopia. on my continent things where realitivly peaceful with the celts, carthage, and austria. got to the early modern era and my tech was far and away from everyone else i had number 1 literacy. all of the sudden egypt on another continent gets atomic power while i just unlocked land tanks. 2 techs later egypt has begun construction for space travel. i was floored. playing on king(my default) is even worse im the smallest by turn 100 and out tech'd by everyone.

 

[Kabloosh]

I've found that even if you are fast teching its relatively easy for them to catch up due to espionage. They are always stealing important tech from me.

Another killer is city states. I have no idea how to properly manage relations with these guys without money dumping them while fighting against other civs for it cause they always seem to be spot on about it. This definitely affects my city growth since on a small continents map resources can be hard to come by at times and its nice to be receiving a culture/food boost along with any luxuries/strat resources they provide. Plus, it is easy to forget what your spies are doing which I think is a pretty big problem especially if you want them to be getting your influence with other city states and not have them wasting away in 1 city state who may of already become an ally.

 

[Landstander]

Kabloosh is right - espionage seems to give a big advantage to other Civs in the tech race, especially if they're on a better continent with better techs to steal.

And I did sink a ton of money into City States - they are much, much more expensive to keep as allies now than pre-expansion.

 

[Tabarnak]

Started my 1st game on king, small pangea map, quick speed. It's definitively too easy so far. I have more than double score from 2nd civ. I conquwered 2 cities from an AI giving me 6 cities total. 1440 AD and i got 2 industrial techs. AIs barely entered the ren. era and i have 16% lead in techs, producing near 300 beakers per turn with factories and public schools in my core cities. Over 100 gpt produced without golden age.

I suspect a patch in next weeks.

 

[Glassmage]

I can win on King usually, so I tried Prince for my first game just to have an easier time with new stuff. LO AND BEHOLD I was owned by Polynesia and Austria. And this is on Archipelago map. >_> Polynesia got so much money and influence with city states that he win diplomatic victory. I moved back to Warlord now and it seems easier.

 

[Drago Askani]

Started my 1st game on king, small pangea map, quick speed. It's definitively too easy so far. I have more than double score from 2nd civ. I conquwered 2 cities from an AI giving me 6 cities total. 1440 AD and i got 2 industrial techs. AIs barely entered the ren. era and i have 16% lead in techs, producing near 300 beakers per turn with factories and public schools in my core cities. Over 100 gpt produced without golden age.

I suspect a patch in next weeks.

pangea and quick are probably the key things to blame here. Its always easy on a pangea map. Don't kid yourself.

 

[Tabarnak]

pangea and quick are probably the key things to blame here. Its always easy on a pangea map. Don't kid yourself.

I forgot to say that i never traded with the AI so i can recreate an mp environment. I also played with Dido, she has only benefits to some units and wars so nothing related to science and such.

Any maps would have been the same with enough room for 4 cities. Quick speed is always tougher to play than any other speed. Marathon being the easiest. Sorry but i know what i'm talking about.

I repeat, this gonna be patched.

 

[chazzycat]

I forgot to say that i never traded with the AI so i can recreate an mp environment. I also played with Dido, she has only benefits to some units and wars so nothing related to science and such.

Any maps would have been the same with enough room for 4 cities. Quick speed is always tougher to play than any other speed. Marathon being the easiest. Sorry but i know what i'm talking about.

I repeat, this gonna be patched.

Not that I don't trust your assessment but really, King? You easily are one of the more skilled players on here, I'm surprised you would play that low.

I'm also having a pretty easy time on my first game (emperor) but not quite ready to draw any conclusions yet.

 

[Tabarnak]

Not that I don't trust your assessment but really, King? You easily are one of the more skilled players on here, I'm surprised you would play that low.

I'm also having a pretty easy time on my first game (emperor) but not quite ready to draw any conclusions yet.

Yeah you are right. But do you think they should nerf happiness a bit? If i remember king in vanilla is tougher than G&K. Maybe i hit an easy game for many reasons too. I think they should patch happiness in some way.

We already seen some games with over +100 already!

 

[Seven05]

We already seen some games with over +100 already!

I just finished a game as the Mayans (King, Large, small continents), by 1700 I had 31 cities and thanks to religion, founding a new city resulted in a gain in and I simply couldn't grow fast enough to keep up with rampant hapiness.

Religion combined with the right civ can make the old ICS issues seem pretty tame.

+1 from shrines in cities with 3 followers (Asceticism)
+1 for each city with religion (Cerimonial Burial)
+2 from Pagoda

That's all "free" happiness and you also pull in +4 faith, +4 culture and +2 science from that same combination (Mayan Pyramid and Pagoda). Grab Messenger of the Gods as your Pantheon and you have a size 3 city with +4 science, happiness, culture and faith. Assuming you have Meritocracy since you'd be foolish not to, you're at +5 before building anything beyond the shrine (Pyramid) and buying the Pagoda with the crazy surplus faith this setup has.

Easily duplicated on Immortal, just a little slower to get rolling, somebody else will have to try it on Diety, I want to try out some of the other civs

 

[anandus]

Normally I play on King or Emperor. I've even won a game or two on Immortal.
Tried my first game on Prince and didn't have that much of an issue. The beginning was a bit tough, because the harder economy and getting used to everything, but when I got going, I got going. At 1600 AD 30+ happy, 200+ gold, etc. I'll try King next time.
So I guess the topic starter had some tough luck?

 

[DST1348]

So I guess the topic starter had some tough luck?

Maybe. Just got home from work and will start my second game. If I don't post within the next 2 hours, it means I made it past the 100 turns mark

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Hello,

I just "finished" my first G&K game. More precisely, I was finished. I played as Rome on a Standard Continents map on Prince difficulty. In Vanilla, I played at Emperor, so stepping down seemed like a good idea.

I quickly encountered France, Egypt and Russia. Russia already having two cities at around turn 20. While I thought at first that they got a lot of culture from ruins, I noticed that other civs started to expand pretty aggressively too. On turn 90 I got DoWed from France and Egypt. So far, CiV as usual. However, France had about 4 Archers, 1 Swordsman, and 4 Warriors, and Egypt joined with 6 Horse Archers, 4 Warriors and 1 Catapult. A few turns later, I had my own "Fall of Rome" scenario.

This sounds really tough, given that it is only Prince difficulty. I don't even know if it is possible to produce this many units and several cities in that time.

So I wonder, am I the only one who experienced something like this?

I started my first game on King, as the Mayans. My awesome plan was to build a bunch of atlatl and rush my nearest opponent. Not only did that fail miserably, but while I was off having adventures in other lands, The Ottoman on the other side of me swooped in.

Let's chalk it up to a learning experience.

 

[dexters]

Started my 1st game on king, small pangea map, quick speed. It's definitively too easy so far. I have more than double score from 2nd civ. I conquwered 2 cities from an AI giving me 6 cities total. 1440 AD and i got 2 industrial techs. AIs barely entered the ren. era and i have 16% lead in techs, producing near 300 beakers per turn with factories and public schools in my core cities. Over 100 gpt produced without golden age.

I suspect a patch in next weeks.

Wait how do you know how many techs ahead you are? new UI tooltip or a mod?

 

[Tabarnak]

Wait how do you know how many techs ahead you are? new UI tooltip or a mod?

Calculated from the average. 16% from the average. From 2nd place i dont really know but it must be around over 12-13%.