Prince: Keeping a good economy while expanding? (game save included)

[Testiethree]

Recently moved up from noble to prince, my general strategy is to build 3 or 4 cities and then expand by conquering the rest of the game. this worked really well on noble, however on prince my economy has fallen way behind and i'm not sure why.... I'm mean i know why, it just hasn't been a problem before. JUST HELP

 

[Revent]

Adrianople is working too many unimproved tiles. At size 8, that's costing you nearly 5 gold a turn. Whip it down and build some riverside cottages. It also has no food resource! That's not very good at all.

Thessalonica is costing you roughly 4 gold. It could have been settled 1E on the dye and you would've had the gold in the BFC strongly boosting your commerce once mined. Regarding plains in the BFC, you should ignore them, its far better to run a specialist than waste that tile on a plain in the beginning.

Nicara is a great city but it's working unimproved tiles. The gold makes it great.

Boston should have been razed and settled 1N. You lose the desert and gain gold and grassland. It's costing you 6 gold as well in maintenance.

New York is costing you 6 gold. It is so far away.

This leads to the fact that you probably did not need to war. And secondly, your great general should've been a super healer for your units (ie medic I, II and III). That would've made things much easier for you.

Your cities are too far apart. You should've built them a lot closer together. There are several city locations you could've used that would've been much better. You had lots of room for peaceful expansion so war wasn't needed. You just expanded too slow. 2050 BC for the second city is too long and the snowball effect results in your latter cities coming out later and you find the AI has taken the lands you wanted for yourself. You don't want just 3 or 4 cities for a strong solid base. Ideally, you want 6 cities at least to start with.

You shouldn't have built stonehenge and the great wall and even the Mids is debatable. You're running Hereditary rule so the 'Mids is a waste of hammers. You want to be running Rep if you have built the Mids. Since you have barely any commerece, what you can do is whip some libraries and run a scientist in every city you can. That way, you'll be able to at least have some research on.

 

[Revent]

oh and it looks like your workers are all automated. Don't do that. Manually direct your workers. In the beginning at least. I played around a bit with the game, did some whipping and switched to Rep. Put up scientists in all the cities I could and at 0% research, it's gonnna take you 6 turns to research currency.

 

[Testiethree]

well i kinda wanna start over now... so essentially what i need to work on is better timing and placement for my cities? I always thought that food was THE most important aspect of any city so that may have been why i placed them weird (i'd have to look at my save). So i should go for 6 cities before 1 ad? i feel like that would kill my economy, just gotta work on that city management i guess.

 

[lymond]

Ha...I instantly saw one of your many issues as soon as I opened the game. You are teching Currency in 800 something AD.

I'll be blunt here, you have a LOT wrong with your game...a lot. Not saying you need to move back to Noble since Prince is pretty easy, but you are making many many mistakes that are pretty much noobtastic.

First, take a look at the tech screen. See all the techs the AI currently have that you don't on the right. You should have all those techs in the BCs, especially Currency which is the most important tech in the game.

You are fight wars with just swordsman at 800AD on prince and the AIs will soon have Longbows and Maceman, all of which you are very very far away from. You don't even have Alpha.

Some points:

1) More focused tech path at the start. Get in the habit of getting the key worker techs immediately for food and strat resource. BW is always good to get early for whipping. Avoid unnecessary techs like Hunting, Archery and Iron Working which you can get in trades later. The exception is good Hunting resources nearby or tons of Jungles with Gems that you have to settle.

A good tech path here, without seeing the start, would be Agri>Mining>BW>POT>Writing>Alpha (backfill some junk)>Maths>Currency

2) DO NOT AUTOMATE WORKERS

3) Get to Writing asap via Pottery or AH based on what you need. Get a Library up, run 2 scientists to get that first GS asap and build an academy in your cap. Look to settle a high food location, or capture one nearby, to be your future GP farm and gear it up for that asap so you can continue running specialists for key bulbs and stuff. Have no clue what you did with the few GPs you popped.

4) Unless going total early annihilation, Writing should be in your first 4 to 6 techs.

5) On low levels like Prince, I recommend an Alpha beeline since AIs are slow to get it. Backfill the religious techs and any other techs you don't have. Get Iron Working and possibly Maths in trades, or tech Maths>Currency next, but get to Currency Asap. Trade judiciously though. Get what you can but don't unnecessarily boost your targets. If you play it right, you will soon not need AIs for techs as you will start blowing them away as opposed to getting blown away like you are in this game.

6) Get trade routes up asap. I don't settle cities without them if I can (via road, river, coast). Get foreign trade routes asap. You have none at 800AD. Trade routes are HUGE.

7) Scout

8) Learn to specialize cities

9) Build wealth and research as needed for a quick tech boost to get that advantage.

10) For the love of all that is holy, use Slavery

11) If you have horse nearby and want to go on the warpath, use chariots and horse archers. They are faster and more effective and kill on this level. Or if going with Swords, get it off well in to the BCs. Swords become less effective when you move up levels unless you use siege. I can't believe you are fighting with just swords in 800AD. that is brutal. YOu've only taken 2 cities and I doubt you take any more at this point.

12) Consider not focusing much on wonders for now.

Overall, if you are serious about getting better at the game you really need to totally rethink how you play it. Get more involved in the forum games and see what other folks are doing. Pick up tips.

Edit:Extra note - build more workers or capture some. Practice good worker management and again, DON'T AUTOMATE WORKERS

 

[lymond]

yeah, use that first GG on a super medic but doesn't matter much if you are fighting stupid wars

 

[lymond]

You don't want just 3 or 4 cities for a strong solid base. Ideally, you want 6 cities at least to start with.
.

Well, this is relative to when you are going to war. Better said, is 6 to 8 cities by 1AD one way or the other. 3 or 4 cities can be a good early base to start early wars, but yeah, in this case it is not good if you are fight 800AD wars with Swords and just got your city 6.

 

[lymond]

post your start save

 

[Testiethree]

God dammit. I knew this was coming, I ALWAYS get railed when i post a save game. So i'll just start over and try all those tips, but i can already tell you my economy is going to be dead. also, isn't slavery a bad thing because it limits the amount of tiles you can work?


oh, and what do i do if there are good cash resources but no food sources? do i settle a city there?

 

[lymond]

God dammit. I knew this was coming, I ALWAYS get railed when i post a save game. So i'll just start over and try all those tips, but i can already tell you my economy is going to be dead. also, isn't slavery a bad thing because it limits the amount of tiles you can work?


oh, and what do i do if there are good cash resources but no food sources? do i settle a city there?

Please don't consider it Railing you I'm really trying to help you. It's just you do need a lot of help.

Economy is relative. If you get to Writing, Alpha and Currency in a reasonable time, you will be fine. And trade routes. You can run binary research (0% slider) after Writing, while you get up some Libs to fund expansion/conquest. It's a common practice on higher levels as maintenance skyrockets. Maintenance on Prince is nothing.

Slavery is one of the most important tools in the game. It rocks, and is vital on higher levels. It's OP on lower levels. And it sure as heck is far better than working unimproved tiles, which you have many many of due to Automated Workers and lack of workers. Heck, you have a cottage on a riverside grass hill

Again, post the start

 

[lymond]

oh, and what do i do if there are good cash resources but no food sources? do i settle a city there?

If you mean good "commerce" resources like gold, potentially it can be quite beneficial early to settle next to them and work them even at 1 pop. Huge boost very early. But I usually do so with the expectation of getting food up eventually. I see no case here where there is not gold and also food.

I may not have mentioned it but DON'T AUTOMATE WORKERS.

 

[Testiethree]

I not actually mad, this site just always makes me realize how much i suck
i will give slavery a try for sure, and go straight for commerce

anywho.... here is my start. i kinda wanna settle 1w of my settler to get both gold. that cool?

 

[Testiethree]

general plan is to do worker then warrior then settler about 6 times right away

 

[Testiethree]

ignore the weird glitch that happens on my new computer, doesn't really bother me that much so I'm too lazy to do anything about it.

 

[lymond]

Well, I was referring to posting the original start save of the game above, but a new game is fine. You should still post the save so folks can play some games you can compare. Post the settings as well.

settler about 6 time right away

sorry, I don't know what you mean by this


1W is fine, but move the warrior first. Probably 1SW. He's probably not going to reveal much for you since you really want to see what you may be losing to the east. Probably a floodplain and maybe some resource.

 

[Testiethree]

ohhhh, not sure how to do that.....

 

[lymond]

do what?

 

[Testiethree]

post the original start, is there a way to restart the game from the beginning?

more screenshots, I'm sure there is something i should be doing different.

 

[Mylene]

Usual problem
lower diff. abuse of how weak AIs are, it's really a very wrong approach to war on prince, noble..

Play peacefully, limit yourself to your cities and land, and learn teching, trading and city management instead ~~
Sorry for being blunt, but attacking these AIs that have no units is not really playing, it's silly.

 

[Testiethree]

uh.... i like to play aggressively... if ai has no units why wouldn't you attack them?