[BNW] So it's been a few years...

[Grendeldef]

Well, it doesn't even have to be a map rolled by OP as long as it surves the purpose and I doubt this will become yet another series unless the progress towards Deity will be rapid. Anyway, sure let's play a/few Prince start(s) as I for one heavily prefer starts and mid-game over the latter part and for the learning part it seems reasonable to start from the basics rather than trying immaculate end game. Now all we need is the OP participation before this goes off the rails

 

[Grendeldef]

So, from words to action - I rolled a Babs Prince map, Huge Continents otherwise default & started playing. The T0 save is included here. Game crashed on T94 so it's good place to pause for a small write-up.

As the older regulars on the site know I'm not the one meticulously hunting fastest or most efficient possible of anything so take is as what could be done rather than what should be done. Also, I was wrong while I said that AI is mainly a lobotomized entity here though it manifests itself in form of the barbarians rather than major Civs. I had to check, twice, if I had accidentally enabled raging barbs as the horizon was mainly red in the early turns. A nice novelty feature if nothing else.
The starting location is nice but nothing special so there's something to play for.

Spoiler The Game :

T0 SiP as the place was good enough. Liberty it'll be
BO - Scout, Scout, Monument, Scout
TO - Pottery, Writing, Mining - got 2 2nd tier techs from ruins

T11 - Liberty opened
T23 DoW Monty for a Worker, no other actions & white peace soon afterwards
T24 Writing, planted the GS, DF pantheon - at least it'll generate some faith eventually
T35 free Settler
T39 2nd city on Cotton which usually detest
T54 DoF with Kame
T65 GP which I planted instead of founding. Part of the plan was to get the 5th/6th city on the desert up North before founding so it'd get the DF Pantheon without Missionary but that failed due to late very NC.
T88 2nd GP & religion - Tithe & 15% pop growth in peace time which I've never taken before
T92 4C NC after bying one Library
T93 CS

Main issue here was the number of barbs even though they are easier here I had to build more units than I planned and there're lots of Jungles so movement is limited. The obvious other problem is the lack money - both mine & especially the AI. Hard to sell anything as they're running negative gpt which makes befriending harder as well. Also they're so far away that Caravans are not on the option menu. Annoying but one can adapt and I was running gold tiles instead of food and even asking money from CSs pre-T50 which is ridiculously easy. After that I'd rather clear camp for them as no one else apparently is.
I've paid no attention what the other Civs are doing but I doubt that even a closer inspection would reveal anything worth mentioning apart someone actually building GL.

 

[Nizef]

So, from words to action - I rolled a Babs Prince map, Huge Continents otherwise default & started playing. The T0 save is included here. Game crashed on T94 so it's good place to pause for a small write-up.

I will play the start asap. Interesting to learn that you have never used the 15% growth in time of peace! It has been a cornerstone of my game when I go for CV or SV.

 

[vadalaz]

I'm playing on Prince level right now. The problem I'm having is enough Gold to build a military that can withstand aggressive AI like Dido or Harald. I'm chugging right along killing them all in tech (as evidenced by what their stealing from me) and out of the blue Harald had 8 Military units surrounding my city and I have 2 Bowman and a Swordsman and it's over before it began.

So my noobish question would be, how can I finance an army that will be big enough to make messing with me a bad idea AND keep upping that Science? Of course I'm getting Currency and EIC and try to have a fluid and efficient Defense. I'm a Turtle player by nature.

You actually have 3 Bowmen, a Pike and a Swordsman (could even use the Scout as well). This is more than enough to defend against an AI attack at this point of the game on Prince. Here's how I dealt with the attack:

Spoiler :

Turn 237: Be proactive and declare war on Harald yourself. If you want to, you can also bribe him to attack your friend Genghis beforehand, then declare war and get your resources back. I'd say this is cheesy and unnecessary on Prince, but it's a useful tactic to remember for Deity though.

Unit movements: Send pikeman and bow from Akkad to Babylon. Swordsman hits the wounded Catapult, then you finish it off with the bowman from Babylon. Other bowman moves onto the road.



Turn 238: Harald moves in. Akkadian bowman takes a shot at a spearman, Pikeman stands in front of it as a blocker unit. Swordsman hits the Catapult, bowmen finish it off.


(sry about the text blocking the units - that's a swordsman on the wheat and a bowman east of it)

Turn 239: Retreating already? We chase him out. Swordsman moves onto the Furs to give Pikeman a flanking bonus, Pikeman hits the plains Spearman, Bowmen move along the road and finish it off. Third bowman moves onto the forest hill NE of the Furs to box in the other Danish Spearman.



Turn 240: Swordsman moves into Babylon to heal, Pikeman also moves onto friendly territory to heal. Two Bowmen shoot the retreating Spear. Note I moved one of them to the plains tile and it says he has 0/2 moves; he actually has 0.5 because moving along roads is cheaper, and half a move is still enough to shoot (I believe the Enhanced User Interface actually displays the fraction moves correctly). I did this was to keep the Furs spot open for the third Bowman, in case the Spearman survived the first 2 shots. He didn't, so I just move the bowman closer to Babylon, across the river.



Turn 241: Harald's attack seems to be over... I see nothing. I move another bowmen across the river in case Harald's coming from the east.



Turn 242: A spearman. We've been pretty good at killing these so far. I move the bowmen in position to shoot him twice next turn if he moves onto the jungle tile.



Turn 243: He retreats instead so I just take a shot with one bowmen and fortify all other units.

Harald sues for peace in the turn rollover.

If things don't go so well, you can switch production to some unit and buy one as well, you have enough gold there. The big thing is to not let Harald get his units in position - get the first move on him, it's a huge advantage.

 

[Grendeldef]

Interesting to learn that you have never used the 15% growth in time of peace! It has been a cornerstone of my game when I go for CV or SV.

It's pointless because most likely I'll be at war from the turn I'll meet unprotected Worker and the time of peace is never long enough to justify it.

In this particular game I stayed off the wars for the purpose of testing but as always it gets me bored so I did something to spice things up which sort of ruins the experiment for fast VC but it clearly shows what's different between Prince & Deity - especially with Liberty. The game resembled the few CS free (to a degree) games we had and I disliked them all. It limits what Liberty can do and I'm passed the point of doing Tradition.

Anyway, the game past T93.

Spoiler T93 onwards :

After NC I planted 5th city on northern desert and Liberty GE for Petra few turns later and 6th city further North between Salts. With Petra the city grew rapidly the vaults of the state were not very deep so I couldn't buy 3rd ring luxes which resulted somewhat unexpected happiness issues as the CSs didn't offer any useful tasks so I got nothing out of them, no money to buy Unis, cities too small to build anything in a reasonable time so I was just hanging along but now I understand why peeps are having trouble - Prince is hard, moving to Deity will solve all these problems and make life much easier.
Admittingly most if not all of these problems are due to my own doing starting with Liberty and even more so settling late nor are 3rd & 4th cities by a river so I really could've used a Maritime CS. Another things was the lack of GGs - I didn't have a single one and this must the first this has happened. Usually there's no shortage of GGs which are very handy hooking up luxes and/or resources.

I won't continue this but I think I'll start a new one i hope of L2P and I'll put the crash save from T93 here not as a model what to do but as a warning example. Sure the game is already won but that wasn't an issue to begin with. In general I think that Tradition is easier to work with on lower levels than Liberty which isn't easily self sustainable.

 

[Nizef]

Well,
This was a painful experience Founded on t2 next to the mountain, BO: Scout x2, Granary, Worker, Shrine, Bowman (a lot of barbs) and then Settler x2. I built the Oracle, mostly for fun, before building the 3 city NC on t87. Stronger play would probably have been one more Settler+Worker and buying the fourth Library. Monty did not build any Worker until t45 or so and the CS were also annoyingly slow with that. TO was of course Pottery, Writing, Mining and then Archery, AH and Calendar. With this solid but mediocre start I am on route for Education on t108-110. Social policies were full Tradition (finished on t77) and I got the second religion and picked Tithe + Pagodas. The latter mostly for the event that I would go for a fourth and fifth city or conquer Tenochtitlan.

What do you say Mklangelo, is this helpful for you?

 

[Grendeldef]

I played a couple of games with Pacha & Askia. Always Liberty start, 4-6 cities before NC, GL can be done with relative ease but I'm not convinced it's the best way to go and surely it's not needed though this argument goes with everything. I'd rather put the hammers on expansion in some form but that's also a playstyle issue.
Scouts are very handy and my BO was either 2xScout, Monument, Scout or 3xScout, Monument which consistently gives ~10 ruins @T30 and 15-20 in total and depending on pathing quite a few opportunities to get money/Workers from CSs.
After playing few of these I'm more comfortable with settings so money isn't an issue and happiness generally manageable but either is rarely excessive so one is sort of tiptoeing all the time.

CSs are very useful and allying a Maritime CS seems extremely useful with Liberty as at least I'm buying much less tiles than on Deity nor are there enough Workers to steal.

To OP I'd suggest using a different civ for a change so one isn't essentially locked with Pottery->Writing->plant GS start. Askia's UA will help A LOT with money issues as the world is full of camps which can be cleared by a single Archer. Pachacuti is always good and his UA will also save quite a bit money decently early on.

Next I'll try Alex & prolly asking quite a bit more tributes.