Where to go from here? Prince Terra Map with Alex

[Hot_Dawg]

Long story short I've been playing this game for awhile on Prince, and even made a shadow game thread here in the past. While I never finished that game I have managed to win twice on this difficulty through diplomatic and domination. However those two wins came through heavy warmongering and even though I won those games, I felt lost on what to do research and city wise halfway through the game. I'm in a similar situation in this game. I've got Mansa and Boudica as vassals, although the greek-celtic war took a lot longer than I thought it would. I declared on 1010 AD and it took until 1560 AD for Boudica to capitulate after taking the capital. Now I have no idea what to do here. A few questions:

1) Is it possible to play peacefully from here on and have Mansa win the game for me via space race?

2) I'm bordered by my vassals and friendly civs, so is it even worth it to frog leap my neighbors and attempt to capitulate another civ? I was thinking if I do I can attempt to take out De Gallue or Wang Kon, but I feel like if I take those cities the cost wouldn't be worth it

3) During war, should I continue to build units endlessly or build a stack and whip units as needed? I'm always worried about having too many military units and I'm not a big fan of monarchy.

4) Any general thoughts here on this game? I feel like I have way too few workers and I lost at least 3 workers during the greek-celtic war. Before I declare war on Mansa I stuck to the 1.5 per city rule, but I wasn't too concerned after they ran out of stuff to do.

Save is attached

EDIT: I forgot to ask, but what are some signs the war is taking way too long? I've read in the past that wars should be as quick as possible

 

[dankok8]

1) If Mansa wins Space he wins for himself, not for you! In other words you will lose if he does this.

2) Absolutely keep conquering. You can win by Conquest if you vassalize everyone.

3) Hmm depends on the strength of the enemy but generally build more. It seems your wars are lasting too long which means you don't have enough units. Particularly build a lot of siege units because those guys die the most while softening the defenders in the first wave of attack. On Prince level, unit maintenance from a huge army isn't a worry either.

4) You have some early game issues that would take too long to cover here. Either way happy civving! This is an amazing game to play and learn and you're doing both.

 

[Gumbolt]

Please stop automating citizens. Emphasize commerce is a bad idea. Your cities are not at their happiness cap and you are not running key food tiles like corn/wheat and others in many cities. Size 11 by this date for a capital is small. Avoid growth should not be switched on 24/7 too.

On Prince your science should be at least rifles/cannons by now.

1. Why would you want another AI to win instead of you?
2. If you want to take out AI start using cuirs.I would be whipping these in most cities. You would quickly takeover map. Albeit muskets and other cuirs might be annoying. Normally on Prince you want cuirs around 1000ad. What do you gain by staying peaceful now? Do you have a plan on how to win this?
3. If I am whipping cuirs to conquer map I will be whipping all cities apart from capital and my heroic epic city. Of course for this to work you need to turn off empasis commerce. For an early HA rush you might need 5-6 HA on prince. On immortal I whip about 11-12 and whip more if I have not wiped out the AI. The AI should not have huge stacks on Prince. If you let them reach 15-16+ cities they will eventually build up units.
4. So 8 workers for 17 cities is not enough. Your early cities were 4-5 tiles apart. At least 1 per city early on. More if cities spaced out like you have done. Your capital really needed a helper city to work cottages. Shame to see the sheep resource not in a cities border.


You had a war with Mansa at 300ad. Not sure what you used but you only took 1 city. Mansa is not much of a unit spammer so something went wrong. So build 7-8 swords. 7-8 catapults and take down his cities. Bombard and then attack a turn later. Rinse and repeat. Whip your army over several cities and use the food resources in the ciity screen.

No need for 3-4 defenders per city. It's just costing you gold a turn.
Any reason crab/fish/deer city was not settled?
Are you bulbing techs with great scientists? They are worth 1500 beakers + 3xpop. I note you have avoided education and the Liberalism free tech route. On prince no reason the AI should beat you to edu or Liberalism. Both can be bulbed with a Great Scientist.
Do trade resources for gold per turn. You have nearly 30-40 gold per turn you could of had.