A few thoughts and questions from first Prince game:

[Bast]

Playing as Pericles. I had Montezuma as a relatively close (random fractal map but got an arid map and there was a desert between us) neighbour and sharing the continent with Augustus, Isabella and Wang Kon.

Anyway, I hate Montezuma so sent about 9 phalanxes early in the game straight to his capital city - which was also the dominant religion Buddhism's holy city. I took it. This was the easiest victory. He had like 2 other cities and he kept settling many other cities. So it took until like 1300 AD to finally finish him off.

Problem - Isabella and Augustus had expanded so rapidly. They had like twice the land area I had and so many cities. Is this normal in Prince or is it just because I was so busy with my "rush" that I neglected to expand.

I still don't think I'm rushing very well. When do you think is a good time to say, ok this isn't a rush anymore settle for peace?

Anyway, I got beaten to all the late religions and liberalism and pretty much all the big techs.

But surprisingly I've caught up by a lot. I'm the first to Fascism. I know I was the first to Rifling and Steam Power. I tried a SE with Pericles. But ended up running a tonne of cottages. Right now I'm making so much money (especially with the shrine) that I can run the slider at 100%. But mind you, this map lacked a lot of food so this was a huge problem to run SE.

I think I'll settle for a space race victory. But I'm finding the going a lot tougher than Noble.

The thing is, it plays so different especially the early game. The AI gets off to a more explosive start and you're playing catch up. This is as opposed to Noble where I think the reverse happens.

What do you guys think?

 

[slobberinbear]

Bast: I'm a Monarch player, barely. I can relate.

It's been said before and it's true: the higher difficulties make you focus on one achieveable goal at a time. At Warlord, you can pretty much do everything at once -- expand, research, conquer. This becomes progressively harder.

It sounds like you were so focused on defeating Monty (give the guy a break, he has a tiny skull on his headdress) that you lost track of the turns going by and of Izzy and Augie's scores. I get tunnel vision like that myself.

If you're going to Phalanx-rush, you need to do it early -- not just so the defenders are weaker, but (as you've noticed) so that your target can't city-spam his way to survival. Remember, the AI can make settlers faster than you.

I also question whether killing Monty was necessary at that stage of the game. It sounds like you had room in which to peacefully expand, and frankly Monty's Jags are no match for your Phalanxes. It's always nice to wipe out an obnoxious AI civ, but he essentially distracted you from your main mission, which is to win the game.

A good time to seek peace? In your case, it was probably after you took his capitol and razed/captured another decent city or two to protect the capitol from being culture flipped. That was sufficient to muzzle him permanently and would have allowed you to refocus expanding with settlers. It also would have ended your war weariness, which you did not mention but I assume was a factor since you were at war for so long.

 

[Bast]

Bast: I'm a Monarch player, barely. I can relate.

It's been said before and it's true: the higher difficulties make you focus on one achieveable goal at a time. At Warlord, you can pretty much do everything at once -- expand, research, conquer. This becomes progressively harder.

It sounds like you were so focused on defeating Monty (give the guy a break, he has a tiny skull on his headdress) that you lost track of the turns going by and of Izzy and Augie's scores. I get tunnel vision like that myself.

If you're going to Phalanx-rush, you need to do it early -- not just so the defenders are weaker, but (as you've noticed) so that your target can't city-spam his way to survival. Remember, the AI can make settlers faster than you.

I also question whether killing Monty was necessary at that stage of the game. It sounds like you had room in which to peacefully expand, and frankly Monty's Jags are no match for your Phalanxes. It's always nice to wipe out an obnoxious AI civ, but he essentially distracted you from your main mission, which is to win the game.

A good time to seek peace? In your case, it was probably after you took his capitol and razed/captured another decent city or two to protect the capitol from being culture flipped. That was sufficient to muzzle him permanently and would have allowed you to refocus expanding with settlers. It also would have ended your war weariness, which you did not mention but I assume was a factor since you were at war for so long.

Thanks. I'm still learning how to rush. I didn't want to do this before but I can see huge advantages in it. Plus I love playing as Pericles, so I have to rush otherwise the UU is wasted.

Actually I didn't have any problems with war weariness probably because 1. I didn't have that big of populations (I had a pretty bad map with so many desert tiles that growth was a problem). 2. I had the Pyramids and was running representation - the Metal casting/gambit. On which level does this stop working? LOL! 3. Odeons. I grabbed construction early because I had ivory. These buildings are amazing imo for so early in the game. Plus I had luck on my side and got a quest to build colosseums - I got this completed before I knew it and picked +1 per odeon. That's probably why I had very little unhappiness.

It's true that you can't concentrate on all things for sure. I got a few wonders thanks to the GE that kept popping up. But the thing that really got to me was how strong in land and population Isabella and Augustus were. They ended up choking me when usually it's the reverse.

 

[Sisiutil]

Overall, at the higher difficulty levels, it's very typical to find yourself behind the AI in score for a very long time. There usually comes a point where you can bust out and break away from the pack, but it comes later with each level, and at the highest (which I haven't played yet), it may never happen at all.

Land is power. War is costly and usually sets you back for a time, but it's very satisfying to reap the rewards and slingshot past the tech and score leaders in the mid-game as a result.

 

[Cer]

I play civ as a warmonger almost exclusively.

An important part of my gameplay involves considering the value of a particular city and its land, before you decide whether to try to capture+keep it, raze it, or leave it to the enemy.

I also consider any war a successful war if it cripples the enemy, even if they survive. If I take 1/3rd of an AI enemy's cities and they are the best ones, that enemy will be a weakling for the rest of the game. At that point, I don't need to worry too much.

I always favor going after nearby civs, technologically advanced civs, and civs with a high score in approximately that order... with the requirement that it be a civ I know I can hurt badly without ruining my own civ. Nearby civs are easier to hurt and you can more easily use their land in your empire. High tech civs need to have their tech rate lowered with some good razing and pillaging (and by forcing them to build military.)

 

[IDave]

I also just finished my first ever prince game. I'm a bit of a peace lover tho, i find it almost impossible to get in a war with anything less then knights but would prefer to go to war with cavalry and tanks.

I got the most awesome map ever for my first game tho. I played a large tropical continents, low sea, and literally had the dream start, good capital, then two dream GP cities and 2 good production cities. then i kinda ran out of room as the AI players had pilfered it all.

I ended up going to war at about 1600AD with cavalry and winning the space race in 1940ish with a massive lead for a score of 22500.

I think i got quite lucky to have such a dream start and i really need to work on my early rush too, i always end up wasting far too much time if i attack early.

I am about to start my second prince game so time will tell.

Anyway if u are interested in seeing the dream start i was talking about then here's the initial save.

 

[Bast]

I lost this game. Augustus beat me to space race by 3 turns.

The idiot Isabella nuked him like 10 times and then Ragnar. She never declared war on me though - same religion throughout the game. Anyway, all those nukes led to global warming and my crappy land got even crappier. Yay!

Not happy so just started a new game as Pericles again - same settings but much, much better land.

 

[Belisar]

I hate Montezuma so sent about 9 phalanxes early in the game straight to his capital city
So it took until like 1300 AD to finally finish him off.
When do you think is a good time to say, ok this isn't a rush anymore settle for peace?

The answer is in your own post. A rush is a rush, not a war until 1300AD.
I guess you made peace several times or WW would have killed you?

Try to make your wars extremley short. Have a goal (ressources, juicy cities...) Build up the force, concentrate on the target and hit fast. Take peace (and the victims tech) and build up your economy again. When your economy can handle it you can go for the next short war.

 

[Warthogounet]

Just won a prince game, diplo win by 1836.

Basically, pangea all normal parameters, with washington, saladin, toku, cyrus, huayna and kubilay.
I killed washington in 3930 BC while scouting, then expanded, south to Toku, and quickly took his core cities with axes/cats.
I was falling behind in tech, but had more prod, so I cottaged my land, rebuilt my eco, and waited for maces to pick on kubilay. Took his 2 core cities, and from that point, I just kept increasing my empire while being best friend with saladin.
By 1836, I had 60% pop and land, tech lead, and Saladin voted me in UN.

Basically, I found that you need to be a lot more agressive in Prince than in Noble. Without killing Washington, I would have had struggled a lot early to have good land. Also, I noted that the AI really expands faster. I tried to expand as fast as possible, beat the AI to second town, but lost to 3rd one ...

 

[gdgrimm]

Well, with moving up a level of difficulty comes the 'catching up' feeling. It will last until your game play improves to the point that you 'catch up' by the time of about Knights, in which case it's time to move up another difficulty level so that you have to play 'catch up' until about the modern era. That's the nature of the game (though I wish it weren't).

One tactical note -- using an early 'rush' does not necessarily mean wiping out an opponent completely. Often times, it's not worth the hassle to do so. I find I do some type of 'rush' in about every game, and find that only about 1/2 the time it involves total destruction of the enemy. The other 1/2 it involves crippling the enemy while making significant gains to my own empire.

My last game is a good example. I did an early rush against Mehmed to gain a juicy coastal city (added Pigs and Clams to my empire's resources), and to take his Capital which was also the Hindu (dominant religion of the game) Holy City (already equipped with a Shrine). After taking those 2 cities, I signed peace.

Later in the game, I finished him off.

BTW, I mention 2 types of war above (i.e. destruction of enemy, and crippling of enemy while making significant gains for yourself). Those are the only reasons for an early rush. But you will often find use in the mid to late game for a 3rd type of war, based on crippling an opponent, with no real expectation of gain for yourself.