Advancing to Prince

[The LittleOne]

Hi there

I'd love to play a game with you guys and hope that I can get my first win on Prince with you tips and comments

Here is our starting plot

And here are the settings.

Our leader is pericles of Greece with the PHI and CRE traits.

First of all my scout spawned on the pigs, moving them 1E was the first and only thing I've done so far. I also forgot to toggle resources, so I have to add that there is a fish 1S2W of the settler.
I was thinking to just settle in place and go for Fishing, Agri and AH to take care of the pigs, fish and wheat after the city expanded.

Also for my first things to build in the city. Would in this case Warrior-Work Boat-Worker-Settler be a good choice ?

 

[auagxa]

Can you post the save? So someone can shadow your game.

Initial thoughts: SIP. I would transfer the cap to somewhere else with FP or grassland rivers since I will turn the cap into a GP farm (seafood 1S2W). A quick library is in order since you're CRE and there is lots of food here to run scientists early on. As for the starting build, I am considering workboat-worker-warrior-settler since you start with fishing and the worker would have nothing to do for some time. (since you need to research Ag --> AH --> TW --> Mining --> BW in order to do something with it and by the time the worker is finished, you are just almost finished with AH).

About wonders, I need to explore first before considering what to build. If we find stone here, Pyramids is a good build.

 

[Ghpstage]

Would in this case Warrior-Work Boat-Worker-Settler be a good choice ?

Aside from warrior rushes, there really isn't a justification I can think of that would support warrior first.

As for the starting build, I am considering workboat-worker-warrior-settler since you start with fishing and the worker would have nothing to do for some time. (since you need to research Ag --> AH --> TW --> Mining --> BW in order to do something with it and by the time the worker is finished, you are just almost finished with AH).

Theres corn to farm, pigs to pasture and unforested green hills to mine, I cant see how you wouldn't be able to do anything with the worker when Agri alone will let you farm the corn.....

 

[auagxa]

Theres corn to farm, pigs to pasture and unforested green hills to mine, I cant see how you wouldn't be able to do anything with the worker when Agri alone will let you farm the corn.....

I forgot to take into account the mines and also this game being normal speed. My mistake. Still, IMO it is valid to workboat first here since it is fish, not crabs nor clam.

 

[lymond]

I think WB first is not a very good play here. In fact, I don't see AG as a priority. Faster start looks to be straight to AH>BW. Pigs is a very strong tile and with two mines you can either chop out first settler or chop a WB first and then settler, depending on how nice a second city spot looks.

I'd then probably go Writing> Alpha or possibly Pot first since this is only Prince. Trade for AG later.

GLH may be a good play here on this type of map, but not sure since I'm not that familiar with it.

 

[Strickl3r]

I personally hate that map script. Often times you have so much land with lots of forests and few commerce. I really don't think it's a good mapscript to learn the game. GLH of course will pay for a lot of maintanance.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Also for my first things to build in the city. Would in this case Warrior-Work Boat-Worker-Settler be a good choice ?

Not likely.

1) Worker first, unless you know why a different choice is better.

2) You are on a peninsula, which lowers the value of early units (there's only one direction to explore/fug bust).

3) You are playing on Prince, which means that your neighbors don't have any worker units to steal.

4) You are civ that starts with Hunting, which means you are one unit behind on plans featuring early aggression anyway.


My guess is that workboat first isn't a good answer here, because you lack a pure tile. If you have a 3 tile in the inner ring, you can built a boat quickly, then catch up by working the improved tile. If you have a 3 tile, you can grow quickly, then finish the workboat at size 2. 2F/1P tiles take forever to boat.


If you are trying for your first win on Prince, you should be concentrating on normal, sound plays. Here, your reasoning should probably be "my two best tiles are corn and pigs, I should train a worker and tech agriculture and animal husbandry."

 

[lymond]

Very sound advice by Voice as usual. My one counter to it, as I mentioned above, is going AG first. Ag is often a very important tech in many starts if you don't already start with it. However, you have to take a look at several factors when considering it cases like this with multiple good food resources, iffy start techs and such.

One is timing of the worker to the first tech. Ultimately, you want to get your strong tiles - food - improved asap. In this case that is pigs. I'd have to evaluate this more with a save and settling the city to see timings, but the worker and AH should time about right. (I believe AG would throw that off here, even with Hunting bonus on AH) Then with worker movement and pasturing, Mining should arrive about then as well.

Then with BW some time after workers can move from mines to Chopping for settler and wb. The fish is indeed better than the - assumed - dry corn. So I'd prioritize settler or WB once BW comes in. Warriors in between.

Pigs and Fish are plenty of food early on for the city, plus a little commerce thrown in.

All this can vary significantly based on starting techs of the leader and surrounding resources, especially on coastal starts. As Voice said, if you don't have a good hammer tile to work early then WB first can be a bad play over focus on worker/land improvements unless seafood is your only source(s) of food.

For instance, if this was just Fish and the dry corn down there (no pigs), I'd probably go straight to BW and build WB first growing to size 2 (as Voice mentioned) on 3F, then switch to highest hammer combo at size 3 to speed WB. Then whip worker after BW or slow build on fish. Then probably go AG whatever. This approach probably counters what may be some lose of worker turns because of idleness due to bad start techs.

Bottom line: Start techs can play role in the decisions you make at the start - depending of the type of start and surrounding resources. As you've probably noticed from most advice you get, Worker first is almost always the way to go with most starts. Coastal starts often present more of a puzzle when seafood is present. My main rule there is to go worker first over WB first if the "land" resources are equal or better than what is present in the sea.

 

[Amao]

I'd suggest move the scout SE before making any tech/build decisions.

 

[The LittleOne]

As I mentioned, the scout has already been moved

And how can I give you guys a save from my game ?

 

[Lennier]

The initial save should be in your auto save folder (something like AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave). If you use the "Go Advanced" button by Quick Reply or "post reply" button, there will be a "manage attachments" button. Use that to upload the initial save, as well as saves along the way.

Also, most helpers on the forum would prefer you turn resource bubbles on in your screen shots (leave the tile yields on). Some of the icons for resources look an awfully lot a like

 

[The LittleOne]

So I played untill I had my first settler.

I went Ag > AH > BW and Worker > WB > Settler
I also met already a lot of opponents and for some reason they are already in front of me.
But I do have 3 great improved work tiles

So where do I settle my next city ? The copper is the only remarkable thing around here but it is maybe quite far off. But as soon as I gained the copper and connected my two cities I can whip an axeman rush, would that be an idea ?

 

[Strickl3r]

You are working an unimproved tile, although you have already 2 mines improved(maybe working it for quite some time now? Or do you micro for max whip overflow?). It's not really necessary to micromanage a lot on prince, but well you can get used to it anyway, if you check out which tiles the cities do work more often.

Since you have BW already you might wanne revolt to slavery and whip the worker for 2 population.

You need a 2nd worker asap anyway. Sailing before the Wheel would have been better i think as a tech choice.

I would go for gold mine and sheeps and settle 1 W of the sheeps(check out if there is sea food first), but that's very far away for a 2nd city. To bad you can't share any food with your capitol, yet.

The scouted territory presents you all the suckyness of the mapscript btw

Build a galley later you gonna need it to settle south of your capitol to share fish or corn.

 

[Lennier]

The scouted territory presents you all the suckyness of the mapscript btw

Agree. Try continents, hemispheres, pangea, or fractal for your next game. The Earth maps are sort of gimmicky for "simulating" history.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

So I played untill I had my first settler.

A bit long, maybe; the lackluster land in France is something you needed to be considering before training your settler.

So where do I settle my next city ? The copper is the only remarkable thing around here but it is maybe quite far off.

Hard to tell - you left some important gaps in the fog of the Italian coastline. You'll be able to take advantage of those tiles later if they turn out to be good; so this is really just a "hey, you could improve here" note.

The natural play is probably one north of the sheep; that will let you work the sheep, gold, and copper. Slightly fancier is one south of the copper, on the brown hill -- you trade some turns of sheep and some wasted coastal tiles for an extra hammer per turn in Sparta. That's probably the better deal.

Hard to be sure, since the picture isn't showing us the nice green land in Germany.

Another option would be to settle northern Africa - Athens has a lot of food; a city near Morocco could be fed by the fish, and another in Tripoli could be fed by the corn (Athens keeps the Pigs). I don't know the map type well enough to know if Africa can be a decent play here.

But as soon as I gained the copper and connected my two cities I can whip an axeman rush, would that be an idea ?

You could - it's a long walk, though. You do have a lot of production capability, it's not an awful idea.

But that gold mine in France is a big research accelerant. I think the more natural play is to use that to research to get ahead of the AI in tech, and then use the unfair advantage to stomp... for example, catapults.

 

[Strickl3r]

The natural play is probably one north of the sheep; that will let you work the sheep, gold, and copper. Slightly fancier is one south of the copper, on the brown hill -- you trade some turns of sheep and some wasted coastal tiles for an extra hammer per turn in Sparta. That's probably the better deal.

Settling on the coast is better imo, since this is a good spot for the GLH.
Make it 2 spots 1W of the sheeps(if there is no sea food near which tells otherwise) and 1 W of the copper(if there is no food the city can still be productive by just working the copper and producing workers/settlers, units for garrison and scouting)

 

[The LittleOne]

Here I am now.

I declared war on Ragnar to capture and destroy 2 of his cities on my continent. Tokugawa declared war on me just because ... he's a c*nt

So now I'm wo dering if I should keep pushing on Ragnar and eliminate him totaly or should I expand further to the south ?

I had to set the science slider at 50% for quite some time but I recovered from that little hit.
So I'm pretty happy with my game so far, everything is going well. The only bad thing is that my relationship with almost all AI's is Cautious or Annoyed because NO I wont stop trading with everyone

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

So now I'm wo dering if I should keep pushing on Ragnar and eliminate him totaly or should I expand further to the south ?

You can't possibly answer that question without first exploring Africa. On the other hand, half of your cities are building expensive infrastructure so you don't seem to be on war footing either...?

My guess would be to see if you can capture the pigs near the Suez, but let him keep Haithabu, which is a nice check on Capoc.

Diplomatically, it would make sense to stop trading with Capac and Qin. Maybe see if you could interest Shaka in attacking them from the other side.

I had to set the science slider at 50% for quite some time but I recovered from that little hit.

Get over this - the slider doesn't matter. What matters is your total beakers per turn. The slider just describes how your commerce is distributed. 60 per turn is lower than I would expect -- you might should maybe look at the game demographics and figure out where you really stand here.


Corinth looks like it doesn't really need a courthouse. It should probably be training the work boat that is now being trained in Birka.

 

[The LittleOne]

Ok thanks. I wasnt building troops cause I now have enough troops to defend myself and was wondering if I should advance further towards Ragnars cap.

And which demographic stat compares my breakers to the other AI ?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Ok thanks. I wasnt building troops cause I now have enough troops to defend myself and was wondering if I should advance further towards Ragnars cap.

And which demographic stat compares my breakers to the other AI ?

GNP is a reasonable proxy for that.