Are you winning at Prince Level? If so, how?

[homeyg]

Many of you had good tips and suggestions but what I want to know is how many of you are consistently winning Space Ship Victory at Prince Level.

Disclaimer: I didn't read the thread except for the first post so I don't know if anyone else has said this already so here goes...

I just won my first victory on Prince (spaceship) and I will say that I did not fight any game winning wars (only 2 minor wars started by a Civ I shared an island with and they were so far behind in the end that they weren't even part of the spacerace). I don't think it is necessary to fight wars in order to win diplomatic and spacerace like some people will lead you to beleive. In order to win, you do need to build your economy (have a library, university, observatory, etc. in every city) and make smart research choices and tech trades. Research techs that most Civs don't have yet (I say most because usually when only one Civ has a tech he won't trade it for a while so you usually have some time to research it and trade for other techs - I'm not saying you will have 30 turns to research it but you will have a few turns - like 5 or so turns). Trade for techs that you really need (if you're lucky, you will be able to turn around and trade the tech you just traded for to other Civs for more techs). Make smart decisions. War is not necessary to win (unless you are trying to get a conquest, but that's obvious).

 

[segawang]

In Monarch, you'd better have several cottage enhanced cities to keep up with AI's tech step. You also a couple of need hammer enhanced cities to produce enough military to hopefully raise an early war (pre-longbowmen). If you don't declare, some AI would anyway. This war is usually a good opportunity to get some free tech Make sure you grab all the strategy resources after that war.

 

[Wodan]

Try Pyramids with a Financial leader, Representation, and putting a cottage in every grassland in sight.

Wodan

 

[GenericKen]

I'm halfway through my first monarch game, and I gotta tell you, it's ridiculous how far ahead of the AIs I am.

Of course, I'm playing as Financial Washington on a water map, so my giant water empire filled with towns generates a heck of a lot of reserch (something like 2200 a turn).

My goal right now is to win the game before 1775.

 

[BlowPhish]

If you want to take it to the next level without going to monarch try playing with 18 civs on prince with epic speed. This is what I've been playing latly and have yet to beat it. If you turn off tech trading its easy but thats no fun. With all the civs keeping up with the tech race is insanly hard X|.

 

[Migalart]

I kick ass on Noble level (won 5 out of 5 games: 3 via Space Race, 2 via Domination) but when I shift to Prince level I generally get my ass kicked! QUOTE]

I have similar problem.
But with shifting from Monarch into Emperator

 

[spiceant]

on noble you can do almost anything wrong and still come out as the winner, on higher difficultys you must wager your decisions much better and put more attention into each turn, that means you cant spam end turn anymore, untill spaceship. if you get a bad start on monarch or above you are often doomed to loose if you dont have godlike skills, luck and patience.

 

[Garand]

I started my first Prince game a few nights ago and so far it has been very difficult for me, largely because of a poor start. I was put on the eastern end of a continent and my capital had both marble AND stone in its starting area. I thought I was going to do great, but then I did some exploring and saw my situation. The Mongols directly to my west blocking expansion, and about 3 tiles to the south of my capital was basically nothing but tundra and ice.

While my access to resources has been fine (iron, copper, furs, wheat, whales, clams, incense, fish, sheep and cows), my empire only numbers 7 cities, and out of those seven, only 3 are over level 6. The rest are surrounded by inhospitable terrain with poor production, no growth, and no real contribution to the empire. The Mongols jumped out to a massive head start, meaning a war of conquest would have been bloody and likely a loss. I began to fall farther and farther behind, only managing to complete 1 wonder before the middle ages set in, and only one more by the time the Reniassance set in. Great people were being born everywhere but my capital, it seemed.

After some crafty trading and a burst in research when one of my more hopeless cities turned out to be quite good, I began to approach a level of technological parity with most of the computer civs. However, the English are the most advanced in the world and are easily 6-10 techs ahead of me. I just kept trucking along though, cultivating good relations with my neighbors the Mongols and English, modernizing my military to knights and musketeers, when out of nowhere Napoleon declares war (he has an 800 point lead in score over me, just behind Kublai Khan). The very same turn, two French galleons land riflemen and knights outside of my capital which is defended only by a couple of musketmen and some longbowmen. After some bloody battles, I managed to hold the capital, but now I am at war with a far more advanced Civ, with no one offering to help.

I know it's a fairly hopeless game (I'm dead last in score, about 300 points behind the Chinese), but I am a glutton for punishment and want to see how long I can stay in the game against superior opponents without getting destroyed.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

A few changes I made to my game to help me consistently build winning positions on Prince:

- Worker, chop worker, chop settler works - if you can get away with it. It's an ideal to shoot for in terms of a fast start, though in practice you will end up pumping out at least one warrior and/or scout in between.

- Scouting early is key. You will lose a few turns relative to optimum production, but that difference is miniscule compared to the advantage gained in directing your development towards an effective strategy for your environment. Whether you are alone on an island or crowded in on a continent, the sooner you know what the situation is, the sooner and more effectively you can adjust to it.

- Unless you are alone on an island, count on going to war early. The earlier the better; AI defenses will only improve with time. Since the AI will attack you if your military is weak, and a strong military is a total waste if you don't use it, you might as well find someone to pick on and get started on it. Allowing the AI to build cultural defense bonuses before you have catapults is very bad.

- Along those lines, you need at least one of the three key early war resources: horses, copper, or iron. Early BW research is a must anyway for production purposes; if you can't acquire copper then research iron as soon as you can. When picking whom to fight, kill off the AIs who have those resources as they will be greater threats regardless of leader personalities relative to AIs which don't. This is also a huge part of the importance of scouting, as well.

- When attacking, take out the enemy's key war resources first, this will decimate his ability to resist and force the creation of exclusively defensive units, which pose little threat to your cities.

- If your research slider is above 60% you are not expanding fast enough.

 

[genjiboy]

For me, it's all about the start. I play as Elizabeth (English) or Tokugawa (Japanese) and chop like hell. I try to chop just outside my opponents borders so to minimize barb. risk and maximize chopping potential.

Japanese:
Research mining
1) worker
you have 4 turns before bronze working--I usually make a mine
2) worker
Bronze working done, Adopt slavery

English:
Research bronze working
Bronze working done
1) worker
adopt slavery
2) worker

Then with both:
3) settler
city 1: settler, city 2: worker
etc.
i like to have about 3/1 chopping/improvements until the forests are gone. I usually do manual for the first bit, then switch to automatic.

Just a question: do you actually use slavery in your strategy? Personally, I wouldn't be adopting it that early in the game, unless I was either Spiritual or had a specific purpose in mind.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I just won my first game on prince and I'm darned proud of it! I played Russia as Prince XIII, so guess how many tries it took! But, not a single loaded save, and it almost cost me. And, no kidding, it came down to the last five turns. I had to keep Asoka and Mana Musa on the planet, and keep Lizzie from passing me in points. (I declared war in 2045 and took two cities... I razed one, and lost about 200 points!) Things I learned:

- Ceasar will attack you. I managed to hold him off until Cossacks, then ended his time on the planet.

- No matter how Mansa starts out, he'll be there in the end with the techs. I went to war to slow him down, then made peace when it seemed like the was out of it, only to have to send in spies to dust his parts production.

- Spies rock. Without them, Asoka or Mansa would have been on the moon.

- Race to the internet works as a last resort. I used it and picked up a bunch of techs in the end that allowed me to build what I neded to get after Liz. But, be mindful, with an aggressive Civ near you, they might be in your lap with modern forces and destroy you.

- Even though I had great relations with Liz, she wouldn't trade a darn thing to me. I wish someone would explain that one...

Anyway, I'll take that win!

 

[Archbob]

I always play China now(Qin Shi Huang) for financial and industrious trait. You generally want to cottage spam everything and tech up. Trading and selling techs is key throughout the game. I play on huge map so domination isn't usually an option. Try to found a religion, but if you can't, go straight for liberalism and then communism and democracy. Use Free Speech, Universal suffrage, Free religion, emancipation, and state property as your civics. You should be able to out space-race the other civ given that Mansa Musa does not get a fast start.

 

[Leifmk]

You got to go to war early and relentlesely on Prince.

Not at all. I've been mostly playing on Monarch now and I've won devastating victories without fighting any wars at all (and several more victories which only had a few short and relatively unimportant wars, e.g. some jerk on a different continent declares war on me, I sink a few of his ships and pillage some fishing boats, he gives up and sues for peace).

I'm moving up to Emperor now and am trying a bit more early aggression -- just snatching the other guys' workers and pillaging their terrain improvements can be worthwhile.

 

[exhile]

I have yet to win a space victory on Prince Level. This will be my fourth try and I must say it is HARD!!! I've only been able to win through time viictory where I lead in points. I need a total change in my game plan because I haven't researched rocketry though I'm in the 21st century. Pretty sad, eh. Anyway, I'll keep looking at this thread to get some more tips.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Monarch is pretty frikin hard :/

Honestly I think all the difficulties are pretty similar when you have the right principles down. I've played a few prince games. I then played my first and only Monarch game as the GOTM3 game. Now I'm playing an Emperor game and already I'm pretty confident I can win.

The start becomes more critical the higher in level you go, as you will be in catch-up mode from the start since the AI gets the early advantages. The bigger the advantage the AI gets, the more time you will spend in this catch-up mode.

Of course, by my first paragraph, I'm not suggesting Settler is just as easy as Deity. I mean that once you develop sound strategies for playing on reasonable difficulties (eg. Noble or Prince), moving up the difficulties will give you similar games. However, I can't really comment on Immortal or Deity as I have not played any games at those difficulties.

And I have to say this is my opinion and I understand if not many will agree with me.

 

[mutax2003]

I consider myself a civ veteran since I played civ 1 through 3 before, so I started off Civ. IV on monarch. After losing the first 2-3 games, I started game winning at that level. So my advice is to just start at monarch, you will see what works and what doesn't on higher level. With some practice, you will beating the game regularly. Now I am playing on emperor levels, so far with 2 wins under belt, when I get more comfortable, I will move up to the next level.

 

[MasterShake]

I thought this was about Prince

 

[Chillaxation]

Adapt, adapt, adapt.

Play to the strengths of your geographical situation and the advantages of your leader and situation. There is always a resource nearby that you aren't getting double the value for because you don't have the building that doubles its effects. There's always tech choices that can give you a crucial advantage if you exploit it: multiple libraries and cottages in culture rich areas; military techs for highly productive cities near military resources; culturally amplifying techs. Maybe you've got quarries - focus on the techs that lead to marble or stone wonders. Gems and Gold in your borders? Beeline to Metal Casting. Every situation can be turned synergistically into an advantage for you. Will you have the first highly mobile combat force or a knockout GPP city? Multiple market-grocer cash cow cities, or six catapults behind axemen and swords? Ask yourself all the possible advantages you could gain, and go for the easiest to get. Then go for the next. Strategically, if you focus on increasing your strength, you will have the ability to meet crises with confidence if they come.

 

[Bezhukov]

Sounds to me that you could improve your diplomacy. Use your early tech lead to foment discord among the AI and you'll be unlikely to lose it.

 

[LauriL]

I've won some games with Prince, but I like Noble more, because you can choose more freely the way how you want to win.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but basicly, what I've experienced and read from these threads, keeping science rate high is the key. And expanding your nation in a balanced matter by whatever means allows you to do that. Of course there are many points of view of this same goal, but you can't win you don't have enough techs.