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

[automator]

Finally I think I'll be winning a Prince game, after a handful of horrific losses.

It's on Prince that I've finally learned the value of chopping. On Noble and lesser levels, I wouldn't think about the chop. I'd see the little message telling me "45 hammers to Moscow", but didn't really connect that with a bonus or usefulness. I ended up having a hand up on Hatshepsut (me playing Kublai Kahn) and ran in to take a couple border cities early on. One of these had 8 dyes in the borders around it -- a perfect spot to make some money. The other had incense, iron and rice. I should've stopped there, but I took my forces on a march to her capitol. That was bad news. The cities I took only had a 20% bonus and archers, but her remaining city had longbows and a 60% bonus. I couldn't take the city, so I had my keshiks go wild on pillaging to encourage her to make peace. I got my peace and rebuilt.

Then I went to war again (I really wanted that eastern sea access, and she was the next one up in score). Bad idea. By this point, she was way up on techs and could produce too many units of too much strength. She pillaged me, but took no cities, thanks to some strategic defenders in forested hills across rivers.

Over the course of these two wars, I'd shunk my bank to a couple dozen dollars and had to turn my research slider down to 20%. This destroyed my place in worldwide techs, and my score had dropped from being in the middle to being dead last, four hundred points behind my nearest point competitor.

However, I was good enough at diplomacy that I was able, in the early 1700s to convince Washington to form an alliance with me. Suddenly I went from building Macemen to building SAM infantry and tanks. We're about to finish our Appolo project, then its either Space or Diplo, depending.

Oddly, this game has been really peaceful. I've had my two wars against Egypt and China ran a couple wars, but its the end of the 18th century and all 10 civs are still a part of the game.

My lesson: I can only win at Prince if I can ally with a top performing civ. (BTW: my tech problems are mostly traceable to some pretty crappy geography: lots and lots of mountain peaks and deserts.)

 

[fuji]

I learned the Catherine Cottage Spam strategy, very fun, no rushing, keeps all victory settings open.
I'm a rocky and I'm kicking prince ass right now!!
Just beware for the other civs in the first part of the game since you'll have to neglect your military a bit...

 

[Nestorius]

On Prince level, I used to found early religions, and learned to chop out settlers and important wonders (like getting the Oracle and jumping to Code of Laws early in the game). I also made a great person city, and some commerce cities (with four or more cottages each).

To defend yourself, you got to basically keep your garrison up with your neighbors. If there is 10 axemen in the city next door, make sure you got some units to counter it, and then there will be no problem.

To learn Monarch, I found a good early strategy to be to ignore religion and early wonders, and concentrate on early rapid expansion, cottage placement, and line-of-sight/control of surrounding empty territory to keep the barbs away.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

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! Out of the 8 Prince level games I have played I have only won 3 and all of these have been on points (Time victories). The game seems to make a drastic shift between Noble and Prince levels because the strategies that work well on Noble level don't seem to cut it at all on Prince level.

Having only played the game for a couple of weeks, my experience is limited, but here's what I've found:

When I first started playing, I found Noble level to be ridiculously easy. In fact, it was so easy, I didn't bother finishing a game even while way ahead as the Persians. So now I only play on Prince level, and it's much more challenging. The AIs don't pull their punches, and will make demands and sneak attacks if you aren't careful. They'll even use some clever strategy, like combined arms and pillaging of vital resources. This means you have to be as aggressive against them as they are to you. Right now I'm playing a game as Catherine of the Russians. During the Classical Age, I faced a simultaneous attack by both the Aztecs and my neighbors the Chinese. I was totally unprepared for this war, but slave-rushed swordsmen like crazy and was not only able to (eventually) repel the Aztec onslaught, but even captured a Chinese city, Nanjing, which had horses next door, which I didn't have before.

Now it's the Middle Ages, and I'm preparing a massive assault on the Chinese, even though they don't appear to be threatening. I figure if they tried it on me, I should return the favor, and now before they gain the upper hand again. I also converted to their religion, Hinduism, even though barely 15% of my people were Hindu. This has kept them placated before I make my strike.

 

[Xanikk999]

I tried another prince game with no tech trading on. But i have to say even though it makes it easier it makes the game experience more bland.

With no tech trading diplomacy is very boring.

You can almost never convince another civ to go to war with another if you cant trade techs. And its very hard to build good relations unless everyone is your religion (or vice versa.

Also any other trade is pretty hard to do without tech trading. No tech trading makes diplomacy broken.

 

[Archbob]

There's variety of ways to win on Prince and Monarch. You can early expand like said above. If you take the expansive/aggreesive trait, then rush chop axemen and conquer the neighboring Civ.

You can also rush-chop alot of early wonders and go for cultral victory.

 

[fortytwo]

It looks like I will be at "home" with Prince difficulty. Just right. I always play Pangea, 6 Civs total, regular map size, temperate, no barbarians. Turn off Diplomatic victory.

I like randomizing the Civs, but I've found that Caeser, Alexander, Saladin, and Tokugawa are just too aggressive. If I boarder their empire, they are typically at war continually, even if just as a nuisance, when it is clear they shouldn't mess with me. Dealing with stupid little skirmishles from them can cost the game, however, and annihilation is too costly.

So I have been picking the Civs lately, leaving the aggressors out. I will also be leaving out Mansa Musa until I get better. Then again, some are TOO passive, so I mix in moderately aggressive leaders like Cyrus, Huyana Capac, Asoka, and Hathesput with some of the not-too-sucky ones like Elizabeth, Washington, Peter, and Napoleon.

I will restart the map only if I have a really bad corner of a continent. Water on 1 side is o.k., on 2-3 sides I restart. Center continent is a good challenge.

No need to rush founding a religion, if you want one bad enough you can usually get one of the later ones beyond Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. However, if you border 3+ Civs, you'd best found one and crank out the missionaries to at least 2 of them. You can only afford one enemy that shares boarders. Another good strategy is to just convert to one of theirs and then help them export it, but you lose the gold from having the wonder.

With enough goodie huts, I will chase any old tech, based on terrain and resources, until they money starts running out, then I go for Pottery and get my cottages moving. Once the money balances back out, I go for Alphabet. Be careful not too trade too much in favor of another CIV, or they may get too much of a boost, but be generous, they'll remember you for it.

Chop-rush Settlers, but I do not build beyond the "star" pattern around my capital unless a very compelling resource is just out of reach, like Marble, Stone, or Iron. Stay the hell away from jungle! With a lighthouse, sea tiles are very good for food (2)! So push up against the sea. Build roads to rivers, to save time.

Don't just think bonus tiles, make sure a city will have the food to get big, otherwise skip over terrain like desert. Cram 2 cities together if there is a bunch of floodplain so neither grows too fast.

3-4 workers are usually enough for 7-9 cities (9 is a perfect "star").

One city cranks out Archers while the others focus on buildings. Literature is essential to give them something to build besides units!

Got Ivory? Go for Construction. Use War Elephants to hurt any Civs with too much land, unless they border you. Don't underestimate what a Classical-era war can do to set back an AI Civ. Sometimes declaring war is all it takes, then let them kill their units on your Longbowmen.Make sure you have upgraded to Longbowmen, they are pretty wicked defenders.

Take any cities too close for comfort, think geography and defensability. Is that city the AI had to cram into your territory a holy city? Take it early, it will never flip. Don't forget you'll probably have a permanent enemy if you declare war, so contain them.

Knights are overrated, but you'll need Guilds for the Grocer if your cities are getting unhealthy. Education/Democracy beeline is better, trade for others.

Be sure to keep some Engineers, they support Great Person engineer production odds and they are the best Great Person in the early part of the game, aside from the one prophet necessary for the holy city wonder.

From there, you're on your own! Too much depends on how things play out.

 

[bluedevil99]

First post here. I recently got a few friends hooked on the game and ended up learning a lot from watching them play (it opened my eyes to a lot of my own mistakes). The most consistent winning strategy I've found is Synex's "Catherine cottage spam" under strategy articles. Most of the other tips I can offer I've found on these boards, but here goes:

1) Be constantly aggressive. Unlike Noble, the AI starts with an advantage and will be expanding much earlier. You need to scout early on and focus on discovering and reaching ideal city locations and resources before the AI, or acquiring them through war if absolutely necessary.

2) Specialize your cities. There are many good threads on this. Again, though, specialization is most effective when you find and settle on the best locations for each city type. Most importantly, a city should almost NEVER be working unimproved tiles (exception: forests when you're short on health resources and before lumbermills are available).

3) Diplomacy: Have a plan. Scout the map and and decide ASAP who your allies will be. Be selective in signing open borders: it prevents you from cutting off a neighbor's expansion and can be an invitation for an aggressive neighbor to scout your military strengths and weaknesses. Avoid becoming dependent on a state religion until you know the diplomatic costs and benefits. Get to know AI leader tendencies (e.g. Montezuma is super-aggressive, Isabella hates you if your religion differs).

4) The golden rule of war: Have a specific goal and the means to achieve it quickly. Have your workers build roads to enemy borders and mass your forces. I basically never declare war pre-Kremlin unless I can take one or more desirable cities and/or pillage key resources within the first 1-3 turns. Don't invade a weak neighbor if the result will be you getting his crappy cities when you could have settled in better locations yourself (unless you believe that neighbor would have caused you trouble down the line).

5) Barbarians: Fortify warriors/archers on hills just outside your cultural borders. Barbs only span in fog of war tiles and will usually attack your units regardless of odds if they get close. Put together, this means fewer barbs and powerful defensive units from promotions when barbs do attack. Also, try to discover and capture barb cities (provided they are in decent locations).

6) DON'T BUILD UNECCESARY BUILDINGS! I see my friends put granaries/libraries/forges/etc in all their cities as soon as they get the techs and then find themselves overwhelmed by barbs and pushed around by the AI. Only go for buildings when they are useful now or in the near future and only build wonders that are important to your strategy (e.g., Stonehenge if you're not creative, Parthenon if you're philosophical and/or find a good great person farm location early)! If you are finding yourself with "idle cities" producing buildings wonders for the heck of it, you are probably not playing aggressively enough to win on Prince.

7) AI aggression: Again, know your neighbors and plan ahead. Try to keep 3 defensive units minimum (more if you're even or behind in tech, less if you're substantially ahead) in your border/coastal cities after your initial expansion phase, and more if you have bad relations with your neighbors and/or they are aggressive.

8) Most importantly (as another post said above): ADAPT. There is no one best build order/research order/set of civics. Particularly early on, think in terms of "what is the benefit of having this tech/unit/building NOW as opposed to that one?". This often means taking your time and assessing where you want to expand, how close your cities are to health/happiness caps, and what resources are available. Remember: you are now at a disadvantage relative to the AI and you need to plan carefully and play aggressively to overcome it.

 

[fortytwo]

I strongly agree with all of these except denying open borders. The diplomatic benefit is usually better, plus the influx of other religions. Also, the AI cannot start a war from within your borders, so all your really have to worry about is the one or two cities that they are most likely to attack.

If at any time in the game your military cannot at least sustain a defense, then your military is too weak!

 

[Rast]

Though I still haven't won on Prince, right now I'm about 9% land area away from a Domination victory (Prince, Continents, Marathon, Washington) and it pretty much looks in the bag, so...

The early game is the hardest on Prince (at least for me). The AI has the advantage, so you have to expand fast, but not so fast you kick your own ass with maintenance, keep your research up, and play aggressively. You need to get enough population in your civ to overcome the research handicap the AI has. After you can pull this off the game plays almost identically to Noble.

Warrior -> Warrior -> Worker -> Settler works for me. Research to BW, chop a settler, and keep chopping till there's nothing left to chop. Cottage spam fast and early to keep the gold flowing in, you never want to keep your research slider lower than 70% for extended periods, until late in the game when you have tons of beakers and want to use the cash for rushing things.

Research BW, Pottery, Alphabet, Monarchy. I love early Monarchy because it lets my cities get huge quickly. Base happiness on Prince is pretty low and it takes time to develop luxury resources.

Try to keep barbarians under control by posting sentries in your back country. If this isn't possible (wasn't for me - I took out Germany very early and half my continent was uninhabited and four barb cities spawned back there), be prepared to fight off a large barbarian invasion - I had axemen and archers coming in almost every turn.

Chop out some axemen and attack early before the cultural bonus gets too high to deal with without siege weapons. Keep the pressure up, get the AI civs to help you (2v1 or 3v1 is a lot easier fight than 1v1) if you can afford to give them tech for military assistance. Above all else, keep your research up and keep your economy growing.

I had production problems since I cottage spammed like crazy, till I got Universal Suffrage, the 1-2 punch of all those extra hammers AND being able to rush things allowed me to just dominate everyone that was left on my continent. Once you get Universal Suffrage turn your research down 10 or 20% and use all that extra gold to rush improvements and upgrade obsolete units.

Be the first to research flight. Bombers > Tanks, doubly true if your victims have no anti-air capabilites, and triply true on Marathon (with it's inherant focus on siege warfare). Bomb the target cities back to the stone age, bomb tile improvements in cities you aren't attacking at the moment to cripple their economy and starve the population, bomb reinforcing troop movements, bomb those annoying invasion forces that land once in a while. You can't kill units outright with bombs like in Civ 3 but you can beat them up so much that if you skip tanks for a few more turns to get bombers it won't make any difference.

Rush a lot of airports. After your initial invasion force drops you shouldn't need to shuttle valuable and vulnerable transports across the ocean. Though the days of being able to take a city, build an airfield with a worker, and airdrop in your entire army are gone, being able to airlift one unit per turn to each city is plenty unless you're rushing a lot of military, which you shouldn't be unless every one of your cities is fully improved.

Granted the late game cities you take this way won't be worth much (my conquests typically fall 10 population points or more, and most/all tile improvements need to be rebuilt), but at this point you're simply collecting tiles for domination victory so it doesn't matter. Rush some culture buildings and a courthouse in your new cities and forget about them.

 

[Vatec]

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet in the thread, but I believe the single most critical thing to do is:

NEVER trade away Alphabet. Make the AIs work for it.

You can end up being the de facto tech broker for the world (or at least your continent) for thousands of years, because the AIs for some reason don't prioritize this tech.

I find, in most of my games, I head for Alphabet shortly after getting the critical infrastructure techs (Mining/Bronzeworking, Farming and/or Fishing/Sailing, The Wheel, Pottery, Hunting/Archery if no Copper within settling range, other food-generating techs on an as-needed basis). The moment I get Alphabet I soak up every available tech by trading everything EXCEPT Alphabet. Then I head for Mathematics and Currency. Once I get Currency, I sell every non-critical tech to every single AI for whatever I can get for it. Yeah, I'll sell Priesthood for 10gp if that's all Bismarck can spare, because if I don't, he'll buy it from one of my current customers two turns from now....

Note, this depends on getting to Alphabet ahead of the AIs. It CAN be done on Prince and Monarch. So if you aren't getting to this stage, you need to figure out what is wrong with your economy. And for that, my best advice would be what others have suggested: upload a saved game and ask for evaluations from the experts.

 

[Toshiro126]

It took me a few games to manage the jump from Noble to Prince. The big thing I've done is been more agressive with the start of the game, chop rushing soldiers to beat back AIs I know will be trouble. In my current game, it's the Aztecs who were on my border. They are left with two small cities right now.

I've won the last few Prince games via Spacerace by having a good army to protect my many cities, and paying much more attention to specializing at least a few of my cities. On Noble, I didn't micromange as much. On Prince, I found it necessary for victory.

 

[katank]

One thing is to expand as much as you can but have a feel for how far to go.

4-5 cities might be enough to win a game on noble but is nowhere near enough on Prince.

Unless you are really good and going for something like cultural victory, try to aim for 9-10 cities at the least and preferably 20+.

Code of Laws and Currency are priority techs. Having science dropping as low as 0% isn't that big a deal as long as you can reach one of these two techs in reasonable time (30-50 turns). Getting CoL via Oracle while pumping out hordes of swords and axes to kill your neighbors has worked well for me up to and including Monarch.

Haven't managed to beat Emperor consistently though. Aggression is key in most cases.

 

[fortytwo]

O.k. I finally got my big Prince Victory, 34,000 point (!) Domination victory in 1865.

Here is a condensed summary, props to Vatec and Drogear for their tips.

Small Map - Pangea - Temperate - 5 AI's - China/Isabella/Cyrus/Frederick/Peter

I was Caeser. Say no more?

CHOP RUSH - first tech was BW, 2 workers, then 4-5 settlers. Warrior. Pottery - Animal Husbandry - agriculture - writing - Iron Working - Alphabet.

By the time I had my Praetorians, I had barracks in every city, chop-rushed libraries, and then I made nothing but Praetorians.

I took out China's capital city, Archers and Axemen are no match for City Raider II Praetorians. This earned me the Pyramids unexpectedly, this was probably what really sealed the victory. That gave me Police State and +25% Praetorian build. I left China with 2 cities, and took on my only other neighbor, Isabella. I had coast to the west, these two to the east. But I might add my starting location was not very impressive and I was quite squeezed by neighbors. France finished off Isabella, and Peter finished of China. I turned immediately to reserach/economy. My army was only Praetorians, but strong enough that I didn't have to build a single military unit until I had Cavalry, I was just that intimidating. Though I did "prep" my domination victory by making some horse archers I could simply just upgrade.

Another great strategy was being stingy with tech trading, I didn't need anything but techs on the way to Miltary Tradition and I didn't want to give any of these away to other Civs. I held back Alphabet until the last possible moment. Then never traded another tech again. I should point out that only Cyrus, Peter, and Frederick had any sort of decent technology.

I specialized 3 cities in research, gave them 4 different religions of monestaries. The Spiral Minaret helped with my economy. I also rushed Code of Law and courthouses to help my economy with a protracted empire. Didn't Only other GW was Hanging Gardens. With all my resources I didn't need a single Aquaduct.

I used all of my Great People to research techs, but I mostly got GE, which give research to techs on the way to Gunpowder/Military Tradition.

At that point, back to Police State, Theology, Serfdom. War Weariness can cripple you, but not with Police State! The Russian Empire fell like a house of cards. Cavalry seldom lose to Long Bowmen. I most have lost not more than a dozen battles the entire game.

I could have won 100 years earlier than I did, but I held off on attacking France until I had Infantry, and until I could rush temples in all my Russian cities to expand their border rapidly. France managed to build ONE musketman before I took them out, primarily with Cavalry. That musketman lost his only battle, by the way. Cyrus had riflemen, but I didn't have to bother with him. The moment France was eliminated, I won.

 

[exhile]

I finally won a Space Victory at Prince level. Selecting certain technologies to research is definitely key. Also, keeping the science level between 40% and 80% played a big part. Never researched religion but only when I had to.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

1. Early wars help a ton. Its good to help consolidate land near your home. Also, if you have an aggresive neighbor, take him out. Prepare for war because most like its gonna happen.
2. Chop till your head spins.
3. Be political. Adopt the most popular religion, or religion of your neighbors. Start wars between other people. Dont trade away tech if you are trying to build a wonder.
4. Make a tech tree plan.