Can't beat prince

[monkai]

Hi,

I was wondering if I could get help with tips to beat prince level. The main problem is that I can't really seem to gain any sort of an advantage. My general approach is to make sure to rush axes to take out a civilization and gain a large amount of land, but usually in the time it takes to get to get my civilization out of the red and to producing gold and science, I don't have much of a lead or a military that could take more land. Sometimes, my military is far enough behind that I get attacked anyway and lose my cities.

In the attached game that I have, I was able to rush praet and take out the cilivilization to the north of me. After taking two cities, I founded two more cities. Even though this really brought my research/income to pretty much nothing, I did it because I knew that if I didn't, I was just going to lose anyway because of the civilization to the north taking the land and just getting an advantage.

Does anyone have any tips? I'm having a hard time thinking of an optimal way to gain a lead because it seems that anything I do will hurt me in the long run.

 

[lymond]

28 Longbows! WTH! Why so many LBs? Why do you have any LBs?

Just curious to your thinking here: It appears you are playing normal settings, but I see only 4 AIs on this map. Looks you reduced the number of AIs. I see no purpose in that.

I recommend playing with barbs on and huts/events off.

Okay, lots of issues here so let me start by laying out a few basic important tenets:

1) FOOD is king in this game and should be prioritzed first
2) Most important building in the game --->Granary
3) Most important unit in the game ---> Worker
4) Do not automate workers - good worker management is vital
5) Slavery rules
6) specialists and Great People are important

So with that out of the way, your first big mistake was teching BW first and beelining IW. Always look to your food situated first. I understand your urge here for IW, but I will point out that the only reason you would tech that yourself is if you have a UU like Praets. Otherwise, I would generally never tech IW myself.

On Prince, which I assure you once you improve your basic mechanics, is very easy, here's a usual tech path:

Food tech>BW>TW>Writing>Alpha...then trade for small techs you don't have. Then Maths->Currency. Alpha can be used for IW at some point, but at this level I would hold off if you have a Monopoly on Alpha unless IW is absolutely needed for some reason.

In this case based on your map, I would have gone Agri>BW>TW>Pot>IW>Writing>Alpha. Again, only IW here due to Praets. HOwever, replacing Pot>IW with Animal Husbandry for sheep and horse is certainly a nice approach on this level, as chariot are very viable to take out a near AI.

Attacking Greece due to their proximity is a good approach here, but you didn't need to sacrifice better early gameplay to beeline IW in order to do it.

Just make those adjustments will change your game dramatically.

Meanwhile, open borders with AI and get trade routes set up with them as soon as you can.

Get a library up asap to start running 2 scientists for an Academy in your capital. Meanwhile, one city with good food, maybe Athens,should be setup as Great Person farm for bulb strategies. Mainly you look to farm Great Scientists early for bulb strategies.

Once Greece is down (and waiting a little longer may have netted you more cities),then you might look to take out another AI or two with Praets. Most of this going on in the BCs timeframe Beelining Currency (most important tech) will help with economy.

Trade resources with AI for those you don't have and gold per turn. You are doing none of that. Also note that by reducing the standard number of AI you decreased your opportunity for tech trading early and resource and gold trading.

Don't get caught up with the slider. It does not need to be at X percent. When you are still at 1 city you tech at 100% research getting to Writing. Once you settle your first city you start deficit research. Once this happens, look to run 0% research for X number of turns to fund research and expansion. Later after Currency you can trade for chunks of gold to speed research. Great People and bulbing will help with that too.

As for units, most cities will likely just have the 1 warrior for MP - maybe more for Hereditary Rule happiness in some larger cities. Otherwise, build units for the purpose of creating a good army of attack units. Don't just randomly build tons of Longbows for no purpose whatsover.

Lastly, Civ IV is about snowballing. The early game is so important. Mastering this area will lead to great things later in the game. Once you do this you will demolish the AIs on Prince level and leave them in the dust in research.

Best way to learn is post a game from the start getting direct advice on opening moves and strategies, playing small turnsets. You will be leaving Prince behind in short order.

 

[monkai]

Thanks for the advice! So I shouldn't worry too much about my opponents rapid expansion? I think the most common memory that I have when playing on noble was that if I didn't expand soon enough, my opponents would take all of the land and eventually they would all outpace me. But maybe I'm trying to early to rush my opponents so maybe I'll try and develop my cities a little bit before hand.

Also, for GP, should I always be bulbing? Do you happen to have a good resource on bulbing or just tech strategys in general? I get in the habit of not really knowing what I should do with my GP because my bulbs just don't really seem that appealing. I also kind of have the trouble of not really knowing what to go after in teching because some of the techs just don't really seem that appealing.

I think I get in the trap of just really trying to beeline CS/CoL/Education/PP/Gunpowder because it really just seems to make the most sense in terms of economy, science, and gunpowder. As a result, i'm pretty underdeveloped in other areas, but the benefits of those cultural techs just don't seem so appealing in terms of giving me an advantage.

Anyway, thanks for your help. Will be watching your youtube channel for some tips.

 

[Seraiel]

Your problems seems to be the economy of CIV and that one isn't completely trivial as Lymond already explained to you with lots of specific tactics and especially how the slider-position doesn't mean that you're good or bad but that the you can conduct / turn is what matters. Just in very short to explain (if you need more information about anything read the guide I wrote about economy linked in my signature) :

comes mainly from three sources:

1. Cottages. Cottage the Grassland, it's neutral, Cottages give 1 and they grow. The population working them costs about 0.3 - 0.5 (probably far less on Prince) , so while they're not that efficient in the beginning they get very strong in the end. If you neglect Cottages early you get a problem later.

2. Specialists. Scientists give 3 (6 with running Representation) and Merchants give 3 (3 + 3 with REP) . They also generate and by you'll get Great Persons that can either bulb (Great Scientists being stronger in this discipline) or they can conduct "special abilities" like i. e. a Trade-Mission in the case of a Great Merchant that gives some thousands of with which you can research at 100% for a long time, even with running a deficit. Generally it's always worth to run Specialists if a city can create a Great Person. With REP Specialists also generally make sense because their strength gets doubled making them about as good as Hamlets or even Villages when the play no role because that city won't create a GP.

3. Traderoutes. Don't neglect those, they're the best and often even most important source of which can be , , or depending on which slider you use. Every city should be connected via a river (needs Sailing or the river needs to be completely inside your cultural borders) or via a road. Make sure to get foreign Traderoutes by signing Open Borders with your neighbours as Lymond already told you, foreign Traderoutes are often more than twice as strong than internal ones.

A very common strategy is to run the Civic Burocreacy, Cottage the complete non-Hills-Grassland + possible Floodplains and create a Great Scientists which then uses its special ability to build an Academy. Buro gives +50% extra so if your city i. e. conducts 100 it then makes 150. The Academy gives +50% on so if you run a 100% science slider then that city would generate 150*1.5 = 225 on its own. This is called "the Buro capital" and it's not uncommon for a city like that to generate up to 50% of the of your whole empire, so whip it seldomly and grow it steadily.

If you had posted screens btw. I'd comment on them specifically.

 

[monkai]

Wow, really appreciate all of the tips here. I'll keep these tips in mind and work on following your guides and tips

 

[monkai]

Hi, so I played a new game some more and I attached some saves.

I think I went a little bit too far in the other direction of what you guys suggested and I think I overlooked trying to do the scientists with the library. I did build a lot more workers and did try and do more cottages than I had done in the past.

How would you guys have placed your cities at the beginning? I think it threw me off a little bit to have jungles to the south because after I settled I realized I would need IW to have any improvements. Would you guys have settled closer to the capital to avoid being so spread out?

As for fighting a war, I kind of got into one more turn mode and realized that I didn't really have an army set up to fight and eventually opponents got longbowmen. The only positive I can think of is that I have enough cities to whip together an army, but I don't know what kind of position I'm in right now.

Thanks for any feedback

 

[monkai]

Here are some screenshots of early game

 

[elitetroops]

Looking at 250 BC save.

You are still ignoring the most important rule of them all: food is king! No1 priority for most new cities is to get them growing asap. The best is to settle next to a foo resource that you can improve immediately, or to share a food resource with a previous city that is already improved. When city is settled, improve food first. In Haithabu this would mean farming a floodplain before improving copper. City is now at the point where it will be starving if you try to work a single gold mine. To work both gold you need to farm several floodplains and this needs to be done before you mine the gold. (No point mining a gold that you can't work without starving).

Early on jungle is problematic. I usually avoid settling the jungle and prefer other lands. Let the AI clear the jungle, then take it from them. Birka is a bad second city because there's not much the city can do for a long time. Would have been better to settle to the east. With IW in, 1N of the bananas is quite attractive. It can borrow cows from capital to grow and picks up marble quite soon.

Cottages should preferably be riverside. Especially with a financial leader. Those 2 cottages north of Nidaros are 21. 2S of Nidaros there's still space for a cottage that would start at 23. You could also even cottage the spices for 24. One of those northern cottages need to be demolished later if you want to irrigate the rice, which you will want to do.

Overall, expansion to 250BC is very slow. You should have at least 5-6 cities by then. Prioritizing food will take you a long way towards that goal.

 

[Seraiel]

I see on the screens that:

1. You have food in some cities (i. e. the capital) but you're not working it! Working Cottages is important but your cities also need to grow to work more of them and they need to grow so you can whip them, is production and also more , as a beginner you should always work the food.

2. You founded the one city in the east 1 tile of the cost, don't do that with a FIN leader, Imo. you should have founded the city at the river where it would also have gotten a +2 bonus from freshwater. The Copper wouldn't have been in the 9-tiles-square then but if you'd have settled it 2nd and traded for Mysticism you could have very fastly builta Monument by whipping it after growing to size 2 with working a 3 Floodplain.

3. The cities towards the AIs are all bad. One has almost only Jungle which takes forever to improve and I didn't even see at all at the other one. Don't over-value grabbing land from the AIs if it's bad, if you can settle better one and if you can conquer the AIs later, all the cities the AI would have founded there could have been founded for you.

This post is partly redundant with what elitetroops wrote.

 

[elitetroops]

And a quick look at 1030 AD save.

First of all, way way way way too much units. And still building more... What are you going to do with those axes? The AI has longbows, axes are completely useless. Normally, you need one unit/city as military police and whatever is needed as barb protection (=fogbusting). One warrior/city as military police is usually good enough. Maybe some more for happiness under Hereditary rule, warriors are the most efficient for that as well. Then you build units for offense when time comes. When you plan to attack someone, build an army very fast and use it. Don't build stacks to stand around in your cities. They cost money in upkeep and those hammers can be put to better use.

Keep an eye on the AI to anticipate an attack, then you can react if someone is planning to attack you. Even if you have only one warrior in a city, there's still enough time to prevent a surprise attack from the AI by whipping/chopping/upgrading. If you see them building up a stack in a city near you, you can start preparing some defense. You can also check the trade screen and if the option to bribe them to attack someone else is red and you hover the mouse over it to see the reason "we have enough on our hands already", you know they are planning to attack someone soon. Or install BUG-mod and you will see a red fist on the scoreboard whenever an AI gives that reply. Get BUG in any case, it greatly improves the interface and makes lots of vital information more easily accessible. Otherwise it doesn't affect gameplay.

If an AI attacks, they attack the closest city. Nidaros, for example, would never be attacked here. Absolutely no reason to have a stack of 5 axes there.

Scout your neighbours well to know what they are up to. You have open borders with them all, but in 1030AD you haven't sent a single unit to scout their lands...

You haven't produced a single great person yet. Like Seraiel said earlier, they are extremely powerful. Run a couple of scientists in a city with a library early, then use the Great Scientist to build an Academy in your capital. Later great scientists can be used to bulb techs.

 

[lymond]

monkai - I suggest slowing thing down quite a bit. Just focus on the early game for now and getting used to the nuances of that aspect of the game. All the advice given has been excellent, but it is a lot to absorb. For instance, cottages are great and important, but very much not the priority in the early game. (and by early game I mean the first 50 turns or so) And certainly not meant to be placed everywhere.

Also, try rolling better maps to start with for the time being. that start is not horrendibad, but it is not very good. Look for starts with at least one good food resource - wet corn or grass pigs is good. Avoid coastal starts for now as they require some advanced thinking to master the start.

But really, post up a game from the beginning. Get advice on opening moves and play very short turnsets. Really focus on getting the early game down, reading the map, teching, manage workers, whipping, etc.

Civ IV is a complex game, but it won't take you long to get down some of the basics that will take you far in any game.

(as for bulbing, outside of getting those first scientists running and your first Great Scientists, we really don't need to go there with you yet.)

 

[monkai]

Hi,

So just started up a new game.

I know lymond suggested avoiding coastal starts, but considering that there are five food resources that I could work, I figured that this would be a good place to start.

So following the advice here, for build order, I went WB, worker to get the fish and to improve the food resources around my capital. Should I then build a warrior to protect my really only have one warrior to protect the capital? For a tech build, I went agriculture, TW, Pottery, AH just so I could guarantee that all of my food resources could be taken care of, but as for the TW and pottery, should I be thinking about cottages right away after finishing improving the food resources? Would agriculture, AH, mining, BW have been better to reveal the copper in the map?

As for exploration of the map, I see that most of the land to the east is jungled, so I'm assuming it would probably not be a good place to go, but because this is really only the land that I have, I would be guessing that 1NW of the jungled rice would be good because I could work the gem, the horse, and the rice. Its also on the river. Would one north of the rice be better? It does give me another banana and rice, but it would take a long time to get online anyway with the need for calendar.

Also, in the last screenshot, I figured another city could be one north of the cow so that I could get the fish, the cow, and eventually the rice. Only concern is that if I eventually run into an AI, its not building towards them at all.

After the warrior build, I should be trying to found a new city right?

Thanks for all of the help.

 

[lymond]

1) Post saves
2) list settings
3) Don't do anything until you get advice

I'm curious about your settings as you've not met an AI yet - although jungle can sometimes slow that a bit. Pangaea maps are probably best to use while learning for now so you get more exposure to diplomacy and AI interactions/benefits.

Do you have a fixation on Ragnar?

You are already making several mistakes that could have been avoid by getting advice first. We call this "learner/shadow games". These games are specifically for the purpose of helping you learn the game. Ofc, that is up to you, but you should take things slowly if you want to learn. You are asking good questions though.

Not sure I would have gone WB first here since you have very strong food resources. High level players often test these types of starts out like for GOTMs and HOF games as depending on several factors certain openings are better than others. Such as worker first here gets you the great food fast which is huge, but you may have a few lost worker turns..although actually you can farm the cow as well for a decent tile.

On the other hand WB first gets an improved food resource, albeit subpar one, and some commerce.

Generally though on coastal starts with land resources vs. seafood, worker first often wins out.

Also, there is the issue of how you get that first WB ....

(i also recommend playing without huts/events for learning. Huts skew the learning process and events are just crap.)

You don't need a warrior in your capital for some time because you will be mainly building workers and settlers..and whipping them. Warriors should be built but for the purpose of "spawnbusting"...that is, preventing barbs from spawning near you land.

Anyway, tech path here should have been Agri>BW

And let me put an huge accent on this next point --->the reason you want BW is for SLAVERY

An yes you should be building a new city, but to put in perspective, you should already have your first city settled.

 

[elitetroops]

Yeah, with that start I would have went worker first without thinking twice about it. You have 2 wet corn, which are 6 each, then a cow, which is also a 6 yield tiles with 33. Workboat first, you get one 4 tile, then nothing else until the worker is out. Also, you don't have any strong hammer tiles to work to build the workboat, which means it takes a long time. If the settler was on a plains hill (2) and you could work a plains hill forest (3) immediately, and the seafood was fish instead of clams, and the corn was not irrigated, then I would start considering workboat first.

Very early in the game you don't need any military units at all in your own cities or within your borders. Barbarians will not enter your borders to attack cities until the average city count for all civilizations in the game is >3. On prince, it takes a long time until you get there. Warriors in cities are needed when they grow so big that they would be unhappy without a unit stationed in the city. Early warriors should explore your immediate surroundings, then stay outside your borders to spawnbust. No barbs can spawn within 2 tiles from any other unit (you can think of a 5x5 square centered on every unit), so keeping some units outside your borders, 5 tiles apart, can make sure that no barbs at all will spawn close to you. It is especially important to get a unit in place to spawn bust any site where you are planning to build a city.

A good spot for second city could be 3N1W of capital. Your capital has a ton of food and can share corn/clam with the new city. Eventually it also picks up cows in the north.

It would be good to know what is south of your city as well. You have explored a ton of jungle, which is kind of useless as you know already you don't want to put your next city there. First explore potential sites for the 2nd city. Playing without huts would help here, as that removes the temptation to run off and search for treasure.

Edit: Xpost with lymond's ninja edit. Many same thing there.

 

[lymond]

totally agree on that spot, elite...i was gonna mention it too. great food share spot with potential later as well. Also 1W of horses is a good spot for more food share and horses, ofc, with gem pickup later.

anyway, I'd start over..too many mistakes, but still curious about the settings used here. As good a start this is, if the settings are off it may be better to start a new game.

 

[monkai]

Hahaha, didn't know you could make so many mistakes in the beginning.

Started over on Pangea with the no huts and events. Already encountered 4 other people.

I've attached the save for the start.

I played about 30 turns just so I can see what you guys thought.

I built worker to take care of the corn - i went with mining and bronze working for slavery and then went AH for the pigs.. would it make since now to go Writing for the open borders?

As for build order, should I keep on building workers and settlers? Should I be chopping for these as well? Also, for the floodplains should I be farming them or putting up cottages when I get pottery? I've always felt weird with workers especially in this case because after taking care of the corn, the flood plain, and the pigs, I don't really know what more to do with the workers.

Usually how I would normally play is find the nearest copper, and just axe rush the nearest civ..so i'm kind of at a loss for the optimal strategy for good growth of cities on whether or not I should be building cottages, building farms, building mines

As for the next city, I was thinking to go east to 1W of the SW gold, but I don't really know what to do there..Maybe go south to the grasslands with the cows?

Finally, is it actually advisable to build cities with overlapping BFCs? I was always under the impression that they weren't such a good thing.

Thanks for all of the input!

 

[lymond]

Just to be clear, I meant post the start and don't do anything..get opening advice first.

also, let us know your settings and leader

overlapping cities is a great thing, especially early

settler at size one is not

 

[monkai]

Cyrus is my leader, with the Pangea map, 7 other civs, normal game speed, no villages or random events, and medium sea level

I attached the initial start with no moves. I just wanted to do 30 or so turns just so I could have more specific questions that I could ask about specific situations, but I didn't include that save. Just wanted to make it easier for you for feedback, because I figured it would be less work to answer questions rather than having to load up the game and play it.

 

[sampsa]

Usually how I would normally play is find the nearest copper, and just axe rush the nearest civ..so i'm kind of at a loss for the optimal strategy for good growth of cities on whether or not I should be building cottages, building farms, building mine

This is where the problem lies - you don't know how to set up your empire. Axe rushing might be good in some situations, in some it is not, but that is not relevant. If you know how to properly set up an empire you don't need to axe rush. You are in good hands in this thread, the guys helping you are all experienced civvers and know what they are talking about.

 

[lymond]

Questions are good. But think of this more as us directing your gameplay for now..and you asking the questions as to why we do this and that. As you can already see things you do or thought were good were not.

Up to now as a newer civver you are basically going through the motions. What we aim to do is enable you to put more thought to everything each turn. Keep in mind, obviously, that Civ is a turn-based game. You can take time each turn to think through your actions, look at your cities, take in the information that you are given and make informed decisions.

Is it better to build a mine on that hill or chop a forest now?
Is this a good time to whip that settler?
Should I place a city here or there?
Should I rush a neighbor or focus on my empire right now?
Should a build that road?

As sampsa says, really the most important thing for you right now is learning to setup your empire. Laying a good foundation from which you can do anything you want.

make it easier for you for feedback

actually it is easier for us to walk you through from the start. We already have a pretty good idea of the areas you need to improve from prior discussions, screenshots, and saves. What were are doing now is basically walk you through step by step, laying out your moves for each turn or set of turns. You will better pick up the nuances of the game this way.

ha..you should read a succession game thread over in SGOTM where it takes 3 days sometimes for a team to play one turn.