Getting You First Win on Prince: A Guide and Tips

I've won a handful of games on Prince now and can confirm that early aggression does indeed seem to be the key.

Early Game

Things I've been doing early on that seem crucial to a successful game:

- First tech: Bronze Working (and its pre-req Mining if it's not one of my starting techs). Not just for chopping, but for copper and Axemen.
- Following techs: worker techs for nearby resources, then Mysticism for Stonehenge, Wheel for roads, and Archery for city defense.
- Build Worker - Warrior/Scout - Settler. The Worker chops the latter two.
- Starting Warrior/Scout explores far and wide. Built Warriors explore nearby; when first barb warrior appears, he heads home.
- Exploring Warriors stick to forest/jungle/hills whenever possible. Scouts end turns on those tiles.
- Based on starting territory, start thinking about best victory to pursue.
- Build Stonehenge in capital if I'm not Creative. Chop if possible.
- Build Worker in new cities, then chop Settler.
- Connect cities and resources with roads.
- Build Axemen as soon as they're available. Use them for city defense/barbs at first; replace them with Archers when I'm ready to go to war.
- Find neighbours. Select one to attack, based on: likelihood he'll do the same (Monty, Alex); presence of holy city; presence of desireable Wonders; score level (choose higher-scoring opponent to take out a big threat early).
- Build 3-4 cities before going to war, preferably close to my intended opponent, at chokepoints, or in a position to lock off territory for later backfilling. No Open Borders until mid-game.
- Go to war mode: build barracks, then best offensive unit, nothing else. Build roads to enemy territory, move units into position. Research Iron Working, then bee-line Construction.
- Go to war. Capture all enemy cities, only razing if city's in a very bad location. If another enemy is nearby, go after him too.
- Nurse along a few units to Level 4 so I can build Heroic Epic. If possible, nurse a couple of units to Level 5 for West Point.
- Take out at least one or two rivals. If I'm Rome, take out 3 or 4.

That's pretty much it. Along the way, of course, I'll get Alphabet and tech trade, as well as Pottery and start building cottages around my core cities. I may sue for peace if I need to solidify my position and bring up reinforcements, but only if I can get techs in exchange.

If the war's going REALLY well--I'm losing very few units and can spare some production cycles--I may try to build the Oracle for a slingshot effect (either Code of Laws or, if I'm feeling very lucky, Civil Service). The Pyramids I usually hope to capture, but if I have stone, I may try to build them. I rarely bother with the other early Wonders except maybe the Parthenon. I may try to build it if the war is nearly over, it hasn't been built yet, and I have marble and a good production city going. If I gain all 4 of the best early Wonders AND win an early war, I give myself a big pat on the back.

Mid Game

When the war is over, I start building courthouses in the most far-flung cities, then Forbidden Palace. I may also move my Palace to a more central location; often on Prince I tend to start on one isolated corner of a continent. This is followed by cottages and libraries in cities with good commerce potential.

What I'm trying to do is catch up; focusing on military and conquest has likely put me behind the other Civs in tech. I'm usually high in power rating, so I will probably leverage that and try to get tribute (techs, gold, resources, whatever) from weaker civs I'm not planning on getting along with. I will decide who my friends (I try to pick two) and enemies will be at this point.

Around this time I will reassess my city specialization strategy in light of the cities I've captured. I probably already have a science and production city going. A captured capital, though, is also good for this, so I may change that role. It's also time to decide where I'm going to have my GP farm. I will start backfilling territory with cities if required.

Unless I'm on a Pangaea map, I'll research Optics, build two Caravels, and send them out in opposite directions. I like to get that +1 movement bonus for circumnavigation, but even if I don't, I'll meet the remaining Civs and do more tech trades/tribute demands.

If I still have a strong, dangerous neighbour, I will probably do something I never did on previous levels: fight a medieval war. Waiting for Riflemen like I used to just gives a strong opponent time to get stronger. I'll bee-line to military techs (Civil Service/Machinery for Macemen, Guild for Knights, Feudalism for Longbowmen), change civics (the lethal Vasselage/Theocracy combo), either use a GM or lower the science slider for a few turns to upgrade my veterans, then go to war mode again--though my core cities usually go back to peaceful pursuits pretty quickly, leaving the border and newer cities to pick up the slack.

I also start dedicating myself towards my chosen victory condition at this point. If it's domination, that medieval war becomes crucial. If it's going to be a tech/space race, I'll look to solidifying the position I have through military and diplomacy. If I'm going for the space victory and I don't want to fight a war in the late game, I usually have to build a lot of destroyers and battleships and position them around my coast to deter attack.

The ideal situation is to find myself on my own continent by mid-game so I can choose either type of victory, but that seems to be rare. With the 1.61 patch and the change to Prince, the game seems to prefer plunking me down on the biggest continent with the most rivals. Gee, thanks.

Overall, I find myself fighting a lot more wars at this level--often four: early (axes, swords, catapults), medieval (macemen, knights, catapults), renaissance (riflemen, cavalry, cannon), and modern (infantry, tanks, air units). No wonder I haven't tried for a cultural victory on Prince yet!

I can imagine Monarch and above will be even more of the same.
 
Just tried your plan to the letter and ended up with a time victory and was not far short of domination, there was only me (Togukawa) and Cyrus left! I only built one wonder myself (pyramids) and didn't bother with a religion (accepted the first that came along and then battered the founder, Isabella). My first victory on Prince. In the early game i manged to annex a piece of land with two cities and back filled it, farmed axemen and then went for the nearest neigbour with a vengence. After that it was plain sailing as i had so much land nobody could keep up with my military production. I never caught up with Cyrus in terms of Technology so i befriended him and avoided any conflict.

One trick i have learnt is that when you get a great artist keep them in reserve. Once you have taken a neighbours city, move the artist in, construct an academy and watch the borders explode. Is the most effective land grab i have found.
 
I just won my first Prince game as Mali via Space Race is 1987.
I actually whomped Rome pretty well... to the point of Capitulation. Forget what era that was in, though. After that, I buddied up with the two other Civs on my continent and decided to cease diplomacy with any other Civs. This way, I wouldn't get the "You traded with our worst enemies!" modifier to our relationships. Gandhi loved me.

I think the key to that was getting Civil Service so early... I basically just researched the techs I needed for worker duties and then hit up Priesthood, started building the Oracle, and managed to finish researching Code of Laws on the same turn that I finished the Oracle. Boom, pow, Civil Service and farms all over the place.

Specialization is also key -- I find that a single GP farm combined with a number of commerce-only, production-only or commerce/production hybrids is the way to go. In this game, I only built six cities total - I ended up with about twelve or thirteen. Thanks, Julius! ;)

Anyway, I'm playing a Huge Terra as the Vikings now. Same idea... Code of Laws, early Civil Service, beeline to Machinery, and the grotesque BERSERKING of all foes. The Vikings are amazing. :)
 
Question. the tech trading has been working well upto late renaissance. But as I go after the second target (1st has been eliminated), the politics kick in, e.g. my trade partner (friendly) took the target in as a vessle state and then no one wants to trade anymore (all got annoyed).
Any suggestions?
 
Tech-trading. Probably 'you've traded with my (our) worst enemy'. Its a bit late to change the trading you've already done. Ways to make AIs happier without tech-trading:

Religion is an obvious one tho if they're in Free Religion that cuts no ice and you stand to make as many enemies as friends depending on religion spread so you have to be careful.

Changing to an AI's favourite civic can certainly help and there are no penalties for heathen civics.

Giving them stuff can also help though not always as much as you think.

Giving into demands.

Even if you get the AIs up to cautious they may still not trade :'we fear you are becoming too advanced' because you've done too much tech trading (and nothing to do with how advanced you are, so that's a bit confusing). AIs are often unwilling to trade a monopoly tech or a tech that allows them to build a wonder.

Edit: Its been a while since I played Prince but having some kind of overall strategy (a set of objectives for each phase of the game) makes a big difference. For instance, you've got plenty of land with no AIs nearby so expand rapidly while researching towards Code of Laws (or Oracle slingshot for CoL) followed by restoring your economy then teching towards maces and cats and building an armyready for a second war against nearest/weakest/least popular AI. Or you're hemmed in but you've got copper: build a couple of cities and a stack of axemen early, invade to capture a few cities (maybe raze naff locations and replace with your own settlers) followed by consolidation growth. The overall strategy for a particular game will depend on civ/leader/map/resources but its worth deciding on a strategy early on and sticking to it. One nice thing about Prince is that you still have a good chance of building Wonders; the main thing to consider is how a particular Wonder forms part of the overall strategy rather than building it just because you can.
 
Bump.

Still getting my bottom kicked on Prince. I find Alexander will come after you sooner or later, no matter what you do, and he will always have a bigger military than you. :(
 
Bump.

Still getting my bottom kicked on Prince. I find Alexander will come after you sooner or later, no matter what you do, and he will always have a bigger military than you. :(

Don't give up. Focus on early expansian and prime real estate becomes more important than on noble. Just play like on noble, but a bit faster on building up.;)
Try using 2 workers for your capitol and 1 for your other cities. Quick development of your land can keep you safe from warmongers. Except from monty and the french.
 
Hmm, I thought that's what I was doing. Maybe I'm too scared to found new cities early on because of fears about running out of money.

Also I tend to raze conquered cities instead of keeping them - is that still a good tactic? I find having to defend them means my army can't progress and take other cities.
 
Hmm, I thought that's what I was doing. Maybe I'm too scared to found new cities early on because of fears about running out of money.

Also I tend to raze conquered cities instead of keeping them - is that still a good tactic? I find having to defend them means my army can't progress and take other cities.
Think carefully before you raze.

If the city is well-placed, especially to gain access to a resource you don't have, keeping it will save you a settler later. If it's a holy city or contains a wonder, you should definitely keep it.

Also think about long term relations--each city you raze earns you a -1 diplomatic modifier from the civ you're fighting. If you're planning on wiping out that rival, you may not care. But it's entirely possible for the situation to change and for you to want that enemy to become a friend (or perhaps a friendly vassal), at which time you'll regret any negative diplomatic modifiers and will have to overcome them somehow.

In any stack you should have units you can leave behind to garrison captured cities. Make this part of your planning & building before declaring war; in other words, don't just build and bring attackers, bring defenders too. Remember that you can also shift garrison units from former border cities that are no longer vulnerable.

Also, while you're at war, don't stop building units. You may start working in civilian builds, but at least alternate them with military ones. Most players have a good to great production city with the Heroic Epic building almost nothing but units. Also remember that certain civics lend themselves to military builds rather than civilian ones. If you're running Theocracy, for example, keep churning out units until you switch away from it to max out the +2 XP benefit. Organized Religion is better for civilian builds; shift to it later in the war when your HE city is able to carry most of the burden of military builds.
 
Sisiutil:

Phew! I have to build a LOT more soldiers. I knew about not razing a holy city (although I took my eye off the ball in my last game and accidentally did it, thereby earning myself Monty's undying hatred - although Monty's not easy to please at the best of times) and about hanging onto wonders. But the point about bringing along defenders, and about moving defenders into new border cities is an excellent tip.

It was hard moving from Warlord to Noble because of all the things you suddenly had to think about. I'm finding the process is being repeated here. Still, I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

(BTW, your basic strategy guide and your ALC threads have been very useful - thanks! :goodjob: )
 
PS Could anyone correct the spelling of the thread title (should be 'your first win')? It's a bit distracting for pedants like myself. Easy mistake to make, I know.

[EDIT: Sorry, forgot to say 'please'.]
 
I know this is an old thread, but I'm still fairly new to the game.

Anyway, just played Prince for the second time. The first time I played the Incan empire, and I came close but lost out to a space race victory near the end.

The second time, I used the advice of this article and was much more aggressive in the early game (not typical for me). I played Japan on a standard pangaea map with a high sea level, epic time. My closest neighbors were the Romans, Peter, and Mansa. The romans were essentially stuck into a corner, but I made friends with them from the get go (he established Hinduism ... I converted). Mansa was far enough away that we did not interact much. Also in the game were Alex, Vicky, and the Arabs. Alex helped me out a LOT in theis game by keeping Mansa, Vicky, and Saladin busy (even though he was furious at me for pretty much the entire game ... probably because I kept enticing his neighbors to go to war with him).

I finished bronzeworking and Lo! I had copper right by my capital. I started pumping out axemen and went to war against Peter, who had two cities by this time. But the war did not last long. Essentially, this gave me the space for two civs to spread out in. I also somehow mangaed to build a couple of the early advantageous Wonders (Oracle, Parthenon).

With these I had a significant early tech advantage (helped considerably by beelining to alphabet and trading for all of the lower level techs).

I firmly established my base and my tech dominance. I also was able to post a few sentires and keep the barbarians form appearing ... this was huge as I never had to deal with a barb rush.

Once I received my Samurai and had built up my military strength, I went after my friend, Julius. I took out all of his continental cities (except one, which was small and on the opposite side of my empire from where the bulk of his empire was. This gave me about 1/3 of the world, and huge production, tech, and military advantages.

I then worked on converting Vicky to Hinduism, as she, Mansa, and the Arabs had formed defensive pacts. They had kept slowly hammering at Alex (although he never lost any cities). Saladin was ticking me off because he kept finishing Wonders just a few turns before I would. Once the British became devout Hindus, the defensive pact dissolved,and I sent waves of troops to take out Saladin. Vicky even joined in on the war for awhile. My first wave landed, took over one of the main cities, then were themsleves wiped out. The second and consecutive waves proved to be too much, though, and I rolled through the Arab country, not even pausing for a temporary cease fire.

Once the arabs were gone, I had several of the Wonders I had wanted (such as the Kremlin) thanks to Saladin building them for me! I also was knocking right on Alex's front door, and he had been significantly worn down by Mansa and Viky (who still only managed to take one city from him), and who was woefully behind in tech. When my bombers, tanks, artillery, and mechanized infantry rolled against his riflemen and cannons ... it was a quick death. Then some churning out of theaters and sliding the culture slider to 100% and voila! Dominance victory in 1905! Also the highest score I ever acheived on a non-duel map (Augustus)!
 
I agree with the main premise of this article, and that is to annex another empire as quickly as possible.

The main difference I noted between Noble and Prince (I play all games on Prince now, working on getting to the next level) is that you have to be much more aggressive in basic playing style. Whatever victory condition you're striving to meet, it's important to 'militarily persuade' at least one neighbor to become a part of your empire, for reasons of size, resources, room for expansion and a less crowded continent.

One tip I would stress - after your first war, focus on infrastructure to stabilize your economy. Then you're in a good position to either pull ahead scientifically, culturally or to start another war.
 
I saw someone asked for a Brazil leader... who would that be?
Brazil is represented by the empire that made it... Portugal.

Speaking of which, that brings me to my first Prince game. I am using Joao II for the first time. Here are my settings:
Tectonic
Normal Wetness
70% water (earth like)
Marathon
18 AIs

I hope to win... I think I will... I just kept playing Noble to death.

Anyhow, I often play for the long game, finding the short, warmonger games to be too easy/cheesy. I extend my gaming you could say.

Here is how I build my empires...
1 - Regenerate map until I have a river to start on, with some hills, some forest (gold or ivory at the beginning can be awesome!)... ALWAYS found your city on the first turn, ALWAYS...
2 - Research Bronze Working (if you have to do mining first, so be it)
3 - Build worker first, hopefully by the time he gets out, you have BW...
4 - Build Settler, rushing the settler by cutting forest
5 - Now that you rushed a settler, found the 2nd city close as you can to some worthwhile resources
6 - In your capital, start building the Great Wall, the capital needs to be your GP farm for ENGINEERS
7 - In your 2nd city, build a worker, rush it with cut forests
8 - 2nd city now builds a settler, rush this also...
9 - repeat steps 5, 7, 8 until you have several cities (10 or so if you can squeeze them in)
10 - When building wonders, build the same types of wonders in the same cities... have your spiritual capital (probably where you found your first religion), your engineer capital, your merchant capital, your art capital... don't build random wonders in random cities, stay consistent. You will get more GP that way...

This will get you a good base, you won't have to worry about military right away, because Barbs won't attack and AIs tend not to attack too often until free land runs out... you will be twice as large as the other civs early on... keep your science at 100% as long as you can, letting your scout/warrior from the beginning discover gold huts... If you have to go to war at some point, you will win, because your number of cities will always be higher than your competitors using this method.

Techs I make bee lines for...
Bronze Making
Priesthood (build Oracle for free tech)
Alpabet (should be a gift from the Oracle if you planned it right)
Currency
Code of Laws
Liberalism (also for free tech)

Wonders to beeline for...
Capital = Engineer farm = Great Wall, Pyramids, Hanging Gardens (requires an aqueduct), Hagia Sofia
Oracle, 3 Gorges Dam, Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Great Lighthouse, Apostolic Palace (its good to be the Pope!)

In noble I would end up at least 3-4 times higher in points than the nearest competitor, just letting them live basically. I always ended up at the top of the leader scale when I won (the AP victory is kind of easy too)... The world will be your oyster.

I guess to some extent, the chop/rush technique of expansion could be seen as cheesy as well.
 
I won my first game on prince today! Epic low sea level pangea.

I got 2 cows + horse in BCF, chariot rushed Joao, he only had one warrior guarding his capital lol!?!? This was around turn 45-50. Also stone in BCF -->all the mids are belong to me.

I expanded into early happiness and commerce, 2 gems in south, 2 gold in south east, lots of overall luxury resources waiting for calender to be tapped into. Also built statue of zeus because its a . .. .. .. .. . to fight against aggressive civs that possess this wonder in the early times. I also got Great library in capital + national epic-->GP farm. Oracle slingshoted into Code of Laws, I got a religion which proved useful later.

Meanwhile, mr Wang the Korean had expanded his puny cities around me, I started a big swords+ axes building program. Later cata-spam would follow. Wang had surprisingly crappy armies, I never really checked power graphs or anything but I rolled over him. I only knew of 2 civs on this pangea, russkies in the south, and mayans somewhere in the unknown and koreans in the east.

I took Wang's best cities easily in the south and south east, but his crappier cities in the north east where I was militarily weak, Wang had a crescent of cities with some defensive units, I took later. It turned out that Mayans were behind Wang in the east.

I kept teching pretty well during the war. bulbed some techs on the way to lib, I had decided I'd take gunpowder asap from Lib, Janissaries just too good to wait for. I saw that I had crappy relations to russkies in the south, I tried to reinforce my border cities with the reds, immediately after I had captured Wang's core cities.

I traded some tech for feudalism with Mayans, whipped some L-bows and started churning out Janissarys from capital and other good production cities. About 4 turns later Russkies declared war and they had the terrible war elephants among their ranks :D. Janseys beat them off pretty good though.

teched to cannons, Catherine's cities were a . .. .. .. .. . to take coz of Chichen Itza, and catapults had a hard time bombing their def. down :lol: Didn't matter much though. I killed his best stacks and took Moscow pretty quickly. Russia was reduced to a 1 tile island just off the coast. I had no boats and vassals were disabled so I let her live.
Pacal then turned into Confucianism, the religion that I had bulbed. I went from free religion to Confucianism and our relations grew friendly and he was really a "useful idiot" especially since he buffered my right flank against other civs during the Russian war so I could whack Catherine.

I started recovering from this war, my economical techs were really lacking at this point having, taken gunpowder from Lib, not the best choice if you look at the beaker cost and so on. I focused on getting railroad next and factories after that. I WANTED that Mining Inc.! From there on, I got my factories rolling, population boosted significantly as I next took biology and went for cereal mills.

Eventually I had garnered a huge tech lead with most of the modern wonders, statue of liberty, 3-Gorges Dam and so on. My production capabilities were eventually huge with cereal mills and mining inc in every city, I built Wall Street however in a sub optimal city, Christian Shrine city.

I had a good city site on a river + flood plains and hills, it was a shrine city for Confucianism AND Taoism, but I had only other sup optimal city cites for ultimate production, so this cottage center was turned into Heroic Epic + Red Cross city. The other ultimate production city in the south, Seoul, a former Korean city was given the honor of Ironworks + West Point.

I eventually got space race in 1950s, pretty slow I guess. I had beelined after the industrial era and corporate techs, into robotics + bombers. (weird combo eh?)

eventually I was pumping out modern armors in single turns and so on, even my worst cottage cities were pumping out modern armors and jet fighters in 2-3 turns. By the end of the game I was running good Oxford and Wall Street cities, plus 2 good production cities and the economy was turned into CE for the rest of the cities, and I also built a couple of filler cities in the middle to get more of my tiles worked.
 
@Kochman

Those are some good general rules for Prince level, but by no means are they necessary or always right. If your neighbor is close by, you'll be needing some soldiers. You need to research some techs for the Great Wall. Great Wall gives a Great Spy not a Great Engineer. Sometimes, wonders aren't worth it at all.

Prince seems to be the easiest level to adapt to. I had a few failed games and then went straight to having 90k - 180k scores consistently. Chop/whip lots of workers and make sure to war EARLY with a lot of axes or chariots (sooner with chariots) with your closest neighbor. Unless, of course, he's REALLY far and expanding away from you.

Workers are really the key, though. Getting cities and resources up and running ASAP can be the difference between tech parity / tech superiority.

LAST GAME: Nearly a tundra start with Willem van Oranje. Early war / tons of workers = domination win in 1400s.
 
@Kochman

Those are some good general rules for Prince level, but by no means are they necessary or always right. If your neighbor is close by, you'll be needing some soldiers. You need to research some techs for the Great Wall. Great Wall gives a Great Spy not a Great Engineer. Sometimes, wonders aren't worth it at all.

Prince seems to be the easiest level to adapt to. I had a few failed games and then went straight to having 90k - 180k scores consistently. Chop/whip lots of workers and make sure to war EARLY with a lot of axes or chariots (sooner with chariots) with your closest neighbor. Unless, of course, he's REALLY far and expanding away from you.

Workers are really the key, though. Getting cities and resources up and running ASAP can be the difference between tech parity / tech superiority.

LAST GAME: Nearly a tundra start with Willem van Oranje. Early war / tons of workers = domination win in 1400s.

how far is too far? I got monty somewhere near, 8 squares between capital BCFs borders, but im gonna claim Iron with my second city that's even closer to him. Around turn 50 epic speed, im gilgamesh and I was just thinking about killing monty right away again, Tokugawa is way up north and is probably more loyal if we get same religion or something.

I should say that I got a dream start for my capital, dream start as in excellent GP farm, 3 IRRIGATEd CORN (OMFG) and ivory in BCF.
 
how far is too far? I got monty somewhere near, 8 squares between capital BCFs borders, but im gonna claim Iron with my second city that's even closer to him. Around turn 50 epic speed, im gilgamesh and I was just thinking about killing monty right away again, Tokugawa is way up north and is probably more loyal if we get same religion or something.

I should say that I got a dream start for my capital, dream start as in excellent GP farm, 3 IRRIGATEd CORN (OMFG) and ivory in BCF.

Definitely take Monty out as early as possible! 8 tiles is nothing. That is extremely close, actually. If you can grab iron with a city that's even closer to him, there should be no question.

Monty is one of those AI leaders that will DoW on you even if you are significantly higher in the power ratio than him with pleased relations. If he spawns anywhere near you, it's a good idea to remove him ASAP.

Grab a second capital maybe 1 more good city, raze the rest and go from there. Economic recover (via Currency / CoL), and spam settlers/REX. More economic recovery with tons of workers/cottages, then perhaps prepare for your next war (if it is viable). If you can grab a second capital early on Prince, you should be smooth sailing the rest of the way (barring a Tech Whore or War Monger Psycho like Shaka). I find that cottage heavy economies on Prince are extremely powerful. I used to be a Specialist Economy monger. Now, I've found that it only really pans out well if you have TONS of food on your map... I mean tons. The cottage economy is easier IMO. Farms / food resources until your city is fed well, cottage the rest, move on. Of course, you'll want a GP Farm and some production cities, but all your economic cities should line up farms to feed, mines on hills, cottage the rest (preferably riverside tiles first for the extra 1 :commerce:).

The 3 irrigated farms are awesome (like seeing 3 fish and a rice on a coastal start). Use that city to whip up a nice army to take out another rival. I've found the whip/conquer/whip/conquer strategy becomes overpowered on Prince games and is actually how I got most of my 150k+ scores on Prince.
 
Top Bottom