Having trouble expanding early game

[ReusableGore]

I have been trying to get the hang of Prince difficulty, I can absolutely crush Noble and am trying to move up.

On Noble my initial strategy has always been to build one worker and chop out two settlers. I never had any trouble expanding faster than the AI and setting myself up to expand further. Trying the same tactic on Prince causes me to lose money so quickly once I get my third city up that my Science slider drops to 50-40% and the AI just blows me away in the tech race.

My only solution so far has been to go to war as soon as possible to keep my economy going. I can roll over my closest neighbor without any trouble, but when I turn to the next guy he already has Long-bowmen in his cities and I still don't have Currency because my research is so stunted. By that time I quit in frustration.

What am I missing here? How do I manage my early economy so I can expand quickly?

 

[Thrallia]

Start 1 Worker, then don't chop out or build any settlers until your city is size 3...then you can afford to build another city...more if you build them with commercial resources workable when you set up the city.

Don't forget though that keeping your slider high isn't as important as growing your commerce...50-60% of 30 commerce is more than 70-80% of 18 commerce...as long as your city can produce as much commerce as its upkeep, you'll do fine.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

There are plenty of posts out there for Prince-level strategies listed in the War Academy such as this one.

How I do it.

Lately, I grow my capital to 4-pop and chop the first Settler. I then chop & whip the 2nd Settler shortly thereafter -- resulting in relatively simultaneous 2nd & 3rd cities.

Why? B/c after that, I tend to leave my capital alone to work cottages and/or specialists (via the Library).

One of my new cities focuses on for military/defense while the other focuses on for more Settlers/Workers ... basically I set up a city for /, a city for and a city for -- all the basic necessities of life.

I also play an SE in the early game for the GS lightbulbs.​

K.I.S.S.

I should make a post on this theory ... basically, there are 5 techs you should concern yourself with:

1. -- Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, or Fishing
2. -- Mining or Animal Husbandry
3. / -- Pottery or Writing (and in a limited way, founding & spreading )
4. (war) -- Archery, Bronze Working or The Wheel
5. -- The Alphabet, so you can backfill the techs you're missing

Obviously, situations vary, but if I stick as closely as possible to staying within those bounds, my starts tend to do very well.

The idea is to get to Pottery or Writing at/before your 3rd city is founded. In my example above, this allows my capital to immediately begin working the techs (via a Library or Cottages).​

War, unh ...

As you've probably noticed, early war is an easy way to expand and/or get a foothold on the terrain.

My rule of thumb is to have either converted my nearest neighbor by 1 AD or have them eliminated by 1 AD. Sometimes I'll do both.​

Spreading

If you found a religion, spread it. Every new city is a shiny piece in your coffer (assuming you build the Shrine).

Similar to founding a city for military production, I'll often found a secondary city devoted to building Monasteries and churning out Missionaries.​

The expansion techs.

There are three techs I prioritize when it comes time to expansion:

• Code of Laws -- opens up Courthouses
• Monarchy -- allows for virtually unlimited
• Currency -- enables selling techs and more trade routes

 

[vicawoo]

Do you build a 2nd settler from your second city? That way, your capital can do more productive things. Also, farther cities will cause more upkeep.
I've seen some posts of high level games where they build an overlapping 2nd or 3rd city to share resources and help maintenance. I doubt this is as necessary on prince.

 

[InFlux5]

Chopping 2 Settlers is jumping the gun a bit, first off.

But your real problem is the economy. My advice is to spend more time in the city screen looking at just how much commerce each city is producing. More importantly, look at where that income is coming from.

A city founded near a gold mine, or a commercial resource on a river, will immediately pay for itself. You don't want to found cities that can't pay for themselves until you're running a surplus in your other cities.

Are you building cottages early? Are you building a few and then forgetting to keep building more? You can never stop increasing your cottages (or specialists) or you will fall behind. The details of how to do that are fairly straightforward, if you pay attention to the food and gold in each city.

You should definitely be doing things like, when a city hits the happy cap put all the workers on gold-generating tiles. This may mean 2 cottages and the rest Coast, so that your production virtually stops. That's ok. Get your key buildings up early and then focus on squeezing as much gold as you can out of your commerce cities - within the happy cap.

(This is why Slavery is so powerful. Say your happy cap is 6. Use the whip to quickly raise a Granary, Library, and Courthouse. Then stop working those mines and make everyone work commerce tiles. This city is now generating a healthy surplus. The next step is to increase the happy cap. And when it's time for more buildings, you can always go back to working the mines and whipping people. After you cap out again, go back to gold tiles. You get the picture. Once you have a metropolis you convert all the mines to windmills and rake in the gold.)

This is why raising your happy cap early is also important. It's easy to get a good production city going early. It's harder for commerce (usually) because cities need to be big to generate a lot of gold. So if your population is stagnating, that means your economy is too.

I also think less-experienced players tend to overlook opportunities to generate gold in the very early game - before cottages or specialists even come on the scene. A gold mine is an obvious boost, but consider Ivory on plains next to a river. This tile generates 1F1H2G without requiring any improvement. If the city also has a food resource, you can generate 4+ gold as soon as it hits size 2. This is the type of thing I might do in the short-term to keep my research going. Eventually I'll want a better source of income, but that kind of micromanagement can keep your economy afloat while you expand. Lots of little changes add up.

Finally, there are trade routes. In certain situations, wonders which add trade routes will be the best thing you can do for your economy. For example, the Great Lighthouse if very easy to beat the AI to, and it's great for the economy if you're on an island. But for the most part these play a small role in the economy until the mid to late game.

So it's actually pretty simple: keep adding cottages or specialists, keep raising the happy cap, and your economy will grow. Doing this faster and better is what comes with experience. I think for most people, at some point it "clicks" and they realize just how to manage their gold. Civ can be difficult because information is scattered all over; but for running a good economy I think the city screen is most important.

Specialist Economies are a different beast, one that I wouldn't try to tame until I had mastered the cottage economy. (But still run a GP farm, of course.)

 

[futurehermit]

Try this out:

-Start with a worker.

If you have enough forests: Chop out another worker and then two settlers. Each of your workers goes with a settler to develop the new cities. Your capital builds another worker to develop the capital.

If you don't have enough forests: Improve your food resources and grow to size 4. Build a worker. Chop out 1 settler, whip the other. Workers go to new cities, capital builds another worker.

Make sure you claim some copper/horses to defend your empire.

THEN:

-Beeline code of laws via currency while prebuilding defenders, workers, settlers. Once you get courthouses chop/whipped in your existing cities, immediately settle 3-4 more cities (have your defenders/workers/settlers pre-positioned...they make good fog-busters as well) and get courthouses chopped out.

If you have more land available, then build more cities. If not, gear up for war.

Cheers.

 

[madscientist]

All good advice, I play always on prince and win most of the time. My 2 cents,

1) Let you first city grow and bit. Starting with one worker is fine IF he can get to work. Say you start with agriculture and mining, you had better have corn/wheat/rice or minable hill if going for an early worker.
2) start on a workboat if you have fiching and seafood in the fat cross.
3) Build a warrior. It allows you to let the city grow in population and escorts your settler.
4) I aim for thee cities (4 if I have to get copepr or horses) to start.
5) Look for commerce, water tiles, mines (gems/gold/silver), cottages.
6) connect your cities as early as possible. Sailing allows costal cities to trade without roads. A river allows cities on the same river to trade (I think this needs fishing but not sure). You get no trade route income if the citis are not connected to anyone.
7) get writing to open borders to AIs that have a trade route to you. Explore by land a seas to find these AIs.
8) Do not hesitate to smash AIs when the opportunity is good.
9) Be patient with other AIs. You get more income and resources froma peaceful AI than the ones who hate you. You can just as easily declare war on an AI when they are friendly with you. The AI will USUALLY not declare on you under the same conditions. Also more troops costs you more money.
10) Hold off getting more cities until you have code of laws (caste systems mechants and courthouses) and Currency (extra trade route and you can sell techs/resources).
11) Get alphabet ALOT earlier than the AI. Generally I start researching it when I have enough techs to keep workers busy and can defend myself. Example I will research iron working if I DO NOT have horses or copper but will skip until after alphabet if I do. In fact most of my recent games I research it after writing.
12) If you have trouble getting commerce, make sure you build libraries (after writing) and run scientist specialists, at least to get up to alphabet.

Well those are my twelve suggestions.

 

[madscientist]

One final point, don't worry if the AI gets an edge in techs on you, you can recover easily. Saving your first great person to lightbulb (yes I am suggesting this) something valuable/expensive like theology (great phophet), philosophy (great scientist after you get code of laws), metal working (great merchant), great engineer (whatever they lightbulb, I never waste them on a bulb).

 

[frob2900]

I play always on prince

One final point, don't worry if the AI gets an edge in techs on you

This can't happen on prince and below! (unless you're running BetterAI or tweaked XML or something). Those AIs are completely helpless.

 

[madscientist]

This can't happen on prince and below! (unless you're running BetterAI or tweaked XML or something). Those AIs are completely helpless.

They can and they do early on (marathon speed, huge maps). I am talking one or two techs usually, which can be corrected by smart trading. They can be overtaken but they can get ahead of you early on which is why I sugegst getting alphabet early.

 

[frob2900]

They can and they do early on (marathon speed, huge maps). I am talking one or two techs usually, which can be corrected by smart trading. They can be overtaken but they can get ahead of you early on which is why I sugegst getting alphabet early.

Well, yeah, they might have on or two techs like meditation/sailing etc. early on. But that doesn't really constitute a tech lead as such. It's in the classical era that the tech race starts.

Early alphabet isn't really a given. Sometimes currency/CoL are better priorities (btw. on prince and below they generally won't have much to trade even if you have alphabet)

 

[madscientist]

But the answer was to someone new to Prince level who was having this problem. Struggling to research currency while AIs were producing longbowmen, that's a tech problem.

 

[frob2900]

But the answer was to someone new to Prince level who was having this problem. Struggling to research currency while AIs were producing longbowmen, that's a tech problem.

I don't understand how that can happen. Just build axes and slash and burn to get enough gold to research CoL at 100% science.. then get courthouses and continue slashing and burning. It's prince, for heavens sake!

The biggest problem I've noticed people have on the jump from Noble to Prince is that they stagnate. They dont get enough cities/happiness/courthouses/worked tiles. With those three you can win prince, no sweat.

The discussions on economy types, SE vs. CE, bulbing, settling etc. only really apply to higher strategies, or fastest type victories on prince (i.e. early launch, early culture etc.).

 

[madscientist]

I can se how someone can fall behind early, the AIs do get I think a 10% boost to teching and some production bonus. It takes a few games to smooth this out. My probelm early on in Prince was not taking barb threat seriously and getting smacked by them. Once I learned to protect myself and move against AIs early if I had to things worked out.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

This can't happen on prince and below! (unless you're running BetterAI or tweaked XML or something). Those AIs are completely helpless.

I think what frob's trying to say is that if you're getting techSpanked at Prince level, it's a sure sign you've already gone astray and need to re-evaluate your situation and choices up until then.

Waiting until Liberalism or some other late date leaves way too many variables to consider.

1 AD.

IMHO, if you aren't finished with or well on your way to crushing your neighbor (either by force or by religion) by 1 AD, you're probably expanding too slowly or building too much infrastructure.​

 

[futurehermit]

I think you guys forget what it's like being a newer player. When I first started playing I played on warlord level. When you don't really know what you are doing, it is easy for the AI to take a tech lead while you're trying to figure out how to keep your clubman alive

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I think you guys forget what it's like being a newer player. When I first started playing I played on warlord level. When you don't really know what you are doing, it is easy for the AI to take a tech lead while you're trying to figure out how to keep your clubman alive

Warlord? I don't believe you.

You have a very good point. I remember Noble being tough.

@ ReusableGore:

I'm not sure how plausible this is for you, but maybe you could play a game or two through the forums a few turns at a time -- at least up to the Renaissance or Industrial period.

In the same way you might invite a friend over to coach you, consider us your friends (we're just not in the room staring at your monitor).

If you decide to play a "coached" game through the forums, you could post your game in a fashion similar to the All Leader Challenges:

... post the starting save and get some input
... play a few rounds and get some dotmapping input
... settle a couple cities and get some more input
... etc, etc.

Whether for format or for guidance, you've got to check out Sisiutil's ALCs. You'll get the complete breakdown of how S went through his games and why he made the decisions he made. The early ALCs are at Prince level and eventually move up to Monarch.


Whatever the case, it really doesn't matter what level you play or how you play as long as you enjoy playing.


-- my final 2

 

[madscientist]

I think you guys forget what it's like being a newer player. When I first started playing I played on warlord level. When you don't really know what you are doing, it is easy for the AI to take a tech lead while you're trying to figure out how to keep your clubman alive

I agree which was my point wuth the first response in the thread.

 

[futurehermit]

Warlord? I don't believe you.

I have a friend who, when he was new to the game, was thrilled when he won his first space race on settler level. He's not a gaming noob, but the game does take awhile to pick up if you haven't played any of the previous civs (as I have not and he has not).

 

[dozenlong]

My first Civ3 game on the easiest level (I cut my teeth on Civ I and 2, but it had been several years) ended with me losing a lot of ground in an international war that I would have ended up losing. Now granted, in that case I didn't quite get that having relations with your neighbors was good and would prevent that...it was me against the world...but still...

Point being for everyone asking questions if it sounds haughty, we don't mean it to be. Many things are second nature now...really Civ3 forced a lot of people to shed the Civ1/2 mode of thought, and Civ4 really broadened out what could be done.

The game's complicated and fun and we like it!