Florian
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
- Messages
- 337
That is, high enough for all-out warmongering. Far too high for building. When the main thing you want from your military is defense, you don't need anywhere near that many troops.
Help! Am I Doomed to Stay at Noble Forever?
- Thread starter Arnesson
- Start date
That is, high enough for all-out warmongering. Far too high for building. When the main thing you want from your military is defense, you don't need anywhere near that many troops.
Florian
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
- Messages
- 337
Arnesson, there's no need for this all-or-nothing approach. When it comes to diplomacy, it's true that accepting the religion a neighbor discovered is a more reliable way to make a long-term ally than converting him to one you discovered. But then when you spead that religion in your territories, it's your neighbor who gets any shrine income, not you.
Besides, sometimes it takes a long while for a religion to spread to you on its own.
Arnesson
Warlord
I have noticed that
In my most recent game, I followed Roxlim's advice and did not adopt Hinduism after founding it. I waited and waited for a missionary to come along fromn one of my neighbours (Hattie was leading on th epoints table and Buddhist, Mehmed was tops on the Power graph and founded Confusciousism (spelling?). Izzy trumped in later with Catholocism. Not one single danged Missionary came by to visit through the whole game! I eventually lost when Ragnar, Mehmed and Izzy all declared war on me.Is it just me or do the AI's in Warlords tend to declare war on you in bunches?
Religion is hopeless.. I play games as Pacall II on BtS Financial and starts with myst.. I can't found a religion for the life of me on Monarch, I mean I'll have a three commerce tile and I'll still miss that shti, I just stopped trying lol
Best way is to do an oracle slingshot to CoL or Theocracy or use a Great Priest, Egypt is badass for it
Best way is to do an oracle slingshot to CoL or Theocracy or use a Great Priest, Egypt is badass for it
Hi Arnesson,
I've not looked at your saved games, but read the thread. Don't dispare, you seem to be getting better !
I used to (and still do in the later game) make a lot of the same mistakes as you. Forgetting to turn of no growth, not switching civics etc. The key thing that helped my game was specializing cities.
Your capitol should be a production or commerce city, the bureaucracy civic will then help you loads. If you don't have a commerce capitol, then you need to make sure you found a commerce city quite early to cottage that up.
Equally, if you have a commerce capitol, then you need a production city early on.
You really need *lots* of cottages in your commerce city. Remember to reconfigure your cities as time goes on. Maybe extra farms early in a city's life, then changing to cottages or workshops later.
A couple of things that have improved my game recently. Don't ignore Monarchy. Being able to produce units to remove make people happy is great. Lets you grow up to the health cap.
Don't feel your early war has to be about taking cities. Just pillaging, steeling workers and wiping out setter parties can slow down the AI great. My last prince warlords game I only built two workers, and had 25 by the end of the game. After a 1000 years or so they probably will have forgiven you somewhat anyway.
Don't try to follow every strategy you've seen on the boards. Figure out which ones work with the map and/or leader.
Sometimes you can tech too fast. If you can build macemen, but it's taking 10 turns even in your production monster, you've either not developed your city properly, or need to get literature for heroic epic pity damn quick.
Remember to delete old units, but not the well promoted ones. You need to upgrade them, which means you need more money, which means you need to keep focusing on your economy.
My the mid 1000s I think you should be aiming to pick up another commerce city or two.
Don't focus on the "I always do ....." Just do stuff that fits that game. I always find my self building roads everywhere, and building wonders just cos I can, but I play a better game when I stop that impulse and build what the city needs at that time.
Just some ideas.
I've not looked at your saved games, but read the thread. Don't dispare, you seem to be getting better !
I used to (and still do in the later game) make a lot of the same mistakes as you. Forgetting to turn of no growth, not switching civics etc. The key thing that helped my game was specializing cities.
Your capitol should be a production or commerce city, the bureaucracy civic will then help you loads. If you don't have a commerce capitol, then you need to make sure you found a commerce city quite early to cottage that up.
Equally, if you have a commerce capitol, then you need a production city early on.
You really need *lots* of cottages in your commerce city. Remember to reconfigure your cities as time goes on. Maybe extra farms early in a city's life, then changing to cottages or workshops later.
A couple of things that have improved my game recently. Don't ignore Monarchy. Being able to produce units to remove make people happy is great. Lets you grow up to the health cap.
Don't feel your early war has to be about taking cities. Just pillaging, steeling workers and wiping out setter parties can slow down the AI great. My last prince warlords game I only built two workers, and had 25 by the end of the game. After a 1000 years or so they probably will have forgiven you somewhat anyway.
Don't try to follow every strategy you've seen on the boards. Figure out which ones work with the map and/or leader.
Sometimes you can tech too fast. If you can build macemen, but it's taking 10 turns even in your production monster, you've either not developed your city properly, or need to get literature for heroic epic pity damn quick.
Remember to delete old units, but not the well promoted ones. You need to upgrade them, which means you need more money, which means you need to keep focusing on your economy.
My the mid 1000s I think you should be aiming to pick up another commerce city or two.
Don't focus on the "I always do ....." Just do stuff that fits that game. I always find my self building roads everywhere, and building wonders just cos I can, but I play a better game when I stop that impulse and build what the city needs at that time.
Just some ideas.
Arnesson:
You don't need your rivals to send missionaries your way in order to spread religion. The game models an innate spread protocol that allows religions to spread to you, regardless of whether your rival wants to or not. You just have to encourage it a bit.
The best ways to grab a rival's religion is to spread aggressively to him and eventually found cities next to his, and to create trade routes from his cities to yours. Don't worry so much about the proximity. If you share his religion and he's got other neighbors, you should be able to turn him against another AI. Build trade routes (roads or port cities and the right tech).
For my part, I haven't had a problem snagging Hinduism from a neighbor, even before the advent of Confucianism. If the neighbor is so far away that it would be a problem, then adopting your own religion for a bit should similarly not be a problem.
What I noticed is that even without religion, the AIs who all have different religions dogpiled on you. This isn't unusual if you're weak. Don't be weak. Even more importantly, don't antagonize the AIs, especially when they're near you and are powerful. If they're asking for a worthless or relatively worthless tech, give it to them.
Heck, feed them techs that you want them to have.
Pay attention to Simon c's basic stuff. You probably already know most of them, but you can improve.
So, too, all of the basic stuff people have been posting. You need to develop a strong basic game in conjunction with the diplomatic tactics. Even without religion, I find it not a problem to be 1st or 2nd on the power graph at Prince level. I think you need to explore more of the game options in terms of generating happiness.
You don't need your rivals to send missionaries your way in order to spread religion. The game models an innate spread protocol that allows religions to spread to you, regardless of whether your rival wants to or not. You just have to encourage it a bit.
The best ways to grab a rival's religion is to spread aggressively to him and eventually found cities next to his, and to create trade routes from his cities to yours. Don't worry so much about the proximity. If you share his religion and he's got other neighbors, you should be able to turn him against another AI. Build trade routes (roads or port cities and the right tech).
For my part, I haven't had a problem snagging Hinduism from a neighbor, even before the advent of Confucianism. If the neighbor is so far away that it would be a problem, then adopting your own religion for a bit should similarly not be a problem.
What I noticed is that even without religion, the AIs who all have different religions dogpiled on you. This isn't unusual if you're weak. Don't be weak. Even more importantly, don't antagonize the AIs, especially when they're near you and are powerful. If they're asking for a worthless or relatively worthless tech, give it to them.
Heck, feed them techs that you want them to have.
Pay attention to Simon c's basic stuff. You probably already know most of them, but you can improve.
So, too, all of the basic stuff people have been posting. You need to develop a strong basic game in conjunction with the diplomatic tactics. Even without religion, I find it not a problem to be 1st or 2nd on the power graph at Prince level. I think you need to explore more of the game options in terms of generating happiness.
Arnesson
Warlord
I have tried different leaders on different maps. I have tried no religion, adopting the religion of those more powerful, and founding my own religion, then spreading it around. I have tried a building approach as well as early axe rushes. I have worked at specialising cities, SE, CE and hybrids. I have read the articles and tried to follow the advice given on this thread.
After starting over 20 games, I have yet to win once! The best I have been able to accomplish was a third place finish in a Time Victory game. Invariably my economy falters, my research falls behind, my attempts at diplomacy fail, and I am overwhelmed by 2-3 AI's declaring war on me. I went back to Noble level (to regain some confidence if nothing else) and I have no problems winning there. So there is definitely something wrong with my whole approach when playing at Prince level. I just cannot figure out what it is!
After starting over 20 games, I have yet to win once! The best I have been able to accomplish was a third place finish in a Time Victory game. Invariably my economy falters, my research falls behind, my attempts at diplomacy fail, and I am overwhelmed by 2-3 AI's declaring war on me. I went back to Noble level (to regain some confidence if nothing else) and I have no problems winning there. So there is definitely something wrong with my whole approach when playing at Prince level. I just cannot figure out what it is!
dannyusmc78
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2007
- Messages
- 85
People....dont know what to do. prince is just killin me....4 games now. Last one my score was runnin neck and neck with about 5 civs until about 500, then they just blew me away...i was stuck at 700 and theyre all at like 1600...doin everything i can, building temples, emphasizing religion, i even had 4 world wonders, and im still getting mauled after we all get to about 500. they just pulll ahead wayyyy too fast. Tributes never work. Montezuma is a d^ck and can eat my sh^t too....god i hate him. "This world isnt big enough for the both of us!" ....yeah yeah yeah.....
dannyusmc78
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2007
- Messages
- 85
Arnesson!!!! Im right there with ya bud! noble was a challenge, but by the third game i had it licked...prince has me goin ape scat!
dannyusmc78
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2007
- Messages
- 85
To Roxgood advice, kinda already been following what you 2 said...but which leaders do you like? im a ghandi man myself, but hes not doin me any favors on prince........
Arnesson
Warlord
My only "success" (that is the only time I didn't get absolutely trounced) was playing Ragnar. My Berserkers managed to hold off Macemen and Knights when they came to visit so that I managed to hang onto my cities. I finished in fourth place with around 4000 points when Mao won a Time victory.
Arnesson
Warlord
Latest game, playing Augustus on Continents map, normal speed, standard size. I build three cities and take two more from the Barbarians. Sailing along nicely. economy balanced with my slider at 80%. One GP Farm, 1 Production city, 1 Commerce city, the rest too small as yet to factor in. Declare war on Korea and take 1 city. Move on to Seoul with 8 Preatorians and 4 Cats. It is defended by 4 Longbowmen and 1 Spearman. Surround the city and raze towns and roads while my cats whittle down the defences. 3 turns later the city has added 3 War Elephants! How can I possibly win against that sort of cheating by the AI?
Arnesson
Warlord
Obviously you more advanced players have figured out a way to counter this. I cannot.
Hackapell
Rhetorician
Hope you brought along spears.
He probably A) has a city with ivory that you can't see
B) rushed some elephants to his capital
C) whipped defenders.
As long as your attacking units are about the same number and you have cats, just send in the cats for collateral, then attack with yor ground troops.
Oh, and save, please!
He probably A) has a city with ivory that you can't see
B) rushed some elephants to his capital
C) whipped defenders.
As long as your attacking units are about the same number and you have cats, just send in the cats for collateral, then attack with yor ground troops.
Oh, and save, please!
Arnesson
Warlord
As mentioned in the tiny EDIT line, I did check and there was no ivory in the city. Seoul was surrounded, and all roads into it has been razed. He could not get units into the city without going through me. I did kamikaze my cats and eventually took the city, but that was the end of my SOD! 2 Praetorians was all that remained. That lowered my power score enough that (a) I had to settle for a peace treaty (receiving a whole 20 gold for my trouble) and (b) Ghenghis decided that I was easy pickings for his Keshiks (he wasn't wrong) and that was the end of that game.
I had a couple of spears on the way (once I saw that the WE's had magically appeared in the city), but with the AI selecting the defender, they tend to only get used if there are still mounted units at the bitter end. Otherwise they will always be opposed by the Longbows, which chew them up with no trouble at all.
dannyusmc78:
I tend to favor the Middle Eastern or European Civs. Of the Asian Civs, I like Qui Shi Huang ruling China, and Tokugawa ruling Japan. That's about it.
Ghandi and Asoka are different, but the fact that they have no war unit UU makes the game kinda "bland" for me. Not bad, you understand, just bland. If I were playing India, I'd use the faster workers to net me valuable economic time advantages throughout the game. The point using Fast Workers isn't to use less than normal workers. The point is to use the same amount of workers to do the necessary improvements super-fast (which allows you to "curve" city development and growth steeper).
Arnesson:
I have to confess that I haven't actually witnessed that kind of event taking place. 3 War Elephants isn't really all that damaging when it's the last city, to tell you the truth.
What I noticed is that it takes you three turns to take a city. That's not right in my book. Either you take a large enough stack to take the city in one turn, or you take such an invincible stack that nothing Korea can do will hurt it, in which case you can always wait for Spearman reinforcements.
When I find that I lack the ability or any sound reason to push a wartime advance any further, I send my troops to raze the bejeezus out of any remaining land the enemy has, then sue for peace to consolidate. Usually, when I'm the one making the declaring, I've mapped out the enemy's cities and units fairly well, and I know exactly which cities I want to hit and in what order.
Then I try to anticipate anything the Civ AI might throw at me that I haven't prepared for and try to deal with it. Weakening rival civs with demands, wars from other enemies and such is often a good way to get what you want for less, especially if you don't particularly care anymore what that Civ thinks of you.
When I use Praetorians, I demand that they be produced from Barracks, otherwise, they won't be strong enough to do what they need to do. After a romp through enemy territory, at least one will probably be level 4, which means that I'll probably have access to the Formation promotion.
If you post a save, I can comment more cogently on the things which I would do differently, and the things which I see are just downright wrong. I hope you're hooking up your resources, for instance.
I tend to favor the Middle Eastern or European Civs. Of the Asian Civs, I like Qui Shi Huang ruling China, and Tokugawa ruling Japan. That's about it.
Ghandi and Asoka are different, but the fact that they have no war unit UU makes the game kinda "bland" for me. Not bad, you understand, just bland. If I were playing India, I'd use the faster workers to net me valuable economic time advantages throughout the game. The point using Fast Workers isn't to use less than normal workers. The point is to use the same amount of workers to do the necessary improvements super-fast (which allows you to "curve" city development and growth steeper).
Arnesson:
I have to confess that I haven't actually witnessed that kind of event taking place. 3 War Elephants isn't really all that damaging when it's the last city, to tell you the truth.
What I noticed is that it takes you three turns to take a city. That's not right in my book. Either you take a large enough stack to take the city in one turn, or you take such an invincible stack that nothing Korea can do will hurt it, in which case you can always wait for Spearman reinforcements.
When I find that I lack the ability or any sound reason to push a wartime advance any further, I send my troops to raze the bejeezus out of any remaining land the enemy has, then sue for peace to consolidate. Usually, when I'm the one making the declaring, I've mapped out the enemy's cities and units fairly well, and I know exactly which cities I want to hit and in what order.
Then I try to anticipate anything the Civ AI might throw at me that I haven't prepared for and try to deal with it. Weakening rival civs with demands, wars from other enemies and such is often a good way to get what you want for less, especially if you don't particularly care anymore what that Civ thinks of you.
When I use Praetorians, I demand that they be produced from Barracks, otherwise, they won't be strong enough to do what they need to do. After a romp through enemy territory, at least one will probably be level 4, which means that I'll probably have access to the Formation promotion.
If you post a save, I can comment more cogently on the things which I would do differently, and the things which I see are just downright wrong. I hope you're hooking up your resources, for instance.
dannyusmc78
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2007
- Messages
- 85
Roxlimm.....well, i finsihed my first prince game, (qin shang won by space V) and i olnly finished with 2398 (Dan Quayle). I dont get it. I only got into one war, which persia took care of for me. Built every religious thing possible (all cities had just about every religion and their associated buildings) I was #1 culturally (you know that "the 8 most cultured civs: Dan the glorious") and i still got whooped....im thinkin bout playin with genghis next for a more warlike campaign....my one question....HOW DO I STAY IN THE TECH RACE? like i said, by the end of the game, the french had mech inf. and modern armor, i didnt even have artillery yet (hence my peaceful and oh-so-giving nature).....In the end, i think the tech race deteremines it all.....how can i get 3 cities with legendary culture???
dannyusmc78
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2007
- Messages
- 85
Rox...when i say "finished" my first game, i mean stuck it out til the end...lol
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