[BTS] Help with large maps on Prince

[SlimJim01]

Hi!
So, back in June I asked for some advice, and it helped me a bunch! I even managed to win a couple of games on Prince!
However, I'm starting to run into some difficulties, and I'm hopping that you can help me out again.

So far, all games that I won on Prince were on Standard-size-Pangea and with the Romans. I would immediately get Iron Working, settle a city near Iron, get like 6-8 Praetorians and destroy 1-2 Civs. After that I'd focus on Liberalism, use the free tech to get Nationalism/Printing Press, and then get Rifling, draft a bunch of Riflemen with catapults, and destroy a couple of other Civs, and by that point the game is as good as won.
The problems started when I decided to play with a different Civ, Dutch to be specific, and played on Large sized maps.
Early rush is much harder without the OP Praetorians and I just can't seem to pull it off. By the time I make enough Axe Men the AI has already made a bunch of Archers and I can take maybe 1 city Another problem is that on large maps the AI is sometimes very far away so an Early Rush just doesn't seem practical.
What I do then is peaceful expansion. I always have 5-6 cities by 1AD. I try to have 1 or 2 cities with a bunch of hammers, and the rest is Cottage Economy. I always try to get the Great Lighthouse, The Great Library, The Taj Mahal and The Mausoleum of Mausolus, and sometimes The Pyramids.
Quite a few times I ran a game where I was basically on an isolated peninsula with a one tile path into it. I obviously put down a city there and staffed it with a bunch of Archers, Axe Men, and Spear Men. Usually this keeps everyone off my back... for a while. After some time the AI decides that it wants a piece of me and attacks and eventually breaks through because I was beelining for Liberalism and neglected to get Civil Service and Feudalism.
If that doesn't happen, by the time I get the Riflemen, the AI is WAY behind me tech wise, but they have so many units and cities that I can't take more than 2-3 cities before I run out of manpower.
I read that the best thing to do is trade for Tech, and get the AI to kill each other, but I haven't quite grasped how to do that yet.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jnebbe]

That sounds exactly how I used to play Prince =D Iron working first and pick a fight with someone no matter what.

For early rushes, axemen aren't that great since they have a low base strength and are slow. Horse archers are a great unit for rushing, and elephants+catapults are a great option that comes a little later. Elephants can kill everything up to riflemen as long as you have good numbers. But really, an early rush usually isn't needed unless you're boxed in and can't expand peacefully.

For peaceful expanding, sounds like you need more cities, on prince you should probably aim for minimum double digit cities by 1AD, more cities = more production, faster teching, even if you overexpand hard prince ais should never outtech you. Sometime's you'll want to stay at a low number of cities to tech fast for a certain timing attack, but if you're already way ahead of the ai in the first place then there's no point in staying small.

Getting attacked can be avoided with good diplomacy and keeping the other ais happy with you. Check this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-1-know-your-enemy.478563/ which shows a lot of useful info, which leaders will plot at cautious vs pleased, how much they like/dislike you for being in the same/different religion as them, etc. It's incredibly useful and I use it all the time

You could start a shadow game where you post a pic at turn 0 and ask for advice

 

[Gumbolt]

Your early game is completely wrong. AI on Prince should not have 2 cities before 2100bc or so. Where if you improve your food resources first and grow city to size 3-4 you should have a settler out by 2600bc or before. Always go worker first and don't waste time on huts at start as this won't improve your game.

Larger maps means slightly slower tech but it should hardly matter on prince level. I can have 10-20 cities by 1ad, Personally 5-6 does not sound enough. Usually i am for 4 by 2000bc. Then keep expanding. At some point when I have pottery I start building cottages. Early on you want to chop heavily and improve your nearby resources. So food resources/chopping with roads and mining last. Add cottages once you get to about 1500/1000bc. Maybe before that pending how your game is going. You should be winning on Prince. You have a big advantage.

Dutch is a strong civ with financial. Don't knock them. Creative too for libraries?

Post a save around 1000bc.

 

[SlimJim01]

s, on prince you should probably aim for minimum double digit cities by 1AD

I can have 10-20 cities by 1ad,

From my very limited experience that doesn't seem sustainable? Wouldn't the maintenance cost completely cripple your economy and research? Not to mention with that many settlers being produced would you even be able to build some world wonders, Since all your production would go into settlers? Also, how would you even have enough workers to improve said cities? And wouldn't your warriors de-spawn due to bankruptcy?

Dutch is a strong civ with financial. Don't knock them.

Oh no, I'm quite enjoying the Dutch! Don't know where you got that impression from. The culture bonus for the border pop is doing wonders for me!

Getting attacked can be avoided with good diplomacy and keeping the other ais happy with you. Check this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-1-know-your-enemy.478563/ which shows a lot of useful info, which leaders will plot at cautious vs pleased, how much they like/dislike you for being in the same/different religion as them, etc. It's incredibly useful and I use it all the time

Thanks! I'll be taking a look at that!

 

[Gumbolt]

Oh many of those cities would be captured. Why would warriors be spawning come 1ad?

Without a save no idea what you are doing. I mainly play huge maps.

 

[SlimJim01]

Post a save around 1000bc.

Here it is!
I'll be honest, this is without a doubt one of the best starts I ever had! You'll understand the moment you load the save! Didn't quite manage to get the Great Lighthouse unfortunately, but I think it'll be fine.

 

[sampsa]

Do you have the starting save?

 

[SlimJim01]

Do you have the starting save?

Sure thing.

 

[sampsa]

Ugh, forces to use BUG 4.4 as a mod. Can someone make me a save via worldbuilder, plz?

 

[sampsa]

@SlimJim01 can you open the starting save, enter worldbuilder and save it there? Only then I can open the save.

 

[sampsa]

Still trying to play this, re-installed BUG 4.4. but can't open the save. Interface is gone. Still hoping someone can provide a save via worldbuilder.

 

[SlimJim01]

Still trying to play this, re-installed BUG 4.4. but can't open the save. Interface is gone. Still hoping someone can provide a save via worldbuilder.

Does this work for you?

 

[sampsa]

Does this work for you?

Works. Excellent, thanks!

 

[sampsa]

Okay. Can't check your game, so playing unspoiled. Normally I play deity, immortal if I want a guaranteed win.

This is my view on how the opening should be played. T55.

Spoiler :

Just settled 4th city, so I'd view this as a slow start. I don't think the capital is that powerful - yes some decent tiles, but not that much food, and not 2 city center unless you blindly move away from the pigs to settle 1NW on phant which would turn out great thanks to dry corn.

With lots of forest I chose an unusual path to go straight to maths before pottery. Because of triple gold you can get away with it, but cottages are delayed. Now building lots of workers to chop down all the forests to settlers and settle the whole SW-section. Stole a worker from HC because I could ~T25. I don't think it makes a huge impact.

4 cities, 5 workers, 4 warriors, 1 scout (popped), no buildings. Probably need an axe soon just to be safe in SW.

I don't think you should be building any wonders here, nothing really supports that (no IND, no stone/marble yet).

 

[sampsa]

T83 (800BC)

Spoiler :

8 cities with 2 more coming T85 and 11th T90 or so. 10 workers with one more to be whipped next turn. Have currency, which helps with expansion. Note how good the economy is. Don't be afraid to expand very hard on low levels, just work and cottages and you'll be fine. Most cities have granaries (most important building by a huge margin) and due to CRE have some libraries up.

Settlers and city spots marked. Capital -cap is at 8, annoyingly low. Maybe worker steal was bad, now no trade routes or religion from HC. Some axes+cats end the diplomatic problems though. Oh I had to pillage my own copper to be able to build some warriors for military police. SB wanted my moneys, obv didn't give and he got cranky.

Ask if you have questions!

 

[SlimJim01]

T83 (800BC)

Spoiler :

8 cities with 2 more coming T85 and 11th T90 or so. 10 workers with one more to be whipped next turn. Have currency, which helps with expansion. Note how good the economy is. Don't be afraid to expand very hard on low levels, just work and cottages and you'll be fine. Most cities have granaries (most important building by a huge margin) and due to CRE have some libraries up.

View attachment 647740

Settlers and city spots marked. Capital -cap is at 8, annoyingly low. Maybe worker steal was bad, now no trade routes or religion from HC. Some axes+cats end the diplomatic problems though. Oh I had to pillage my own copper to be able to build some warriors for military police. SB wanted my moneys, obv didn't give and he got cranky.

View attachment 647741

Ask if you have questions!

Right, so first I got to mention how similar your city placements are to mine! They're all just a tile or two off. Got to be a good sign!
Anyways, after I posted my 800 BC save, I kept playing and I managed to get whip enough Horse Archers and did an early (?) rush on Huyan Capac and took all of his cities (3) in ~200 BC (and made the great library). After that I focused on whipping workers so I can improve my tiles around my cities and also focusing on building war elephants and catapults to invade someone else. I'm well ahead of everyone technology wise.
Also got a great scientist. Don't know what to do with him.
I got one question though. Should I (down the road), build the Globe Theater in Utrecht or Maastricht? Both seem like really good candidates for whipping!

Also included a save in WorldBuilder of the current progress.
P.S. The first thing my friend said to do when I started playing Civ4 is to install BUG mod. I just thought it was an essential fix mod. Is it actually any good?
Thanks!

 

[sampsa]

The first thing my friend said to do when I started playing Civ4 is to install BUG mod. I just thought it was an essential fix mod. Is it actually any good?

Yes, it is good, but people in general have in installed in CustomAssets-folder. I'm not an expert on this field, but you somehow have it installed as a mod and I don't know how to open it. I use BUFFY as a mod, which is a slightly improved version.

Your game looks good! Of course, there are plenty of things you could do a lot better, but prince is a very forgiving level. You should pack your cities a bit tighter, especially when there are so many FIN river tiles. You want to start working every cottage as fast as you can (1.improve food 2.get granary asap (chop) 3.start growing on cottages). You are building too many buildings (like a lighthouse in Rotterdam - whipping a worker was much better to build cottages), building unnecessary wonders, not chopping hard enough (you still have lots of forest) and not expanding fast enough. These are probably the most typical mistakes, too, so no worries.

City placement could be better. Look at my screenshot, I'm settling tighter and try to avoid non-fresh water cities. You have -issues already even with such small cities. You could just connect sheep (in capital) and wheat in SW to solve that issue. Warring with elephants is nearly always a good idea!

Also got a great scientist. Don't know what to do with him.

Well, since you are building MoM, you probably want to run a golden age later. You could also get an academy in your capital.

Should I (down the road), build the Globe Theater in Utrecht or Maastricht? Both seem like really good candidates for whipping!

GT makes very little impact, unless you plan to draft rifles. It's very expensive and the alternative is better - just whip everywhere.

 

[SlimJim01]

You should pack your cities a bit tighter

As far as I understand cities can only work a certain radius. Wouldn't it be best to insure that there's as little overlap as possible with other cities?

 

[sampsa]

Wouldn't it be best to insure that there's as little overlap as possible with other cities?

No, absolutely not. Overlap is good, because then you can share tiles (especially , but also cottages). I'm closing in on 1AD, then you can see how strong it is to just aim to work as many riverside cottages as possible, as soon as possible. You are thinking too far ahead, short term gains nearly always triumph over long term gains in this game.

 

[sampsa]

1AD

Spoiler :

15 cities (3 of them captured). 16 workers, whipping more asap since still so much to do. ~250 at breakeven slider which is expected with high quality land and FIN. Banked some 1500 waiting for an academy. Won music already, marble is online in 6T. Maybe I should get MoM in capital, Taj I'll chop in Cuzco. Oh I got Oracle ~600BC or so and got CS. Nice deal, 150 for +1000.

Took 10T peace for IW. Hoping he can improve his remaining city a bit before I take it. Going for Alex next with my small army (some 6 cats and 6 units). It seems like you don't need to waste a lot of on units on this level and can just focus on teching. I think I'll go cuirs and take domination. Maybe doable 1000AD or so.

@SlimJim01 at the sake of repeating myself: expand fast, work food and grow to work cottages. Build a granary, everything else is situational. I have 94pop which is a lot, since it means I can work a lot of cottages and there are no economical problems. Expanding to +10 cities and growing them as big as possible is good. I have built 1 barracks (capital), xp doesn't matter much when you have much more advanced units than you are facing. Try to move up to emperor and immortal as fast as you can.

edit:

I try to have 1 or 2 cities with a bunch of hammers, and the rest is Cottage Economy. I always try to get the Great Lighthouse, The Great Library, The Taj Mahal and The Mausoleum of Mausolus, and sometimes The Pyramids.

I think I should comment on this to make everything more clear. First of all, you don't need -cities. Everything can be produced via chop and whip. Typically I build zero non-resource mines, they are mediocre tiles at best. Growing is better. Cities suitable for cottages should in general build cottages, especially if FIN. Plains tiles should be mostly ignored.

Always trying to get those wonders won't do you much good. Taj is excellent, GLH is situational (usually weak on pangaea, rather weak in this game), GLib is decent (it's cheap at least) and MoM is good if you can get it. Pyramids is excellent and you should go for it nearly always if you have stone. In general, don't build wonders without marble/stone bonus (Oracle is an exception I'd say, so cheap). In general, don't focus your game around wonders, they are not the base of your game, ever.