help with playing on the prince difficulty

[gunslinger6792]

ive tried playing on the prince difficulty (without barbarians being on the map and standard map size with 7 to 6 players) and with out fail someone declares war on my by 1500 BC or so. they usually have a massive army 2 swordsmen 2 archers and 4 to 6 warriors thrown at me. i usually have 2 archers 2spearmen and 1 or 2 horsemen/swordsmen. needless to say im out classsed. my treasury runs dry my happiness goes down to negative. even if i make a beeline for military tech and create a large military they always out produce me and magically appear on my border. Am i that bad or is their any advice i can get. i've played on easy and well its just to easy but i dont want to be overwhelmed early on either.

 

[Tokira]

Well, personally I have never had this happening to me on prince. Are you building cities very close to AI borders and how many times has this happened to you?

The warriors should be easy to destroy with archers and/or horsemen and swordmen. Same goes for the archers. If you carefully think which soldiers to put against which opponents, you should be able to kill the army that you describe with the forces that you have.

In my playstyle I never build spearmen or pikemen and I might advice you to do the same and focus on horsemen or swordmen (warriors) insteads. The problem with these units is that they will be weaker than swordmen and longswordmen and are actually only usable straight when you get the tech to build them and when they can be upgraded to pikemen.

 

[gunslinger6792]

this has happened to me 3 times atleast and im usually very far or moderately far away from their borders. guess ill have to try a more offensive approuch. i also play as the USA which in the classical era is at a disadvantage

 

[Snoopaloop]

You should be able to hold onto your cities and stop their attack with the military you have. Get your archer in the city they are attacking, get your other archer on an advantageous spot behind the city somewhere, then triple bombard their units. It is going to take them a few turns to get that city defense down. Once their units are weak, or if one is away from the rest, pick them off with the horsemen/spear/swordsman you have.

How many cities are you building early in the game? If you are short on happiness, this might be the problem. Try building two other cities, keeping them close enough for you to defend, but make sure they both acquire new luxury resources to keep that happiness up early.

The USA doesn't have any classic units, but their sight bonus really helps early in the game. Try putting a scout out on a hill somewhere between you and your enemy. You'll know when and where they're coming!

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

Start with Tradition and be sure to pick up Oligarchy. Keep a ranged unit such as an Archer in your cities at all times. With Oligarchy, the garrisoned unit (be sure they are garrisoned) have no maintenance and it also doubles the strength of your city attack, which is usually enough to wipe out or severly wound a unit per turn. The City only gets this bonus while the unit is garrisoned, so attack with the city first and then use your archer. On the next turn manually garrison your archer, then attack with city, then attack with archer.

You should also build walls in all your cities, particularly if your city isn't on a hill. Cities on hills have bonus defense, and thus a wall isn't as needed but certainly helps. If you have Babylon, they have very strong early defense with Bowmen and Walls of Babylon (higher strength walls that increase the damage of your city attack, even more potent with the Oligarchy policy).

Don't neglect your military too much. Beyond the 1 ranged unit garrisoned in every city, you should try to have at least 1 melee unit per city as a standing army. Typically spears/pikemen or swordsmen, as these gain defense bonuses from terrain (mounted units dont). So when an enemy declares war with you and sends a wave of units, you will be able to repel them.

Don't send out your army to fight them in the field but instead set up a few melee and ranged units in rough terrain for bonus defense and wait for the computer to come up to your city. Use the attack-garrison method i described earlier and pick off their melee units, as these are the only units that can take cities. Doesn't matter how many ranged units the enemy has so long as they have no melee units to take your cities. When their melee is wiped out or severely diminished, move in your melee and ranged to mop up their remaining units.

 

[Helmling]

ive tried playing on the prince difficulty (without barbarians being on the map and standard map size with 7 to 6 players) and with out fail someone declares war on my by 1500 BC or so. they usually have a massive army 2 swordsmen 2 archers and 4 to 6 warriors thrown at me. i usually have 2 archers 2spearmen and 1 or 2 horsemen/swordsmen. needless to say im out classsed. my treasury runs dry my happiness goes down to negative. even if i make a beeline for military tech and create a large military they always out produce me and magically appear on my border. Am i that bad or is their any advice i can get. i've played on easy and well its just to easy but i dont want to be overwhelmed early on either.

You're not outclassed. With the army described, you can make mincemeat of the AI. The key thing to remember in fighting the AI is that it is stupid. Use the terrain against it. As close to your cities as possible, put your best defenders on hills and forests, put your archers behind them (preferably on hills, but whereever they can both fire at the enemy and be protected. The AI will wander stupidly onto the flat terrain, waste precious hit points by attacking up hill or against fortified units in the woods. Then concentrate all your archer and city-defense fire on one unit at a time. Remember, the AI will use its upgrades to auto-heal, so it is better to wipe one unit out completely than heavily damage three.

There's probably some other things you can do in terms of infrastructure or economy because on Prince, the AI doesn't have a production advantage. My advice would be to watch some of the Let's Play videos on YouTube. That's what I've done in moving up to Deity.

 

[chazzycat]

playing as america, try to kill a couple barbs with your 2nd scout to get +1 sight bonus. Then position your super-scout on a hill close to your most aggressive neighbor. when they move out in your direction, that means they are coming to attack you. That should give you a little heads up so you can move your dudes into defensive position and maybe rush buy an archer or two.

Also IMO the magic number of archers is 3. 2 archer shots plus city shot isn't going to kill stuff, meaning you have to move your melee units to attack. When playing defense, the melee units only job should be to protect the ranged units, and ideally should never move. So...build a third archer and position them so that all 3 can attack incoming targets at once. The best way to position them is 2 tiles behind a river that has open ground. That way, units that cross the river and lose their movement points get killed before they even get another move. Basically, you create a death trap.

 

[Haig]

Maybe the problem isn't only on your defence forces, but you also say you are being out-produced. Also practice on the not so glamorous parts of empire management such as getting enough food for the cities, it's essential too.

Also, if you have enough cash, it might be good to ally with a militaristic city-state near your border. They are usually vicious fighters. Also by completing their quests you can do it without cash too.

 

[gozpel]

1-2 archers and 3-4 warriors can kill off anything, if you place them in good spots. On most levels up to Deity.

On Prince, find what city they are looking for, possibly the closest to their nation? Sometimes they go deeper into your territory to feign you and double-back. This is when your cities hurts them. And archers too if in reach.

Remember, don't go for one sword, warrior or archer if you can hit them, they get promotions as you do. So give that warrior a burst of arrows and he's down to 6hp. Check that sword, another burst of arrows take him down to 7hp. If you have a spare warrior, double back and go around the fighting field and kill an archer from behind.

Even if their main force of attackers reach your city, they are dead in 2-3 turns. Then they have nothing and will ask for peace and will ask for all your 594 gold, 13gpt, furs and spices and open borders. They will do this 2 times as I've seen, until you move your army over to theirs and give them back.

Yesterday I got 2 cities from Japan and heaps of gold and stuff, it only lasts for 10 turns though. And he attacked me! I took one city and waited and try to figure out the happiness, hehe, but that is a diff story.