Help with Prince

[rylmets12]

1) I'm little bit confused by the warrior movement. I think you said you first went North. Now he is down south, so I can only assume that you basically retraced your steps as opposed to actually scouting. A more circuitous route to the W and S from that Northern position would have been best. Again you want the warrior to not go to far..say 10 tiles in either direction, but you want to always be revealing the fog.

Retracing my steps is exactly what I did. I was going on the notion to scope out my second city location faster but can see why fog busting is the way to go. A copper revealed itself in that area as well. Would be nice to know what's up there.

3) Civs revealing themselves early on a Pangaea map is not concerning at all. It is great. Either it gives you a chance to kill someone fast or get foreign trade routes up faster.

That's good to know! I look forward to seeing/hearing more about that.

On the game:

I took my warrior east, away from the panther and exposed a bear. It went away and there was a 50/50 chance I was going to see him again by moving forward. I did so into a forest to see it waiting for me. The bear attacked and I won with no damage.

At the beginning of turn 20, my exploration looks like this:



Notice the area 2S of my Capital was a copper. Very neat trick!

I stand with a warrior ready to continue exploring by "zig zag", a worker waiting for an order (since copper revealed itself, should I go straight to improving it or still chop the forest 1SW of my capital?). Normally, I would wait a turn before I whip before switching to slavery. Does that make sense or should I change sooner?

Misc: Greece found Buddhism on turn 19.

Save game: View attachment Forum Game Turn 20.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[lymond]

Lookin' good. That copper is great. Coulda been anything really, but grass copper is a fantastic early tile.

So:

1) I would move worker 1SW of city and chop that tile. Do you have BULL running as well with pre-chopping on? If not, cancel your chop each turn. You are going to put that chop into a settler for one turn

2) continue the warrior but grow onto a 1F2H tile for a bit until copper is improved. This will get warrior out faster and is really the best tile right now.

3) Chop the forest but switch to a settler the turn of the chop, then back to warrior. then improve copper

4) The wheel next, but we are not going to hook up copper immediately. Reason: to build more warrior which are good cheap defense and MP right now.

5) after copper is improve I would move to grass hill and chop/mine that forest.

warrior down S can probably move just a bit more E and N, I think there is AI somewhere close there and then move back to protect new city and settler.

Play until copper is improve. Remember to put chop into settler by adding him to top of queue. continue building that warrior. I think current warrior may finish anyway near or at chop. Good too as you should get a little hammer OF from that warrior into the settler. If chop not finished though, then start a new warrior.

edit: No warrior won't finish. Put chop into settler, then finish warrior after, back to settler, then start new warrior until copper is improved

 

[rylmets12]

So I started following the directions and have one technical and one strategic question.

After 3 more turns, I moved my worker onto the tile 1SW of my Capital and chopped until there was 1 turn remaining. On the 4th turn since my last post, I changed production to a settler and cut the forest giving the hammers to the settler. The warrior I was building had one turn remaining before completion. Am I able to switch back to producing the warrior this turn so that it is completed once I end turn 4? If so, how do I do this?

Secondly, doesn't it make sense for me to keep working the corn tile to grow my city to pop 2, then start working the 1F2H tile? Appreciate knowing why that would not be the case. Edit: Disregard - I now see you said to "grow onto" the 1F2H

Thanks!

 

[lymond]

Oh gosh..I hope you were working the corn this whole time. If not, play those turns over.

You chop into the settler and build the settler for that turn, then switch back to warrior.

I think cntrl-click item puts item at top of queue, while shift-click item puts item in bottom of queue. (forget which at the moment since it is kinda automatic for me when I'm actually in the game).

chopping a forest adds those hammers to your production for that turn, not directly to the item in queue. (it actually did work that way in vanilla Civ IV) So you chop the forest and build that settler that turn to receive the full 20H from the chop plus whatever normal production from tiles worked.

Actually, this brings up another important point. I encourage you to start looking at the details of your city screen. Start looking at the production and food bars at the top center of the city screen. Also, the production detail just left of the production bar. You will start to see how your production works. You will see when chops are added into the total production for a given turn. In addition, start to notice overflow (OF) hammers from finished production or post whipping production. Also, on the production bar, take notice of how much production you have currently applied to an item compared to the total production cost. (this is not something you necessarily need to do every turn, but I'm trying to make you cognizant of this information, especially as it will apply later when we get to more advanced whipping mechanics) Civ IV can get a bit involved with some math. You can, ofc, play the game without getting into all the micro details, but if you really want to improve, move up levels, win faster, etc., it pays to do some micro and math to get the most out of your cities....especially in the early game.

Again, replay that last few turns from the last stop if you switched off of the corn tile. That would be a tremendous waste of growth if that was the case.

Again, do use BULL in addition to BUG?

 

[rylmets12]

Oh gosh..I hope you were working the corn this whole time. If not, play those turns over.

I was working the corn... we're good.

Again, do use BULL in addition to BUG?

I do not. Is it recommended I do? For these last couple turns I manually stopped my worker's chop each round.

Thanks for bringing my attention to the city screen. I will keep in mind to pay attention.

On the game:

My warrior found Greece's borders in the east. I moved him back to my Capital. The second warrior finished and I sent him west. My worker just completed the copper mine. His next stop is to chop/mine the hills/grassland tile to his left and those hammers should go to the settler I'm building. Do I have that right?

Save Game: View attachment Forum Game Turn 27.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[lymond]

Good. However, you don't need the warrior in cap. You want your warriors outside your cities spawnbusting, which I probably should explain.

You are obviously aware that those evil barbs spawn out in the fog. However, a barb will not spawn in a 5X5 area from the tile a unit is stationed. You can eliminate or significantly reduce the presence of barbs by strategically stationing units outside your land. Ofc, you still have not completed that initial scouting your were supposed to do due to some unfortunate retracing of steps. Regardless you know you will have a new city setup very soon and there should be a warrior in proximity to protect the area and you settler. That warrior should probably go down to that PH down there for now.

(barbs do not enter your land for quite some time on Prince level, so cities do not need MP early while mainly building settlers/workers and whipping. better to have them prevent those barbs from generating in the first place. Obviously, you will need MP in your city once they do start to grow, which is exactly what those warriors will eventually do once the coast is clear)

BULL complements BUG. You don't need to worry about it for now, but it is nice to have and can be installed in Custom assets with your BUG, so that games are compatible with other people like they are now. (if you go to BUG options now you can notice a lot of grayed out boxes on each screen..those are BULL options). BAT is another great mod from that team that includes all the BUG/BULL stuff plus some aesthetic enhancements. It's actually the mod I use most for personal games. However, it is "stand-alone", i.e., not in "custom assets, so only folks with BAT can play BAT saves. Still, you might want to check it out some time.

1) First, let's note that you have 2 very powerful improvements in your city...a copper mine and a wet corn. These are tiles from this point out that you will probably always work, regardless of the whipping that will come later. You now have 5 hammers and 6F going into your settler from these tiles and your city center tile. (settlers/workers are built with food and hammers, in case you did not know that)

2) Queue up a warrior this turn so that you grow one more turn, then back to settler

3) worker moves to grass hill and chops into settler which will finish it, likely giving some nice OF. haven't decided what to build after settler, probably another worker or a wb.

4) I'm thinking actually having you tech AH next. grass cows is a very nice tile and there may be other AH resources near by, so doesn't hurt. Pottery is obviously a very good choice as well for granaries, which are hands down that most important building in the game, if I've not mentioned already. (then likely Writing>Alpha...on Prince you can get away with going AH>POT>Writing>Alpha, but as you move up levels you will likely have to make more careful choices in your tech path).

5) Ideally it is nice to have a road in place for your new city. If the road exists to the tile adjacent to the city before you still the trade route is instant. However, you will not have the worker turns for that right now, so we will take care of that road after the next worker pops.

6) Once worker finishes that mine he can move directly to the corn for the new city, which will go 1NE of corn (or 1NW of cow)

So, play until you settle that city following what I planned out for you. Warriors don't need to go too far but get a bit more scouting in NW and SW. New city can start with a warrior as well, as I don't think there is anything else worth building at first and you will need more warriors. Again, note that when you finish that settler with the chop, there should be some significant OF, so queue up something important like a worker or wb, probably really need that new worker. Finish him, but grow onto the new mine with that already queued warrior the turn before the mine finishes.

I'm out for tonight.

 

[lymond]

(I should note that I type pretty fast when posting this stuff, which leads to lots of mistakes or stuff I forget to mention, so be aware that I go back and edit my posts a lot)

oh..and I meant to mention that you should switch to slavery the turn your settler pops. This allows you to avoid the anarchy in two cities.

Also, once the second city is settled you will start to go into "deficit research". At this point you are going to use a little "binary research". You will not have enough gold to finish AH at 100%, so do 1 turn of 0% research to accumulate a bit of gold, then 100% to finish out AH.

 

[Seraiel]

Looks like I came in the right moment, Lime and Lexicus give good advice, but I disagree on the choice of TW and Pottery.

@ rylmets12: TW and Pottery are both very very important techs in all games, where you don't start with a Gold, Silver or Gems, but in this situation, you're FIN, and you got three seafood tiles all giving 3 . You get 8 from your Palace, that's 20 . That's not overly much, but as you got no riverside tiles to Cottage + even if you had, you couldn't work any of them early, because you already need 5 pop if you also want to work the Copper, which you definitely should, this makes TW and Pottery two techs that only give you Roads, while AH would be cheaper and would reveal Horses. It also would allow improving the Cows, so in this case, it's better to tech AH to unlock Writing instead of TW + Pottery. I didn't read everything too closely, you should research Fishing, actually before BW, because is the most important of all (so always research the one or two food-techs that give the most) and then research BW, build-whip-chop 2-3 Workboats, improve the Copper and start Settlers at size 4 or 5. Size 4 is definitely ok, most of the time one will build the first Settler at size 3, but in this situation it's definitely ok, because an additional +2 from an additional source of food will fasten up the 2nd Settler severely, and I guess the 3rd Settler will already be earlier, than if you'd stay at size 3 and build 2 Settlers then. The choice to grow to size 5 or not depends on production. If you'd need to whip the 3rd Workboat, skip it, because you'd need to regrow afterwards and would have nothing good to build. If you can finish it by working the Copper without whip though, if it times well and if your nearest neighbour isn't directly besides you, grow to size 5. Note, that most of this is very unusual, because you play on a lower difficulty and play a seafood start.
But: Lime wasn't as wrong as I thought, as this is with Barbs, you need TW nevertheless because you need to connect that Copper to build a few Axes (I'm used to HoF-gaming, and mostly play without Barbs, so I didn't think of this initially) . Idk when Barbs start entering your borders on Prince. I also don't know whether Fishing -> TW -> Writing is better or if Fishing -> Writing -> TW is better, because your Worker has enough to do with Chopping and (so nn to enforce TW) but you also won't build a Library before city 3 (so Writing only unlocks open Borders) .

For when you build Axes, learn now already: You need to micro your city, so that not more than 4 are invested in the Axe, because then, you can 2-pop-whip it (would be 1-pop otherwise) , you can invest the huge OF into the Settler and then build an Axe normally to regrow. It's very important to have a good plan with that much . Pay attention how to make bigger whips, so that you don't stack that much anger, because then, your only choices are to build Settlers and Workers or let the city grow into . Ideally you want the city to grow the whole time and do whips that big, that it doesn't experience problems. I tell you, this won't be easy, that's why Lime and Lexicus wanted you to settle on the Plains Hill, because three sources of food are already hard to manage. It's good that you didn't though because the Plains in the west are all aweful tiles compared to the FIN-water, and be very happy that you got that Copper, it's the most valuable resource that could have been there!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I didn't read everything too closely, you should research Fishing, actually before BW, because is the most important of all (so always research the one or two food-techs that give the most) and then research BW, build-whip-chop 2-3 Workboats, improve the Copper and start Settlers at size 4 or 5.

He's WvO so he starts with Fishing I agree the Wheel next to get the Copper hooked up, I probably lean AH after that as well.

 

[Macksideshow]

Great advice guys. I am mainly reading this to try learn some things but I will throw out another reason why coastal starts aren't great.

Distance to palace maintenance. Since city maintenance increases with distance to your capital the areas 2-3 tiles from your capital make great settling spots for early cities. If your capital is on the coast a significant proportion of these areas will be ocean and therefore not possible to settle.

Btw, I would have moved my settler 1NW to the plains hill (3 foods is plenty like Seraiel pointed out) and then rage quit because that land is so crap lol. Hope you have a good game

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Btw, I would have moved my settler 1NW to the plains hill (3 foods is plenty like Seraiel pointed out) and then rage quit because that land is so crap lol.

lol - the key thing for me was that WvO is financial so the seafood is also commerce, always good if a tile produces 2 different things. There weren't many other sources of commerce around.

Seraiel's advice re whipping is good but if you find it a bit overwhelming don't worry - you won't need it to win up to Emperor but if you can understand and use it you will win much quicker on the lower levels.

 

[Lexicus]

However, a barb will not spawn in a 5X5 area from the tile a unit is stationed.

DO you mean that units spawnbust a 5x5 square regardless of fog of war? I was under the impression that units only spawnbusted what they had line-of-sight on. Often the terrain prevents a unit from seeing a full 5x5 square even if the unit is on a hill, so I was wondering about this.

 

[lymond]

DO you mean that units spawnbust a 5x5 square regardless of fog of war?

Yep..includes coastal tiles as well if you are trying to prevent galley spawn. On some maps you can practically neutralize barb spawn with a few well placed warriors It's why advanced players rarely, if ever, tech archery, even with no metals or hold off on hooking up metal just so they can build more cheap warriors for busting and MP.

 

[lymond]

but I disagree on the choice of TW and Pottery.

Does pay to read everything, cereal. I did have ryl change to teching AH.

Hooking up copper early here is likely unnecessary, unless you were to rush the AIs -which is certainly feasible here. It's Pangaea with very close AIs so with proper spawnbust should be no barb issues. I'd rather use those worker turns on something more important early

 

[rylmets12]

Seraiel's advice re whipping is good but if you find it a bit overwhelming don't worry - you won't need it to win up to Emperor but if you can understand and use it you will win much quicker on the lower levels.

Maybe a little overwhelming at this time. I'm finding it challenging just reading all the feedback, playing turns and then posting about it. Despite that, the experience has been really great so far -- thanks all! @seraiel - thanks for the info. I will keep those mechanics in mind when I'm more up to speed!

On the game:

Taking into account everyone's feedback, my plan was to switch back to producing a warrior to grow the Capital, chop the Grass/Hill tile 1SW from my Capital and put it into a settler, finish the settler, and found a second city b/w the corn & cow south of my capital. My next research was going to be AH.

However, a new development happened on turn 28. I moved my warrior 1W and found Isabella/Spain and her borders very close to mine.



Thought it worth a quick check-in to see if my second city placement is still the best option. Thanks!

Save Game: View attachment Forum Game Turn 28.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Lexicus]

Yep..

Wow, well that simplifies matters. And here I've been trying to get rid of the FoW...

Thought it worth a quick check-in to see if my second city placement is still the best option. Thanks!

I wouldn't say it changes the calculus of where your second city goes. There isn't really a good city location in the direction of Spain (though I guess I wouldn't rule out something in the unexplored area to the North), so there is really no need to quickly claim it before Spain does. Plus on Prince the AI expands very slowly.

At any rate from what you have explored the Cow/Corn is still the best place for second city.

However, with copper in the capital's big cross and Isabella so close, I would advocate building an axe or two and trying to take her capital before she can get archery. If the AI has only warriors you could probably take their capital with a single axeman provided you don't get screwed by the RNG.

 

[lymond]

ryl - based on your screenshot, looks like you are ready to put the settler back at top of queue and finish him out with the chop. then worker mines that hill. when settler finishes start a worker(take not of production info in city screen on this turn and note any OF), but grow with warrior the turn before the mine finish (hover over worker and it will say 2t to finish mine). finish warrior then worker. first worker will move to corn for new city after mine. new worker will road to new city. (basically what I laid out for you earlier)

City will go 1NE of corn.

Yep, this is certainly a position on Prince where you could build some axes and likely take out an AI or two. That is certainly an valid approach. I kinda want you to focus more though on getting up a good empire while teching well at this point. We can always replay this one with a rush in mind later.

Play until second city is settled

N warrior can move N to PH and then further N to scout and spawnbust. S warrior can move toward new city to protect, then move to scout further W down there a bit after city is settled. 3rd warrior can move down there as well to spawnbust to the S of second city.

oh..and don't forget to switch to slavery the turn the settler pops

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I agree re rushing being a) viable and b) not the best way to learn at this stage.

 

[rylmets12]

Here's where I stand:

Once my settler was built, I switched to slavery. I founded the second city on turn 34. I switched to a worker so it can be the benefactor of the overflow chop (noted ) @lymond's instructions indicate I should have been able to produce a warrior by this point as well (there is one in my queue close to finishing) Not sure if I followed correctly, but what I did was complete the warrior and the OF remained available for the worker on turn 35.




I ran the science deficit from turn 34 to 35 and am back at 100% to complete AH in 4 turns.

Misc: light scrapes on my two warriors from animal attacks. I upgrade them both to Strength I (probably should have asked about that before doing so... how should I handle in future?)

Save Game: View attachment Forum Game Turn 35.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[lymond]

Looks good.

Mine will finish this turn and you will work that instead of coast. Put turn into worker. Finish warrior then finish worker.

Warrior in 2nd city will heal a turn then move W toward that grass hill (where :hint: you will find your likely 3rd city and a good one indeed) ..this is why you scout. He can then move a bit more W to meet AI and then hang out there to protect that spot (you can scout a few tiles in that immediate area if you want)

New warrior will move direct south of 2nd city all the way to coast down there where good spawn bust position.

N warrior can hang out on silver tile..good spawn bust spot. New warrior from 2nd city will go up there as well on the E side.

Finish AH..you will need to do another 1 turn of binary to finish Writing..then we will likely run binary for a few turns for Alpha.

When new worker finishes he will road to 2nd city on the open grass tiles, then help finish the cows, which the other worker will probably be already improving. Ofc, as mentioned, the 1st worker will move directly to the corn after finishing the mine this turn. (you can see a pattern here..food first)

Play until new worker finishes though just so I can check. I think 1 turn into settler after worker then and wb to completion. (we are going to 2pop whip the next settler at size 4)

(note just for later: 2nd city will get first library very quickly..we will get to that..and it will run the first 2 scientists)