Help with second city placement (struggling with Prince difficulty)

[pandor]

My first time asking for help on this forum, thanks in advance!

I'm trying to move up to Prince, but have yet to win. I've read the illustrated guides, but I was hoping for some specific help

Settings:
Huge, Epic speech, Terra script.
I'm playing as India.

Situation:
The year is 2950 BC. Cyrus is 10 tiles to my North. I'm on the west end of the continent.

Plan:
Right now, I'm thinking copper -> Axemen -> Go! Try to take down cyrus before he gets too many units up.

I've decided to place a nice commerce city to my East with all the floodplains.
But not sure what the best remaining city sites are.

Cyrus is just north of my warrior in the second image below.

Capital city:

Spoiler :

Map:

Spoiler :

Questions:
1. Where do I place my second city? I'm thinking to claim the copper between me and Cyrus somehow.

2. How many cities do I need before I go military and attack cyrus? Are two enough?

3. What tech path should I follow? On Noble, I'm used to being ahead in tech basically the whole game, but the AI is usually ahead on Prince so tech trading matters a lot.
I'm thinking Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet.
Trade techs to backfill.
Then what though?! Beeling currency? Construction? Gunpowder?

4. Large swath of jungle to my northeast. The guides say to NOT settle jungle, so should I try to hug the west coast?

 

[Revent]

Steal his worker. That'll also give you the chance to see what he has. Settle on the copper to get your axe rush started ASAP. If you have sailing, it'll automatically be connected to the capital.

Most likely, you can take him down with 1 or 2 axes at this point.

 

[lymond]

I'd want those gems online asap before jungle grows on them. A city 3 west of cap can share a corn and work the gems. (cap has plenty of food anyway with other corn/cow and looks to be a production city) Plus it will have an insta-trade route. Point B can then be settle sometime later after you trade for IW. (Anytime you have nearby super commerce resource like gems or gold you want to, if all possible, get that online asap)

Axes are ok and you should be able to make it work, but I'd rather have horsies. If Cyrus happens to get horses asap his Immortals will be a bit of a pain for your axes.

Personally though, if you want to get better I'd focus more on expansion and economy for now, at least before working your way to a Horse archer rush. With that in mind I think 3W of cap is best first city for now. Flood plain city is fine later as well - you can move palace their later in expectation of Bureau cap, as Delhi is not ideal for that anyway.

Also, another note on improving, I highly recommend playing normal settings. Huge maps and Epic speed are not doing you any favors. Normal settings provide a plenty long and satisfying game and once you get more comfortable you can always use fat settings later.

2pop that settler 4>2 into a worker or start it now with a chop or two. (Note: if masonry/wonders is not in your near plans, you can mine that marble in lieu of quarry for now)

 

[SpK]

1》I am going with Revent on this, settle that river copper, steal a worker, pillage as needed, get 2 or 3 axes and take him out.

2》 Axe rush is about speed, so 2 cities, and remember to keep building axes in case of barbarians or RNG fail

3》if 2nd city is on copper, I think 3rd should be on the PH to get cows and gems, and eventually banana and 2nd gem... so consider going thru AH to get to writing and alphabet. .. after all, if Axe rushing, will be whipping, so no need for cottages quite yet, and you should get it easily working trades on Prince - tech path after that depends on if you manage to claim those FP, if so cottages and FP will allow you to beeline construction, if not currency is higher priority. And don't forget about IW in there somewhere

4》will you have mostly secured the west coast if you take Cyrus out? If so, settle it out, if not settle to position your next war and/or claim horses

 

[lymond]

Sure, OP could Axe rush here. Axe rushes are easy as pie on Prince. However, he learns nothing from doing so. I suspect the reason he struggles on Prince is not because of axe rushing but rather learning how to build an economy and expanding wisely.

He should have no problem here grabbing up the good visible spots nearby. Gems are an immediate boost to the economy and research. Settling on the PH 1SE of the bananas does absolutely nothing - it is basically a dead city for quite some number of turns. Better to settle 3W of cap to get Gems only asap and a trade route..city can grow on gems using corn and build another settler (chop grasshill forest 1s of city).

 

[Pangaea]

Am more in agreement with Revent here (but lymond got a good point re: developing the economy, so do that once Cyrus is dead.

1. Steal the worker. It's right there and practically begging you...

2. Settle on the copper. Gets it online a little faster, and improves the city long term as it will get rice for food once you have IW and can clear the jungle. Also two forests in the inner ring that you can turn into Axes. Perhaps use the stolen worker to pre-chop them. Guard him though, don't want barbs to get him. There may be more important tasks, though.

3. Axe rush Cyrus for your 3rd city. Get him early enough and he may just have warriors 'guarding' his city. Chop and whip 3 Axes, and that should be safe I would think, even if there is an archer, especially if the city is on flatland (hopefully you'll know this after stealing the worker and getting some more visibility)

4. You don't necessarily need marble hooked up for the Oracle, it can actually delay it, but try to get the Oracle nonetheless. If you do, make sure you get up a library elsewhere for two scientists so you get a GS instead of a GProphet. They're simply better.

5. Think I like city #4 3W of capital, so it can borrow corn and hopefully hook up the gem before jungle gets to it. This also means you can settle on the PH later. Overlap is good. It's an important lesson to learn

6. I really like the cottage spot east of your capital. Perfect location really, with seemingly the 'magic' number of 7 floodplains (2 instead of 3 with 8 FPs). There doesn't appear to be any so a little shame to settle on a (jungled) green hill, but it does look like the best spot. You'll just have to whip out infrastructure.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I think I agree with Lymond, there.

Spoiler :

The gems are very tempting to grab with city 2.
This would secure some commerce that this start lacks otherwise. Barring the gems, first commerce sources would be riverside cottages.

A/ My first thought would also be to settle 3W of the capital, by the coast. The city is instantly connected to the trade network, it can grow to size 2 very quickly, using Delhi's improved corn. This is the fastest way to develop Bombay.

However, sharing the corn would develop Bombay the fastest at the expense of Delhi's development. It is a hindrance that Bombay could not work another food source once it has popped borders (so the incentive to steal Delhi's corn remains strong as the game goes on).

B/ In that light, maybe it is better (or at least the more conservative choice) to claim another food source with Bombay.
That would imply settling 1W or 1NW of the gems, claiming the cows.
That would be an off-the-coast city, not excellent by any means but serviceable for what it does : it would claim 3 specials + either the bananas or the copper and 3-4 other acceptable tiles.
If there isn't seafood down south, I think I'd settle 1W of the gems to get copper after a border pop (for axemen but also a resource to be traded).
This path works better if you can improve the cows when the city is settled, so as to grow to size 2 asap but... improving the gems while researching Animal Husbandry is probably what it would lead to.
Note that there is no instant trade route connection, here, so roads will be useful. Although... I think I'd rather have Animal Husbandry before The Wheel, going that route.

C/ Finally, another approach to the gems would consider that Delhi's next border pop will claim them.
So, Bombay could (conceivably) claim the gems in its 2nd ring. There isn't much choice, other than 1S of the cows, so as to still grab both gems. The absence of any additional food or even good tiles doesn't make this last option very appealing.



-->
A/ and B/ locations seem good to me for a 2nd city, in the abstract.
(i.e. not considering the AIs you are facing start with Warriors only and are defenceless before the player's own greed.)
A/ gives you a headstart, so it is better to go with rushes and wonder gambits.
B/ is slower but more sustainable overall, claiming more land with fewer settlers.

-->
The Northern copper, I may (or may not) be tempted to grab with a 3rd or 4th city, depending on what the exploration reveals.
In that case, I'd probably go for a hill city grab : a good defensive spot. The hills 1S and 1N are fine. 1N requires a road.
Cyrus is likely to settle in that area early on. Settling 1N of the copper seems like it is an illusory objective. 1S is a lot more likely.
It may seem like a food-less spot but there actually are 7 riverside grassland tiles to farm : growth will be slow at first but this is enough for the long run.



Regarding your secondary questions :

2. How many cities do I need before I go military and attack cyrus? Are two enough?

This is entirely dependent upon the tech level you're warring at and the sort of timing you're aiming for.
If you're warring with the earliest techs, then you can do with as little as 1 city, sure.
However, Axemen production can also start from 4 cities. War Elephants can start to be produced from 3 cities, sure, but also from 8 or 12. No hard rule, there.

The better the cities you can settle yourself, the more incentive there is to settle before starting on military production.
Conversely, the more cities you settle yourself, the later will you begin your invasion.

 

[lymond]

note: I do agree with Revent on the worker steal ..ha

good analysis by BiC. The speed here..Epic I believe, which I don't play..may factor into some of these decisions as well on settling and rushing... Not sure. However, ideas on like border pops claiming resources might take much longer as opposed to bringing gems online earlier..which I think the sooner the better on Epic.

Also, your timeframe on EPic for rushing is generally quite a bit longer, especially if you know how to get units out fast. So you could probably get up 2 or 3 cities before deciding. Rushing may not even be necessary though. Depends a bit on what Cyrus does and how fast he is...he generally can expand pretty fast but AIs still suck on Prince.

 

[enKage]

1) Settling north copper is very bad move. That city has NO food at all and NO connection to capitol.
It means that producing axes in northern city is a nonsense. OK, you can slowbuild some (2H city tile + forest hill), but what next? Chopping is bad, because there is only 1 forest. Whipping is impossible, because no food at all. So you will be left with a city that is:
-small
- unhealthy
- unproductive
- not connected to capitol (requires either a lot of worker turns or reseacrhing 2 techs!).
And all beecause you want to take a city, which food resource is BANANA.

2) Do you have Animal Husbandry?

3) My obvious choice for a 2nd city is 3W from cap (gems before they will be lost to jungle + autoconnection to capitol + copper secured for later use). 3rd city 2W from a jungle hill you marked.

The north land is so poor, that I will rather expand coast.

4) Techpath road -> pottery --> writing. You can omit AH in this case and then straight to Alpha

5) does Cyrus has slavery? If so, he knows the location of copper. He is imperialistic, so cen send settler early. Dont be suprised if he settles copper/banana a turn before you reach copper

 

[enKage]

3. Axe rush Cyrus for your 3rd city. Get him early enough and he may just have warriors 'guarding' his city. Chop and whip 3 Axes, and that should be safe I would think, even if there is an archer, especially if the city is on flatland (hopefully you'll know this after stealing the worker and getting some more visibility)

.

chop = get rid of the only forest? for 1 axe?

whip = where? Copper city has no food. Capitol has no acces to copper unless teching fishing + sailing (extremely expensive as it delays writing) or road connection (15 workerturns, extremely expensive )


Curys starts with hunting, so he probably will have archery on time. Or even worse - horsies I assume AH is the forst tech she takes and soon after archery.

 

[SpK]

EnKage - if you settle the north copper on the river, the point isn't the city, the point is copper access.
Not that it matters much, but there are 2 forest in the 1st ring....Although a weak city, it allows the fastest rush. A rush is by far the fastest growth here, as we can safely assume Cyrus has more than just the bananas...
Once you have IW, make farms and whip units, never needs to grow beyond 5 or 6 really, still a very functional city.

Question to the group - in Vanilla settling that river copper will give me copper in capital, is that not true in BTS?

 

[enKage]

EnKage - if you settle the north copper on the river, the point isn't the city, the point is copper access.
Not that it matters much, but there are 2 forest in the 1st ring....Although a weak city, it allows the fastest rush. A rush is by far the fastest growth here, as we can safely assume Cyrus has more than just the bananas...
Once you have IW, make farms and whip units, never needs to grow beyond 5 or 6 really, still a very functional city.

Question to the group - in Vanilla settling that river copper will give me copper in capital, is that not true in BTS?

1) No, copper will be available only in 2nd city because it has no connection with capitol = needs sailing or the whole river between cities in cultural borders

2) By the time axes are ready (road connection, chops) we can safely settle 3rd city or even forth, have far more research etc. Cyrus starts with Hunting and Agri what gives him a nice shot for both archers and immortals. As 2nd city is already a little late, I really doubt we find warriors in capitol (though it is epic+huge=more expensive techs, I am not familiar with these settings. On normal standard it won't work)

 

[guspasho]

1) Build Bombay 3W of your capital. It would be a lot faster than trying to get the copper to the north. Share the corn from your capital. Whip a monument asap and start building a barracks while micromanaging Bombay to emphasize growth, no production. Build a road to the copper asap and mine the copper as soon as your border pop. Whip the barracks the turn before you finish the copper mine, then whip/chop axes.

Your capital should build Settler (the one that settled Bombay) > Worker > Barracks > Axe > Axe > Axe > Axe. Same as Bombay, whip the barracks the turn before you finish the copper mine, then whip/chop axes. Your workers will probably have a lot of spare time so have them pre-chop the forests. Cancel the chops before they finish. Fortunately they are Indian so they don't necessarily lose a turn moving on to a forest.

You should have an army of 6-8 CR1 axes super fast, even without granaries.

If you don't have AH, can you see the AI's horse pastures? You need to make sure he doesn't get horses hooked up, and do it without researching AH yourself. Steal his worker and pillage any mystery pastures of his. Make sure he doesn't build any more. You don't want Cyrus getting horses.

2) Two cities is all you need/want for a rush. Any more will slow you down. See above.

3) I would go Wheel > Pottery > Writing > Mathematics > Currency > Alpha then backfill. Maybe self-tech AH along the way.

For the rush though, shut down research after the Wheel and save some gold while you whip your army. You might need a nest egg to pay for your army's maintenence costs. Restart research after you kill Cyrus. Whip granaries everywhere asap. And whip libraries when you get writing, you want them in your good commerce cities, which should include your capital, the flood plains city, and the gems city. So, everywhere.

Oracle is tempting, and if you saved any forests you can use them to speed up Oracle, especially if you hooked up the marble, but make sure you have writing when you complete it so you can get a decent slingshot tech. You might also find that you need IW before Currency or Alpha, so you'll have to play it out and see. If you avoid fishing you can get a GS to bulb Machinery for you pretty fast.

4) You are playing a huge map so you have a lot of room to work with after you take out Cyrus and can probably build a few more cities that aren't choked by jungle before you have to worry about it. You should pretend any jungled food doesn't even exist for now. I'd ignore the cow south of the bananas for now too. Build the flood plains city and explore more. If you find a lot of jungle around, build around 2-2.5 workers per city, tech or trade for IW, and start clearing jungle.

 

[pandor]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I stole the worker, and I saw that Cyrus has all forested tiles, besides the farmed banana and the cow -> no metal and no horses. Only warriors. So I settled the copper and killed him off (though as Lymond pointed out, this might be bad practice for harder difficulties where the AI would have archers by now). The 4 -> 2 pop whip in the capital for the settler really helped (I also chopped a tree).

I settled 3W of the capital and got the gems hooked up. I went road -> pottery -> writing, then saw the Persepolis had a bunch of fish, so I went Fishing. Now alphabet?

The flood plains city even has a gold mine!

Spoiler :

Persepolis:

Spoiler :

To the east:

Spoiler :

I see jungle jungle and more jungle.

Here's my thoughts:
Persepolis has a ton of food.

FP city is obv commerce. Whip out a monument/library and just build research.

City with copper has 6 hills and bunch of grassland. I guess I could farm the grassland tiles, mine the hills, and build military units?

I'm building a library in my capital (I'll run a specialist), in the gems city, and in the FP city.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

2) Do you have Animal Husbandry?

4) Techpath road -> pottery --> writing. You can omit AH in this case and then straight to Alpha

Yes, the combination of these points is a good reason to settle 3W of the capital rather than 1W of the cows.
Still, I think I prefer settling by the cows and avoid stealing Delhi's corn.
The development will be slower but it is a more efficient use of the settler to claim 1 more food resource.
This is pretty marginal

The speed here..Epic I believe, which I don't play..may factor into some of these decisions as well on settling and rushing... Not sure. However, ideas on like border pops claiming resources might take much longer as opposed to bringing gems online earlier..which I think the sooner the better on Epic.

Yes, Epic. Epic simply multiplies everything by 1,5.
So the capital gets its second border pop on turn 75.
It doesn't change much although, with proper management, turn after turn, things happen faster than on Standard speed. If you compare date by date, that is.

The Huge map size is a much more frightening factor, however.
If one wants to claim his "fair share of land", then he needs to be serious about expanding early on.
I've never played on Huge but I suspect that "fair share of land" is around 10 cities. Maybe more. One should not be content with settling 4 cities and teching up.

 

[pandor]

The Huge map size is a much more frightening factor, however.
If one wants to claim his "fair share of land", then he needs to be serious about expanding early on.
I've never played on Huge but I suspect that "fair share of land" is around 10 cities. Maybe more. One should not be content with settling 4 cities and teching up.

This is frightening for me too, and probably explains why I struggle on Prince. I basically stop expanding after ~5 cities or so.

As lymond suggested, my next game will be on Normal map size, normal/epic speed. (Normal speed I hate because the army is obsolete by the time it makes it to the front).

 

[lymond]

normal/epic speed. (Normal speed I hate because the army is obsolete by the time it makes it to the front).

While it true that units have a relatively longer efficacy on slower speeds, it still does not preclude you from getting the most out of era related armies on normal speed. Even more so on easy levels like Prince.

There are likely two main factors that you are having issues with this on normal:

1) Lack of decent economy building and research base to tech to the appropriate military tech level for targeted attacks..including effective use of specialists, great people and civics

2) Minimal or no use of methods to quick produce armies

My personal view, and that only, is the game was designed to be played under normal settings..and that is why they are called normal settings. Therefore, I believe it most effective to learn the game under normal settings. Once comfortable, you can then translate that knowledge to other settings. With that said though, play the game how you wish and to your enjoyment. That is the most important thing. My thoughts are just suggestions.

 

[SpK]

Remember, the copper city is going to be strongest using the whip for producing units, you don't need more than a handful of improvements.
Farms on the river grassland and the rice once you have IW, maybe a mine, can likely 2 pop whip at size 4 for the foreseeable future

Huge is more a matter of food than number of cities, you need enough growth to make an army quickly, however you get there, more food or more cities.
Also a matter of horse units being even more important, cause there is all that land to cover...

Bombay and Persopolis should be able to focus on military units, while the others focus on economy/research
Personally I'd like one more militaristic focus city south of your FP city too.

At that point expansion toward your next conquest or back fill your secure areas, all kinds of options

 

[BornInCantaloup]

From where you are,

It should be striking that the land lacks commerce specials.
To sustain your expansion and increase your research, you should aim to increase your research output.

To that end,
After you've improved your special resources,
Improving the riverside should take priority. Maybe by cottaging, when your cities have enough food surplus.
You can also look into other sources of commerce.
- Seeing how you may have many coastal cities, the Great Lighthouse comes to mind. Alphabet can get you Sailing & Masonry by trade. If you have pre-chopped forests, then either Delhi or Persepolis could host the wonder.
- The Oracle is also a wonder you can attempt to build. Pre-chopping forests and assigning several workers to the city would be better, to speed up the build.
- Sailing (from trades) might get you foreign trade routes. You should aim to reveal the coastline as far as a foreign territory.

In your position, sending scouts is a good idea anyway. For trade routes, sure. But also to look for prospective city sites. And, finally, to attempt meeting more AIs. Since you're researching Alphabet, the more AIs you meet, the more trade opportunities you'll have.

- Some techs come with extra commerce. Maybe you should prioritize them (after Alpha), to keep increasing your commerce output.
Alphabet will allow you to build research. Currency would double your trade routes and allow to build wealth.

For now, with your neighbour gone, you can focus on exploration and building workers + settlers.
Workers will be important to make your cities productive. (You don't really need Barracks and Monuments : you need a higher population count and improved tiles).
Since there is so much land, you should try to make each settler count, by grabbing several resources with each.
A case might be made for a filler city between Delhi, Bombay and Pataliputra (on the plains hills), to work a maximum amount of cottages, asap, between Delhi and Pata.


1-2 scouting units, workers and settlers are what you need.


Final note :
You're not building your Granary right, in Persepolis.

Spoiler :

What the granary does is like overflowing food.
Each turn, while the city grows, the granary stores all the food surplus.
When the city gains a size, the granary overflows the food it has stored into the next food bar, up to a maximum of 1/2 of the previous food bar.

Given your food bar has 42 food, it's optimal to complete your Granary at 21/42 food.
So the Granary will overflow 21 food when you grow to size 5.
Right now, by stagnating at 8/42 food, you're losing growth. There is no extra value from completing the granary earlier.
What matters is your food count when the granary actually completes.
--> You should be working the maximum amount of food, right now.

There are a few archetypal ways to complete a Granary.
- Size 4+ city with high food and low production can whip 2 population points
- Size 2-4 city with a chop or hammers can whip 1 population point.

In a general manner, if you can spare a chop, it's better to whip only 1 pop before the granary is active.
However, if you can't, then it's a toss up between working mines until the granary can be 1pop whipped or whipping 2 population points asap. That depends on the tiles one can work.
Oftentimes, it's optimal to simply complete the granary asap, so as to start storing food with it earlier.
It isn't necessary to build Granaries optimally (completing the build at 1/2 food bar) but getting around there makes a huge difference in the city's development.



Couple of examples of what "could be" an optimal granary build for size 4 Persepolis :
e.g. 1 :
Say you whip 2 population points to complete your granary in Persepolis,
It will complete in a size 2 city, whose food bar is full at 36 food :
In such a case, you're aiming to reach 18/36 food at the time you whip.

e.g. 2 :
Even better,
Say a worker around the city chops a forest into the granary, you can now aim to whip it with only 1 population point.
At size 3, the food bar would be full at 39 food,
If you whip so the city reaches 20/39 after the build is complete,
Then the Granary could store 19 food and overflow those when the city grows to size 4 (optimal !).