How to improve "prince" game most effectively?

[civ4_asker]

Hi guys,

I'm playin civ4 BTS on prince, Pangea and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. This game REALLY triggers my ego, because I can't master the maximum difficulty like every other game, how is this possible, is this normal?!

what would you suggest I should do to improve my game most efficently:
-can I play a game and send u the gamefile / screenshot from time to time?
-or should I read more guides, if so which ones?
-or should I copy the strategies from Wastin Time:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ace-strategies-from-a-10-year-veteran.574724/
or is that to advanced?

I would like to master emperor, or even immortal, or is it normal, that most can not reach immortal? How much time do you think is needed to become an immortal?

thanks for your tipps,
civ4_asker

 

[Harv]

Hi! It’s a great way to ask and I’m in the same boat about getting my ego beaten by the higher difficulty levels. Here is what I think you should do:

Start a game at Prince or Monarch level.
Choose mostly normal map settings.
Turn huts off.
Turn events off.
Play a normal map size.
Play a normal map speed.

Post a screenshot of your starting screen.
Upload your 4000 BC save.

Give it a couple days. Let people check in with their ideas. It is also the weekend. If you don’t have patience for that, play another game while waiting for advice.

The best advice is going to come near the beginning of the game.

Good luck!

 

[rah]

Or you can read some of the other posted games. Seeing the advice those people are getting, will amazingly, answer many of the questions you have.
Read the discussions and you see what the experts are looking for. My only real advice is that if you're going to do this or post a game, put aside your ego and actually listen to the advice given. Many post then ignore and continually come back because they don't seem to get any better.

I used to really suck at this game and was also frustrated that the upper levels were designed for actual experts. And to be honest Deity was designed not to be be beaten regularly and it took awhile for everyone to find all the tricks to do it. I personally don't have the patience to do all of those so find myself satisfied at immortal where I have a decent win rate but it's not 100%. I found this place to be the best source of information and discussion.

 

[civ4_asker]

ok thanks for your quick replies and tips.
Harv thanks for the welcoming first message It would be really nice to get your adivce.

Rah, is there a keyword I can search through the forum with to find other posted games? Do you mean, games starting from term 1, because I had trouble finding those.

The ego is acutally the biggest enemy. I mean if I was like "ok I(=ego) suck at this game, let me get on a forum, get help" I would be a pro already.

Here's my start with lots of food I suppose?! (I attached my configs for reference also.)

ok so I could move my Q to NW on the Hill, but I already see there is Ocean.
So I could move the Q down, or to the left, I don't know.
Settling right away gives 2 Food Surplus overall, if I work the clam, I guess.

 

[lymond]

haha..it is certainly quite normal for new players to struggle to achieve higher levels. heck...many struggle to win on noble or even lower for a long time. I did not really advance levels until I found this website about 12 years ago.

Harv gave some great suggestions above. We often advise that you play a shadow game here, which is what he basically laid out in his post. The key of these shadow games is learning the basics and mastering the early game (100 turns or so), which is vitally important to success with this game. I think many things you learn will surprise you compared to how you've likely been playing so far.

Reaching the highest difficulties can take so time, but how long is hard to say. Depends on dedication and aptitude. Some advance faster than others. For example, I had the dedication but not aptitude..ha

Wastin stuff is indeed probably too advance for you to concern yourself with. Plus, he tends to play more huge/mara games which are a different animal.

Really a shadow game or two and may a video here and there will advance you nicely before you delve into the really deity level stuff.

 

[lymond]

You can just scroll through the first page or so of this forum and should easily find some threads where folks were looking for help (note: ignore king younk threads).. Some may even say shadow game in the tile. Some folks are more dedicated than others so may not play that long at all, but you can still pick up some pointers.

Post a save. What type of map is that? I do not recommend that start for this.

I suggest playing Pangaea maps for now - ideally non-coastal and with at least a visible strong food resource like corn or pigs. Use Washington as a leader. Good traits that are easy to understand, and no thinking about uniques.

Post saves.

edit: ah.I see it is Pangaea but you unfortunately rolled a coastal start. I prefer inland starts for learning, as coastal starts are a bit tricky at first.

 

[civ4_asker]

You can just scroll through the first page or so of this forum and should easily find some threads where folks were looking for help (note: ignore king younk threads).. Some may even say shadow game in the tile. Some folks are more dedicated than others so may not play that long at all, but you can still pick up some pointers.

Post a save. What type of map is that? I do not recommend that start for this.

I suggest playing Pangaea maps for now - ideally non-coastal and with at least a visible strong food resource like corn or pigs. Use Washington as a leader. Good traits that are easy to understand, and no thinking about uniques.

Post saves.

hey, lymond thanks for the quick reply!
Yes it is a pangaea map.
Should I start a new game?

 

[lymond]

Yes..I would. Do the custom game thing again. Make sure huts/evens are off if not already. Use Washington. Random leader is fine too, but I like Wash or Toku for learning. You can roll the start and if that start does not look appealing, you can use ALT-G or the Regnerate button from the Menu to just roll a new start without exiting.

 

[lymond]

Another good tidbit is to download BUG/BULL mods here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-bug-and-bat-here.274636/

BUG/BULL are synergistic mods that improve the UI. Install them in Custom Assets (SP mod). You do not have to actually load a mod and it will work with any current saves. You can also find Blue Marble there. Mod improves terrain and water graphics, and you can change the UI color if you wish.

Fee free to install BAT as well. It is stand alone mod that combines BUG/BULL/graphical stuff in one package, but most be loaded, and saves must be created or load with the mod. (I use it the most for casual games, but most everyone here has BUG/BULL install in Custom Assets for forum games here)

 

[Harv]

Harv thanks for the welcoming first message It would be really nice to get your adivce.

Rah, is there a keyword I can search through the forum with to find other posted games? Do you mean, games starting from term 1, because I had trouble finding those.

The ego is acutally the biggest enemy.

As for the ego being the biggest enemy, on the screenshot, I see Turn 0 and two units which have green on them, which indicates that you have posted a screenshot and otherwise not done a thing! Also, Inca. I like them a lot!

I'll take a look, but it looks like you have some great people checking in, already!

 

[Gumbolt]

Start was fine. I would of moved settler on hill so you get the pigs to work. Of course you lose a clams.

Bug and Bull are great tools. Harmless for the PC. Would of been interesting to see what was NW. You had option to settle Ivory later for 3x clams.

 

[Fippy]

Getting Pigs would be a must with this start, not even optional
HC doesn't start with fishing, but Agri so you can tech AH without problems.

Seafood starts are slow, and Pigs along with wet corn the best tiles (not just here, but overall).
Your Q could make sure that not too much seafood is lost by scouting north, might have to move 2 turns and settle further south,
but i consider this a first important learning experience: no way should you settle in place.

Adding: early turns spent on moving are fine, if you get serious advantages.
Besides getting pigs it's also not bad to place your capital more central.

 

[civ4_asker]

thanks for your help!
So I restarted the game (washington, no huts, no random events, pangea) multiple times to get a non coastal start.
I moved the settler SE and Warrior to NW to gain more sight.
There's a lot of plains where the settler is now at, maybe I should move it back NW and settle there?!

 

[Fippy]

You are not supposed to make such moves
Early important decisions, settlers are not units that wander around for overview.

 

[shakabrade]

Well, before I joined these forums I was able to win Emperor half of the times and Deity on Marathon speed. That is how far I could have gotten on my own.

The main reason were: I was sandboxing too much, never had a clear goal, and had also stupid principles which reflected my personal beliefs:
1. No slavery (belief)
2. No chopping, trees are for lumbermills (belief)
3. Never have more than 8 cities as that is tedious (lazy), until tanks
4. Build all wonders and always build Wall street for a shrine with like 11 gpt

Then I saw what people can do by 1000AD and was very humbled and decided to go to Deity. It has taken more than 30 defeats in a row over month and a half and I have read all of kossin's Daily rounds plus watched TheMeInTeam's videos, and voila. I skipped Immortal because all lower levels are too forgiving. To play Deity, you have to pretty much relearn everything plus master Diplomacy. But now there is actually pretty darn good Deity player who uploads videos, Lain. You can find him on YT. He explains why he does stuff he does and his analysis is spot on. Yeah, you want to play on Prince, but why don't you step it up. Worst case scenario, you'll improve to Immortal.

To sum it up, people on lower levels suffer from the same: no slavery, no chops, builder mentality. It is not even about efficiency or war faring skills. Of course, there is much more to the game. But to win sometimes on Deity, you can be pretty ignorant of the game. It is just that, for start, you need to be able to use all the levers. To play better than other good players, you have to be excellent. That is why people on Civfanatics improve rapidly. You have some kind of benchmark/competition and someone to discuss stuff with. That keeps motivation for a long period which is important for a game with so many details.

 

[Anysense]

-or should I read more guides, if so which ones?
-or should I copy the strategies from Wastin Time:

WastinTime's thread although a good read and extremely helpful as a reference book is much too advanced for a beginner. It consists mainly of WT thinking out loud his grand plans and discussions of finer points or complicated tricks and strategies mostly by advanced players who don't explain basics because they already know it all.

You may want to have a look at this thread
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/beginner-help-the-basics.648469/
And bookmark this one
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=478563
Because you will use it for as long as you play this game. It provides a lot of valuable information about AI and specific leaders; this is essential for diplomacy, war, research and trading.

 

[Anysense]

There are generaly two reasons for moving units on turn 0:
1) to see what you will lose if you move your settler;
2) what can be gained by settling in different place.
You should not move the settler unless there is a very good reason for that.

 

[civ4_asker]

thanks for your tipps!
I don't understand why should I not move the settler? I moved it on a hill, gaining a lot of sight?

How should I go forward? I could reload, and then do what?

 

[civ4_asker]

this would be the initial start, moving my warrior to the SE.

 

[Fippy]

Let me ask a question: how much and research are you producing with no city?
What you are doing now is looking at tiles. Especially food, regular starts always come with at least one food resi for your city radius (we already know pigs are south of the hill). So here there's no reason to move, and no reason to waste 1 or more turns by doing so. Your settler can found.