How to improve "prince" game most effectively?

[shakabrade]

don't understand why should I not move the settler?

One turn of doing nothing is not good as others are doing something. Civ starts are usually balanced, you should get at least something in the Big Fat Cross (BFC we call it here). Your civilization is progressing exponentially, and one turn lost is a lot. The only justification for wasting a turn is if you are sure that the new location is better than SiP (Sit in Place). Then your initial base value (food, hammers, commerce yields) is higher and you will catch up with the lost turn. It is helpful to see stuff mathematically for this game.

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

I'd say that you moved SW the way the warrior stands and what is visible. You revealed 2 tiles at best.

 

[dr£ddlord]

Spoiler :

I play at Monarch usually but here's my start. Grab as much land as possible at the beginning. The best food resources are corn, pigs and fish usually.

 

[dr£ddlord]

Spoiler :

1st in score, ahead in tech, turn 97

 

[civ4_asker]

ok thanks for your multiple help!
As I understood, moving the settler is only wise if you see some serious advantages in doing so and losing one turn in an exponential setting can be quite severe.

So if I understood correctly according to this very great guide from Fippy: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/beginner-help-the-basics.648469/
I should focus on the food tech and worker first, so I could tech Animal Husbandry for the cows and scout with the warrior, ok?

In which intervalls should I post new screenshots?

 

[Jellybug]

Often the warrior/ scout's best first move will be to reveal, if possible, what you would lose by moving the settler

 

[Anysense]

Yes, with pigs being great food tile Animal Husbandry is obvious first tech. Can't see how many turns to build a worker but it should be 12, good timing with AH. Perhaps you need to check 'detailed city info' in game options.

 

[lymond]

Looks like you missed my post about BUG/BULL mod. I recommend that you install.

Another important aspect of the Turn 0 decision is analysis. You can tell certain things about land near your settler even tiles you can’t see. As others said the game assures you of at least one food resource. That food is not visible here but we can often guess even with certainty where it might be. This is called fog-gazing. Food on land will never be on tiles with forests- exception is deer but deer only in northern or southern artic type regions. Knowing this we can can make assumptions about where food will be or might be.

So the idea here is that you want to usually settle on turn 0, whether SIP or 1 tile over somewhere if no hill or forest to impede. Otherwise the only reason to lose a turn is to gain a tangible benefit to the new city like moving on a Plains Hill PH to get a bonus hammer to city tile. But one would not make such a move and lose food. Also one would not just flat scout with settler.

For the first turnset you can play until the worker completes then report. Meanwhile warrior scouts around immediate land 5 to 10 tile radius.

Subsequent turnsets are up to you but shorter the better. I’d say no more than 10 turns but definitely stop at key decision points and always feel free to stop when you have questions or concerns about your approach, or unknowns.

 

[rah]

you can use ALT-G or the Regnerate button from the Menu to just roll a new start without exiting.

Learn something new every day. Figured there was a hot key for it but never found it. Thx.
I'm doing some comparison testing and looking for similar type starts. You can't control many other things but the start you can.

 

[soundjata]

@shakabrade nice to see you well and alive man. Still a dragon?

 

[Fippy]

Side note, 3 forested plains hill tile is very valuable here.
With expansive you need 4 to get 25% discount on workers, resulting in 3 fully saved turns for empire building.
Imo the very first step in getting better is understanding why those turns are just as valuable as later ones with many cities.

 

[civ4_asker]

Hey, guys, thanks again for all the help.
I really want to continue and explore how this game works, but what is holding me back (why I am answering just now): let's say we do this turn-by-turn adivce for the first 100 turns, then we need 100 days to complete this, right? That would be a LOT of time or not?

 

[krikav]

@civ4_asker
As with most things that we humans learn, you don't need to ask for every single microdetail.
Best way to make progress is to bundle things together into concepts and make sure you have a firm grasp of those concepts.

In fact, staring too much into the fine details might hinder progress in learning the big picture.
Compare to say.. learning to drive. If you obsess too much on how to place your hand onto the driving stick you won't ever get into the flow of how to drive.

 

[crashmon]

Hi @civ4_asker I have recently started a shadow game, you don't post every turn but when decisions are made. Have a look at my thread to see how often I post updates etc, then start a shadow game, people here will advise you, and I find I can only learn so much reading and watching vids, you need to apply those concepts.

It is slower than a normal game as you will need to wait for feedback, but I am playing a 2nd game (dug this one out of an old thread) https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/monarch-student-iv-boudica-aka-bootycall-to-some.307638/, and applying the concepts from my shadow game to this game.

But I would start a shadow game, go Pangea if its your first try as that is easier to learn (I know I went continents but I find my win rate on Monarch is better on Pangea than when I'm on a multiple island map hence why I did the continents approach), and then wait.... Important, once you roll the start wait for advice, where you settle first city, and what you initial techs and builds are super important....

If you do start a shadow game, I'd put it in a new thread, so people don't get confused with the one at the start of this thread

 

[Fippy]

Some general advice, the help / governor etc system in IV screws players over (or tries ).
Over and over.
City spots (blue circle) are wrong and partly laughable, build and tech advices are newbie stuff (will always suggest sailing i.e. even if there's no water).

City management is hard coded and if you are not looking, governors always go by "city needs x amount of food surplus" so you might see stuff like empty plains hill worked when you have an improved grassland mine. Cos you know, we cannot have this 1 food more if unhappy lurks.

In addition, we get "aggressively" punted from unit to unit. And other stuff.
Getting good at this game mostly means filtering out all the nonsense, sounds weird but it's why new players often have no clue what they should do.