Making the jump from Prince to King

[oPunchDrunko]

I'm thinking about making the jump from Prince to King. What should I expect? Any tips for me?

 

[Unresolved]

Less focus on wonders, more focus on science and infrastructure. Expect some more early DoWs, so have some archers ready to repel them. That's about it, there isn't much of a difference between Prince and King.

 

[Loffetuss]

I made that jump myself with the game I'm playing right now (China, 6 players, Pangea, standard), and I haven't felt much of a difference, but there are a few things I've noticed.
Let me first describe the game. The map basically divided into three sections with two civs in each and a jungle of hills, mountains and city states separating them. I started northwest with Washington to the south of me. He didn't put up much of a fight when i took over his cities around the ancient era. It seemed like he was solely focused on settling cities and not anything else and barely had soldiers before i DOW'd him. So by the ancient era i had the whole west side to myself with high population in my capital and a decent army.
To the west of me I have Spain and Japan. They haven't done anything constructive either, it seems. Their fight for control in the centre of the map has solely consisted of Japan attacking and Spain defending, without moving an inch.
And finally, in the far east I have: Egypt and Arabia. Egypt has totally dominated Arabia this game and is the only one who can potentially take the win from me, but has yet to take Mecca. Neither does he threaten me with his military and not doing good with other victory conditions. Right now I'm going for a science victory. I have entered into the modern era and I'm leading with 5 techs or so. I was originally going for domination, but I never really got it going because of the difficult terrain. So here are a few things I've noticed:
1. The AI seems to be smarter in combat, as you would expect.
2. The AI is crazy aggressive with religion.
Egypt has missionaries over the entire map and seems to be constantly pumping them out. On Prince i rarely had to worry about losing my religion inside my borders, but Ramsees is way to fast for me to keep up with. I think he has his share of faith-focused wonders which is why he can spend so much faith on missionaries. At the moment I'm just ignoring it because I really don't get enough faith to fight it and I would rather just buy Great Scientists.
3.The AI seems overall more focused, but I still can't see how any of the Civs are approaching victory. Spain seems like the only one who has laid a path for victory with generating a bit of culture while none of the others seem like they have plan.

So there's my first experience with King. I suspect that part of the reason that the game is going so well is that I've gotten a lucky draw, but there's still a bit to go and I want to see all the Civs DOW me as soon as I begin the Apollo Project.

 

[smileyy90210]

I find I can grab about the same number of Wonders as I can on Prince. Maybe even a couple mor early on, because the AI has money to buy luxuries, that I can use to rush buildings.

King seems to place more of an emphasis on Science. I do well when I can get a Library (usually GL) in my capital and get the National College out before settling another city.

 

[kingchris20]

Less focus on wonders, more focus on science and infrastructure. Expect some more early DoWs, so have some archers ready to repel them. That's about it, there isn't much of a difference between Prince and King.

Why focus less on wonders? I'm wondering because I've yet to make the jump from prince to king. Is it because the AI will normally beat you to it anyway?

 

[Unresolved]

Why focus less on wonders? I'm wondering because I've yet to make the jump from prince to king. Is it because the AI will normally beat you to it anyway?

A combination of more early DoWs and AI aggressiveness regarding wonders. From Prince to King, there's only a subtle difference in AI wonder spamming; but on Emperor, there's a noticeable jump the AI building wonders. In Immortal, you need to pick and choose a few wonders to rush towards because the AI will take all the early ones. On Deity, players generally need a GE to get a wonder. The higher the difficulty, the more you need early units and the harder it is to grab wonders. When people come to the S&T sub-forum asking what went wrong in their game, it's always one of two reasons:
1) Their science is too low.
2) They spammed too many wonders and got taken over.

 

[Aaron90495]

Why focus less on wonders? I'm wondering because I've yet to make the jump from prince to king. Is it because the AI will normally beat you to it anyway?

Yes, it's partly because the AI can beat you to it, but also because the more you're focusing on wonders, the less you're focusing on science; not focusing on science will be noticeably more detrimental on King, compared to Prince.

 

[smileyy90210]

Yes, it's partly because the AI can beat you to it, but also because the more you're focusing on wonders, the less you're focusing on science; not focusing on science will be noticeably more detrimental on King, compared to Prince.

Again, I haven't found this to be true on King. Great Library is great for Science. Many other wonders are population boosters, or GP generators that result directly or indirectly in more Science.

 

[Unresolved]

Again, I haven't found this to be true on King. Great Library is great for Science. Many other wonders are population boosters, or GP generators that result directly or indirectly in more Science.

True, but you also have lost potential by building those wonders. Not that they're not good(ToA, GL, HG), but you can build workers/settlers/buildings/archers with those hammers. And in Immortal+, you'll be lucky to get those without severely gimping yourself. For example, you need to rush for the GL to have any shot on Immortal. It usually goes around turn 35 on average. You would have to sacrifice your early growth and infrastructure to get it without ruins and chopping.

 

[pilot00]

Durring the last game I played on king Adolphus literally had build half the wonders of the game in Stockholm.

King is managing its empire a little bit better and seems to be giving more focus on it special Units and unique traits.

 

[Sabrina]

I'm thinking about making the jump from Prince to King. What should I expect? Any tips for me?

No useful tips from me, but THANK YOU for the thread! I am thinking about doing this jump myself for a while already and I'm following the replies very closely Good luck and please let me know how it works for you.

 

[Radthereptile]

Like everyone said it just means less wonders, more war and needing more science. I went from prince to emperor this week and have been fine. Just make sure to trade lux's for gold, scout early and get a few archers quick (especially if you have a nearby Monty or Atilla).

 

[Ninakoru]

I'm totally agreee with some of the responses here. From prince to king there's quite a just in difficulty. For many of us there's no much difference because both difficulties are quite easy, but not for those who are not used to the game. Keep in mind in king AI get a 15% bonus on production, and some maintenance and happiness extra bonuses.

The usual error is that not advanced players usually think a wonder is the best bet, but they usually are doing things wrong. This is not because the wonder is bad, is because by the time you build some ancient wonders, you could have built a granary, a library and an archer, or a granary and a setter, that help much more on the long run.

Another typical error is to not give enough priority to growth. On my first games I didn't build granaries as priorities, most of the time I prefered to build another building before but now granary has top priority and is the first or second building I make on any city. also with aqueducts, the sooner the better.

Other common issue is to not knowing where to go in the tech free. There are certain goals that should be kept on mind. For example, at the begining, priorities are any tech needed for unlocking worker actions, and pottery for granaries writing for science. Then you decide to go for any path due to a certain goal (horsemen, iron, going to commerce for markets, any specific wonder/building). Next checkpoint is philosophy for national college. Other common key techs depending on your goals are machinery, civil service, metal casting, education, artillery, railroad, industrialization, scientific theory, biology and flight, plastics and rocketry.

The more you play more clear is the path to follow in the tech tree, depending on your empire needs.

 

[bcaiko]

Why focus less on wonders? I'm wondering because I've yet to make the jump from prince to king. Is it because the AI will normally beat you to it anyway?

Focusing on Wonders (most of which you will not be able to get - remember the AI starts with a couple of free techs on King) means you're not producing units. That's a great way to attract the attention of Monty's swarm of Jaguars or another warmongering AI. If you have a productive wonderspammer in the game, you'll have to be very careful about which wonders you go after and beeline for it.

Another thing you'll have to manage more on King is happiness. It was never a concern for me on Prince, but it definitely can be on King in you need to found several cities or you're warmongering.

 

[Jelster]

When I made the jump (and I still play Prince from time to time) I noticed that if I stuck to a strategy and didn't ignore my army, I would be OK.

So, I tend to go for an early 1 city NC start, and go down the tradition route for the growth bonus. Try to get a religion going, and don't worry about wonders until The Oracle (free SP), then maybe HS, and any of the Science based wonders. I generally don't keep up with unit numbers, but with better tech and being better tactically when at war I don't have a problem.

Just make sure you do the basics such as having scouts to watch out for early DoW's, work the CS's, and you'll notice that you're building all of the happiness buildings, and earlier too....

 

[IkM]

There is a pantheon which gives +30% Ranged Combat Strength. it may help a lot.

 

[Unresolved]

There is a pantheon which gives +30% Ranged Combat Strength. it may help a lot.

It's City Ranged Strength. Not regular ranged units. Not sure if you knew that or not.

 

[pilot00]

The usual error is that not advanced players usually think a wonder is the best bet, but they usually are doing things wrong. This is not because the wonder is bad, is because by the time you build some ancient wonders, you could have built a granary, a library and an archer, or a granary and a setter, that help much more on the long run.
.

Depends on the wonder and the area you started though In general with a relative safe and productive start you can claim the ToA and boost your growth exponentially.

 

[Unresolved]

Depends on the wonder and the area you started though

Ehhh, depends. A wonder is simply a complement to your regular gameplay. When you start to rely on a wonder to win, that's when you get into trouble. For example, when I was submitting my one and only HoF game, I wanted to get both the GL and Petra. But I didn't know how to get both without severely gimping myself in the beginning the of the game. If I went GL->1 city NC->Petra, I would only have one other city by the time I finished Petra and my capital wouldn't have very high population. So I decided to just ditch the GL and go for a regular 3-city NC followed by Petra. My start was much faster and my populations did not suffer for it.

 

[smileyy90210]

True, but you also have lost potential by building those wonders. Not that they're not good(ToA, GL, HG), but you can build workers/settlers/buildings/archers with those hammers. And in Immortal+, you'll be lucky to get those without severely gimping yourself. For example, you need to rush for the GL to have any shot on Immortal. It usually goes around turn 35 on average. You would have to sacrifice your early growth and infrastructure to get it without ruins and chopping.

Sure, but we're talking about King, not Immortal. They're different games for the reasons you've pointed out.