My first game of Prince.

[xxsyrusvb]

Well, after hanging around on Noble for awhile, I decided to test my luck on Prince. Lets just say I started off pretty well (alot better then I thought I would). Below Ill give a little info about the game and such. I was hoping for some advice on Prince level. (Yes, Ive read the Prince lvl walkthroughs around)

Anyway I started with Elizabeth (phi/fin), on a random continents that ended up being 3, large sized conts. There was 3 civs per continent:

Cont 1- Me, Cyrus and HC
Cont 2- Toku, Washington and Quin
Cont 3- Bismark, G. Khan and Mansa Musa

So not the easiest of fellow Civs to play along with hehe.
Anyway I ran (the best I could) a Hybrid Economy with a good mix of Food and Comm cities, all along trying to fight (non violently) for land.

I started pretty well actually, always being near the top of the score (bouncing from 1st - 4th). I then I started getting hit with the Prince lvl stuff such as pissy citizens and such

I adopted extremely well which i was surprised of. I start spaming aquaducts and things that give happiness. All in all, keeping up with the tech rates of others. Then I got Alphabet...and leapt about 140 points above the rest (i was 3rd before i started tech trading).

So soon enough I started meeting everyone else and it turned out each cont had adverage of 2 religions started there. So everyone was acting very very strange with each other.

Then the wars came...

Up to this point, I debated whether to go after another continent or take over my own (i started Judaism and both my neighbors converted so we were pretty good friends)

The problem was that I was always stuck in the middle of the power scales so when i Beelined to redcoats and started pumping them out i never knew who they would be attacking.

Then Quin took out washington and basically everyone split into 2 sides at that point. World killers vs. Diplomats. So with everyone killing each other i spoke to my neighbor HC who would always say he is planning a war (or the same). I knew he was hunting after me but once i had my redcoats i think i started scaring him so he backed off. Meanwhile ghangis and quin attacked me (as long as there neighbors). and long story short...they took out 3 of my 7 cities and at that point i knew it would be close to over.

So I just quit the game with the experience of Prince under my belt. Now I know what to better expect.

I didnt quit without naturally going into the worldbuilding and planting highly advanced techs in there territory and started blowing the hell out of them for spit X D (nukes, mechs, tanks..etc)

It was a fun game now I just need some advice as to what to do better. I very nice army ready but they werent near the coasts that they attacked me from (they had superior navy's)

Basically i need some serious advice. It seems like to keep up army wise, Id have to bypass most of the other techs I want. How can I keep a good balance of economy/happiness/wonders and an army?

Thanks for taking the long time to read this...I know it kinda got away from me ; ) Id appreciate any prince lvl advice though. Thanks again!

 

[Civman123]

Prince in short is a VERY hard jump from noble, probably on the lvl of Prince to Monarch and Monarch to Emperor. It took me maybe 3 tries to get it, but when you do it's time to move on to Monarch(which only took me one try to beat). Now if you want help on your game then post a (somewhat early) save game and the latest save game. Otherwise I'd suggest the ALC games and Sulla's and T-Hawk's and Kylearon's reports of epics and what not. Hope I helped

 

[xxsyrusvb]

Yea I agree, the jump between Noble and Prince is pretty steep. It shouldnt take me to long to get the hang of it. Although, I am not a power gamer so I am not in a rush to beat the game on diety or anything hehe.

Anyway, here is the latest save. This is about 30 turns before the war starts. I had alot bigger of an army by then but what i forgot to mention is that I thought HC was going to come after me so I set up my army in 3 big groups near his border (waiting for an attack or when i thought i was big enough TO attack).

All the while I left my focus on Qui and Ghangis since they have not been very pleased with me the whole game. When they attacked near London, I brought my armies there to counter and by that time they brought 2 more fleets near my western coastal city which just wasnt ready for any kinda attack.

I attached the save, but didnt have many others to choose from (this game seemed like i rarely saved lol)

I know its a pain in the butt, but if anyway can check it out and tell me what you think needs tweaking. Thanks.

 

[lost_civantares]

I looked quickly at the save and what I see is a major problem is that you let Cyrus live. With Cyrus's territory you could have been much more prepared to nail HC. Even at this save it wouldn't be all that much problem killing him, you just need to build up and collect some more redcoats. He may be an ally, but in civ4 from what I've seen a weak ally doesn't really buy you all that much, especially when his territory could be building guns, research and money for you, not someone on another contenant.

Other than letting one of your cities stay on no-grow at size 6 (IIRC) when it could be 10 or 11, that's what I could see from looking at it quickly.

 

[xxsyrusvb]

I looked quickly at the save and what I see is a major problem is that you let Cyrus live. With Cyrus's territory you could have been much more prepared to nail HC. Even at this save it wouldn't be all that much problem killing him, you just need to build up and collect some more redcoats. He may be an ally, but in civ4 from what I've seen a weak ally doesn't really buy you all that much, especially when his territory could be building guns, research and money for you, not someone on another contenant.

Other than letting one of your cities stay on no-grow at size 6 (IIRC) when it could be 10 or 11, that's what I could see from looking at it quickly.

Great comments and I agree. The no-grow city I fixed shortly after this save, I guess the balancing of pissy people in my cities got me a little confused.

I WAS going to take over cyrus but I thought against it for a few reasons that just didnt turn out..
1) I figured get him on my side, and both war with HC (cyrus never let this happen...the bast%^d). Also I thought Id need the help considering HC, Ghangis and Qui are all buddy buddy and hell bent on killing everyone.

2)Tech trading

I realize it was foolish of me. But I enjoy playing peaceful and only take out the people that piss me off (Cyrus was actually VERY nice to me at the start of the game, he gave help of a few free techs...then he started sucking in points lol

Thanks for the advice..anyone else have any tips?
2)

 

[Cam_H]

Xxsyrusvb (!),

Victory type is not defined

Looking at your game it's not clear to me how you intend to win.

On the face of it, you've built a moderately sized, passive empire that's doing rather well on the science front. There's no clear attempt to win by cultural victory. Certainly you're not attempting to win by domination or conquest. Time and diplomatic are chancy at best, and by Prince level a diplomatic victory all but requires you to have a pretty large empire (so the number of votes that you start off with in the voting is reasonably large). Space seems to be the most apparent - but even then I'm not so sure, as you've built hardly any Universities and the Oxford University is a long way from being an option.

Civics

I'm not sure exactly where you're going with your Civics. Theocracy ranks just above Paganism as the least useful religious civic for you now. It's expensive to run and you're not building an army (I tend to couple it with Vassalage when going into 'army building mode', but you're running Bureaucracy). Organised Religion knocks 25% off your building cost, which would be handy seeing six of your seven cities are constructing buildings. Pacifism will help your popping rate, although I notice that you've already popped a large number of Great People in this game, so the point for the next pop is being pushed further away. Free Religion might be good at taking some of the sting out of your 'less than good' relations by not having the 'heathen' penalty.

If you were to make a late-game charge at a Cultural Victory - I'd go to Free Speech, where you might even get a flip from the Incas or the Persians. The +2 would suit you well now. You've even got a Great Artist on hand.

Military

As you found out, your Military is poor. You also only have one production-focussed city. I noted from your posts that you did attempt to address this.

Here's a thought: Ask Huayna Capac for a gift of gold (I got 1,250), sell Printing Press to Qin (740 gold), Education to Genghis (410 gold), and Music to Tokugawa (290). Use the cash to upgrade your units - almost all of your existing army can be upgraded to Grenadiers and Redcoats with the 3,000-ish gold you now have.

In contrast to lost_civantares' suggestion of tackling Cyrus, he will also sign a defensive pact with you (and he already has one with Huayna Capac - so I wouldn't attack him too quickly).

Other stuff and 'the bottom line'

There are other things that you can do, but 'city specialisation' is one I'd address - you basically have only commerce cities.

The 'bottom line' however is to work out your victory type.

 

[xxsyrusvb]

Xxsyrusvb (!),

Victory type is not defined

Looking at your game it's not clear to me how you intend to win.

On the face of it, you've built a moderately sized, passive empire that's doing rather well on the science front. There's no clear attempt to win by cultural victory. Certainly you're not attempting to win by domination or conquest. Time and diplomatic are chancy at best, and by Prince level a diplomatic victory all but requires you to have a pretty large empire (so the number of votes that you start off with in the voting is reasonably large). Space seems to be the most apparent - but even then I'm not so sure, as you've built hardly any Universities and the Oxford University is a long way from being an option.

Civics

I'm not sure exactly where you're going with your Civics. Theocracy ranks just above Paganism as the least useful religious civic for you now. It's expensive to run and you're not building an army (I tend to couple it with Vassalage when going into 'army building mode', but you're running Bureaucracy). Organised Religion knocks 25% off your building cost, which would be handy seeing six of your seven cities are constructing buildings. Pacifism will help your popping rate, although I notice that you've already popped a large number of Great People in this game, so the point for the next pop is being pushed further away. Free Religion might be good at taking some of the sting out of your 'less than good' relations by not having the 'heathen' penalty.

If you were to make a late-game charge at a Cultural Victory - I'd go to Free Speech, where you might even get a flip from the Incas or the Persians. The +2 would suit you well now. You've even got a Great Artist on hand.

Military

As you found out, your Military is poor. You also only have one production-focussed city. I noted from your posts that you did attempt to address this.

Here's a thought: Ask Huayna Capac for a gift of gold (I got 1,250), sell Printing Press to Qin (740 gold), Education to Genghis (410 gold), and Music to Tokugawa (290). Use the cash to upgrade your units - almost all of your existing army can be upgraded to Grenadiers and Redcoats with the 3,000-ish gold you now have.

In contrast to lost_civantares' suggestion of tackling Cyrus, he will also sign a defensive pact with you (and he already has one with Huayna Capac - so I wouldn't attack him too quickly).

Other stuff and 'the bottom line'

There are other things that you can do, but 'city specialisation' is one I'd address - you basically have only commerce cities.

The 'bottom line' however is to work out your victory type.

All your points are extremely valid and I am grateful for your response. With that Ill start at the top (or "bottom" hehe). Also I turned off Space and Time as stated below, this game was just to test out prince, as well as just for fun.

1) Victory Condition- This is one of those games where I was playing with no set victory in mind. I know how that sounds, but sometimes I enjoy playing as a civs that is almost its own "utopia". Its just that sometimes I like to play the game for fun. My ideas at the start were just build my civ up and an army capable of defending its self. I thought to go through the game and "playing the hand I am dealt" rather then just playing in a linear way from the start

2) Army- My army was meant only for a defense. I wish I had a save of what my army became as I upgraded a good amount and had 4 galleon stacks going to china and mongolia. As well as a good sized army of defense at home. My problem in the end was that my defensive army was shielding HC's border as I was almost positive he would help out his best friends Quin and Gandhi.. And TO ME at the time, seemed the best choice was to defend my own continents warmonger. But in the end a seperated army and a slight behind in a navy was my military failures. (My army of redcoats and catapults was MORE then enough to take down any civ at the time. Problem was I was fighting 2 fronts and worried about a closer 3rd)

3) Production city- Hmmm I definetly relize I dont have a standard production site. I mainly thought and tried having a few adverage cites instead. Your point about me being in Theology is that I resently switched to it with the intent of crankin out my military...The buildings in each city bein built were only because i was waiting for the anarchy to stop and thought id just let there build ques finish. ***What should I have done to better set up a Production city? I usually have no problem with it but on this map it seemed like no city sites screemed out "production"***

4) Foreign Affairs- I was starting to build up the relations but then after the fall of washington, the world was split in 2 sides and during this save is when people were finalizing their sides lol. I also thought that I might have a good chance at diplomatic since essentially, i had the votes of a whole continent where as all other civs were fighting on there givin continent. This of coarse got ruined do to my parinoid feelings about HC, Ghang and Qui

5) Domestic Affairs- My continent loved me...thats why i didnt try killin either. I THOUGHT at first Id have the "backings" of a whole continent vs any enemy to me. (me, cyrus and HC I thought would have formed a great alliance) But then the warmongers came in and i could LITERALLY see the change with HC from being at peace to lookin for someone to kill. Peer pressure man!

6) Civics- Yea, I was basically trying to balance the civics between SE and a CE since I was infact a hybrid. (being fin/phi). I really dont know yet how to use civics efficiently with one another. I really just try using what I think could be good and applied at the time. No synergy about it : / I know this is something i have to fix.

7) Prince- I was just basically tryin to get the basics down of prince. I was really thrown for a loop with the changes from noble and so during my "adaption" phase I lost some motives and goals in the process. (My army was planned on being started was earlier..but i couldnt due to unhappiness. Also I lost out on the pyramids within 3 turns and after i didnt get it my strategy was forced to change.

8) Thanks- Great comments. If you have any more Id love to hear it. Also Thanks alot for taking the time to check it out. Greatly appreciated. And hopefully others will give me some tips too.

All in all do you think i played this terrible? Obviously it was a little un-organized but i thought i had some really strong parts (science and commerce for one lol)

thanks again.

 

[carl corey]

Ok... some other things that Cam_H hasn't mentioned:

1) Develop your cities. Some have almost no buildings in them. One was building a bank to boost 10 gold instead of library & university to boost 40 research. Useful buildings: granaries, theaters and lighthouses! Really, without granaries you're taking way more than you should to grow. Build them early for efficient use. Theaters are there to manage happiness problems just in case. And lighthouses just make water tiles more efficient. They're all cheap, so build them! Also, you're philosophical, so you get discount Universities. Library + University should be standard build for your cities.

2) Some of those cities are under their happiness limit. You're not fighting any wars so the limit shouldn't go down. Just increase their size by working food-heavy tiles for now, leave specialists for later. And speaking of specialists, why aren't you gunning for Constitution to get Representation? With the amount of specialists you're using it's a huge waste not to. And what are your plans with the Great Artist and the Great Engineer? The GE could wait for Statue of Liberty, while the GA... maybe it could wait a less useful great person (GP maybe?) to start a Golden Age. Or make him help you with the borders.

3) Resource trading: you're trading corn for cows to Cyrus, but you already have cows... What up? Instead trade corn, pigs and rice for resources (whale = +1 happiness) and gold from others to boost your economy too. Also, the tech trades that Cam_H suggested get you enough money to go into 2nd/3rd place on the power graph after the unit upgrades. Be sure others will have second thoughts about attacking you now! (I asked HC for all his money. He gave it all away.)

Which reminds me...
4) You have a huge army doing nothing. Not good. Either place more units in cities to boost happiness (Hereditary Rule) then grow the cities, or attack someone. And if you do attack overseas, don't do it in two places at once. Also, build drydocks, then frigates to defend yourself. You have no navy to speak of, really. Best thing on continents is to have the biggest navy so that no one can touch you. If you see lots of ships heading your way just declare war and sink them all.

5) You're trying to build too many early wonders. Granted, you had both marble and stone, but going for Oracle, Pyramids and Parthenon might do more harm than good. You almost got them all, but I'd rather spend those hammers on something else - settlers, army, buildings. Seeing how you used a lot of specialists the Pyramids were more important than the Oracle, so you should have focused on getting those.

6) Somehow I doubt you used slavery at all. If you did, then not having granaries just got worse. If you didn't, consider using it. Alternate growth to happiness cap (and beyond) with use of the whip, it will help you with the early building part.


That's it for now.
Realistically speaking, I still think that from that point the game can be won. Tech trades for money and upgrading the units are the two single most important things that could help. That, and using your army to take over your continent maybe. Otherwise you're inevitably going to fall behind in every aspect with only those 7 cities.

And don't worry. Victory on Prince will come too.

 

[mice]

I agree the Cam _H that the most important thing is to figure out which victory you can get. On a continent with 2 other civs, a military approach to take them out will put you in a good position. For this you need a production city or two. one of them pumping out units for most of the game. This city should have Heroic epic and barracks of course. Start pushing your neigbors around even if they aer of the same religion. Especially Huyana. He's financial so he can out tech you.

When you can beat Prince it means that you really understand the basic mechanics of the game. This means that the game becomes more and more interesting, so.. keep it up. My bottom line, build a military and take over at least two civs, and learn to be able to afford this ie. Good management of cities to make commerce to pay for the city upkeep and good science rate.

 

[Cam_H]

Eh - played to a very late game (2008 AD) cultural for your info' (curiosity value I guess). Not a perfect game by any stretch however (London's cultural excess could have been much better managed) - it was rushed.

[Edit] (Removed game due to server space) [/Edit]

I cash upgraded the army (as per above), which was pretty well enough to fend off China, Mongolia, and Japan's respective attacks. I maintained good relations with Persia, and did my best with Huayna Capac. A couple of cities flipped, and there were revolts in others (mostly Incan). I used the stored Great Engineer on The Eiffel Tower, and picked up Rock 'n' Roll, Broadway, and Hollywood. The Statue of Liberty was left quite late by the AI, so I rushed it.

I didn't realise you turned Spaceship off! I couldn't understand why I was in the Twenty First Century and nobody had built Apollo!

[Edit] I flipped a city with four Wonders! I was curious why Nottingham was struggling to push out its borders to the west for much of the game, and I didn't grasp that it was in a big cultural battle of its own with the Incan Wonder Centre. [/Edit]

 

[Elandal]

@civman123
I don't think Prince is very big a jump from Noble. The major differences are: Health and Happy bonuses are one less than on Noble, AI starts with extra exploration unit. The rest is what happens between all levels: more barbs, earlier barbs, barbs attack more, all maintenance costs are a bit higher, AI research and production are a bit better.

Jump from Prince to Monarch involve all the basic per level stuff (barbs, AI advantages), but health and happy are the same as on Prince while AI starts with defense (not exploration) unit and a worker. That worker is the biggest thing between the levels: AI capitols will almost immediatelly get to work improved tiles therefore being more productive (commerce, food, hammers) than yours. Also the AI doesn't need to build a worker (which stunts growth) so it can grow faster, probably building an archer or two and can then go to build settler. This means that while at Prince the AI's first expansion is about the same speed as on Noble, on Monarch their second city will come before you noticed. It's likely that the AI has a settler when you have a worker out of the gates..

I had enough trouble on the jump from Prince to Monarch, so I created another difficulty level to between: Monarch except AI doesn't get the worker. Could've gone for Prince with AI getting a worker too now that I think of it..

@cam_h
Regarding civics, Bureaucracy combined with Theocracy can be used for armybuilding. Theo gives +2XP, so all cities will build XP5 (L3) units, while Vassallage doesn't give any promotions on top of that. Depending on your capitol compared to other cities, Vassallage with OR could as well do the same except now all cities build a bit faster and capitol doesn't have high hammer/commerce bonus.

But yes - in general I consider Vassallage + Theocracy when going to armybuild mode: prebuild unit queues in cities that I use to draw my army from (rarely would that be all cities, some commerce cities will definitelly have too low production to participate in this), then switch civics, build army, and when done (which can be before, during, or after war) switch back to "builder civics".

And.. victory conditions.. I rarely think too deeply about them until quite late in the game. I haven't gone cultural ever (that would require decision quite early in the game), consider diplomacy if it looks I've got lots of buddies (can be seen sometime in the midgame and must be worked from there to endgame), but in the end, diplomation (enough pop with a friend or two to vote myself as the big kahuna), domination, and conquest are quite similar for me during most of the game. And space as well. In all those cases I do war some (usually unification of home continent), make sure my infrastructure can take whatever the next step is, and then decide whether I'll go take out the other continent, only part of it, build spaceship, or have enough votes from my unified continent for UN.
Time won't happen past Noble - someone will launch before that. Unless suitably harassed of course

As can be seen from above, I don't go for early conquest or early domination.

 

[xxsyrusvb]

Great advice guys. Thanks alot. I didnt really all the sloppy mistakes I had going in that game (that bank instead of library bit I am sure wasnt on purpose, as I know better then that).

Ive got another Q from a different game I had started, on prince continents warlords i was Augustas. Anyway, how can i raise happiness early in the game if nobody on my cont has a religion? It seems like i have NOTHING that raises happy. I also mean early game, for instance I just researched my pretorians and with the 4 cities I have i am broke and my slider is all the way at 50 (running a CE so i have a few cottages being worked).

So basically I need tips on Happiness and money without using traits. Also is there a leader that uses Fin and whatever gives me happiness?

Thanks guys!

 

[Cam_H]

Seems like your question is tailor-made for Cabert's happiness thread!

On the previous game, I forgot to advise; don't automate your workers! They were running around building roads on desert tiles when there were irrigation chaining possibilities to pick up for instance.

Also is there a leader that uses Fin and whatever gives me happiness?

Warlords: Carthage (Hannibal) is Financial and Charasmatic.

Vanilla: Inca (Huayna Capac) is Financial and Aggressive but starts with Mysticism, giving you some chance at a religion, which gives +1 if adopted.

 

[cabert]

cam

Prince is the first level where you fight uphill (bonus to the AI, handicap to you).
So it's quite normal that you have to fight a bit harder than before.

I did a renaming of levels :
Settler -> let's understand the game
chieftain -> let's win an easy game
warlord -> let's play a bit, and win an easy game
noble -> let's play a bit
Prince -> let's play with war mode on
Monarch -> let's focus on a victory condition
Emperor -> let's manage diplomacy
Immortal -> no more time for anything beyond victory condition
Deity -> let's survive, then crawl our way with diplomacy to abuse the AI


You want happiness?
The easiest way to get happiness is to conquer all those luxuries you see in your neighbour's land.
Not in 100 turns.
Not in 50 turns.
NOW!

 

[xxsyrusvb]

Thanks for the advice guys. I dont however think its feasible to just go conquer a neighbor for luxuries if my economy is running low (due to a recent war effort and such). So capturing another city will just cost maintenence which I couldnt afford at the time.

I have been playing with hannibal (thanks for the advice cam) and its workin out alot better. Although somehow my CE is the worst Ive ever done (not sure if i just messed up or things cost alot more since noble). So happiness is going fine as ive learned how to better manipulate it. Now, once again, I have to find to perfect balance between research/military/economy and happiness. It seems I am ALWAYS leaving one behind. Is that normal or does it mean i need better balancing skills?

thanks guys..

 

[cabert]

Most of the game is giving something for something else.
You can't be an all arounder.
Focus on your general goal.
Do you need a large empire or do you need a large military to get it?
Do you need very advanced techs or do you need to push hard on your current advantage (if you have one)?

Population is really important. But you won't be able to go to a long war with size 20 cities. Why? WW will kill you.

The trade off are good, if you know what you're doing.

Very often, I decide on a victory condition from the get go (often before choosing the leader). It doesn't mean I can't change direction, if needed, but it gives me a general goal.
So I know if I can afford someoverlapping or not.
So I see what building has higher priority.
So I know if it's beneficial to attack a neighbour or not.

Example : you play America on continents, with a late UU, a late UB and somegood Rex possibilities (organized). You can go without fear to a late game domination or space race.
Meaning you're going to get better results if you manage to trade enough with your neighbours. Thus avoiding that the other continent(s) fly away with techs.
So your best early moves are to take a good part of the land, while building up a strong economy. you'll fight only the nutties (Montezuma, Isabella, ...) if needed (= wrong religion + neighbour)...

I hope you see what I mean : give yourself a general goal, and make short term decision accordingly.