Noble to Prince

[calla]

blitzkrieg1980: yep, i recently reinstalled bts so it installed with the latest patch

jtmacc99: i read your posts in that thread. i tried to go for an early IW build to mass swords/axes. maybe i'm doing something wrong but i can't seem to get enough hammers going in a specialist economy. i understand the basics; i grow the city to about 4-5, make sure each city has a 4-5 food tile and then just mines and farms.

i make libraries my priority and since i want to try to sword/axe rush pacal, i go with a barrack as well before pumping out units. but this still brings me back to the problem of not having enough workers to cover the mines. am i suppose to have 2 on food and two on mines with avoid city growth toggled in my city menu? if i do that, i cant switch any citizens to scientists and my tech suffers.

i don't think i can post pics yet, but as far as my city locations go i used diamondeye's bitmap as a template. keep berlin at the starting point, #2 goes to the ne to cover the ivory and rice, #3 to the spot to cover the horse and cow, #4 south of berlin to cover the 2 clams.

i might have to jump back down to noble to get a hang of running a se.

 

[drlake]

blitzkrieg1980: yep, i recently reinstalled bts so it installed with the latest patch

jtmacc99: i read your posts in that thread. i tried to go for an early IW build to mass swords/axes. maybe i'm doing something wrong but i can't seem to get enough hammers going in a specialist economy. i understand the basics; i grow the city to about 4-5, make sure each city has a 4-5 food tile and then just mines and farms.

i make libraries my priority and since i want to try to sword/axe rush pacal, i go with a barrack as well before pumping out units. but this still brings me back to the problem of not having enough workers to cover the mines. am i suppose to have 2 on food and two on mines with avoid city growth toggled in my city menu? if i do that, i cant switch any citizens to scientists and my tech suffers.

i don't think i can post pics yet, but as far as my city locations go i used diamondeye's bitmap as a template. keep berlin at the starting point, #2 goes to the ne to cover the ivory and rice, #3 to the spot to cover the horse and cow, #4 south of berlin to cover the 2 clams.

i might have to jump back down to noble to get a hang of running a se.

In the early years, there wasn't much SE in my SE. To build up my army quickly for the initial war, I used a mix of chopping forests and whipping population. City production is simply too slow for a early "rush", as far as I can tell. I started to rely more on specialists once I had several cities with libraries, so that they could produce enough surplus food to keep the specialists going and still have some capacity to grow population and work high hammer tiles.

I'm not sure you can automate city management and run an SE. I did everything manually for the game I'm in, and it worked reasonably well. ATM, I'm in "World War I" around 1840, and if I win I'll probably have a domination victory sewed up. I've got a slight tech lead and a significant power lead, and am back up to 50%+ science (it was 70% when I got DoW'd) after bottoming out at 0% a few times along the way during expansionist wars.

 

[calla]

how do i combat the unhappiness from all the surplus food?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

In slavery - whip 'em

In caste - run specialists so you don't grow above happy cap, or if you do starve the city until you are back below it.

And trade for resources, especially ones that you can increase the bonus for (with a market say).

Since you don't worry about the slider as much with a specialist heavy gameplan, you can run the culture slider too (and build theatres and get dye).

EDIT: Spiritual is a great SE trait since you can swap between slavery and caste every 5 turns if you want.

 

[drlake]

how do i combat the unhappiness from all the surplus food?

Yep, as ParadigmShifter notes, you control population by whipping them, running specialists, and starving the population.

Whipping takes practice, but one thing I've found is that if you whip, don't run full food until any population regrowth takes place after the whip unhappiness decreases. This requires you to micromanage your economy some, but basically means maximize resources rather than food for a few turns after a whip, before switching back to max food.

Specialists are also a decent option when you have very high food production, since you can run them and still use the whip to boost production.

I'm far from an expert at this but I've found that a bit of micromanagement goes a long way.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

If you don't build the pyramids use hereditary rule too. (Use representation if you do build the mids, of course).

Don't forget forges give +1 happiness for gold, silver and gems.

 

[mariogreymist]

It can also be valuable to overlap cities on high yield food sources, so you can use their whip productivity in multiple cities. Simply "not run full food" is questionable advice when food is the most important aspect of the game for so long and when there is an option which lets you work that fw corn nonstop and use the whip at the same time. It takes a lot of micro, but it keeps the most valuable tiles in your kingdom at maximum effectiveness, particularly in despotism times.

 

[Dr.Null]

Things I learned when moving from Noble -> Prince:

- Always whip. If you have three turns left to build a Wonder, and you can whip it, do whip it. Nothing is more frustrating than getting a visit from Dr. Failgold.

- Hereditary Rule is awesome.

- Sometimes you must pick a side, and accede to even the most petty demands of your "friends". This is better than having no "friends", because then you get dogpiled by the whole world, instead of just by half of the world. This is important: you can frequently take on half of the world.

- DFA: Don't F... uh, Don't Fiddle Around. Have an objective, and go for it as fast as you can.

- - -

Things I learned when moving from Prince -> Monarch:

- You are not going to get many Wonders (probably). If you want one, it better be for a good reason, as you're going to be spending precious resources going after it.

- There is no such thing as "friends". There are only people who are too much trouble to kill. Be one of those people: make yourself an unappetizing target by never falling too low on the power curve, or by being too useful as a tech broker, or by being the same religion as a fanatic who has her eye on someone weaker than you.

- There is no such thing as a "friend". Every civilization you meet is a ticking bomb. Know when that bomb is least dangerous, and clip its wires when you can. For example, if you're sharing an island with England, you want to kill them before they can get Rifling.

- Nationalism is awesome, and the Globe Theater is the best national wonder ever.

- DFA: Execute toward your objective ruthlessly.

- Declaring war to steal a worker is a great way to screw over your first rush target. Frequently, you can steal the worker and pillage his resources, giving you a good 20 turns to finish pushing out your rush, while he's stuck in his one city whipping Archers and working unimproved tiles. It's not always a good idea, so learn when to go for it. If you hit someone early enough, you can get a second capital without earning the annoying "You declared war on our friend!" status for the next 3,000 years.

 

[yanner39]

I played my second game at Monarch (jump from Noble). I was JC and was on a continent with Elizabeth and Isabella. Even if I had Praets, I tried to work on expanding peacefully. I manage to box Isabella in - she had 4 cities for most of the game. It was then a land grab between me and Elizabeth, which I won (14 cities to her 12).

I actually won the Liberalism race, picked Nationhood and backfilled a bunch of techs.

What I found post-Liberalism is how fast the AI (Elizabeth) caught up techwise. I beelined communism and built the Kremlin. I wanted to use a rush-buy strategy to purchase an army but that didn't work so well. I thought I could use my tech lead to wipe out Liz but all of a sudden she had rifling and her lovely Redcoats. Then tanks, destroyers, Anti-tanks, etc...Needless to say, the war didn't go as I planned it.

One thing I didn't understand - I couldn't see her power rating. We had open borders and I split my espionage point between her and Isabella. I had not idea how much power she had. I had a nice stack of cavalry and artillery but had not idea what her army looked like. A big part of the problem was me not scouting properly. However, I just built/bought an army I thought was going too give me a chance but I never had a chance to compare the power rating. That's pretty huge when preparing for war. I don't understand why I couldn't see her ratio.

Anyways, I'll try another game on Monarch. Atleast I did pretty well for most of the game for my second go at Noble.

 

[Dr.Null]

One thing I didn't understand - I couldn't see her power rating. We had open borders and I split my espionage point between her and Isabella. I had not idea how much power she had.

If you hover on her name in the scoreboard, you should be able to see your espionage ratio.

In your Espionage adviser screen, it'll tell you directly how many espionage points you'll need to see her various info.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

One thing I didn't understand - I couldn't see her power rating. We had open borders and I split my espionage point between her and Isabella. I had not idea how much power she had. I had a nice stack of cavalry and artillery but had not idea what her army looked like. A big part of the problem was me not scouting properly. However, I just built/bought an army I thought was going too give me a chance but I never had a chance to compare the power rating. That's pretty huge when preparing for war. I don't understand why I couldn't see her ratio.

I win almost every game on Monarch now, and I almost never look at power ratings. If you're unsure of where you stand against her and you have open boarders, just scout her territory with a unit. Not only to do you get to find what units she has, you know what mix is in her SoD, how well they are promoted (power slider doesn't look at unit XP), and where it is so you know how to properly counter it. Even if you don't have open boarders just use a spy, you get a lot better information then just the power slider.

 

[yanner39]

*BUMP*

After a number of tries of making the jump from Noble to Monarch, I decide to try a game at Prince level, to try and get my confidence back.

Using JC of Rome, I won my first game ever at Prince by the Space Race at 1925AD. It was actually one of my better games, in terms of REXing, sealing of a nice chunk of land on my continent (with 3 other civs). I wiped out Hatty early with my Praets and should have got rid of Isabella as well. I had Brennus voluntarily vassal to me. I was teching at a solid rate of 2,200/turn, pre-1900s. I was a little disappointed that it took so long to build and launch my Space Ship and finished with a Normalized Score of +31K.

I think this may have something to do with the fact that I had settled 20 cities early and essentially stopped expanding when there was no room on the continent (I didn't bother finding new land on a different continent.

I guess it is typical that Space Race games yield lower scores because they take longer? I guess I was really aiming for a pre-1900AD victory. I tried to achieve it via a Diplo Victory. I almost had the the votes, but could convince Darius to vote for me.

Any comments of what I wrote would be appreciated.

 

[drlake]

Sounds similar to my space race victory, where I decided to go for that late enough that the score is lower. Still, a win is a win.

Funny that you post this now, since after four or so wins on Prince I'm going to start a Monarch game tonight.

Was it an AP or UN victory you were going for? I'm almost done with a game where I'm going for an AP victory, but am currently working on getting spies in position to flip the religion of a rival to shift the AP vote totals.

 

[yanner39]

Sounds similar to my space race victory, where I decided to go for that late enough that the score is lower. Still, a win is a win.

Funny that you post this now, since after four or so wins on Prince I'm going to start a Monarch game tonight.

Was it an AP or UN victory you were going for? I'm almost done with a game where I'm going for an AP victory, but am currently working on getting spies in position to flip the religion of a rival to shift the AP vote totals.

Actually, my initial goal was the Space Race to begin with. I was so far ahead in tech that I built the UN. Now, that in itself may have delayed by Space Race Victory. I build the UN because I thought that as I was working towards building my Space ship, I wanted to see if I could win the game sooner via diplomacy and therefore, get a higher score.

I think I read somewhere that wins like the space race usually results in a lower normalized point total because the win takes more time to achieve.

Anyways, glad to see you did well on Prince and are trying Monarch. It's funny, Prince to me felt exactly like Noble. Once or twice, I had to check the settings to make sure I didn't make a mistake and selected Noble. Plus I wasn't using a FIN leader but you wouldn't know it with the number of beakers I was generating and the cash I had to rush-buy my Unis, Observatories.

Monarch though, wow. I don't want to discourage you but the jump from Noble/Prince to Monarch is nothing like Noble to Prince.

Good luck and keep us posted. I may need more pointers!

 

[mariogreymist]

Once you get into late VCs, you are probably better off focusing on growing your population as a means of generating a high score as opposed to ASAP. Spread sushi/CM, and build those biofarms. This is true as long as you aren't going to pull of space in 1800 or before, in which case time is probably more important. I'm not exactly sure how the time bonuses for score calculation work, but I suspect each turn is of diminishing importance as the game goes on.

In remotely close games, ASAP is always the best approach, obviously. But when you're running away with it, and padding your score, grow those cities to the max.

 

[capnvonbaron]

I guess it is typical that Space Race games yield lower scores because they take longer? I guess I was really aiming for a pre-1900AD victory. I tried to achieve it via a Diplo Victory. I almost had the the votes, but could convince Darius to vote for me.

Any comments of what I wrote would be appreciated.

Indeed, the longer a game is the lower the score due to normalization. If you had, for example, scored a domination or conquest victory in 1500 or so, the score probably would've been 3x that. Also lower difficulties tend to hurt early space-races. You can usually go to space earlier on higher difficulties because the AIs tend to tech a lot faster, which allows you to construct the spaceship faster because all the techs get to you at the same time (assuming you trade for or steal them as the AI techs them). All too often you will be waiting on fusion FOREVER on noble/prince

 

[Gehn]

I am running into issues on my Prince games.

I won my first by a space victory, but since then, I have been a fail around 1200ad.

It doesnt matter who I am (random civs), I almost always crash my economy after my initial rush destroys an opponent. My rush is good, but the research level after that rush is abyssmal and takes too long to creep back up.

I usually get 2 DoWs w/in 5 turns from other Civs. The game usually ends with them running in w/ macemen and catapults while I still have axemen and archers (swords as well if iron is present).

I know there is no save to present to you. Perhaps my diplomacy tactics are failing while I try to up my research?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah work on your diplomacy.

You need to not annoy everyone which sometimes means giving in to demands for short term security or long term friendship and trade/war ally opportunities.

I did a very thorough Prince game ages ago (loads of screenshots), you might want to look at it:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=266152

 

[Gehn]

Thank you for the link, Para. The domination run through was great.

One quick question. As you switch to more specialists in your economy, are the GPs created being used mainly for bulbing? That is the only way I can see keeping my tech at a decent rate while trying to keep my troops from going on strike.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I can't remember, it was a while ago

Typically I bulb on the liberalism path (after an academy in the capital), then switch to merchants except in the Oxford city. The merchants keep the slider higher and you can use GMs for trade missions or settling, or starting golden ages. Scientists are normally settled in the Oxford City.

I had 2 golden ages at the end of that game IIRC (when I whacked the culture slider up to 100% to expand borders to domination limit).

EDIT: Capturing cities is an excellent way of keeping your bank balance going too