Noob needs help: hit plateau at Prince difficulty

[pattison1100]

TL;DR: I have an issue with the mid-game at Prince difficulty, especially preparing for it militaristically.

Long version:
So I'm this (old) guy that enjoyed Civ1 as a kid immensely and nostalgia recently made me try Civ3 (Warlord, Regent, then Monarch) and then moved on to Civ4 which I like much more.
I started with Warlord, which felt way too easy, and then moved to Noble.
After a few attempts, I felt that I was able to manage it well (not always trivial situations, but ultimately winning).
Now since I moved up to Prince, the game feels very much hopelessly uphill and I don't know what else to try.

My main issues look like this:

• I usually end up squished between two strong opponents. This is despite the fact that I try to have an optimum distance between my cities, and then aim for choke points to block out enemy expansion. I also try to fill up "my space" in a circular fashion, leaving the middle for last, where there's no risk of enemy settlers appearing.
  
  
• I feel most of the time that I need to choose between developing and building a decent military. If I focus on military techs, then in other areas I'm not going anywhere. I even feel that getting the basic religious techs for culture and happiness management is a challenge (in case I don't want to lag behind on unit evolutioln), so usually I end up trading them. The good old "one archer per city" is completely useless, honestly beyond keeping citizens chill. Also I feel that it takes turns and turns for me to produce units for a decent and diverse stack, and by the time I get there my opponents tend to have two or more. Pumping out military units is kind of boring too.
  
  
• Diplomacy is not working for me anymore. Pleaceful development based on mutual benefit is no longer an option. It typically goes like this: I'm trying to be on good terms with those that are close and strong. Through religion, trade, helping out and finally Open Borders if needed (and avoiding trading with their enemies if possible ofc) I get my "dangerous neighbours" to at least Pleased, mostly Friendly. Then at some point they allow another aggressor to pass through their lands and attack me from there. Often times someone that is not even having such a good relationship with them! I of course am not able to convince them to stop it. Then when I'm struggling with the invaders - which are hard to pursue due to them withrawing to the neighbor's territory, regroup and attack from there again. I describe two of my stories below, you can skip if you're not interested:
  
  This happened to me recently with a neighbouring Isabella (we both had Judaism as state religion and were at Friendly) and a Sitting Bull (Buddhism) coming from FAR through Spanish lands to hit me with his stacks. I simply could not get Isabella to stop this and suspiciously some towns that Sitting Bull took from me ended up going to Isabella... Then after like 150 years of fighting, I regained all my lost territory (with the exception of the ones he gave to the Spanish ofc). In the process I fell back down on the scorebord due to doing almost nothing but pumping out units (Sitting Bull became dead last btw in this suicide mission). AS SOON as I made peace with Sitting Bull, Isabella started having wild demands, especially regarding military tech. Very rapidly she went from Friendly to Cautious and in a few turns she attacked me. I was drained by the long war with Sitting Bull (that was unwilling to speak to me throughout) so despite having Gunpowder, she swept me with old school stacks of Macemen, Chariots and Trebs. Humiliating.
  
  Another one was my most recent bitter experience with Justinian and Montezuma.
  I blocked out some choke points in all directions, except east where I had coast, having a sizeable and defendable chunk of land for myself to work on. To the south I had the christian Ethiopians, to the north the hindu Aztecs and to the west the muslim Byzantines - in ascending order of power level.
  I knew that Montezuma was a rascal so I decided to keep hinduism and be friends as much as possible, as I thought it's less likely that Justinian will attack me out of the blue, even though I could not move him out of Annoyed even with serious gifts and constant trading.
  So we were at Friendly with Montezuma, and I had to grant some arrogant demands for that, but I thought: better play safe, and I hoped we might team up against the muslim Byzantines later on.
  I did not want to just do the builder's path as I saw before that without proper military, you're doomed. I kept building varied units: had 2-3 different ones in both towns up north on the Aztec border, approx. 6 in each in the ones close to Justinian, and then I built some sizeable stacks down south in preparation to attack the weak Ethiopians.
  Out of nowhere, Montezuma (Friendly!) attacked me with some serious stacks, so I had to move my stuff from south, losing my 2 towns up north in the meantime.
  My troops arrived, and managed to kick him back out, but I suffered some casualties of course.
  As soon as I regained control of my northern territory, Justinian declared war on me and ate me up in no time.
  
  It seems to me that at this difficulty level AIs just tag team on you in a subtle and unpredictable way, and their actions are really well coordinated.
  All that while for the human player it is a real challenge to get an AI to team up decently and reliably against someone else - heck, they don't even want to stop trading, not to mention declaring war on someone they don't hate downrightly.
  Worth mentioning that these sneak attacks and my downfall usually happens somewhere between 900 and 1300.
  
  
• I feel that battles are somehow easier for the AI. I'm not saying it's cheating but it seems that the odds shown are not exactly accurate, or I don't get all the factors.
  Example: In the medieval era, having one to three archers (or longbowmen later on) in a town is almost unbeatable. You need to bring in artillery and all that to be able to take that city, and with a lot of losses. Normally when you drag your mouse there, the odds are usually 0. something %.
  Now when I have a handful of units in my city, with some additional ones (like a Spearman against Horse Archer and Axeman against brawlers), the AI just casually hits me and there's always SOME result. I can bounce off without causing any damage, practically throwing away my units but even their Horse Archer or another early mounted unit can kill some of my Spearmen unit members fortified in a walled city, built on a hill! Then ofc from that point their other units will be able to win if there's enough of them. I really can't protect my cities (despite being built on hills, have fortifications and have some defensive units with XP), so at this point I'm thinking it doesn't even make sense to try to defend. Is it just better to leave the town and go back later on to retake it? But then I face those 0. something odds... Something does not add up.

I add my latest save files, please feel free to criticise and hopefully point out the elephant in the room.
THANKS!

 

[Whisker]

Hello and well come to forums.
If you are having trouble with noble difficulty, you are clearly not grasping basics of this game. Start with pinned thread condensed tips fort beginners above. If by having 'optimal distance between cities you mean they don't have any overlap between their workable areas, then its not optimal at all, specifically as you move up difficulty levels. You should almost always have your cities sharing strong food tiles and cottages, so that when you whip / overgrow your city you can give those strong tiles for another city to work.
To get started read that tips for beginners tread, experiment with advice given there and afterward start a shadow game here, where you post a report here from the very beginning and proceed in short maybe 10 turn sets, asking advice in between. Its very useful to also give your own plans in format 'I plan to do this, because...' as that helps rest of us in giving you guidance.

Cheers, and good civving.

 

[pattison1100]

Hi, thanks for your response.
Although I'm having trouble with Prince, not Noble - as the title of the thread says.
Noble was quite manageable, ie. I never really felt that I wasn't on the right track, and definitely was not wiped out.
I think I am grasping the basics - it's the next level that I don't.
Btw. my cities usually have 2-3 tiles between them, so that means that they do share some workable space.
I'd say my biggest trouble is the wars mid-game.

 

[antimony]

The best first thread to read is the "Beginner help - the basics" guide by Fippy on this forum, but if Noble is easy you may already be familiar with that.

I usually end up squished between two strong opponents. This is despite the fact that I try to have an optimum distance between my cities, and then aim for choke points to block out enemy expansion. I also try to fill up "my space" in a circular fashion, leaving the middle for last, where there's no risk of enemy settlers appearing.

Settling the first few cities far from your capital is bad for the economy in many ways - distance maintenance, lack of trade routes, and a lot of worker-turns spent walking rather than improving. There are very specific cases where one of the first few cities should not be adjacent from the capital but a bit further to grab an important spot, but if you're doing that every game you're slowing down your development, and possibly creating diplomatic problems by settling close to rivals early on. So in some way that can relate to the next two problems you're facing.

A basic approach is to expand naturally to good spots around your capital, and based on how crowded it gets, determine when to switch to war mode. On a very cramped map (or if an aggressive AI like Monty is nearby) you may only get to 3-4 cities and attack with horse archers or catapults + melee. On a less cramped map you could get to 8+ and aim at a Renaissance army (Cuirassiers, or Cannons + gunpowder) with some kind of first to Liberalism strategy.

Do you use a mod like BUG or one of the other mods based on it? (BAT, BUFFY) It shows a lot more info on the interface, like a red fist when an enemy is plotting. Enemies like Montezuma can start plotting when pleased and will still plan to attack you even if you turn Friendly in the meantime.

But anyway I would focus on the development/economy first. See how many cities and how far down the tech three you can be around 1AD, for example. You can try playing one of the Nobles' Club games on this forum at Prince, because these maps are meant to have good but typical starting positions, and post the state of your game at some milestones to get more specific feedback.

 

[antimony]

I feel that battles are somehow easier for the AI. I'm not saying it's cheating but it seems that the odds shown are not exactly accurate, or I don't get all the factors.

It may depend on what MOD you use, but you should see the factors like +25% for hill, +X% for city defense, etc. City defense is the largest of either: cultural defense (+20% for each level of culture) or the physical defenses (+50% for wall, +100% for castle). If a city is revolting (someone just captured it) the defenses are 0%, so if you have an enemy with a lot of offensive (city attack) bonuses and you also have a lot of city attack bonuses, it might make sense to let them take the city and retake it right after if it's still in revolt. However you lose many of your buildings in the process, it might still be worth it. A spearman on a hill/walled city against a horse archer gets 4*(2.75) = 11 effective strength (+100% vs. mounted, +50% for wall, +25% hill, so 175% bonus) so it should take a lot of them to beat it if it's only horse archers attacking.

An unpromoted longbow on a hill/walled city gets 6*(2.25) = 13.5 (+50% wall, +50% hill with its own 25%, +25% city), but it also has first strikes. Because of those first strikes a Knight with STR 10 and immune to them works better against longbows than a maceman with STR 8 even with city raider promotions. The problem though is that the more defenders you stack, the worst the cumulative odds get because the attackers always attack the healthiest defenders. That is, unless you bring appropriate siege with its collateral damage. Attacking directly into the defenders without lowering the city defenses / softening the units with siege can work if you are bringing more advanced units and there are few defenders.

 

[pattison1100]

It may depend on what MOD you use, but you should see the factors like +25% for hill, +X% for city defense, etc. City defense is the largest of either: cultural defense (+20% for each level of culture) or the physical defenses (+50% for wall, +100% for castle). If a city is revolting (someone just captured it) the defenses are 0%, so if you have an enemy with a lot of offensive (city attack) bonuses and you also have a lot of city attack bonuses, it might make sense to let them take the city and retake it right after if it's still in revolt. However you lose many of your buildings in the process, it might still be worth it. A spearman on a hill/walled city against a horse archer gets 4*(2.75) = 11 effective strength (+100% vs. mounted, +50% for wall, +25% hill, so 175% bonus) so it should take a lot of them to beat it if it's only horse archers attacking.

Thanks for the breakdown!
Crazy, but I swear in my last game Monty took my first city attacking Spearmen with horse archers (no initial bombardment) and the 1st HA killed my Spearman unit. I was in disbelief.
War elephants also just killed Spearmen in walled cities with ease. Idk maybe I was just unlucky, but I even shouted "NOUU!" out loud, to the amusement of my wife, lol.

Another thought: it might be worth it to bring a spy with your army and incite a revolt in the city you're about to siege?

 

[Whisker]

Oh, few more things.
Use normal game speed, at least while you learn, as that is by far most common used here and it's easier to get good advice for that.
Strong recommendation on loading the BUFFY mod, as it will make your gaming experience so much more convenient by making a lot of things that are hidden under advisors visible. Things like turns until next great person generation, who among your rivals are plotting (against you or somebody else). And sorry about mixing your difficulty level.

Please start a shadow game, analyze the start, share your thoughts about it and wait for advise from veterans here. I bet you will soon learn stuff, you were not aware of.

 

[antimony]

Thanks for the breakdown!
Crazy, but I swear in my last game Monty took my first city attacking Spearmen with horse archers (no initial bombardment) and the 1st HA killed my Spearman unit. I was in disbelief.
War elephants also just killed Spearmen in walled cities with ease. Idk maybe I was just unlucky, but I even shouted "NOUU!" out loud, to the amusement of my wife, lol.

Another thought: it might be worth it to bring a spy with your army and incite a revolt in the city you're about to siege?

Yes, if you want to use espionage, this is probably the best use of spies at Prince (you should be ahead of the AI in tech and thus not really in a position to steal techs from them). It just requires a lot of investment into espionage, either by building the great wall for an early great spy, or things like courthouses / castles if you have a leader that makes them cheap to build.

 

[Gumbolt]

I initially had trouble opening your saveed games. How did you add special characters to these? I can view them now but I shouldn't have to edit the saved game names.

So Portugal.
1170ad. Capital size 9 and you are just running mines, the flood plains cottages and the food resources. You have built cottages on the grassland but pretty much never used them. Ideally your capital should be growing on the 2 food tiles and using the cottages. It's not unusual to have a capital size 12-14+ in size at 1ad. I see you declared on Spain in early 3600bc or so. I assume to worker steal? With so little land here I would of beelined chariots or horse archers. Build 3 or so cities and whip out 10-11 horse archers. Then attack the AI. The Ai expand quite slowly on prince level. The biggest stacks i can see on the map are 7-8 in size. At 1180ad i could have stacks 20-30+ in size. Raise your ambitions here. Stop building court houses, walls and other buildings for the sake of it.

Your playing some very weird map settings. High Sea level, Arid climate and shuffle. Stick to pangea for map type as this will give a more balanced game and you won't be settling 4-5 worthless cities. If the land is not good attack the AI and take theirs.

Ottoman save
Your capital - I assume all your sea resources got pillaged? You have gems but no road to connect it. -4 unhappiness in capital as it has no unit defending the city. (All 4 unhappiness from no defending unit.) That is a big hit! 4 tiles you can't work. Plus a lot of unworked cottages.
Your expansion at start is too slow. 3 cities by 2000bc is a good goal. I often go double settler at size 3-4 at start once I am working 2-3 food resources. Double sea resources would slow you down.

As you have Rocky Climate as a map setting you have very little food resource outside your capital. If you had got the 3rd city by 2000bc you would of secured land that the Aztecs took. Texcoco was settled 500bc by Aztecs. Bursa was settled 925bc by you.. Those flood plains near Byzantium could of been settled 1000bc or before. Gao could of been taken if your expansion here had not been so slow. You are just giving up great city sites as you expanded too slow. Then settling the junk cities.

Ankara with no fish in first border. surrounded by jungle and needed a border pop to use fish or rice. .Settled 500-600 years too late.
Diyarbakir - Settled late and now can't use corn which Mansa now has. So you settled in a junk location as you arrived too late.
Konya - Double gold and left to 155bc. Why so late?
Byzantium flood plains? You can use blocker cities to grab land. You have not done that here.

Overall you let the AI take all the good land. You didn't settle cities with good food resources in the inner ring. Losing fish and other 5-6 food tiles for a city is not good. Rice/pigs could of been in inner city ring on Bursa.

Island cities too not settled. Did one have double sea food resources?

You have little or no economy here. I see no reason by 1200ad on a normal game you should not have Cuirs by this date.

So much wrong with this game but for now sort out your expansion speed and build more workers too.

The AI stacks of 10 units are not huge for 1190ad.The AI empires are bigger as you didn't expand and grab the land here.

Just noticed the epic game speed. Normal speed works better. A lot of my expansion dates were based on normal game speed. Epic would allow the Ai to build more units in each era.

 

[antimony]

After looking at the maps, I agree with @Gumbolt that you should try to have more cities sooner, and always immediately adjacent to a food resource (under jungle doesn't count) unless your leader is Creative (or unless the city can share some extra food from another city or capital). Often on normal speed we can get 3 cities by 2000 BC, 5-6 by 1000 BC and a few more before 1 AD if enough land is left. The scaling should not be too different in Epic. It's good to use forest chops or population (slavery) to rush settlers (especially if Imperialistic) or workers (especially if Expansive). That's because the IMP or EXP bonus only applies to production, not to the surplus food used to build those units.

I would still focus on getting the first few cities near the capital for early trade routes, efficient worker actions, etc. In the Ottoman game I would have settled the 2nd city SW of capital on hill between clam and gold, capital can spare one clam for that city. (Sidenote: On a coastal start, often you want mining before fishing since mines help you build the boats faster.) I view blocking at less important than having a good economic engine, but maybe if depends on how poor the map is.

Your tech path needs some consideration. In the Portugal game you teched Archery early, it shouldn't be needed, you should have enough barb warriors positioned in the fog around your cities to prevent barbarian spawn. After Pottery, unless you were aiming at some particular rush, you should have focused on getting Alphabet earlier for tech trades. Iron Working is not a great choice in a game with tech trading enabled, unless you want to sword rush (but it's risky since you don't know if you have iron). It is a bit of a dead end on the tech tree, and AIs research it very early, so you can often research Alpha or Math and just trade for it. Monotheism is also a detour and founding your own religion can be detrimental to diplomacy, vs. waiting and adopting the one from whichever bloc you want to ally with. Much later you went for Horseback Riding and Construction), but usually if you want to use these units (Horse Archers, Catapults / Elephants) you want to beeline the tech early game (in the BCs) right after the ancient techs needed to improve your land.

To some extent the same comments about the tech path apply to the other game. If you're not rushing with the classical units, then you focus on economic techs on the top of the tree typically (aiming to get Civil Service by ~1AD for example). The AI tend to prioritize techs along the bottom of the tree (the religious line towards Monarchy, Iron Working and eventually the line towards Engineering). So it's easy to trade for those if you're playing the long economic game.

 

[Gumbolt]

I wonder if the Great Lighthouse might of been good here. Cow/gold, rice/pigs, fish city, clams/gold and could you of grabbed the flood plains too? Gems city behind your capital. Then settle 2 island cities too.

Your capital with 3 mines and horse makes a great settler pump. With imperialist you can whip settlers at size 4 for 2 pop.

Starting save would of been good.

 

[pattison1100]

Whoa guys, that's a lot of feedback, thanks so much for your time!

Let me try to respond to some of the things you mentioned.
With regards to the special characters: the game automatically took my Windows user name as my in-game name and it is Felhasználó which is Hungarian for 'User'. Hence the special characters.

"Build 3 or so cities and whip out 10-11 horse archers. Then attack the AI."
Probably due to my ignorance, but I have no clue how I could do this.
Here's why: at the time I have 3 cities, they are still small. Whipping is limited and the more hammers you want to make up for, the more population it consumes. Maybe my city management / placement is completely wrong but mine are growing WAY slower than allowing for such whip spamming. And there's only so many forests to chop (plus ofc if you want to chop, you need to build workers, and not HA's).

The ottoman save looks rough because my downfall was already happening. Hence the pillaged water resources etc.

"3 cities by 2000bc is a good goal. I often go double settler at size 3-4 at start once I am working 2-3 food resources."
Normally I make one worker and then I wait for the settler to be built for like 20 turns. Then ofc you need additional workers once you have multiple cities, and at some point: soldiers. I managed to do a quick expansion once so far - postponing the production of everything but settlers and workers. The Zulus soon attacked me with a bunch of their unique warriors and that was the end of it.

"After looking at the maps, I agree with @Gumbolt that you should try to have more cities sooner, and always immediately adjacent to a food resource (under jungle doesn't count)"
Maybe it's my map settings but I rarely find food resource for each of my cities that soon, with maybe the exception of seafood.

When it comes to grabbing the good land before the AI does - some people recommend to build close so that cities can share good tiles, some say you go and put land grabbing cities at choke points and semi-distant but valuable resources… I'm kinda lost about which way to go.

With regards to the tech tree:
I am usually going for the Alphabet as soon as I can, as I enjoy tech trading a lot. The Portugal is an exception in this regard.
Now about the religious ones - often times when I ignore them, and I don't found my own religion, I simply don't get one, and then I'm not able to manage happiness in my towns because I can't build churches.
Recently I had a game with Persia where I got my first spread of religion in the 1500's. Up to that point my entire empire was religionless.

All in all I try again, focusing on even more early expansion (and believe me I thought I'm already focusing on it), and city placement.

Side note: in this persian game I had a weird experience (and somehow this is adding to my suspicion with the battle System):
I had a small stack of units with 5 Catapults in it, and I bombarded an enemy city. The defenses literally went down by 1 or 2% only from each bombardment. I bombarded with all 5 Catapults and the defenses were still above 90%. Then after my opponent ground down my stack, he went to attack my city on the other side of the border with 3 Trebs. His bombardment report looked like this: Down to 26%, down to 18%, down to 10%.
What is causing this? Aren't they supposed to do a set amount of damage to the defenses?
Thanks.

 

[Whisker]

Like I said before, fire up a game and upload the starting save and screenshot here and we will guide you through the expansion process.
Concerning your last question about city bombardment. Catapults have base rate of -8% per turn. If enemy has city walls, this is halved and halved again if they have a castle. Bombardment rate can be increased with accuracy unit promotion and other more advanced siege unit have a better base bombardment rate.

 

[Gumbolt]

You build a worker and switch to settler straight away? No wonder the settler takes 20 turns. Of course on epic speed setting it might take 5 or so longer turns. Ideally worker first. Then build warriors for a bit. At the start research techs relating to your resources such as agriculture, AH, fishing. Or Bronze working if you start with lots of forest. Once you improve the corn or other food resources at size 3-4 the settler build timing is closer to 10 turns on normal speed instead of 15-20. Your city needs to be working the improved tiles. With imperialist sometimes if you have a 3H tile and settle on a 2H tile settler first can be great..

If you had better food tiles near your capital then spamming cities by capital is okay. Here moving out a bit further is fine. On prince there are very few barbs. You likely get 1-2 free wins vs barbs too. Blocking off land can be very useful. Especially if you see flood plains or decent commerce resources. On higher levels the costs of expanding further away affects your early science rate.

I agree with Whisker. Fire up a save and lets see what you are doing first 10-15 turns and 40-50 turns. Start save too please. It's probably why you are not able to do HA rushes. Maybe no granaries, not chopping forest and cities that lack decent food resources in the inner ring.

 

[pattison1100]

Granaries I always build, and chopping always as well.
Now paying more attention to food resource in the inner ring.
Since my last post but before reading your responses I started a quick one (at Normal speed) and practiced the more hasty expansion.
I did not do a starting save though - next time.
I had the 3 cities by 2000BC and kept going for those spots with important resources / blocking neighbours.
I only put some warriors, no military. I'm at 250BC and Ghengis declared on me, I think this is it. I have no military, he can wipe me off. Was my expansion too much? I already started to feel claustrophobic, so I thought I needed to grab more land...
I tried to trade with Ghengis to build a diplomatic relation but he was not willing. I was kinda expecting him to attack eventually.
Criticism please, thanks!
Please note that some resources only became visible later on.

 

[Gumbolt]

You will learn nothing on high sea level settings. The AI capital was 5 tiles away. Almost forcing you to do an early rush. Can you not play on normal settings?

Expanding 2 tiles away from an AI city is not good. Even on prince level your cities will get gobbled up by culture. The 3 cities by China should not of been settled there. Serves no purpose as they have no food to grow on and can't protect their cultural borders. Better to attack a neaby AI and grab their land than settle poor cities. Play the map!

The cows/corn above Mongol area looked interesting for a city. It's just so tough on a high sea level game to learn basic gameplay. Settling 3 tiles away from an AI capital is fine if you plan to take them out.

Here you would of been forced to rush an AI with HA or axe/swords very early on. Sadly BW arrived before you knew copper was there. Your copper city had no clams in inner ring. Maybe you didn't see it.

No one is saying don't build units. If you have a warmonger next to you having an axe/sword can help if you see them building up units. Once the AI runs out of land to expand into they will likely start plotting war. 4 units is not a lot of units for 250bc.

I like fact you have 8 cities and fact you got 3 cities by 2000bc. City placement is still a major weakness for you.

Ideally we want a save well before 1000bc to see what you are doing early on. Starting save is key.

You would need to whip axes or HA here but I fear that is too late. His stack has a catapult so you could of whipped HA everywhere. Meaning you had 6 turns to build defences. The AI will always bombard first.

 

[pattison1100]

Okay, I’ll try normal sea level next time.
I did not think that it makes that much of a difference on Pangea map - judged by the name.
Please note that I’m still very new to the game, this was my first game on a Pangea.
I managed to get many cities, some of which were not in an ideal position, I know, but the Chinese were there, so that’s why. Now I know that we were cramped due to high sea level.
I am curious how I could keep up with the army building AND have cities. I was practically building settlers the whole time.
I’ll try again and see.

 

[Gumbolt]

GK had a stack of 4 units. You could of whipped cities.. You can chop forest. worth 20H each in your cultural borders. Tiles further away get less hammers (H). No reason why you could not of started planning a war 2000bc or even before. Don't wait for the AI to attack.

If you whip a axe for 2 pop with only 4 hammers invested the overflow (OF) from a 2 pop whip is 29H. So often you can use this with a forest chop or OF to complete 2 units in 2 turns from the same city.
Same is true for all units. HA. If you have 19 hammers invested from previous builds you can whip for 2 pop and have 29H OF. One chop might complete a second HA.
Chopping/whipping and use of whip OF will build you huge armies.

So a city producing 4 hammers a turn. You produce axe for 1 turn so it has 4 hammers invested in it the next turn. At size 4 you can then whip for 2 pop. This complete the axe. And you will have 29 OF next turn to put into another build. If you have 5+ hammers in the axe it would be a 1 pop whip as each whip uses 1 pop which is effectively worth up to 30 hammers

Axe 35H build.
4/35H whips to 29H OF at pop 4 or higher in city.
6/35 1 pop whip with 1H OF.

HA 50H invested whipped at 4 pop gives 29H OF.
18H invested gives you 28H OF

Add in chops to this and you can build a large army very quickly.

 

[Gumbolt]

Try this game. Plenty of land for you to attempt to settle. Prince. I turned off huts and events to help you focus on the basics.

 

[Lennier]

I did not do a starting save though - next time.

The starting save should be in the auto save folder and not be deleted until you start a new game.