Prince: Another attempt at getting better

[josh4bs]

So, if you remember, I posted a thread with Bismarck stuck in isolation. I appreciated everyone's comments on that thread and decided to give it another whirl, with a different leader.

Custom game; Prince Level; Shuffle Map; Normal Size; Normal Time

So, the game has been launched and the leader has been selected......

Good 'Ole Ceaser. I have never had the pleasure to play as Julius, so this will be interesting. Industrious and Imperialistic...

Industrious will lead one to think that wonders will be a big part of the strategy going forward. Maybe looking to Oracle Metal Casting to start building forges earlier????? So maybe looking at Mysticism earlier than I usually consider it with Priesthood/Oracle in mind.

Imperialistic...REXing on aisle 5...REXing on aisle 5. Our settlers are quicker to get out, so REXing will also be on tap. After the REXing, we will be going to war, a lot, for a long time, against everyone, a lot.

Now, what kind of start did the Heavenly Beings of Civ IV have in mind for us???

No stone or marble .
East of the river, if we stay, will provide food......and that is about it. Possible GP farm? If I settle 1E of the corn, that will allow for the gold to be picked up and will still yield the pigs E of the corn. I don't want to go too far N as it seems we are at the Northern section of our world.

Tech Path
We start with fishing and mining. Maybe there is a coast nearby that will allow us to utilize the fishing tech. The mining will allow us to get the gold and research BW soon to chop the plethora of forest surrounding us. Need to determine how to proceed.....
AG>AH>TW>BW>Myst>Poly>Priest?????

 

[krikav]

Tech path sounds about right.
Allthough you could probably skimp on TW for a while, if you find a good second city spot along the river (then the river would connect your cities).

I'm not sure I would move to get the gold, I think working gold in the first city often is debilitating. But the move also picks up a few more hills, which is good.

I would move warrior north-east to see if there are other goodies there as well.


About stone/marble, when you play as industrious, the relative worth of stone/marble accually decreases.

If you build a wonder without ind, with marble, you get a 100% boost.
If you allready have IND, the boost from the marble would just be 66%.

When playing as IND, you should not automatically go for a wonder-centric strategy, the strength of IND is that you can get the wonders you need cheaper.

All the national wonders get cheaper as well, which is very nice.


The fact that you will have gold early on, makes early forges a even better idea, I would probably go for MC relatively early, if you can pull of a oracle after those necessery worker techs, do it!

 

[coanda]

I'd be inclined to settle 1NW to pick up gold and spice; it'll give you a nice commerce capital a bit down the line, which will work well with Bureaucracy to pay for some Praetorian pointy-stick expansion.

AGR -> AH is definitely right; you could debate wheel or BW after that. Mysticism, Polytheism, Priesthood would be very dependent on what the map is looking like, so I'd play the first ~25 turns then stop and take stock of things again.

I didn't see any comments on early build path, but this is definitely a worker-first start. Probably getting your settler at size-3 or size-4 (remember that IMP leaders get +50% hammers for settlers, but not +50% on food surplus transferred into settlers - so after you improve the corn and pig, try to get a mine or two up to help get that settler out, or consider chopping it).

 

[Knightly_]

Just two small notes:
1. When you move 1NW you might lose a resource SEE of where your settler is at the moment.
2. Neither corn nor pig yields any commerce. Make a quick calculation to see if your worker has idle time if you don`t move (research time for AG+AH+TW/BW vs worker build time + turns to improve, i`m actually not familiar with research times on prince)

Knightly_

 

[josh4bs]

Tech path sounds about right.
Allthough you could probably skimp on TW for a while, if you find a good second city spot along the river (then the river would connect your cities).

Very good point about the river! I may indeed skip TW until I absolutely need to hook-up the resources.

I'm not sure I would move to get the gold, I think working gold in the first city often is debilitating. But the move also picks up a few more hills, which is good.

Not necessarily moving to get the gold, but it does bring into play the spices as well. Not that I can do anything with the spices at this point, but it is a good thing for later, as mentioned below.

I would move warrior north-east to see if there are other goodies there as well.

I will be moving the warrior S, since I am at the Northern part of the map, all early good things will be S most likely. Plus, when I settle 1W of the Corn, I will see the area the warrior would have revealed anyway.

About stone/marble, when you play as industrious, the relative worth of stone/marble accually decreases.

If you build a wonder without ind, with marble, you get a 100% boost.
If you allready have IND, the boost from the marble would just be 66%.

I didn't know that. Thank you for the enlightenment!

I'd be inclined to settle 1NW to pick up gold and spice; it'll give you a nice commerce capital a bit down the line, which will work well with Bureaucracy to pay for some Praetorian pointy-stick expansion.

AGR -> AH is definitely right; you could debate wheel or BW after that. Mysticism, Polytheism, Priesthood would be very dependent on what the map is looking like, so I'd play the first ~25 turns then stop and take stock of things again.

I didn't see any comments on early build path, but this is definitely a worker-first start. Probably getting your settler at size-3 or size-4 (remember that IMP leaders get +50% hammers for settlers, but not +50% on food surplus transferred into settlers - so after you improve the corn and pig, try to get a mine or two up to help get that settler out, or consider chopping it).

After looking/studying the map as you see it, I believe I will be settling 1NW (1W of corn). Seems to be the best spot at this moment, not knowing anything else about the map.

I will tech AG>AH, then post more to see what has changed about the available area.

Build path....Definitely worker first. I didn't mention it, since it seemed obvious to me at this point. Not sure I want to worker steal or if there is an opportunity to worker steal. So probably Worker>Warrior>Worker>Settler????? I won't get that far in my next turnset, but preliminarily that is the plan.

Great point about the hammers+ and not food. Will have to take that into consideration. Work Corn>Gold>Pigs?????

Just two small notes:
1. When you move 1NW you might lose a resource SEE of where your settler is at the moment.
2. Neither corn nor pig yields any commerce. Make a quick calculation to see if your worker has idle time if you don`t move (research time for AG+AH+TW/BW vs worker build time + turns to improve, i`m actually not familiar with research times on prince)

It is hard to make decisions based on what "might" be there. Have to work with what we know, and that leads me 1NW to settle.

Good point about the lack of commerce...below are the research costs for the techs in beakers:
AG = 85 or 9 turns
AH = 143 or 15 turns
TW = 85 or 9 turns
BW = 171 or 15 turns
Worker will take 15 turns.

The Worker can come out and work the Corn, then over to the Gold, then Pigs...he can probably be in the middle of the pigs by the time his brother comes out to help with things...I don't see a negative to moving.

 

[josh4bs]

I settled....and lo and behold...

WHEAT will be in the BFC! This is by far my fattest cross in a long while. So I am playing a leader who gets a plus on hammers when building settlers and I am given a bountiful food BFC!?! Nice Civ IV, very nice.

 

[josh4bs]

T4 marks the discovery of our first neighbor

Thank you for not being Shaka, Ragnar, Monty, etc.

 

[krikav]

So I am playing a leader who gets a plus on hammers when building settlers and I am given a bountiful food BFC!?! Nice Civ IV, very nice.

Whip and chop and you get that juicy +50% bonus on the entire settler.

 

[lymond]

Although this is only Prince and you can get away with it, I do disagree with AG>AH. AG>BW is a much stronger play. Mined Pigs hill is very nice early. The extra food from Pigs is not need so early with corn/wheat. Mined Pigs is 2F3H and with corn/wheat you have plenty of food to work gold and still grow. Meanwhile you will have chops to get out settlers and works fast, plus Oracle. Ignoring AH indefinitely will allow you to go POT>Priesthood for what should be a very early Oracle>MC.

 

[Mylene]

Yeps Lymo is right, if you can understand why AH after Agri is not good play here, that's 1 thingy learned

 

[josh4bs]

Although this is only Prince and you can get away with it, I do disagree with AG>AH. AG>BW is a much stronger play. Mined Pigs hill is very nice early. The extra food from Pigs is not need so early with corn/wheat. Mined Pigs is 2F3H and with corn/wheat you have plenty of food to work gold and still grow. Meanwhile you will have chops to get out settlers and works fast, plus Oracle. Ignoring AH indefinitely will allow you to go POT>Priesthood for what should be a very early Oracle>MC.

I was just looking at the map and thought..."Why should I research AH? I can mine the pig hill for the bonus of the Imp leader and if I need the food, farm the Wheat which I am going to do anyways. I need to research BW instead of AH." I almost feel like I "know" how to play the game, especially when I thought of something that lymond has suggested!!!!

So to paraphrase....AG>BW>POT>Priest

What do I need to have researched to be able to Oracle MC?

 

[May Day 10]

I support the 1W Corn placement.

Also, great points on the Pig Hill!

 

[josh4bs]

Throough T20...
This is what we know of the land we are on.

Justinian is down there on the southern part of the land. He has a Warrior scouting around and one in his capital, which is at population 2 or 3. So he hasn't made a worker at this point. I think the right thing to do is let him expand some with plans of a Praet rush on him as soon as I can. That way, I allow him to settle the part of the land that I cannot get to at the moment and I can concentrate on staying ahead and then wipe him off the map later on. Which shouldn't be too difficult.

Not too sure where the next cities will be. Land is pretty food poor outside of BFC...

I have completed farming the corn and am 2 turns away from finishing BW. I will mine the Pigs, Chop a forest, farm the Wheat.

I'm building a Warrior>Worker>Settler...

Tech path will be Pot>Myst>Poly>Priest>(Oracle MC)>Writing

Save attached.

 

[Cusanus]

Good 'Ole Ceaser. I have never had the pleasure to play as Julius, so this will be interesting.

You are Augustus, btw. "Good young Caesar", if you will.

 

[coanda]

Rather than say something like warrior -> worker -> settler, pick a size to grow to. Build warriors until you hit that size; you might want to micro tiles to make sure you finish a warrior at the same time, but generally you're building the warriors as much to buy time for your city to grow as you are because you actually need them this early.

E.g., you might build warrior* (to size 3) -> swap to worker -> settler -> finish warrior, or warrior* (to size 3) -> swap to worker - finish warrior and grow to 4 -> settler, or warrior* (to size 4) -> worker -> settler... you get the picture.

 

[krikav]

Skipping AH is nice with that wheat. Mined pigs are a strong tile.
And getting bw for whips/chops earlier here is golden.

Any perticular reason you want to go through polytheism toward priesthood, instead of through meditation?
Meditation is cheaper!

I usually only go through polytheism if I have marble around to get some failgold from temple of arithmetis.

 

[May Day 10]

agreed with coanda.

I normally go with a worker, then concentrate on growth, then switch to W --> S, etc... That way you will have an additional tile or 2 to get hammers/food which will make the W's and S's go much quicker. Plus you can have a W in the city or possibly roaming around popping goody huts, expanding your map, and meeting other Civs

 

[May Day 10]

keep em coming.
I probably at the same level, trying to win on Prince. This is helpful.

Dont know about next city. Would like to see what is N of the West Cows as well as East of Rome.

 

[Ghpstage]

Comment related to Mayday's comment above,

Early exploration is best used to find the best nearby sites to settle and get a feel for your imediate surroundings. As such having your exploring warrior running through the desert all the way out there isn't very helpful, especially when theres black tiles to the east and south of the capital as well as a cow+clam spot to the west (potential next city site) that hasn't been checked for more seafood.

 

[The Oz-Man]

Your explanation is missing a big chunk of land just to the south of your capital; get your next warrior down there PDQ (settle towards the green, as they say).

I'd work on getting the gold mine up quickly, especially if you want to self-tech IW and go on a Praetorian romp. Risk/reward is a little better on Prince for getting in a good romp, although you run the risk of making yourself isolated if you wipe Justinian. Just an idea.