Ready to move from Prince diff. To King diff?

Tre

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 18, 2012
Messages
23
So, I've played quite a few games on prince difficulty so far, and have watched a craptonne of videos (I'm more of a visual learner). Bottom point is that I more-or-less know what I'm doing. Out of the prince games I have played, I won 3 and stopped playing about 5 because they were tedious wars and were a sure win. But in all my games, the things that were driving me crazy was the lack of AI money for trading resources and making research agreements possible; at prince diff., it's more or less impossible. People are saying King Is significantly harder but when I saw the in-depth changes between diff. Levels, it didn't look like much.

TL;DR: When did you move from prince to king (not a date, but how many games you put into it) ?
What was your personal reason for moving out of prince (other then the obvious :))?
How did your first game go on king?
What to expect from king difficulty?
Honestly, if 10 games + watching LP series isn't enough to move on, how should I improve?
 
Imo, in king, it's hard to win before they get nukes. Now, you have to watch your back at all times. In Prince I can usually win just as they are finding the Atomic Era.
 
So, I've played quite a few games on prince difficulty so far, and have watched a craptonne of videos (I'm more of a visual learner). Bottom point is that I more-or-less know what I'm doing. Out of the prince games I have played, I won 3 and stopped playing about 5 because they were tedious wars and were a sure win. But in all my games, the things that were driving me crazy was the lack of AI money for trading resources and making research agreements possible; at prince diff., it's more or less impossible. People are saying King Is significantly harder but when I saw the in-depth changes between diff. Levels, it didn't look like much.

TL;DR: When did you move from prince to king (not a date, but how many games you put into it) ?

I moved from prince to king after about 5 win on prince.

What was your personal reason for moving out of prince (other then the obvious :))?

Just the obvious reason. Nothing special.

How did your first game go on king?

Terrible.

I was the Egyptians and the the Aztecs, Danish, and Greeks constantly attacked me to plunder my sarcophaguses and wonders. I could be progress in any way, so I evenually quit around the Renascence.

What to expect from king difficulty?
Honestly, if 10 games + watching LP series isn't enough to move on, how should I improve?

The think with Prince is that that are may strategies/playstyles that would give you great success in Prince, but will fail miserably in any higher difficulty.

For example, may playstyle is prince was very passive and very focused on building:

  • High priority on Wonders: I try to build as may wonders as I can
  • Lean military: very few units in peacetime, but will spend to upgrade to most recent tech.
  • Peaceful: I only declare war if a Civ has a resource I disparately need. I try to play nice with the other Civs through diplomacy and trade as best I can.
  • Build, Build, build: I usually build a buildings/wonders instead of unit.

Also, I was pretty aimless with tech: When it can to choosing a tech, I'd just choose the one that would take the least time to get.

This playstyle works on Prince: in the beginning, I'd be harassed by warmongers due to my small army and high number of wonders, but after by tech skyrockets above them, even my small number of units will have a higher military rating than their forces and they would leave me alone to do as I please.

On King, this strategy is garbage. Again, it'll get you in constant agonizing wars, and even if you get past that, you are all but guaranteed to have a runaway Civ take the game (usually with Science, if not, diplomacy).

To summarize, it all depends on how your strategy in Prince translates to the higher difficulty levels. I'd say that if you watch vids, then you are ready. That what I did when I got tired of getting whupped in King (after getting great advice from guys on this very forum) and to me, King is now easy.
 
your initial problems on king will be happiness management.. once you get past that hump you will have to consider military more.. this means you'll have to pass up wonder whoring early on and get yourself enough archers upgraded to composite bowmen.. once your defense and happiness issues are settled its really just like a prince game.. still not a ton of cash floating around..

focus on population and happiness buildings/military units/science buildings.. as for wonders, if you create yourself a sound civilization base with decent population and military you can always just take the capitals that have the wonders you desire..

dont abuse the production focus of the citizens in your cities.. use it rarely.. it limits your population and ultimately the tiles it could potentially work in the future..
 
I shifted my initial focus from wonders to settlers/workers and now try to get 2-3 additional cities up early. I usually have 4 great cities by the middle of the game with some gold producing cities scattered throughout. With these, I can pump out some later wonders which are generally better than earlier ones (a few early cities snowball better than a couple early wonders IMO)

Watching some LPs, especially LitesX or MadDjinn's, greatly helped my game. I had issues moving from Prince to King, but after watching those I can win a decent amount of games on Emperor and sometimes on Immortal.

I moved up to King when I knew I could win 90% of my games on Prince. The first couple of King games were rough because I tried to play them like Prince (wonder-spam, small armies, waiting to expand, etc). I lost the first game, narrowly beat the second, and lost the third. That's when I started watching LPs and trying to mimic those strategies. REXing is pretty important to get good spots (mild unhappiness initially may seem bad, but its fine if you stay above -10). I try to have 1 melee and 2 ranged units per city so that I have some type of defense if I get attacked.

I actually found the jump from Prince to King a lot bigger than the jump from King to Emperor. Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
 
Funny thing, I just beat a King game for the very first time! My third try, and the first two I was completely doing the same thing others talked about; playing like I was on Prince, goofing about with early wonders and lolly-gagging for expansion. This time I decided to spice things up and rush the expansion, see if I couldn't get two decent cities besides my capital before I started doing anything other than settlers/workers/military. (Besides basic infrastructure buildings, I mean.. I snuck in a granary etc here and there.)

The map was archipelago, I was Byzantine and actually most of the naval-friendly civs were present. I kicked ass and took names, largely due to aggressive expansion which allowed me to claim the best city sites and a variety of luxury goods. I'm really excited to play a few more games but I think I got things figured out; several times the AI should have really smacked me around but their combat AI still seems to be pretty weak when it comes to tactics, which is where I made up for the AI's advantages. Fun stuff!

Happy Holidays :cool:
 
It's pretty easy to win on King while doing all the stuff you did on Prince tbh. Sometimes you will get a runaway AI on King level but you can hold them off even with only one large, productive city.

Current game as France I was quite happy scooping up wonders when I got attacked by England and the Dutch same turn, but they had little chance vs my bows. Build at least one archer per city and upgrade to composite bowmen and crossbows asap. Make money, save money for when they attack. Make sure you have Oligarchy or just go full tradition if you are a builder.
 
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