Some tips for Prince

[oldbustedjorn]

Well I am quite proud of myself, in that I never played above chieftain in either Civ2 or Civ3 - but now I'm playing PRINCE in civ4. I really must have missed alot...

I've won a few prince and lost one, but they were all on small maps which is usually where I start when I move up a level. Both prince wins were space, as I conquered all but a few civs in each game and one of the remaining was a runnaway techer - I just prioritized and had much production (and got the internet), so I barely won - just a few turns a head of the AI.

My question is this. I recently started a HUGE prince highlands map, and randomly became Cyrus. I'm not that far in but I know I'm in trouble.

Could someone give me some tips for playing PRINCE? One thing I noticed, is that I kept trying for ONE wonder and losing by a few turns and tried to get confusionism but missed by 2 turns. It seems no matter how hard I MM and prioritize, I still was a step behind.

I think it may be that I try for wonders at all at that point. I mean, I didn't have stone or marble close by, and I'm not industrious. That spelled failure when trying for pyramids. I did manage to get the Oracle and Colossus, but I feel it set me back because I was so desparate.

One other tip I could use is how fast to expand. I either go too fast and my economy sucks, or I go too slow and the AI has three times the land...

Just looking for tips...

 

[xdeath2]

A general tip I can give is to prioritize the major early resources (Iron, Copper, and Horses). Either one of those three can help you win an early war which is a great way to gobble up some crucial land area early in the game. Use those resources to build up a good enough military to conquer your nearest neighbor and take some of his great city locations. Your economy will tank very early but you'll set yourself up to be in a great position for the mid and late game. Improve those cities, get yourself some friends through savvy diplomacy, and keep up just enough military to keep the A.I. at bay and you can surge ahead of the A.I. in technology with about 10 developed great cities.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Here are some tips I consider useful, but obviously can't be applied in every situation. I usually play at Prince btw.

-Don't put as much emphasis on wonders as on lower levels. They become harder to get on Prince and up. It's more important to get a good economy going and to keep your military up to world standards. I've found the AIs are more likely to attack you at Prince if your military becomes a fair bit weaker than theirs, than on lower levels.
-Getting a religion or not is hard to decide on Prince. In some games there are more important goals, but in other games (eg. culture victory games) you may want to get one or two at least.
-Take more time to MM your openings when playing on Prince. Obviously you'd do this even more on higher difficulties but it is still something to note nonetheless. Consider chopping your first settler after building one or two workers.
-As xdeath2 noted, get an early strategic resource. Also, in the beginning, try to place your cities to secure the resources that can be used right away, like gold, silver, any of the grains, fish etc. Food resources are generally the best. Gold, silver and gems are good too - they will give an extra happy face after you have a forge, which you will probably build in many cities.

 

[oldbustedjorn]

Thanks for all the answers:

A general tip I can give is to prioritize the major early resources (Iron, Copper, and Horses).

Of course, as I was playing Cyrus, whose UU requires horses - there were absolutely NO horses anywhere. And I had popped to scouts and a warrior and so had 4 units exploring. Wasn't until I had explored 1/3 of the map that I found horses, and that was by the next AI. I did get copper though...

xdeath2, I usually conquer the closest civ as that works well for me. The problem is that when i went to a huge map, it would take quite a few cities for me to have the leverage to attack them that far away.

I really wanted a religion, because I knew I wouldn't have any trade routes for quite a while, but I didn't start with Myst, and so I didn't try for the two early ones. As I said, I took a shot at confusion and lost by a couple of turns. At that point, it would kill my whole game to try to get Taoism or Islam...

And I actually chopped a worker and a settler, and they did help greatly. I think I just got caught up in the wonder race and used too many chops for wonders that I lost - instead of settlers and workers. And when you don't start next to someone, you need to expand fast.

Thanks for the help though.

 

[denogginizer]

I'm running into similar problems playing on Prince. I started a continents game a couple of days ago, and got off to a pretty good start - stonehenge, oracle, 3 turns short of pyramids (cha-ching). Playing as Ghandi, I had three cities, 15 (maybe more) axemen, decent defense in every city, and was leading by 1 or 2 techs on my continent. I managed to shove all but one of the Incan cities off my continent with my axemen (though there was a nearby island that now houses 3-4 more cities). This gave me iron. I started building swordsmen and catapults (having recently discovered Construction). I moved in on Montezuma and took half his empire before succumbing to unhappiness and maintenance. After several turns of rebuilding my military and sticking libraries/barracks/markets in my cities, I kicked Cyrus off the continent, leaving him with 2 cities on a small island. During my war with Cyrus, I met the other three civs from the other continent - Victoria, Caesar, and Mansa Musa. They all had a tremendous tech lead - by 7 or 8 techs easy. I started to finish of Monty and got him down to one city when Caesar declared war and landed cavalry next to a city defended by a longbowman and two archers (most of my musketmen were defending cities on the war front). I lost the city but took it back one turn later (minus all improvements of course).

Is it my war-mongering ways that allowed me to slip so far behind the other continent?

 

[budweiser]

I play on Prince. Unless you are organised, only plan on building 3 or 4 cites to begin with. If organised you can probalby get one or two more. Expand later as land and money allow.

I start at the bottom of the tech tree and work up. Get mining, and then bronze asap. Start on turn one with a woker, then chop a worker and then chop a settler, then play catchup on your army.

Stonehenge is cheap and easy to shop. It will lead to a Great Prophet and then pretty much the religion of your choice; tao, confusus, christianity that is. That is the middle part of the tree. Unless I am going wonder crazy, I only ever think about this one, maybe the oracle, but that's it.

After you get mysticism, you need to work further up the tree towards, pottery, writing and so forth. You know where the bronze is so try and settle your way towards it. If its just to far, then yoy can drop back down and get Iron working, this should take care of your military needs. Consult the demographics often, checking on army size. Stay at the top of the heap by building large numbers of axemen. You can go on a rampage if you want after you run out of peaceful expansion rooom.

Keep your capitol maxed out on pop. It's your most important city. Make sure your new cities chop a worker first and you will have plenty of workers to imrove your best tiles.

With many food bonuses around your capitol, you can afford to build a libray and then use a pop point for a scientist, this will get you a great person eventually. Try and get this in play as soon as you can.

Build your cottages as soon as you have the pop available to work them, but try and grow up to the max happy limit first.

When you cities are getting big and pushing the happy limit, then its time for a king to arrive on the scene. Get Monarchy and then you can use soldiers to keep your cities happy. Then your worry only becomes health. Granaries and aquaducts go here. If you can, get the granary sooner because you will grow faster.

Try this and you should be pretty safe from your neighbors and free to play the rest of the game as you see fit.

I didnt mention money, but work that in before you get too big. A court house or a market will get you more money which will allow you to acquire more cities.

This is where your axemen come in. They will be more than enough force to annex a few border towns from your neighbor. Get catapults though before you try and take any of his advanced cities.

 

[oldbustedjorn]

Get Monarchy and then you can use soldiers to keep your cities happy.

I keep forgetting this point. On easier levels, you don't need to worry about happy and health. On prince (and much worse on higher levels im' sure), they start to become a problem. As far as HR goes, I've never used it in a personal game. But it makes sense - you can get happy and build mil at the same time.

I will definitely try that next game...

 

[ShaLouZa]

Is it my war-mongering ways that allowed me to slip so far behind the other continent?

Definitely. Expanding a lot means high cost of maintenance for all these cities, and therefore low research rate. If it was my game, I's most probably lower the costs by building courthouses and financial buildings, improve the tiles by spamming cottages and run some scientists in my more developped cities to catch up. Also go for nationalisation asap, to lower the costs again. It will take some time, but having more cities than the others will allow you to catch up eventually and then take the lead.

Either that, or you try to crush them. But macemen versus infantry doesn't work well.