Struggling with move from Noble to Prince

[mikew633]

Hi all,

I have been playing on Noble for a little while now, and am pretty comfortable with it. I am trying to make the move up to prince but am having trouble doing so. I start off fairly well, and even eliminate a rival civ or two, but by mid-game I am far behind in the tech race and therefore the game. I usually play on Marathon speed on Huge maps (11 total civs).

I am fairly new to this forum, so am not sure the best way to ask for and receive advice. Please feel free to let me know any additional info I could provide for you all to critique my play.

Thanks!

 

[Cam_H]

Mike,

Please note The Everyone's Guide to Getting Advice! that might be of use. If you are going to post a game, certainly don't do one from 1850AD or something like that - go for late BCs. There's a lot of commentary in this linked thread about how to ask an appropriate question and post relevant screenshots.

Certainly, if you've yet to do so, please also consider going through the generally excellent Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners that contains a lot of useful tips (although you can debate 'The 60% Rule' bit).

Loads of information in The War Academy.

A lot of 'series' type games can be followed in this forum (e.g. The Noble's Club) where you can download a game, play along, and read others' experiences of playing the same map.

Some people including TheMeInTeam and AbsoluteZero have done plenty of Immortal and/or Deity games on YouTube that you can follow to at least get an idea of how to play at tough levels (although I can't say I support automating Workers). Obviously playing at Prince allows for more latitude, and not all tactics applied in these videos are required or necessarily relevant to Prince level play, but I think it may be worthwhile to check them out nonetheless. There are others beyond these two guys who also have Civ4 videos on YouTube that are worth checking out too.

Personally, I would suggest you play on standard settings (normal sized 'regular' shaped map {fractal, continents, pangaea}, normal or Epic speed, standard number of AIs) to get a better handle on the game, but I'll be the first to admit that it's your game and you can play with whatever settings that you like! Once you've mastered 'standard' map settings, then I'd suggest tackling more exotic settings if you wish. My 2¢ at any rate.

I suppose four 'traps for young players' are; (a.) have a keen eye to specialising your cities rather than creating too many 'hybrids' - see Sisiutil's Guide for more on 'specialisation', (b.) World Wonders can be terrific but don't overdo them - they're expensive and should be sought out to provide a clearly defined function, not built completely on a whim, (c.) do not automate your Workers at very least until you're sure that your game is 'all but won', although I never automate my Workers, and (d.) food is terribly important for most cities, so look for potential sites that have good food yields so that cities don't quickly stagnate their populations.

Anyway, hopefully some of this is of help, and best of luck!

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

What he said.

The most likely problems with your play are that you are (a) playing without a plan, and (b) wasting a bunch of turns doing making non winning moves. Eventually, the clock just runs out on you.

The first 50 or so turns (normal speed - roughly 150 turns marathon) are critical to later success.

 

[GGracchus]

Mike,

Please note The Everyone's Guide to Getting Advice! that might be of use. If you are going to post a game, certainly don't do one from 1850AD or something like that - go for late BCs. There's a lot of commentary in this linked thread about how to ask an appropriate question and post relevant screenshots.

Certainly, if you've yet to do so, please also consider going through the generally excellent Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners that contains a lot of useful tips (although you can debate 'The 60% Rule' bit).

Loads of information in The War Academy.

A lot of 'series' type games can be followed in this forum (e.g. The Noble's Club) where you can download a game, play along, and read others' experiences of playing the same map.

Some people including TheMeInTeam and AbsoluteZero have done plenty of Immortal and/or Deity games on YouTube that you can follow to at least get an idea of how to play at tough levels (although I can't say I support automating Workers). Obviously playing at Prince allows for more latitude, and not all tactics applied in these videos are required or necessarily relevant to Prince level play, but I think it may be worthwhile to check them out nonetheless. There are others beyond these two guys who also have Civ4 videos on YouTube that are worth checking out too.

Personally, I would suggest you play on standard settings (normal sized 'regular' shaped map {fractal, continents, pangaea}, normal or Epic speed, standard number of AIs) to get a better handle on the game, but I'll be the first to admit that it's your game and you can play with whatever settings that you like! Once you've mastered 'standard' map settings, then I'd suggest tackling more exotic settings if you wish. My 2¢ at any rate.

I suppose four 'traps for young players' are; (a.) have a keen eye to specialising your cities rather than creating too many 'hybrids' - see Sisiutil's Guide for more on 'specialisation', (b.) World Wonders can be terrific but don't overdo them - they're expensive and should be sought out to provide a clearly defined function, not built completely on a whim, (c.) do not automate your Workers at very least until you're sure that your game is 'all but won', although I never automate my Workers, and (d.) food is terribly important for most cities, so look for potential sites that have good food yields so that cities don't quickly stagnate their populations.

Anyway, hopefully some of this is of help, and best of luck!

 

[coanda]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that your biggest problem is worker management - I can't conceive of any way that a player who eliminates two AIs, takes their lands, and uses proper worker management could lose on Prince.

Open up one of your games right now, and look at your city screens. If you're working more than 1 or 2 unimproved tiles in your empire, your worker management needs improvement.

The start is simply having enough workers. Generally 1.5 workers per city makes a reasonable guideline, but that is only a guideline; if you have 4 cities and 6 workers, but are still working unimproved tiles, you need more workers. If you have 4 cities and only 4 workers, but all the tiles your cities are working are improved, that's just fine.

As far as actually using your workers... first improve your special resources. Food resources (e.g., corn) take top priority. Second priority is to improve your strategic resources - copper, iron, horses - and get a road network connecting your strategic resources to your cities. Then worry about improving the rest of your resources. At that point you want to start specializing your cities. Cities with 3+ food resources can make good GP farms, which means you want to run lots of specialists in them. Cities with several production resources, or lots of hills, can make good production centers; get a few farms to help them grow if necessary, and get mines on the hills. Cities with lots of floodplains or flat grassland (and/or several commerce resources like gold) can make good commerce cities, and do well when loaded up with cottages. You want all your cities to have a healthy food surplus - at least 4 surplus food is good. You can use slavery and the whip to keep them from becoming unhappy, but if they don't have enough food they'll grow too slowly to be worthwhile.

Forests in cities that need border pops from a monument or library, are working on wonders, or are working on new military units for an upcoming war can and should be chopped to speed things up. You can also chop forests to speed up production of more workers and settlers, or actually for just about any purpose, but those are less important than the above three causes (where saving 1-2 turns might mean the difference between complete success and total failure).

As your cities start to run into health and happiness problems, you should be hooking your non-strategic resources up to roads (but there's no real need to do so far in advance).

Later in the game workshops start to become useful, and it can make sense to replace some farms with workshops starting around Guilds and onwards.

If you have nothing urgent to chop, all your cities' tiles are improved, all your cities have at least one tile extra improved for when they grow, and your road network is giving all of your cities access to all of your resources, then and only then would I worry about building roads that serve no purpose but to speed movement.

 

[Tortfeasor]

I only made the hop from Noble to Prince fairly recently myself so hopefully I can give some relevant advice. The three most important things that I had to work on were:

1. Have a plan, not necessarily from turn 1 but if you're at turn 150 and you don't know what type of victory condition you're aiming for then you sir are in trouble.

2. More workers! Several other people have already said this but it's that important, an unworked tile is a stone around the neck of your empire.

3. Stop worrying and learn to love the whip. If you're paying attention to #2 then your cities should be growing at a good pace towards their happiness cap. Get some use out of those soon to be unhappy citizens, markets to boost your happy cap, courthouses to kill maintenance, I don't usually change from slavery till I hit democracy.

Just my two cents.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Possible problems:

You're simply warring too late. Focus totally on units and not that much on buildings. If you're aren't in the enemy capital within 20 turns on Prince once you declare war, you either came too late or don't have enough.

Chop chop chop!

The result of this is that wars take too long and you'll fall behind-- wars must end quickly as possible.

Once you've consolidated your conquests, it's best to use your gold from capturing cities on research by driving up the slider. Most important is writing, if you don't have it yet, and use scientist specialists to research. Currency and monarchy are very important techs. Currency gives you more trade routes, and lets you build wealth. Monarchy is good for your retired soldiers.

Another thing that really helps post war is to work more commerce tiles instead of hammers. There comes a time before you have alphabet/currency where you can't build wealth or research yet you don't need to build anything else either. But that's usually not too big of an issue for now..

 

[mikew633]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I have attached two screenshots from my latest game. I am Pacal II, playing at the Prince level on a Huge Pangaea map at Marathon speed. I have attached a globe view screenshot covering my empire, as well as a zoomed-in shot with the score.

I actually started this game off pretty well, got the Great Wall and the Pyramids built and founded Hinduism in Mutal. I was going for a Hybrid Economy (One wealth city (Mutal) w/ merchants to keep research at 100%, and the rest research cities w/ cottages). I also have a strong production city in Chichen Itza.

I was building an army, preparing an offensive when Shaka declared on me. I destroyed one of his cities and was planning on going for the rest of his nation when Gilgamesh, Sitting Bull, Ragna, and Justinian declared on me just a few turns from these screenshots. At that point it was pretty much game over, as my military wasn't large enough to handle all five threats. As you can see by the score, even if I wasn't attacked by all five civs, I am still far behind the leading civs, so the prospects didn't look good. This is how most of my Prince games have been going, a strong start and then falling behind by early mid-game.

Let me know if there is any other details I can provide that would help give the full picture. Any advice, critique would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Carboniferous]

Founding your own religion and all other civs except one in other religions is the problem, I think. Did you notice the 5 civs who dogpiled you are all buddhist? Shaka's a nutcase, although it sounds like you were prepared there.

Post an early save - on Prince it should be possible to out expand and out tech the AI. I'm sure there are some other things too.

 

[Mylene]

The main problem is probably Marathon
It is forgiving on small management mistakes, and blurs your thinking with the "everyting takes forever" stuff.
It also favors war, and you don't learn how to properly handle an empire.

So i'd go to normal speed and pick a normal sized map for my next games.
For those you can get a lot of good advice here if you post saves, Marthon is just really hard for most to analyze.

The more workers advice is a 2 edged sword normally, there are tactics where building not so many is better.
It can help to get out of the hole of not improving your cities, but it doesn't teach how to use them efficient.
A few unimproved tiles here and there is not always a reason to waste hammers and growth on another worker.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

5 cities at 800 AD? You should have a lot more than that.

 

[bhavv]

Founding your own religion and all other civs except one in other religions is the problem, I think.

Theres nothing wrong with founding your own religions as they can provide a significant economic boost if you can also alsoe spawn a Great Prophet.

The problem lies in players who feel the need to make the religion they found themselves their state religion, while all the AI is running something else.

Owning a holy city and spreading that religion is good, but only in the mid game. At the start of the game you shouldnt bother with trying to get a religion founded.

The best religions to found are either Confucianism or Taoism as both of these come with important techs that you need (CoL for courthouses, Philosophy for the Liberty Race).

Its a good idea to keep a Great Scientist around that can bulb philo for you if no one else has done so yet.

 

[GGracchus]

Theres nothing wrong with founding your own religions as they can provide a significant economic boost if you can also alsoe spawn a Great Prophet.

The problem lies in players who feel the need to make the religion they found themselves their state religion, while all the AI is running something else.

Owning a holy city and spreading that religion is good, but only in the mid game. At the start of the game you shouldnt bother with trying to get a religion founded.

The best religions to found are either Confucianism or Taoism as both of these come with important techs that you need (CoL for courthouses, Philosophy for the Liberty Race).

Its a good idea to keep a Great Scientist around that can bulb philo for you if no one else has done so yet.

I believe that he's referring to founding a religion early-game, which is generally a bad idea, as it diverts you from key worker techs while you try to go for religious techs.

 

[bhavv]

In my current game I'm playing, Taoism was founded in 150 BC

I had Pericles as an opponent on Emperor = sod trying for the Liberty Race or anything else

 

[GGracchus]

In my current game I'm playing, Taoism was founded in 150 BC

I had Pericles as an opponent on Emperor = sod trying for the Liberty Race or anything else

Wipe him out. He's only got a 25 unit prob.

 

[Carboniferous]

I believe that he's referring to founding a religion early-game, which is generally a bad idea, as it diverts you from key worker techs while you try to go for religious techs.

I was more refering to the combination of founding a religion, and running it when all the other civs bar one are in one of two religious blocks. Given you are playing on large maps with more civs, there is more chance one of them will decide to attack you if you are weak, which you may have been after Shaka attacked. I'm not sure if marathon speed scales the chances for when civs test if they will go into war preparation, but that may not help you either.

Without a save, it's hard to comment on the details of the diplomacy - whether the player gave into demands, etc...

Generally though, if you are learning a level - I'd leave founding early religions to better focus on other areas of the game.

 

[Carboniferous]

(double post)

 

[mikew633]

Thanks for the advice guys - it would make sense to adopt Buddhism or Judaism to improve relations. Also regarding the relations - I normally never accept AI's trade offers as they are usually not even trades, with the AI getting the better end of the deal. Also I never give in to demands of tribute from the AI as well. Should I change this approach?

And in response to only having 5 cities - I agree, it is probably not where I should be this late into the game. I founded 3 cities early and picked up another two via cultural revolutions, and have not started warring until just recently when Shaka declared on me. Should I have been more aggressive with settling more cities earlier?

I have also attached my save from the same time the screenshots were taken.

EDIT: As per Carboniferous, I have also attached a much earlier save, from 700BC.

 

[coanda]

I normally never accept AI's trade offers as they are usually not even trades, with the AI getting the better end of the deal. Also I never give in to demands of tribute from the AI as well. Should I change this approach?

Don't judge trades by whether you or the AI gets the better deal. Judge them by whether it's better for you than not trading. There was a thread on this forum recently where players debated circumstances under which they would accept deals as lopsided as something like 20 gold for Aesthetics (and there are several situations where I would).

As far as the demands of the AIs... if they could make your life unpleasant by attacking you, and their demand isn't too painful (they aren't demanding the tech for a wonder you just started, or a monopoly military tech, or an absurd amount of gold), just give them what they want.

 

[barbertje]

EDIT: As per Carboniferous, I have also attached a much earlier save, from 700BC.

I think you should give more priority to improving the terrain, espescially the food.
You should also try to settle near food. The corn/sheep location in the north isn't even explored. I think there should have been time to put a city near the corn SW of the capital

Researching an early religion will slow your growth, and will only start to pay off much later. Researching masonry and building the great wall is a good move on this huge map, but it will slow your growth even more.
researching Iron working and not animal husbandry, and not working a single food resource will slow your growth even more.

The slow expansion problem was however fixed by shaka who put one city where it would be flipped, and he gave a 2nd city away. This a rather unexpected benefit of having a holy city. However, the new cities are undeveloped and are a drain on your economy. You should have built a few riverside cottages by now.
Researching iron working so early, without a clear benefit (gems/jungle/attack on someone) will damage your economy. With so many AI, someone should be willing to
trade it for alphabet

Once you have writing, you should built a library soon, and then run 2 scientists. For this you need to grow your capital, and for that you need to improve tiles that
produce food.

I wouldn't want the pyramids here, since there is no stone, and the terrain seems better for cottaging, and there are also no forests left in the BFC of the city where you're building them.

You have 4 workers shopping a forest to the southeast, and you have built 5 mines, but the governor works 3 unimproved floodplains. What you should have done here, is start with farming a couple of flood plains, and only then build some mines, and finally chop the 2 forests in the 3rd ring (beyond that it's hardly worth it)

Your capital is building a worker using the wrong tiles. You get 3 more hammers/turn by using the horse and the 2 mines.

While your economy is definitely a problem at this point, it should be easy to save it with some cottages, and grabbing the marble and researching the aesthetics line and building the great library. (and some more marble wonders, possibly for failure gold)
No one has Aesthetics and a lot of people have alphabet already.

Grabbing the iron/marble spot soon will be good, even without food near, because you'll want some axes with Shaka around.