There is a massive gap (IMO) between warlord and prince

[Leathaface]

On warlord I can get wonders much more easily. I'm on a standard map ATM and have 3 cities. (as do the other civs.) I could have 2 cities building wonders, the other 1 building military units and yet I could have 60000 points in military points, while the average is 40000.

On prince, I need to keep building units in 4/5's of my cities to keep up with the number one military power. Wonders are build way way quicker by other civs and they declare much more easily. The maintaineance of roads and military units is (from my view) a lot higher on prince, they can crash your economy. (and WILL crash my economy, as i'm not an experienced player yet.)

So on warlords I build units in 1 city, knowing I won't get declared upon period, i'm coasting. Whereas in prince I have to keep building units in 4/5's of my cities and the other civs still declare war. So much of a gap. I am still learning, and I haven't played many games on prince, but this is what I think so far. I coast on warlord and stumble every time on prince.

(BTW i'm on the latest patch, and I play on epic speed.)

 

[Donaskme]

Wonders become increasingly pointless, and your military increasingly important, as you move to higher difficulty levels. Building a lot of wonders is not a part of most victory conditions past Prince difficulty.

 

[Aldor]

You don't have to build military units in all your cities. Its usually enough to build one garrison unit along with each settler (archers are quite good for this), and then "some" extra units (horses are nice since you can move them fast between your cities). "Some" of course depends on your situation (if you are sandwiched between Alexander and Montezuma, you probably want more units

As for maintenance costs: look into the Tradition social policy tree (garrisons are maintenance free), if you find roads are often expensive, try playing as Inca for example (no maintenance for roads built on hills). Often times it also helps to sell an extra luxuries to other civs (until your income can cover your costs).

And I agree with the above poster: wonders are nice, but don't prioritize them.

 

[Dentalfury]

I wouldn't really call it massive.

I typically play between Warlord and King and don't bother on playing higher than that because i'm not a masochist.

I would say there is a significant difference in production and aggressiveness between the setting. The AI is also playing to win, and the recent patch changes, and GnK generally, really drives that home imo.

 

[Socratatus]

There isn`t a massive gap. Play Prince more before jumping to sweeping conclusions.

 

[The Little One]

I agree. Warlord is far too easy for me at the moment but for a few months after basically mastering Warlord I would still get owned on Prince. I can handle it now (ever since G&K when the AI stopped declaring war on you for no reason quite so much) but the gap is still big...

 

[mrscotty]

Warlord-prince-king are the two biggest gaps in skill level necessity, I find. My problems with beyond king is that the game becomes "find the exploit" in the AI's real flaws.

The biggest jump from warlord to prince is, as you mentioned, the need for 2 things. 1: wonder prioritization. In warlord your capital can just pump out wonders continuously, in prince you really have to decide which you want to push for and get. This also informs your military-you will get wonder grabbed every once in a while, and you may want to go after and capture the cities that did build the wonder.

2: The other big one is military plurality. In warlord you can be assured of tech superiority very early and consistently, and that means your military can easily handle a DOW with massed enemy units, because it's spearmen going against your crossbows, and you can easily have 1 military unit for every 2 cities and hold off an offensive push. At prince, you need 1 per city minimum and a good road network to funnel them in emergencies to the point of attack. This cuts down on your wonder productiveness significantly, because wonders simply cannot be your priority in such a risky situation. At King, (aka the first level the AI cheats with both hands) this one is ENORMOUS. You need much more of a military, and therefore the economy and civics to support that military is vital. This makes for expanded fronts, bigger battles and a need for very conservative "arithmetic of war" because one unit lost for every three of your computer opponents is a bad deal.

Summary: if you want to make the warlord-prince jump, only build the wonders your chosen victory strategy supports, start tradition rather than liberty for a more balanced/defensive start (esp if you want to retain some of your wonder capacity because who doesnt like wonders) and make sure your military is much tougher than it would otherwise be. Emphasis on ranged units especially.

 

[Donaskme]

My problems with beyond king is that the game becomes "find the exploit" in the AI's real flaws.

I agree, it seems to just get gimmicky past King. I've won a few on Emperor, but don't enjoy it much. I'm having much more fun ... at the moment at least ... experimenting with various civs and victory conditions rather than increasing the difficulty beyond King. I'll likely even try a diplomatic victory before going beyond King, and I've never even considered that before, ever. Even in Civ 4.

 

[mintcandy]

I think the biggest gap between warlord and prince is that Prince difficulty removes the ability to find Settlers and Workers in Ruins.

Getting an early free Settler or Worker in Ruins is HUGE.

 

[Donaskme]

Getting an early free Settler or Worker in Ruins is HUGE.

I didn't even remember that! But on Prince you can still waste turns building all your settlers and workers and still be viable in the early game. By King you better be buying most of your settlers and stealing most of your workers. That was what tripped me up the first few times I went King; building servants when I should have been building archers.

 

[Jelster]

Build military buildings, they add towards your unit upgrades. Recently I had bombers coming off the production line with 2 or 3 promotions before they get into battle. The only difference is that I'd built some defensive buildings as I had some spare gold.

Now I make that one of my priorities if I'm going to get into some warfare. I play Prince, or when I feel lucky, King.


It is true that as you you up the skill level you do need to prioritise your construction tasks. I find that I now have a number of items in a list to be built, and splash the cash for culture or science buildings, depending on the route I'm taking.

 

[Djinn8]

The biggest gap is between Settler and Deity

 

[Dogmouth]

No, it's not really gimmicky past King. That said, I do find diety gimmicky, although some consistent diety players likely disagree .

I'm not familiar with the gap between warlord and prince (I play 85% emperor and 15% immortal -- there is a really big gap between these two difficulties). That said, my advice to you would be to focus on settling new cities and selling/obtaining luxes in the early game. This means settling on luxes where possible and settling relatively closely for defensibility and road maintenence. Keep your happiness close to zero unless you're about to expand (money from trades > excess happiness). If you do well in the early game on prince, you should be able to coast the rest of the game (hell, this is true in emperor).

 

[Matthew.]

I think all difficulties have quite a gap, largely due to several variables changing as opposed to a few. It isn't just food bonuses, but food bonuses, happiness bonuses, production bonuses, free starting units, free techs, diplo modifiers, etc. Several small bonuses add up to a significant change.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

As for me, I consider emperor <-> immortal to be the biggest step in case of difficulty.

Giving the AI all tier I techs completly changes the early game and renders most below-immortal strategies void.

 

[Adjuvant]

In varying levels of difficulty there are sequential plateaus of military might one can reach to be "secure". This likely won't even require walls before king, and maybe not even with appropriate range unit cover. Emperor requires walls, a slightly larger proportion of defensive units and in the event of a two-front war choke points and citadels are absolutely required. This isn't specifics but a broad generalization.

Once you reach your comfortable modicum of defense, you really don't "have" to maintain an arms race for a number of reasons, unless you're opening up a domination run. It is good to maintain the units' technological advancements.

Do you feel you need 30 units because you're behind technologically? That has remedy in build order. If you're not behind technologically, 5-6 "current age" units should stave off any single (or filtered dual) AI player attack on warlord/prince. If you actually spring for the wall/castle and citadel placements, the number's more like 2 or 3, and 6 or more will inevitably be pushing them to lose a city of their own.

 

[mintcandy]

Regarding the OP, an addiction to World Wonders is one of the first habits to break as a beginning player, regardless of the desired victory condition. Even a cultural victory doesn't require a civilization to build more than 15 World Wonders.

Yeah, I know, it's hard to resist building World Wonders, but they are a huge drain on your hammers, especially in the crucial early eras.

Also, refrain from building redundant roads. A redundant road is a road that isn't essential in connecting a city's trade route to your capital. If you're building roads in every single tile of your cultural territories, that's way too many roads.

Finally, it is okay to disband units if maintenance gets crippling. For example, if you have 10+ Workers that don't have anything to do, it might be a good idea to disband some of them, because Workers cost the same amount of maintenance per turn as a military unit would. Further, try and keep the amount of existing Great People to a bare minimum, because Great People cost gold to maintain.

Similarly, it isn't necessary to station one of your military units on every single tile bordering another civilization's cultural borders. The maintenance for that many units can get expensive REALLY fast, especially if you aren't at war.

 

[manu-fan]

I agree with you OP. Everything changes in Prince making it a constant happiness/money/culture/religion balancing act. No longer can you blindly rely on the Warlord tactics you were using. It is a big jump.

Cheers.

 

[Leathaface]

Are garrisson units units in my borders?

 

[Browd]

Garrison units are units that are actually in one of your cities (not just in your culture borders).

In vanilla, you had to click the special garrison button for the unit to be "garrisoned", but that mechanical "gotcha" was eliminated in G&K.