Very strange start on Prince, help?

[varus]

I'm playing as Ghandi on Prince. I started the map in a beautiful spot, tons of food and nothing but grassland with two rivers. I couldn't help but think this was going to be insanely good for me.

I usually run an SE when I play as Ghandi, and/or I use some kind of hybrid (usually a capital running loads of scientists and the other cities doing regular cottages).

Well anyway, here are the difficulties:
-I'm all by myself. I have horses, but nobody to attack for hundreds of miles in any direction.
-I'm shoved into a small corner of the map, hemmed in by a sizeable desert. My first two cities have beautiful terrain, but it's wasteland after that. Up in the northern part of the dessert there is stone, copper, some floodplains, fish, and pigs. There is no way to hook all of them up. It's already a long haul just to get up there, I dont think I can afford two cities to get all the stuff.
-I don't have copper anywhere nearby (handiest bit is up in the desert, an it's a haul from where I start)
-There really aren't any money resources around. I was hoping for a gold mine or two, but there's nothing. There is one pitiful silver mine in the far south, even further away from me than the copper.
-Mansa Musa is magical (he can tech faster than life)


Anyway...
I've attached two save files.
One is the initial, to see if any of you would fancy giving this map a shot so you can tell me how things are done.

The other is my progress so far. I gave up, sensing that I wasn't going to get either of the wonders I wanted. (Parthenon and GL)
I fear I wont since I just dont have very much production or that many trees left. I think I should have passed on the Oracle in favor of saving trees for GL, but that's behind me now.
These screenies are from my current:

This one is my starting spot
This one is that desert
And here is that silver


Here's the initial

Here's the most recent auto
I'm not even sure where that one is, since I just quit without saving. It's bound to be close to where I left off though.
EDIT:
Ok, having just checked the last save there, I can make a couple comments:
-Delhi is working on the GL so it's running max hammers. That's why there are no specialists right now, but it's capable of supporting three or four.
-The city in the far northeast is my best attempt to use the resources north of the desert. My plan was to farm it up and run even more specialists.
-My westernmost city is still running some scientists, though I stopped using those too in an attempt to get the parthenon.
However, since I have such pitiful production I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose them both.
-I have no army. My hope was to be the nice guy since I was so far away and not have to face anyone until I had IW.
However, I can feel the tension building. I'm a heathen religion wise, so nobody really likes me, and they all keep demanding literature or alphabet. Of course I refuse those because I'm trying to get the GL, but I smell a storm coming. If even one AI were to declare on me, so much for that.

Anyway. Feel free to try the initial for yourself or take a look at my current. I'm totally noob to this stuff, but I can smell a lose when it's right in front of me. However, I just feel like I've failed in such a huge way with that beautiful green start.

So here I stand, asking you all what you would have done.

 

[Leventis]

I can't understand why you settled Bangalore where you did Obviously you wanted the iron, but border pops would have claimed that for you before long. Just from looking at your screenies, I think you would have been far better off settling a city 1E of the sheep (for horses and deer as well), and another city to claim the copper and cow. For all you know, there could also be seafood up there where you haven't explored You need to build up an army ASAP and go take some better land - it's the only way out of this hole. Anyway, good luck with the rest of the game

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Madras could have been your production center, if it would have been settled 1S.
I agree with leventis that bangalore should never have been founded there. It would have been better to found it 1E of the sheep to take the horses and deer.
Settle another city 2E to the copper, to claim the cows, and rice. With it yoiu would have 5 cities. 3 commerce city, 2 production cities.
Then build up for war and kill those incas.

 

[varus]

I checked how long it was going to take for a border pop to grab the iron, and it was 74 turns. I figured I was going to need it before that.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

It would have been faster to grab the copper for axeman and maceman. You only need iron for knights and crosbows.

 

[varus]

The problem was that there really was no copper within grabbing distance. But with Iron I could still build Axes and maces.

 

[Soneji]

hmm I still wouldn't have dropped that city quite where you did..

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

to me the copper near the incas, is in grabbing distance. Just like the sheeps. You have horses to defend the empire, and your starting spot should be able to fund those cities. Just cottage everything there.

 

[varus]

No doubt, it's a totally useless spot. However, like I said, I was kind of at a loss for what to do.

If I just sat on my rear and researched, well, that's a sure way to fall way behind. And since I had no production, the odds of me getting the wonders that would have made it less of a sure way to lose were very bad.

Meh. It's beautiful terrain. What I couldn't do there with State Property...

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I say start over, but expand a bit more agrassivly. Get those 5 cities up before the AD's start.

 

[Dirk1302]

I played the game (too much time on my hands due to a bad cold) and focused on research, cottaging the capital. I've Gunpowder, chemistry,printing press and replacable parts on Huyna. I can post a save if you're interested.

Edit: Where are the happiness resources in this game? Only Toku has spices and there is silver in an absurd place. I've researched archery to be able to build cheap units for HR.

 

[futurehermit]

The game looks perfectly fine to me, as does that desert-lodged city. Sure, it's not a great city, but it is necessary. It secures iron (good), it has some food it pinches from the capital (ok), but most importantly, it secures the land-based entry to your capital!!! It also connects the empire to the NE city, which is a very nice city.

It IS a bit late in the game for this few cities. I like to have 6 cities by say 200AD along with Civil service when I am miles away from a close neighbour.

However, all is not lost. I would say build a couple more cities (there are a couple ok spots still) and then gun (hardcore beeline) for cavalry (you have horses). Attack HC with cavalry. You should be able to take out his nice territory. Push on until you have sufficient land for a space-race win. I don't think domination is plausible with this map situation. But HC should have many mature cottages for you to work. Once you have a large enough land-base you can slap on the CE civics, cottage up, and gun for a space win. It won't be the fastest-ever, but it is certainly plausible at this point.

 

[frob2900]

IMHO You shouldn't have let youself get hemmed in by Huyana Capac. His +2 culture granaries and wonders will slowly press your borders back, making that terrain even less worthwile.

I gave your initial save a go; that terrain really isnt that bad. Past the desert you get two good military cities, the silver has fish next to it and theres a wonderful rice/floodplain/fish spot to the NW.

I decided to leave the outer part of the starting peninsula unsettled for a while, since there wasnt much risk of Huyana settling there. Heres the indian empire at 40 BC:



Delhi is farming great scientists and gearing up to be a big GP farm, the other cities are cranking axes/spears/chariots.

I attached a bunch of saves to illustrate the expansion strategy.

All those cities allowed for great military production, aided by whips/chops, resulting in a large indian army. Compare this force to Huyana's garrison forces!

This is the reason why even if you want to play builder, it pays to attack the AI on prince and below. Afterward you'll have many more cities and much more to build

Indian army:


Huyana's garrisons:


The war itself went well, end result, holy cities of buddhism/confucianism (one of them his capital + a city with some floodplains. I also attached a picture from the philosophy pop performed by the first Delhi GS. This gave taoism + a good tech for trading or a shot at the liberalism race (you can pop paper and education once you have CS)



EDIT:
Oh, and I almost forgot, while it might look like one has to fix the economy in the last saves, its not really necessary before Huyana is dead. I kept on attacking his last cities and founded a new city at the gold next to Mehmed. The indian empire is now pretty large, but whipping courthouses and building markets/wealth where necessary this is no problem at all. Delhi is running 2 scientists and 2 merchants and im thinking of going to pacifism, so science/gold is not going to problem at all once those Great People start arriving..

Running science at 0-10% for short times during rapid expansion is no problem so long as your immediate rivals dont have a military tech advantage (at this stage; later in the game there might be someone like Mansa whos rapidly teching toward space launch, then you need to really press up that science).

After cleaning up the economy and using a GS for education I got Liberalism in 1316 AD and took nationalism (its a late date.. on monarch the Huyana wars would have to have been put on hold to get it earlier). A great mechant gave 4050 gold on a trip to thebes and I'm now beelining rifling which should be in soon. After rifling/engineering, an empire the size of india in this game can take over the entire world by the use of drafting and whipping. Prince level AIs will topple over one after the other..

 

[frob2900]

Sorry for taking over the thread, but I just thought I'd post some score graphs of my game, in order to illustrate the "Land is Power" concept. I decided to play builder after wiping out Huyana (well.. he's still around, but his cities aren't exactly "premium real estate" ) instead of going after Mehmed (who was incredibly weak, sporting Longbows when I had rifles).

If I wanted to that GNP graph could be twice as high, by spamming more cottages, but I prefer large cities to enable me to draft quickly and whip stuff.

Culture............................Power........................Crop Yield........................Mfg.Goods........................GNP


Note the GNP dip around 630 AD. This was the end of my expansion wars.

Even though the GNP was low I was still leading in production. With all that land I got a lead in most graphs except power (which I didn't care about since Mehmed, my neighbor was weak and Buddhist, like me). The Mfg.Goods graph is really the best measure of power; if I wanted to I could get 3 to 5 times the power of the most powerful AI by spamming tanks and bombers (they dont even have industrialism).

The gameplay here was suboptimal; early tech was abysmal and I didnt really spam great persons like I should have with Gandhi, but I couldnt be bothered since all that land equals victory in any case (on Monarch much more attention would have been paid to this, and city specialization would have been even further developed). I suppose the best recommendation I would have for prince/monarch level gameplay is:

-Dont Build Any Early Wonders Except Oracle or Pyramids.

-Build Axes Instead.

-The Pyramids Exist Initially Only to Enable Police State For More Axes.

-The Oracle Exists to Get Metalcasting for Forges giving More Axes and Trading for CoL/Currency.