Why don't I win Prince-level?

[pompino]

Good day fellow-Civanatics,

I wonder if someone can help me out with beating the Princelevel.
I`v tried many games but I always seem to loose de tech-race.

I play Gandhi (but tips are welcomeon wich other one to choose),

I've tried several ways of starting (slow expanding, early war for quick expansion).

I go for "getting-a-religion-fast", writing, getting the oracle and choosing alphabet.

What I`d really like to know is: what should my strategy be (from the point of having three cities) to keep up with the tech-race.

(maybe, I haven't given enough info, then please aks)

TIA

 

[Michelangelo]

Welcome to CFC
When you go up the difficulty ladder, you find it more difficult, if not impossible, to keep up in the tech race. But generally you should catch up in the mid to end game. You should try to research techs that the AI doesn't yet offer and trade them for the ones you lack.

A great read is a game Kylearan played a while ago and made a report of, in which he didn't research anything but some initial techs. It was on monarch difficulty IIRC.

http://www.compoundeye.net/civ/noscience/index.html

HTH

 

[pompino]

Looks like an interesting game indeed.
(probably) Be back with some questions about it later

thank you / dank je

 

[svv]

At higher levels, you need to emphasize warmaking. For a shot at your first win at Prince, try Julius. Knocking out your nearest neighbors with the Praetorians is pretty easy, and this will give you a better base with which to compete.

 

[JoeBlade]

IMO there are a few key elements in keeping up the tech pace, esp. at higher difficulty levels:
- Learn to play the diplomacy game. Trade techs often and aim for monopolies whenever possible. The latter give an edge while you're the only one with a given tech and make an excellent bargaining chip once other civs research it too.
Keep an eye on relations though, know who your friends are and who might attack you (or inversely, is a potential target for you). No point in strengthening AIs you'll be at war with soon.
- Carefully balance your economy between expansion and research. This is tricky at first and often requires micromanagement but is an absolute must.
Don't be overly concerned with the science slider though (I've noticed many players are paranoid about their science rate) When you're running mainly specialist-based research the tech rate hardly matters. Likewise, it's perfectly acceptable to stagnate research for a while if it implies expansion - typically through war - and you can recover afterwards.
- Expand! From Prince onwards AIs have a research advantage (among others) over you so you won't be able to keep up unless your empire is larger than theirs. Wage war if necessary, or when it fits your overall long-term strategy obviously. Again make sure to carefully pick your friends and enemies though.
- Try to best fit in your research paths, civics choices, Great People and Wonders with your overall strategy. Don't build/research/apply something just because you can; instead make sure it has more-than-marginal benefit and fits your long-term plans. This is especially true with a leader like Gandhi.

And as I always recommend: look into the Strategy Articles forum, the Succession Games forum and Sisiutils & aelf's games in this forum (to name but a few). There's a wealth of useful information to be found there.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

Good day fellow-Civanatics,
I wonder if someone can help me out with beating the Princelevel.
I`v tried many games but I always seem to loose de tech-race.

Are all other settings standard? Even the same level can vary widely in difficulty based on the game speed, map size, and number of opponents.

If you're losing the tech race on Prince, then you have a problem in one of the following areas:
- your civilization is too small
- you are not building/working enough cottages
- you have not built the proper buildings in the proper cities

Specializing a single city for nothing but beaker generation might help you out here, make sure you get a library early, lots of cottages, an academy, university, and observatory. If it's got specials like gold, gems, or dye, with a little bit of production and a lot of green/floodplain land with rivers running through it for cottge-building that makes it ideal.

I play Gandhi (but tips are welcomeon wich other one to choose),

I prefer Japan myself, but whatever style fits your game should be fine. Any leader can win at any level. Just make sure you're not using this choice to further lock yourself into sim-civilization mode - you should open each game with the understanding that you will have to go to war at some point to win. Don't worry about what the history books think of your city-razing pillaging spree - the historians of the future will work for you. With Ghandi, neither Spiritual nor Industrious are generally considered to be particularly strong traits. Traits like Organized and Aggressive can have much bigger benefits as you go higher in level and have a greater need to suppress maintenance costs and to keep units alive.

One thing that did wonders for me (pun intended) was to play random civs, just try to succeed with what is given to me. I learned how to leverage several different traits that way, and what worked for my personal style.

I've tried several ways of starting (slow expanding, early war for quick expansion).

I go for "getting-a-religion-fast", writing, getting the oracle and choosing alphabet.

Getting religions fast generally mean sacrificing your development. I prefer to get religions in the context of being the tech leader, or better yet let someone else take the trouble and simply capture theirs.

But everything you wrote screams "compulsive builder"... so no matter how you start you will probably end up running up against the same obstacles.

So maybe it's time you put on the horned helmet and took a different approach. Take your favorite pick among warmongers and put your enemies to steel - ravage and burn until you learn the mechanics of how and why units go on strike. From there you'll learn about how to build an economy that can make sure that doesn't happen...

What I`d really like to know is: what should my strategy be (from the point of having three cities) to keep up with the tech-race.

(maybe, I haven't given enough info, then please aks)

TIA

Your strategy should be:
1) Be larger than anyone else
2) Specialize a city (or more than one) for commerce
3) Destroy anyone whose tech advances threaten yours - even if you can't wipe them out, self-defense needs should get them to curtail the research advancement some. Pillage cottages is a good middle-ground strategy.

 

[Nestorius]

You shouldn't need a religion or any early wonders to easily win the game at that level. You are also probably not planting enough cottages.

 

[marney]

At higher levels, you need to emphasize warmaking. For a shot at your first win at Prince, try Julius. Knocking out your nearest neighbors with the Praetorians is pretty easy, and this will give you a better base with which to compete.

I agree. I learned a lot on Prince using rome/julius and warmaking with praetorians. I first research bronze working (chop forests to rush everything) then iron and try to settle 3-4 cities (with 3rd or 4th at iron). Put an obelisk in each city to grow their borders. Then start pumping praetorians and try to take out 2 neighbors, focusing on the closest one until it's eliminated. Cottage all of the conquered towns to fund the war effort. Usually with this method, I'll only settle 1-2 more cities after that, relying on taking over the enemy cities. Then stop warring, tech to code of laws and democracy, and use cottages everywhere for economy. This strategy got me through Prince, now I'm working on specialist economies for Monarch. Good Luck!

P.S. you don't need to use Rome, but julius and praetorians are stronger than other civs with swords/axemen so it makes it easier to learn in my opinion

 

[RIcs]

small thing to enhance science...
after you get alphabet... get literture. (pretty cheap)
built (whip a unit before then chop) a great library.

ps.. built library when teching literture, even earlier.

those extra sciencists and great scientists to come (converted to Academy then) will makes a good difference in your game.

 

[kuldiin]

Pillage has turned so many games for me its not funny.

I always have a pillage force 3-4 units in a stack, covering as much anti-units as possible (ie spearmen for horses, axe for melee etc), plus one 2 move unit in the stack so I can basically pillage every move.

Pillage everything, including roads, helps slow the enemy down in its advance to you

 

[harusame]

try to rush Pyramid or Parthenon and run SE in 1-2 cities
then you swap gradually to CE

you dont need to expand more than 6 cities
4 cities will also do if AI expand too fast