Noble to Prince - unbearable

[Boracks]

As has been mentioned a number of times here, if you start winning easily, its time to move up a notch. So I figured time to move up from noble to prince.

(marathon, large map, 9 civs, no tech brokering. Noble was with raging barbs but left normal for prince)

Game 1: 3 of my first 4 combat units (warriors, scout) get eaten by bears. Try again

Game 2: 3 of my first 4 combat units (warriors) get eaten by bears. Try again

Game 3: few bears since I wind up on mid-size continent with 6 other civs. Picked the wrong guy to be friends with, his relations didn't matter once he was vassalized and the dog pile came around turn 600. Try again.

Game 4: Native Americans, and this is where reading these forums paid off. Quickly up to dog soldiers, second city grabbing a good spot near Persia, rush Persia (sorry, Darius, you've been voted off). Grab a couple barb cities, third barb city was Seville (!). So carry on a grab the rest of Spain (not sorry to vote 'Bella off). Find out there is a narrow isthmus between me and the English totally blocked by mountains. This gave me time to develop the land and check relations. Adopted the Spanish religion which Churchill shared.

Turns out the other side of the mountains had England, America, Rome, Japan, Germany.

I maintained friendly relations with England, have now vassalized Rome and Germany (both times when they declared on me, Germany after I got grenadiers during the war), England has Japan as a vassal and the American position is shaky. I settled another landmass (6 cities), a couple islands and found Chinese on their own small continent. Once the Americans go down (at war with England and me), its plan to hit China and likely take them out fully. Well on the way to a domination win. Oh, and I long since moved my capital to Persepolis as it is in a central location.

When moving up, be prepared to have reverses and keep trying. Read the advice here and it will come together in a game.

[Ming]

[quote]
Game 2: 3 of my first 4 combat units (warriors) get eaten by bears. Try again
/quote]

Now that would never happen to me... Not because I'm lucky, but because I would probably never have that many searchers out early in the game.

If I start out with a scout, I keep searching around me until I uncover all the land in the area I think I will be able to reasonably build a city in... I then just start uncovering land until I think there is no more chance of finding any more "villiages", and then set him on automatic... and at some point in the future, I will get the notice that something killed it. If he gets killed early before discovering too much land, I "MAY" build another searcher, but that depends on what's been uncovered already and what my strategy is.

If I start with a warrior, he does the "circle search" around my cap... looking for that next city placement, but staying reasonable in the general area because the odds are, he will be the unit that starts with the next city.
If he is still searching, and there is land that may still have available villages, I might let him wander much farther knowing he may never come home, but usually, you get to the point that you know 99% of the villiages have already been taken and he heads home. If he dies early, I may build another searcher if I'm desperate to find a good city location or uncover territory that might have been missed close to my capital... but otherwise, any unit I build will be for cap or first city.

Later, when I have axeman, I might put any warriors I have on auto to uncover the rest of the landmass... or spend a spare chariot to do the job after a few open border agreements.

I would just never have the opportunity to lose three searchers to bears early, unless I somehow got that many units free from villages, and they died before I could get them where I wanted them


Good luck on Prince.

[wodan11]

Try fogbusting with your warriors/scouts instead of mapping. If a bear comes near your scout, scoot away and carefully edge back later.

[Ming]

True... but unless you are on a clear land, and only moving your scout one of its movement, still leaving it a movement to back off if it lands next to a bear, you are still going to be exposing your unit more often than not. There are just to many large areas of the map with too many jungles, hills, forests where you will only be able to move one square and not be able to see two squares before you move. Sure, I like to get up on those hills to see farther, but sometimes, one square range is all you get.

[Theben]

Scouts that live get the Guerilla promotions. That way they can check out the land from a hill and if there's a bear on the other side, run away.

Oh, and Native Americans are great for early rush Prince and lower. Once you hit Monarch though, better try something else.

[Ming]

Scouts that live get the Guerilla promotions. That way they can check out the land from a hill and if there's a bear on the other side, run away.

True enough... and the same holds true for warriors. Nothing better than a two move warrior on bad terrain. And if the unit lives beyond animal barbs, there's a chance I can get him up to guerilla three, and have my first healer for later.

[Theben]

woods III for warriors, you mean.

[Ming]

Listen to what I mean, not what I say

Yeah... woodsman promotions for all my early units.
I only wish scouts could get woodsman III

[Boracks]

Actually, one reason I had a good start in game 4 was getting a warrior to woods III. Another thing I learned reading these forums!

And being an ex-reconnaissance type, I do tend to explore everything (well, mostly) as soon as I can. Another habit I'll have to look at.

[Ming]

I'm not saying that exploration is not a good thing. The more information you have, the better. But it is more a matter of need and timing. Unless you are pretty sure you can still be getting villages which might provide you with GOOD STUFF that will help, you might stop for awhile. Those units took time to produce and they could be put to better use early in the game or you could have been building something else, like workers or settlers. Once you know all the land surrounding you, and where your close neighbors are, and where you want to put your early cities down, I feel extra exploration is a luxery. Sure, after I have some spare units (usually outdated), I will send them out to cover the entire land mass I'm on, and by then, I will usually have open border arangements as well.

[-Jrabbit]

I'm a relative noob, but here's my 2 cents.

I agree that early exploration needs to be tempered. Once I know the immediate area (neighbors, strategic resources, etc), I concentrate my resources on staking out and connecting "my" territory.

That lovely period when everyone is cautious and asks for open borders -- that's when I do the secondary explorations, preferably with scouts or chariots.

[rah]

But it is fun at about turn 60 when your scout finds a hut just out side of someone's culture border. Even more fun is when it's a human's culture that just expanded to expose it and your scout gets there before a garrison troop can pop it and he sees you get it. Whenever they ask what I got, I always say TECH just to irritate them more. (hoping the won't notice that my score didn't increase)

[Ming]

So it wasn't a tech last game

And yeah, I look at the score after somebody says that

[Blaupanzer]

Right!

[rah]

I swear it was a tech.