The quantum leap from Prince to King

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Looking for strategy tips and general insights here. I've been civving for 3 months now, and can win consistantly at Prince level -- nothing dramatic, just AC or world conquest sometime early in the 20th century. Up until now, when I began winning on one level and moved to another, I found that I my strategy -- aggressively expansionist early in the game, perfectionist once I had 8-12 cities -- was largely workable but needed fine-tuning; with fine tuning and a little more care, the next level was mine too.

Then I tried moving to King (normal map, 7 civs, raging hoards). Ay Caramba!

I get the basic shift: the AIs are way more agressive, and happiness is harder to achieve. But in practice, this seems to mean that I'm stuck with a few small cities that are relentlessly attacked. The game I'm playing now is the best I've done so far, and it's pitiful: it's 1300 AD and I have 6 cities (each with walls and 3 defensive units in them), 3 wonders (colossus, the library, the observatory), no gold to speak of, and I'm only researching Invention. And the only reason I'm doing this "well" is that I started on an island with two settlers, found my best city in a goody hut, have only been attacked by civs even lamer than mine, and the Barbs haven't shown up yet.

So that's my tale of woe. My question is: what are your priorities at higher levels? Chieftain, Warlord and Prince levels all seem to allow for balanced play (balancing military, city improvement, research, happiness, and wonder-building), with each level making things harder than the one that came before. But starting with King, everything seems different; the emphasis on defense and happiness seems so great that it precludes significant development in other areas. Is this really the case, or am I missing something? TIA for comments and insights.

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But there must be a war! I've paid a month's rent on the battlefield!
-- Rufus T. Firefly

[Spider]

Hiya, RTF,

You're on the right track, just keep on improving your strategies. With each higher level it becomes increasingly harder to maintain happiness in your civilizations.

Some things you may not be utilizing at this point:

Caravans. Make sure your biggest cities have trade routes; make trade a priority, not an afterthought.

Diplomats. Steal Technology and bribe enemy cities where possible.

Treat barbarians as opportunities; I like to use diplomats to bribe them and then get their leader. The extra cash can be a great boost.

Use cheap units to maintain order in your cities while under Monarchy, and when switching to Republic or Democracy; you need to adjust your taxes to increase luxuries. Take advantage of We Love The President Days.

Remember that the best move you can make in this game is to build more settlers and expand.

Your starting strategy should include getting to Monarchy as quickly as possible. It can take as few as five techs to get to Monarchy - (Ceremonial burial, alphabet, Code of Laws, plus any other tech, usually gets you there.)

Get a unit out there searching for goody huts.

Other Civs are going to backstab you; so, you might as well try to bully them - demand tribute when it seems safe to do so.

Start micromanaging. Open up that city window and move your workers to different squares as required. For example, if making a phalanx (20 shields)in a city that is producing 9 shields, you are wasting 7 shields; try to boost it up to 10 shields, or down to 7.

Still having troubles with happiness after all of this? Build some "happy" wonders. (Mich's Chapel, Hanging Gardens, J.S. Bach's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Theatre, among others.)

If you're really sick of trying to make people happy, shoot for an early Communism or better yet Fundamentalism. All you need to do is reach Democracy and build the Statue of Liberty.

Have fun, been nine years since I was in your shoes; I'm jealous; I loved every minute of it. ; )

[Laertes]

Hi Rufus

I struggled at King for a while and got bored, and moved straight up to Emperor (without winning at King) and prospered. I think it is true that the longer you spend on the lower levels, the more bad habits you pick up.

Too late for that though, so if I may add to Spider's excellent comments:

- build orders should look something like warrior, warrior, settler, horse, temple, wonder in your first city; and w,w,s,phx,s,elephant if poss in subsequent.

- get four cities as quick as you can, worry about irrigation and roads with the next wave of settlers

- once you have 4/5 cities, get a second city building a wonder too (so that you can have gardens and library in one city, and colossus-observatory and eventually newtons in a second)

- no matter how big your land mass, build a couple of boats asap and find another continent and some other civs. There is usually a big, fertile continent somewhere nearby, waiting for settlement. Finding the other civs hugely boosts your caravan value.

- expansionist strategy will need 30-50 cities of your own, and you could end up with over 100 once you have fought some wars

- perfectionists usually manage with 20-30 apparently, but I have not managed to work this one yet.

There are some threads here that will detail these strategies - they are worth reading (and printing!!)

Fergus

[Simpson II]

Rufus,

Oyur basic strategy of building 8-12 cities and perfecting ought to work on any level, if you practise it a little. It's certainly easier to win by expanding aggresively, and that's the method that I always used when I played at King. If you look in the Great Library thread, you should find links to lots of good strategies, but in particular DaveV's ICS and my perfectionist strategy (Shameless Plug!!) which should have you romping it at Deity level.

My main critisicm of your game as you describe it is the massive defences you have set up. Three defenders and city walls is way over the top for any game against the AI. What sized map are you playing on? You need more defence on a small map, of course, but still one defender and one attack unit per city, with no walls, is the most I would use even at Deity. Only ever build one unit when you start the city. Remember, if you can get big and powerful early on then the AI's will leave you alone until much later.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Thanks everyone! Keep them coming!

Simpson II: My defenses are a little over the top this time, but they're a response to the first few games I played where, every time I got 4-5 cities built, somebody would show up with elephants and grab one of them. I'm still looking for the right balance. One problem, I suspect, is that at lower levels I tend not to research military advances, preferring to make a beeline for literacy, build the great library, and get the advances from others. That may be something I have to change here. Also, I should clarify: while I tend to build 8-12 cities, I never end up with that few; I tend to get the rest buy buying them from other civs. But I'll have to give "expand, expand, expand" a try. Thanks!

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But there must be a war! I've paid a month's rent on the battlefield!
-- Rufus T. Firefly

[Ming]

Yes... the early part of the game is expand... expand... and expand some more. Even if you lose a city, it won't matter as much.

Once you have researched trade... caravans... more caravans... and even more caravans. You can use them to rush build key wonders and set up trade routes.

Just concentrate on these two things, and even Deity level will seem easy against the AI!

Keep on civin'

[kcbob]

quote: Originally posted by Spider on 10-17-2000 04:00 AM Still having troubles with happiness after all of this? Build some "happy" wonders. (Mich's Chapel, Hanging Gardens, J.S. Bach's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Theatre, among others.)

As you move up the food chain in difficulty, happiness is one of the biggest obstacles. Spider is right on about building "happy" wonders although ST might be too local of a wonder for an expanionist.

One other thing. As you move up, the time line changes. Years per turn on one level don't necessarily equate to those on the next. While 1300 AD might seem quite late in the game, you might find that you have more turns in the later years. Then again, you might not.

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

[Simpson II]

Rufus,

Yeah, I do exactly he same with military techs, you don't need them for quite a while. The trick to defending easily is to build even less military than you did on the lower levels! Ming is absolutely right. If you expand really fast - only warriors or phalanxes plus settlers being built at all, and only more than one unit if it's needed for martial law - then you will be at that 8-12 city 'critical mass' before the AI has any real military techs. Then a pikeman or two should seal your position. You will almost never loose cities to the AI this way, it's too cowardly to kick you hard when you're ahead.

[DaveV]

Perhaps a definition of "aggressive early expansion" is in order. In a decent deity-level game, I would expect to have 12 cities by 1000 BC. Roads should be the only terrain improvement your settlers build during this time period - irrigation and mining just take too much time. Lately, I've been waiting until after I have 4 cities to build any roads. Once you have 12 cities, you could start growing them, building city and terrain improvements, or continue the ICS route. More cities mean more shields, more trade arrows, and more units in the field.

As Ming said, caravans are great for building early wonders; devoting a city's production to a wonder in the early stages will stunt your growth (because that city isn't producing any settlers). A major weakness of the AIs is their slow early growth; if you can outgrow them early, they will never catch up. I can't overemphasize the importance of buiding your cities as early as possible - this alone will make a big difference in your game.

[kent-jo]

Hi Rufus. I'd like to play MP against you sometime......

Maybe i can win for a change........

My icq is 83249012
My E-mail is: kent-jo@world-online.no

[Bohlen]

Rufus:

Being "over the top" in city defenses is a big reason early expansion is not possible. If you are licking your wounds from earlier games when the AI beat you up, just remember this:

Kiss the AI's butt until you are powerful enough to kick it.

Give techs and money away and bow down to Henry VIII himself if you have to. If that is what it takes for early expansion then that's what you'll have to do. I hate doing it, but sometimes it is the right thing to do. Early expansion, as stated above, is key. If needed, give the AI what it demands now. It won't matter later if your expansion is successful and you have enough troops to march right into London.

Keep it up and remember to have fun no matter what level you play.

[regoarrarr]

I never won at Deity until I started playing One City Challenge (OCC). Now I win nearly every time when playing OCC with only 1 City!

regoarrarr.

[debeest]

The collection of advice that Spider gave you in the first response to your question is hugely valuable! It's hard to imagine anyone paying close attention to all of those fundamental precepts and not sweeping to easy victories at King.

For more good advice, look up Inca911's tips and tricks thread. LOTS of stuff there.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

This has probably been said over and over, but I'll add my 2 cents worth, since I was making the same quantum leap as you about 6 months ago.

Caravans, caravans, and more caravans is the key. Build up as many cities as you can in the early going, of course. But without sacrificing too much in the way of settler production, build caravans as soon as you can reasonably do so in a city (I will build them if a city doesn't have enough grain to support a(nother) settler, and if it already has adequate defense).

Three reasons for this:

1. Caravans can be used to build wonders. That's obvious, but there's nothing worse than losing a key wonder to the AI. Having a small reserve of caravans in a wonder race can be crucial. And wonders solve lots of other problems (happiness especially).
2. Each trade route gives you a one time gold bonus, plus ongoing trade arrows each turn. That little +2 trade arrow on the bottom of the city screen may not seem like a lot, but it adds up over a 300+ turn game.
3. Each caravan gives you a one time science (beaker) bonus as well, speeding up your research.

All this seems pretty obvious, I'm sure. But it seems to me that the biggest 'problems' to be solved in CivII are: happiness, at the higher levels especially; science research; and getting enough cash to finance rush buys, bribery, and eventual rush spaceship production. Building lots of caravans (and getting trade routes) solves all of them.

In my case, king level results went from long violent stalemates (which, I'll admit, were kind of fun in their own ways) to wins around 1700-1800 AD.

STYOM

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Man, I love this site. Thanks everybody! I went home and tried a new game last night, using some of the advice I got here; still getting my butt kicked, but I'm beginning to see how things work. But a couple of big questions occur, now more focused thanks to everyone's insights:

1) Caravans, caravans, caravans...instead of what? I'm still having trouble "banging them out," because my cities always seem to need something. Maybe I should ask it this way: after you build a temple, how long do you wait to build another city improvement?

2) Related question: how long do you stay in monarchy? In a Prince game, I tend to research with these goals: Monarchy-Literacy-Trade-Republic-Invention-Democracy, switching governments as soon as I can. But when I go to Republic now, it doesn't seem to do any good; the advantages in terms of science and money are offset by the need to divert arrows to luxuries and rush-build happiness improvements. Democracy seems to present the same problems.

3) Do you all really do without city walls? I can't seem to part with them, especially since it takes forever to get a defensive unit that can hold its own against an elephant; besides, they're as cheap as all but the cheapest units, and they require no support. It seems at the very least that a capital and a science city should have them, no? And, yes, I know a horseman can win against an elephant on the attack, but thanks to my road infrastructure the elephant can often get to my city before I can get to him. What to do?

4) I don't mind giving techs away to make friends, but do you all really give away money at the beginning? I keep making contact early with civs that want everything I have, and I'm both too proud and too nervous about low cash flow to say yes. Then, of course, the wars start.

5) In this most recent game, after ending up in war after war because I refused demands for monetary tribute, I finally got the opportunity to sack an enemy city. Suddenly, everyone seemed to "grow weary of this endless fighting" -- even civs whose cities I hadn't touched. Coincidence, or strategy?

Thanks again everybody! And an aside to kent-jo: man, that's cold. True, but cold .

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited October 18, 2000).]</font>
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited October 18, 2000).]