Hi guys, decided to start a new game-this time as Napolean in a Noble, Normal speed game-Terra Map (OK, so I am a glutton for punishment ;)!)
The thing is that I played from around 7:30pm to almost MIDNIGHT-and I am still only at 850AD in the game! Man, this game is soooo addictive, I always just 'I will stop after I discover philosophy', 'I will stop after I build the Chitchen Itza' and so on. I only have 3 cities in my current game, and am surrounded by other nations. Monte and Caesar already hate me, and Mansa Musa is well on the way-whilst my best friends are India, Egypt and Germany!! I have already had one brief war with Rome-which I started (he closed his borders on me-thus cutting Lyons off from Orleans and Paris :mad: ) but in which I get seriously caned and had to beg him for mercy!! If I have ONE complaint right now, its that I appear to have a monopoly on Great Wonders so far-with Pyramids, Stonehenge, Oracle and Chitchen Itza under my control!) Is that normal in a Noble game, or have I just been lucky this time?
Anyway, this game is proving even more fun than my 'Children of Lake Nile' game, and I continue to love the fact that (a) I don't feel under PRESSURE to build a lot of cities and (b) that though I can manage my empire, I don't feel like I am MICROMANAGING it-i.e, all the decisions I find myself making are purely strategic in nature (especially unit promotions) and, though I control my workers, I have noticed that I don't really HAVE to, as most of its suggestions are almost identical to what I would have done under similar situations.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hmm, probably a bit of luck, but not too much. I've been close to early wonder monopolies before, but never actually had one on noble.

Welcome to Civ4. Ain't it great?

It is great. Last night I played for a bit more, and bloody Caesar came to me demanding 90 GOLD-around half of my treasury-which I rightly refused, and the SOB declared war on me. Though I held my own for a number of turns, I did make a series of strategic errors that caused me to lose the city of Orleans :cry:. Problem is, I forgot to save the game, so I will have to start from where I was on the end of Monday :mischief:.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Suuuuure...foooorgot....:mischief:

Hmmmm, that seems to happen to me all the time too! ;)

If you think that was bad.. Last Saturday, My two friends and I started a team game around 10:00 pm.. we finally called it quits after a looooong war against one of the teams of computer AI at around 10:30am :p Man.. feels like college all over again.

...that's not even six hours.

From evening to midnight isn't that long at all ocne you consider it.

Problem is, I forgot to save the game, so I will have to start from where I was on the end of Monday. Or just load an autosave. The game saves every 4 turns by default (can change it in the config file).

Nope, I switched off autosave because it kept causing the computer to stall-though that was with my old video card, so maybe I should switch it back on. Anyway, for me it is all still a learning experience, so now I can play through again and work out where I went wrong ;). Would be different if it were a 'Game of the Month'!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Korean guy played for something like 50 hours and DIED. Casreful were the marathon takes you kid....carefull.

I have also forgotten to save on a few occassions :mischief:

The last was when I was moving along swimmingly as Russia as the top of the civs, when that nuesense Ghenghis Khan attacked me out of the blue. I wasn't too worried, he was half a world away and my western border was completely in my good friend Caesar's hands. Sure enough a couple galley's pop up near Rostov in the south with a feeble army that my southern defenses handle with only a few losses, I continue working on the Hanging Gardens and Great Lighthouse in Moscow and St Petersburg, I will have one of my smaller cities replace the units I lost when they are done with their current improvements. Then that little twit Alexander declares war and he is using Ceasers open borders! :mad: Sum***** attacks my northern border going directory after St Petersburg!! He has got a pretty nice army, those old Phalanxes still pack a punch since the power in my army is based around of speed of the Horse Archer. This isn't going to go well. :( Sure enough Alexander completely wipes out my Northern army and has a clean path to my jewel St Petersburg. This requires me to stop construction on the Great Lighthouse and also forces me to pull up defenders from my central and eastern cities for a counter attack... this weakens them severely leaving me vunerable in a major assault elsewhere.

At that point my good friend Caeser declares war :cry:

Don't forget about the clock/alarm feature. Even with just the clock on, I find it helpful to stop the 1 more turn urge...though still not perfect. ;)

Well, I am getting caned-AGAIN!!! Not Caeser this time, but that prick Monte. He was getting increasingly pissed at me, because I kept refusing his demands, and he just finally up and declared war on me. I thought I could handle it (and did for several turns, in fact) until I saw what he had coming up the line-I reckon he must have 2 dozen units AT LEAST, and my economy simply isn't currently geared for war (looks like I will have to switch to Theocracy and Police State-thank goodness for the pyramids :D ) He has already managed to wipe out half a dozen of my units, but it is NOT looking good-and I think I can count on Caesar exploiting my current weakness when he sees fit :(. All the same, though, this is fantastic, the kind of challenge that I have always previously lacked.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

The AI doesn't kid around in civ4 when they go to war.. I've seen quite a few "..." stacks already :p

Korean guy played for something like 50 hours and DIED. Casreful were the marathon takes you kid....carefull.

What a beautiful end.

I agree, aside from sex, there are few other ways I would prefer to die than playing civ :D!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well another night, another 3 hour session. Man this is such a BRILLIANT and ADDICTIVE game!!! So, you may remember that I was getting my butt kicked by Monte and-as I suspected-Rome took advantage of my weakened position, forcing me to fight a war on TWO FRONTS :cry:. Fortunately, I was able to hold them both at bay for long enough to go-cap in hand-to beg for an end to war (Monte first, THEN Caesar). Needless to say it cost me dear (some techs and tribute-man, nothing like that EVER happened to me in Civ2 or Civ3 ;)!)
After monopolising the early game Wonders, I notice that I am REALLY starting to miss out on the later game Wonders. In a way, this is good-as it suggests that the AI is really smart about its use of production and specialists etc. What I also like is how a city can-even if you built it yourself-can eventually get a small ethnic minority via a form of 'migration' (I REALLY hope they build on this factor in later expansions!) The Roman city of Antium now actually has a 'French Enclave' consisting of 41% of the population!!
Anyway, I ended my game tonight at the Dawn of my 'Age of Exploration'-with my first Caravel striking out to discover the New World! To curry favour, I have joined in with the Aztec's war against America (who said AI civs don't war against eachother?) and helped them to sieze Boston-then went home to lick my wounds :)! I also got the Indians to FINALLY convert to Confuscianism (my State Religion), though it cost me chemistry to get them to agree!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hmm, probably a bit of luck, but not too much. I've been close to early wonder monopolies before, but never actually had one on noble.

In my current game I have built 6-7 wonders in my capital. (Including stonehenge, the parthenon, Notre dame, Solomon's Temple (yeah, not a "proper" wonder I know)... Also I have built a few other wonders in other cities. I think it's almost just because of this that I am 1000 point ahead of the pack...

This is on Prince, a large Terra map, playing as the English. I have had access to both stone and marble since my 2nd city, which really is a blessing. I definately had an early wonder monopoly in this game...

Just for the record...

You don't have it bad until you're plunked down on a large continent and your next door neighbor in hemmed in by you. It ain't the barbs you've got to worry about, it's that "Our close borders are causing tension" biz.

I was Isabella and was going along nicely, not interfering with "Q" from China. Then a barb archer just happened to pick my northwestern city next to the Bronze mine to hang around near his border, and he declares war on me!! Should've paid attention to that initial instinct to kill the little rat when he poked me in the rear the first time.

Tell me about it, I have the exact same problem with Caesar, Monte AND Hatty, in that our 'Close Borders' are causing tensions-I predict possible violence between Hatty and I in the future-though I at least now have a strong Allies in Ghandi and Bismark.!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well, just as I suspected, my close borders finally led to war with Hatty-largely because her winemakers decided that they preferred the French bottlers over their local Egyptian bottle makers ;)! The war didn't last long though-once I caned a few stacks of her best units, she very easily came around to the idea of peace (personally, I think it was more a 'war of opportunity' than genuine hatred on her part). Unfortunately, Caesar once again took advantage of my weakness and declared war not long after Hatty did :mad:. Fortunately, once Hatty made peace, I was able to maneuver Caesar into a position where we could make peace again-plus, a concurrent war with the Aztecs caused him to lose half his empire, and I don't think I will have to worry about him much longer ;)!
That said, though this has been a very fun game, and a wonderful learning experience, I think I will quit the game at this point. I am amazed at how new this whole Civ experience is to me-after so many years playing Civ1, 2 AND 3 (not to mention SMAC and CtP!)-and confess that I have a LOT to learn before I try tackling Noble again. For a start, I did NOT make best use of my leader. After all, with his agressive trait, I had a perfect opportunity to take out Caesar and/or Monte early in the game, but tried to play the peaceful builder instead-which would have been fine if I had been LOUIS!! It is stuff like this-and fighting successful wars-which I have to get the hang of if I am ever going to WIN this game :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.