I breezed through the easy difficulty levels, but in 5 games at Noble difficulty, I have been dead last each time. Learning the game on my own, you could characterize me as an expansionist resource hoarder. I didn't care about city maintenance or the nuances of my relations with the AI. I tried to build every tech and add every improvement to all my cities. Obviously, it was very inefficient.

After the third loss, I came here and started reading up on the newbie strategies. Good tips. I saw the wisdom in spiritual civs and the advantages of setting up a state religion. I started building specialized cities. Before, I tended to build "jack of all trades" cities, and that was obviously holding me back. I'm noticing that I am doing better in the ranking graphs. Still, I lag behind in manufactured goods, GNP and crop yield. Dead last. Hey, at least I do fairly well in culture and power. I guess it doesn't help that I tend to be fairly isolationist in my relations with the AI. I also try manually setting my workers about in their tasks, which I find to be micro-hell, but I keep hearing about the AI's inability to balance the farms and cottages. So I've basically changed a lot of behaviors I picked up from learning the game on my own.

Still, I suck. I'm usually in last place or next to last, and I have yet to win a game on Nobel difficulty. I hate to lose, especially against AI opponents! I want to like this game so much, yet I'm troubled by how bad I am at it.

Any tips?

Post a game at an early stage (e.g. 500AD) and maybe one closer towards the Industrial-Modern Era.

There are too many variables to address without a clearer picture that a saved game would help set out.

I been having same problem. Infact i been playing this game since it release and only couple of days ago i manged to beat noble. ( i been loosing literaly by couple of turns)

But now i think i got the strategy down. Develop your intial territory, keep your money in the green, dont go to war unless you can afford to. By that i mean if you intial attack force can wipe out couple of major cities, without having your main cities keep producing units. After you severly overpower your enemy and you take down the civ to the buttom of the food later enjoy your peace.

Dont forget in between wars to build up your cities. Dont forget you NEED EDUCATIONAL buildings COURTHOUSES and Fincial Buildings. for larger cities dont forget about sickness and happiness.

Suggestions:

1) Learn how to leverage bronzeworking early: pop-rushing, chop-rushing, and axe-rushing.

2) Don't over-expand at the expense of your economy. Try not to drop below 70% science (a good rule i followed when i was first learning).

3) Try and use good diplomacy. Assuming 3 AI plus you, do triangle diplomacy: Trade with 2 AI and try and get them to hate the 3rd. Don't trade with the 3rd. Once you get a leg up on the 3rd civ, and are ahead on the power graph, declare war on that civ. raze his cities if they are too far away from yours and keep them if they are close. Obviously, it would be good to have your "enemy" as a close-by civ so you can keep their cities. Do watch maintenance costs though and build courthouses early in newly captured cities.

Also, what leader(s) are you playing as?

if u cant beat noble its probably an economic problem. learn how to whip, chop, build cottages, city locations, how many cities, tech order, stuff like that.

Post a game at an early stage (e.g. 500AD) and maybe one closer towards the Industrial-Modern Era.

I recommend this, except I would choose an earlier date, like the point at which you found your second city. That shows your early scouting and research path without adding too much clutter. Add to the save the order of the builds in your original city, and your own thoughts on where the game is going next.

But speaking in general terms...

Strategic ideas - the most important one is that you can't do everything anymore. That not only means learning about city specialization, but also learning about choices in what you research - how do the techs you are researching fit together?

At a finer level - there are a lot of mini games (religion, civics, great people, war....) and you need to get a feel for not only the mechanics, but how to think about each.

I found it helpful to approach these ideas by dedicating a game or two to each. For instance, I decided that I didn't understand why Great Prophets were useful, so I played a couple games where my goal was to generate as many Great Prophets as I could (which meant learning how to get Caste System levels of priest slots into my Great People farm, then figuring out what I wanted to do with them all). The first game I started learning how to get lots of them, and began to see some possible strategies. The second game I tried some of those out, and discarded the ones that didn't seem to work well. The third I bent my entire game around exploiting the strategies that had looked good. After the third game, I decided that I understood that area well enough to move on, and went to learn about some other area of the game.

There are a few people around here posting games from the start and sharing opinions. You might consider doing something like that. Post an image of your starting position with what you have in mind from there, and see what advice you receive. Play a few turns, post again, etc. There are a lot of things that you'll be able to improve this way. I decided I'm too careless with my starts too after seeing some of these games on Prince. :) (see Sisiutil's "All Leader Challennge" - ALC - threads)

^^and make sure you read every one of sisiutil's ALC threads. great stuff to be had in them.

Yep if you cant beat noble i would say your not expanding fast enough. When i was on noble i used to build about 6 cities and then sit on them. Now i build 4 cities by about 1700bc and build 4-6 axemen and attack. If science level drops to 40-50% dont panic just build more cottages and let the rate recover. Micromanage cities to ensure your using the cottages. Ensure you have enough workers so cities dont use unworked land. I always have more workers than cities at start till i grow above 8 or so cities. After that i take what i capture.

Expansion can be good if your using cottages and farms etc right.

I now play aggresive in most games. I steal workers at start using warriors to ensure a early worker. I still chop forest for the extra production. I cottage spam and micromanage to ensure the cities are using the cottages. I still use worker,worker, settler build on first city and 2nd city. If im stealing workers i go 1. warrior 2. worker or 1. warrior 2. warrior 3. worker 4. settler. Mixed with chopping of forest this is a good start as long as you develop bronze working first.

Give cities purpose. eg Commerce cities, production cities a great people farm. If its not a production city or great people farm you should be mostly using cottages. I normally work all resources and mine hills. Stick with the strategy in each city. Dont build every building in each city its a waste of resources and time. Build what you need. Temples for cultural win. Barracks for production cities. Happiness buildings when needed if your short on resources. Banks where you get big returns. Common sense prevails. Dont be afraid to trade for resources to keep your people happy. :)

I'd recomment this as well:

http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_walk_1.html

It's a very comprehensive walkthrough of the game give alot of ideas and watch someone play through noble explaning many things you may have not thought of!

I breezed through the easy difficulty levels, but in 5 games at Noble difficulty, I have been dead last each time. Learning the game on my own, you could characterize me as an expansionist resource hoarder. I didn't care about city maintenance or the nuances of my relations with the AI. I tried to build every tech and add every improvement to all my cities. Obviously, it was very inefficient.

After the third loss, I came here and started reading up on the newbie strategies. Good tips. I saw the wisdom in spiritual civs and the advantages of setting up a state religion. I started building specialized cities. Before, I tended to build "jack of all trades" cities, and that was obviously holding me back. I'm noticing that I am doing better in the ranking graphs. Still, I lag behind in manufactured goods, GNP and crop yield. Dead last. Hey, at least I do fairly well in culture and power. I guess it doesn't help that I tend to be fairly isolationist in my relations with the AI. I also try manually setting my workers about in their tasks, which I find to be micro-hell, but I keep hearing about the AI's inability to balance the farms and cottages. So I've basically changed a lot of behaviors I picked up from learning the game on my own.

Still, I suck. I'm usually in last place or next to last, and I have yet to win a game on Nobel difficulty. I hate to lose, especially against AI opponents! I want to like this game so much, yet I'm troubled by how bad I am at it.

Any tips?

Many of us were once where you are at now. I would recomend that you do some reading. Read the manual, the reference material in the game and several of the strategy guides for starters. Once you do that then noble should be relatively easy. After a few easy games move up to Prince for more challenge.

I recall not being able to win at Noble also. If I look back now on those games, the reasons for the losses would be clear:

1. Did not get BW fast enough or expand fast enough in the beginning.

2. Did not utilize the benefits of the financial trait (e.g., cottage spamming) or use the UU properly.

3. No early wars to trim back the AI and gain some territory.

4. Achieve a military tech advantage and use it!

I remember the first time I beat a Noble game. It was after posting a help message much like you just did. After reading a lot, I tried the following:

Played Qin
Build was worker, warrior, settler. BW researched, worker chopped out the setter. Settler went north towards the Mongol AI and settled a hill/flood plains area.

Stole a worker from Tokugawa. Hampered him and helped me.

Built a mess of axemen and rushed Kublai Khan. Took two major cities including his capitol and sued for peace. Began expansion west and south. As soon as the CKNs came on board, hit Alexander to the south with everything!

Yup .... warfare.

That's the ticket.

From then on, it's been constantly looking for an early war of opportunity, a medieval time for war, an industrial time for war . . . while building the economy and infrastructure to support it.

Do the CS slingshot and you'll be good to go. (CS slingshot is research priesthood for the Oracle, make sure you've researched both writing an Code of Laws before you get the Oracle, then as your free tech select Civil Service, cheage your government and dominate.)

You also might have trouble specializing your cities. I had a hard time with this at first, but focus on one city being a great person factory, one city being your super science city, a couple of cities for raw military production, and the rest being cottage/money farms.

I generally have 5 or 6 squares from my fat cross engineered to breed population, balance production. I use all the extra squares for Cottages. Again the earlier you build the more the cottages pay off, also be sure that you have people working the cottages, an unworked cottage doesn't grow.

When you get to a point where you don't NEED (not want, but NEED) to build a building build an army. With an army of catapults and anything made with iron or bronze you can cut right through an enemy civ like butter on Noble.

With great people I generally Build academies in my super science cities with great scientists, I build the great church (don't know what else to call it) in my two religious sites (you'll have your original religion plus confusionism from Code of Laws) then I just focus add great people to cities that need them, a science city with a couple of priests and scientists is awesome. Build great artists when you need to re culture up an enemy capital or holy city you've taken.

Someone will go to war with you if you do this, so just be ready for it use it as an opportunity to expand and get your greastest ally to join you in your crusade.

Hope this helps.

Oh and if you haven't read Sulla's walkthrough. I mean read every line and thought about it - do that - you'll dominate I promise.

No one mentioned it yet, so I'll toot my own horn.

Strategy Guide, link in my sig. :D

No one mentioned it yet, so I'll toot my own horn.

Strategy Guide, link in my sig. :D

right, better do it yourself ;)
I have yet to look back at it, though, i vaguely remember having posted something (maybe i wanted to post, and was tooooo slooooowww), but can't remember what you advised...

A few keys (that were already given, and that you surely find well illustrated in sisiutil's ALC threads):

- cIV is about dominating the world = WAR!
sure, the advertising tells you can win in a peaceful way. It's true. There is even a thread about a diplo win without a single unit built. But only the very best players can. For us mere mortals, war is the single best thing to do.
If you're not warring nor preparing the next war, you're losing the game.
- play by the rules = if tech trading is enabled, and you don't trade, you lose.
Tech trading enabled is like tech trading mandatory. If you research alone, while the AIs trade their techs, it's like teching at speed one, while all others tech at speed 17.
- don't look at the % too hard. What matters is total beakers/tech rate and gold in reserve. If you want a high teching speed, you need good cities. Lots of. For these cities to be any good you need courthouses there and good tiles to work. Build settlers or capture cities until you hit a 20% research rate. (then don't cry, just look at the total beakers and remember have much you had when you were at 90% ;) ) Second point is to work good tiles. For this, you need workers. Lots. Build or steal workers!
- plan ahead! Victory conditions are written down. There is no need to pursue all of them : one is all you need. Obviously you can't build a monastery and an axeman in the same time in the same city. Sometimes, you have to choose which way to go, and you have to stay on course long enough to gain benefits. Mind you, going for a cultural victory doesn't mean building monasteries everywhere. But you want the monastery built in the wanabee legendary cities ASAP. All other cities can build those markets and units.

Those have been the major traps i walked into (not enough cities or not enough workers, afraid to go to war, not aiming in any particular direction. Tech trading I knew of from previous civ versions), and maybe you'll see some things there that you did wrong.