Hello everyone,

I'm somewhat new to CIV IV. I've been playing for about five months now. For a while I was playing Vanilla, usually with a few friends. Many of the basic concepts came intuitively to me without the forum. Such as city specialization, and cottaging, keeping up a strong military at all times, things of that nature. I always outpaced my friends, and was ready to step it up to Prince on Vanilla.

Then I got Warlords, and boy oh boy, I can't for the life of me win a game on Noble. Nothing ever seems to go my way. Every game I think I've overcome adversity, but in the end, I always end up falling just short. I'll be one of the world powers, but not powerful enough.

I enjoy playing huge map, terra, 18 players. It keeps things exciting in all regards. And is more realistic. It's a fun tour through history.

Every single game has a the same common features that end up hindering me to victory. Things that just seem...out of sorts and don't make sense. I've scowered this forum for weeks now looking for solutions to my problems. The gambits never help, and it seems as though the solution to some people is just "regenerate the map until things fall in your favor!" I can't find anything to aid me.

Here are my issues.

- Starting position. If I'm Cyrus, I never have horse. If I'm Brennus, or Monty I have no copper or Iron. And nobody will ever trade copper or iron early. Is fishing a starting tech? Then I'll be 15 squares from water, or not have any water resources. Yuck. I refuse to restart or regenerate though. Everyone needs to work through adversity right?

- I get closed in on. That is to say, I'll typically have three or four neighbors at the start. And they always expand inward on me. Crippling me when it comes to land. This always happens, even when common sense would say the AI has far less to gain strategically speaking with better resources at the opposite side of their city. Is there an explanation for this? This hurts, I'm almost always limited to 3 cities without war.

I can deal though. Take out someone who's militarily weak. I can expand my civ to a respectable level through some military struggle right? Well, I can maintain pretty well. I am able to manage to stay within the top 5 in soldiers at all times. I am typically 1 or two in commerce and manufactured goods once things even out after I take over a neighbor or two, and do some building.

My true problem begins at the advent of Military Tradition though. This is where everything seems to go absolutely hay-wire. I'll typically have advantages in all regards at this point. But once the AI gets cavalry...my fate to a mediocre finish is sealed.

- I always go for rifling as fast as I can to ensure that I can counter the invetable rush of cavalry into my borders. Someone will ALWAYS slam me with cavalry and declare war on me at this point in history. My biggest gripe is that rifleman, which should be the proper counter to cavalry, just get absolutely wasted to cavalry. During this era, the battle odds seem worthless. If I have battle odds below 80% against cavalry, I will lose the battle. In early history, batttle odds mesh, once I get to mechanized infantry, battle odds mesh. But when cavalry hit the ground running, battle odds go out the window. So, even with my manufacturing superiority, it's just a struggle to keep up with cavalry that are seemingly invincable. The upgrade to infantry doesn't help much either, even they die en masse. It's extremely frustrating because I'm losing units at a 2 to 1 ratio, wasting resources that could go elsewhere (founding new colonies in the new world). What's the deal? Why can't I kill cavalry? Seems like an imbalance in the game. Tips?

- Upon the advent of military tradition, it seems as though the AI decides to trade its guts out. At the same time, I am always, in every game, left out of trade loops. No matter how good my relations are with my closest allies I lose out. Through the middle part of the game, the AI always manages to get an insurmountable technology advantage on me. It has to be through trade, because I typically have a commerce advantage. What's the deal? Why won't my friends trade ANYTHING with me. "We don't want to give up this technology just yet." Towards the late game this ends, but it's always too late if a space race victory is going to happen.

Once I outlast my cavalry woes, I always end up with the most commerce and production in the late game. I'll typically be short on soldiers at the end pushing hard to catch up in the space race. But I'll typically be a few parts short on the space race.

This is extremely frustrating. Because each game seems to take the same inevitable course through history. I overcome starting disadvantages, overcome cavalry woes (my biggest gripe), and just end up a bit short in the end.

Know your opponent and his resources. He can't build cavalry without a hourse resource. Use siege weapons to ensure your rifleman get wins and promote them with formation. That will turn the tide. If you get a religion try to convert your neighbors, and if you can't you have a better chance of seeing who is building up units so you can prepare for the onslaught.

3 cities is a good start. I am starting to play on prince and as I have read and now that I see, the higher the difficulty the less cities you can afford to have in the beginning. Head for BW that way you can settle your second city next to bronze so you ensure yourself of having metal. I find this build works well for me (right now): warrior(time to city size 2), worker, worker, settler. For science: mining, BW, resource techs(agriculture, AH) for whatever is in your fat cross, IW(3rd city settled next to iron), pottery, writing, alphabet(first round of trading), math, currency(markets to support more cities), CoL(same as currency). The last two techs should get you up to 5 or 6 cities and still maintain a decent size army. The first worker should come out about the time you finish BW so you can chop the second worker and settler.

Where did the next two to three cities come from, your neighbor that has prime real estate or resources you need, usually happy resources. When I invade that civ, I usually take him down to one city and declare peace, as part of the treaty I take all of his techs and if I have currency, all of his money. Wait 10 turns, then finish him off. Then concentrate a bit of infrastructure. From the techs I get off him, I do a second round of trading to get whatever else I can.

Use tributes, adopting religions, civic changes if possible, resource trading, whatever to kind of set up your short and long term conquests and to kinda ensure they don't attack you before you are ready to fight them. If two or more distant civs start getting way ahead, get them to fight each other. Whatever gifts are necessary, it's worth it.

You can't research everything and stay ahead of the world. Decide what is most important for your strategy and bee line for those techs. That will give you a few techs that you can trade to get whatever you can't get through "peace treaty" negotiations.

My 2 cents, hope it helps.

Here are my issues.

- Starting position. If I'm Cyrus, I never have horse. If I'm Brennus, or Monty I have no copper or Iron. And nobody will ever trade copper or iron early. Is fishing a starting tech? Then I'll be 15 squares from water, or not have any water resources. Yuck. I refuse to restart or regenerate though. Everyone needs to work through adversity right?



My suggestion is to reseach key tech early on to spot the strategic resources.
I will mark down horses (requires animal husbandry)
copper (bronze working)
Iron (iron working)
early on and try to obtain them by settler or force. If you have horse use chariot, if you have iron/copper use axeman.

Had more cavalry woes last night. Nothing I could really do though. I was forced into having some negative relations with Brennus in order to keep my friends appeased. My friends and I all shared confucianism which I had founded. Hannibal ended up taking two of my confucian buddies as vassals, and right around the time period of prime calvary, Hannibal and his four or five vassal states slammed my mainland from all sides. Even with stacks of 12 rifleman in each city, it was pretty much over before it started. My main continental cities had plenty of research, but completely lacked the ability to produce goods. (Think lots of flat tundra, and lots of plains).

* Religion - If I have a spiritual civ, I will be inclined to found a religion. If this is the case I will be very pro-active in spreading it. Otherwise, I'm content at going after other strategic techs, and later adopting the religion of a strong founder, or my neighbors. Like that game last night. I had a buffer with friends who shared my religion, but if they get vassalized...not much you can do.

* Going after horse resources. It's kind of difficult. With the way these games turn out, it's difficult to declare war on someone who you percieve to be a threat to take his horse out because it will undoubtedly anger someone else that has horse.

* Strategic resources. Gosh, I can't remember the last time I played a game where I had copper, horse, stone, or marble within the zone of my first three cities. I almost always have iron, but I gotta fight it out for copper, stone, marble or horse. Always. It's like a broken record. Sometimes I end up really being forced to take out a friend, and sour relations with other friends.

Where did the next two to three cities come from, your neighbor that has prime real estate or resources you need, usually happy resources. - Maydrock

I usually find myself in a position where I have to fight for strategic resources.

* Taking down cities - I'll usually stop short of eliminating Civ's too. Except for Monty and Isabella. They're better off dead. I usually stop at where my economy can handle expansion and taking out capitals.

Must run. Important work to do.

Many thanks

If you have iron, you don't really need copper. I think the next time you really need copper is when and if you decide to build the Statue of Liberty. Once I have iron, if I have copper I usually trade it to some distant civ for some $$.

I've had similar issues with Noble since Warlords especially research (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=215624). Something definitely changed in my mind, and you're not along with your calvary problem either. Rifleman do have an advantage over them, but they AI has so many, that it's not enough of an advantage. The main problem is that the AI pays less than half of what you need to pay to upgrade units. Even at Noble level, the AI pays 30% to upgrade units. They tend to build a lot of knights if they have horses, and they all instantly become calvary when they get military tradition since it's so cheap to upgrade. I'm considering changing that so the AI pays the same as you at noble.

The easiest thing to do with calvary is play as Russia. Cossacks take calvary apart with their extra +50% against mounted units. Still, there should be a slightly better non-unique counter-unit available at the time period.

I also can't figure out how the AI manages to build so many units and keep their research up. I've tried playing games with tech trading disabled, and they still research like crazy.

@merkinball. I'm fairly new at civ IV also, and I just got warlords. I was having the same sort of problems for the first 5 games on Noble, then I decided to try as the Vikings. Reason being, it seems to me that if I don't expand early I'm pretty much screwed. I used the Vikings to go on a war rampage when I got swordsman and axemen (axemen are awsome in the early game) then made peace and built up my cities, and then when I got berserkers I went on tearing up some more civs. Everyone is mad at me now so I probably won't win by diplomacy, but I am first in scoring right now and it's 2001.

So barring any micacles by the AI I should finally pull off a win here.

Try a civ with an early UU and war early!! that's why it's called WARlords :lol:

I find it very hard that you always get to the MT era and don't have cavs. Since you should have time for at least 1 major military expansion. You should focus on a neighbour that has horses (ussually with maceman). Even if you manage to get to the riflemen era without horses, your biggest friend at this point in time is the catapult. By this time your cities should be able to produce a catapult in roughly 3 turns.

If you find that you cannot seem to stop full strength cavs, its much easier to defeat a stack of half strength cavs.

Just a small tip since the major items have been covered.

If you fight enough wars in the classical and medieval eras, you should have some promoted Spearmen/Pikemen. These units often get most of their experience defending tile improvements from enemy pillaging units. I usually give them Combat I and II and then Formation (anti-mounted). Upgrade these units to Riflemen and they'll stand up to Cavalry very well indeed.

What's more important to you all. Access to strategic resources, or positive relations with neighbors and friends? Ideally, I'll have relations with a soured neighbor, that doesn't share my religion next to me, that has strategic resources I need to keep a strong game going in the early-mid game. If this is the case, the answer is simple. Take him out. But if you're surrounded by friends? Makes things a little more different. I always find myself much more hesitant to take out a friend for a resource and ruining relations with other friends, than to take him out. Personally. I'd rather have strong relations. Build defensive pacts. It's easier to gode them into wars. Easier to tech trade.

Access to copper: I would rather have copper than Iron. Not having copper I find to be extremely detrimental. In order to get my to my iron, I have to research a whole 'nother tech, that at the time, is quite costly. Getting copper very early in the game, and cranking out axemen is very huge plus to taking out early advesaries, getting resources you need, and before relationships between the civ's are really created. Having to wait for Iron Working can be quite detrimental. It throws you into a defensive position, and creates a large lapse of time before you can be aggressive.

Countering Cav by being Russian: I gotta be honest. I don't care too much for the Russian Civ's.

Playing as Vikings: The Vikings are one Civ I do quite well with. I enjoy the vikings.

Darryl: Why have cavalry? I KNOW that I will get slammed at the advent of MT. It happens every single game I play. Cavalry are in theory, a 50/50 toss up against other cavalry. Rifleman are supposed to be the counter, which is why I focus on rifleman. So far as Cat's go...usually I'm getting cat's at that point in two turns...maybe one turn. Two turning trebuchet's. In my production cities and capital that is. My gripe and frustration lies in the fact that my proper counters continuilly get WASTED by cavalry.

@Sis: When I attack in the early era's, I might have some spearmen, pikeman, but for defensive purposes. If I'm properly attacking, they really don't see much use. It's my swordsmen, axemen, and eventually macemen that are doing my fighting and getting my experience.

Thanks for the tips.

try the spanish too. Wait till you get engineering and build citadel in your production city. Meanwhile build conquistador (+50% vs Melee an can defend). Build a bunch of trebuchets from those citadel cities that start out with city raider 3. You can practically cripple everyone in the world. If you cant, then beeline to steel and get a bunch of city raider 3+ cannons. (note citadel obsolete w/ economics, build as many as you can afford it)

One major advantage to having cavalry is you have a very powerful mobile unit. Basically with several cavs you can easily pillage your enemies strategic resources. Also cavs (as shown in the case against you) are very powerful for a long time. They even last longer if you beeline to MT.

In the battles you are losing to cavs, what are the odds you are losing at? Since you can go back through the battle log and look at the odds. My guess is that you may be losing to cavs with some very good promotions. Since a cav can get pinch at level 2, a cav will be very effective against rifleman.

A cav only needs combat I + pinch. Since the pinch will cancel out the riflemans 25% bonus, and then the combat I will add 1.5str vs a combat I promotion to a rifleman will only add 1.4str. I am not too sure, but those are pretty good odds in favor of the cavs: 16.5 vs 15.4. I may be mistaken, but I'm sure there are many people that here that could give you the odds of a battle with those values.

@infantry: since castles (citadels for spain) give each city +1 trade route, there is actually no reason to research economics. So if you are playing spain, it is pretty easy to bypass and economics for as long as possible.

One major advantage to having cavalry is you have a very powerful mobile unit. Basically with several cavs you can easily pillage your enemies strategic resources. Also cavs (as shown in the case against you) are very powerful for a long time. They even last longer if you beeline to MT.

In the battles you are losing to cavs, what are the odds you are losing at? Since you can go back through the battle log and look at the odds. My guess is that you may be losing to cavs with some very good promotions. Since a cav can get pinch at level 2, a cav will be very effective against rifleman.

A cav only needs combat I + pinch. Since the pinch will cancel out the riflemans 25% bonus, and then the combat I will add 1.5str vs a combat I promotion to a rifleman will only add 1.4str. I am not too sure, but those are pretty good odds in favor of the cavs: 16.5 vs 15.4. I may be mistaken, but I'm sure there are many people that here that could give you the odds of a battle with those values.
Well sometimes you'll lose quite a few 80% battles in your favor. The exact problem is the pinch scenario you outline above. I think rifleman need a 50% bonus or something similar to be a true counter-unit. The AI has so many calvs that they can still overwhelm you since your defensive odds are not good enough.

In the battles you are losing to cavs, what are the odds you are losing at? - darryl

It seems to go in waves. Early game, odds seem to do okay. But at the original onset of MT, I would say the majority of odds I face are between 50%-80%. Depending on how promoted the riflemen and cavalry are. I would say that I'm losing 60%-65% of these battles. It makes no sense. Wacked out battle odds seem to come in waves that just completely shift my position in the game. There seems to be no consistency. When it wants to win, it seems like it's gonna win.

The game I'm playing now, I seem to have worked through the storm of cavalry. But even then, I was staving off four fighters, beating back oneof them, eliminated another (the Incan), had a stack prepped and was on the move to invade a third, and had the fourth neutralized thanks to my very good friend Isabella. Then Mao declares war on me (a brother of faith). Mao is...far weaker. His stack consists primarily grenadiers, and rifleman. It is comparable in size to my stack that's just getting ready to invade Asoka which consists of gunships and newly upgraded modern armors. The next turn I shift my units expecting to route his pathetic little group of minions. But...I lose 5 of 8 gunships to grenadiers. Battle odds for these five consecutive battles was 95-99%. The hadn't been hit by collateral damage units yet.

You wanna talk about wacked out battle results throwing off the projected course of a war... absurdity.

That was my northern front. Same turn. Let us shift to me eastern front. I have my units in a newly acquired city from the Incan. My units have refreshed, and were poised to enter Indian territory from the east. This is my elite brigade. This brigade has single handedly eliminated HC, 6 of Ragnar's cities, a number of Shaka's cities. This element of tanks are working on about...7-8 promotions. I have some infantry worked in there with five promotions. I've managed this stack incredibly well. And then, in one foul swoop, Asoka sends in just four artillery, and an equal number of infantry, and simply wipes out my tanks. All of them. No questions asked.

These tanks were so well promoted that they had 95%+ battle odds against triple city defender units.

It makes no sense. All this happened in just one single turn. Which was followed promptly by me saving, and exiting to the desktop. Ugh.

Oh, through all this war I have sealed my fate as Peter is a runaway civ at this point, with myself a long distance second. It was all worth wiping the Incan off the map though.

And then, in one foul swoop, Asoka sends in just four artillery, and an equal number of infantry, and simply wipes out my tanks. All of them. No questions asked.

These tanks were so well promoted that they had 95%+ battle odds against triple city defender units.

You might try attaching a save game so people can get a first-hand look at your empire and armies. Maybe an auto-save before you lost those tanks, for instance, to see what your stack looked like before Asoka shelled it.

Lacking that, it sounds to me as though you need more variety of troops and promotions in your armies. For instance, you mention that your tanks had 95%+ battle odds against CGIII defenders. But if it was by City Raider promotions that you got those odds, you need to remember that CR does nothing to help when defending. You say you had some infantry in the stack as well...how were they promoted? Since this stack was taking cities, did you have your own city garrison unit(s) in the stack to defend once the city was taken? Since your tanks defended against Asoka's infantry - and tanks don't receive defensive bonuses - it sounds to me as though your stack was all offense and no (or not enough) defense.

The only answer to streaks of bad luck, is to have enough (properly promoted) units that you don't care about a few freak losses.

Lastly - and maybe this is unavoidable on a huge terra map - is there no way for you to limit the number of civs you're at war with at any given time? It sounds as though you end up fighting half the world at once. If you really can't avoid multiple opponents, then you probably need to work on recruiting war allies. Keep your enemies from sending huge stacks your way by getting your friends to attack them. Ideally, that would give you the elbow room to muscle over your primary target without losing your homeland to a cavalry rush.

Well Merkinball, if Asoka attacked you with 4 artillery and 4 infantry (which is a very powerful stack). If that stack attacked 6 tanks, I don't feel like doing the numbers, but first artillery would attack and damage 5 tanks and possibly the first one. The second and third artillery would probably kill 1 tank and leave the rest close to 50% strength. This means that the 4th artillery plus 4 infantry should win each of their battles. This means that Asoka's stack could easily kill 5-6 tanks in a single turn.

Now if you were able to attack first, you may lose 1-2 tanks, but kill all Asoka's stack. One thing that you may underestimate is the strength of collatoral damage. Since a stack of 10 catapults could easily cripple 10 tanks. If a tank hasn't even defended yet, seige equipment could damage that tank to 50% strength (or 14str if i'm not mistaken). At that strength a promoted cavalry or rifleman could win in >55% of cases and an infantry should be able to win more than 75% of the time.

I agree with The Green Man about posting a save so someone here can take a look at your game to give more detailed advice.

:agree:

The Green Man & largedarryl are right on.

A few additional points:

Charge. Plan ahead and promote some Macemen with Charge for upgrade later to Mechanized Infantry (which cannot receive Charge).
Helicopters. Helicopters with Charge and Drill IV are brutal artillery defenders.
Offense. Urban warfare generally favours the defender. Field combat generally favours the offender.


My assault stacks when compared against the defender are 1 Artillery to their 2 units & 1 to 1 assault units.

So if they have 8 defenders, my stack will have 8 assault-type ground troups and 4+ barrage artillery.


-- my 2c