Hello all, and greetings from the world’s most inept BTS player! Try not to laugh, but I am a builder who just can’t seem to get over the “Noble” hump. As such, I am guessing I should take a more militaristic approach, perhaps…?

I am playing the official 3.13 patch. See how bad I am? I can’t even figure out how to add the unofficial patch. But that isn’t the point of this thread, and I’m sure I’ll trip over that answer before too long. :blush:

So which types of maps would you recommend for me, and what are a couple of Civ/Leader combos that should increase my chances of being successful?

Should I start a religion? If I miss out on the early religions, should I open my borders to allow religions in? Or should I go isolationist all the way?

Any tips to get me off on the right foot would be much appreciated. If you have any questions for me, I’ll do my best to address them. Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply! :goodjob:

Dave :)

Most of the time when someone says they are having difficulty, it's because they aren't building enough cottages. Commerce rules the world... commerce lets you financially support a larger civilization, which gives you a higher production base, commerce buys you a tech lead, which combines with your better production base to build you a technologically and hopefully numerically superior army.

Pick a financial leader of your liking (I recommend Netherlands, England, or Carthage), research pottery and bronzeworking fairly early, and chop down those forests and replace them with cottages and mines everywhere.

Many, many of us were/are in exactly your spot, so don't feel bad... :) For me, what got me through was

1) recognize the need to BUILD a military!

Too often I would have one def. unit per city - I'd always think "oh, I'll build more units in a sec; right now I really want a Library!" or whatever cool building was available, only to find the AI invading and me with no defensive troops. So, it may seem basic, but make sure you're building enough troops - like 2 or 3 defenders in your border cities, with a few offensive units (calavry/horsemen/macemen, or similar) with seige (cats, cannons) to help break up enemy attacks and finish off weakened units.

2) take advantage of the wealth of info here.

There are a bunch of great articles from folks way smarter than me offering strategies ranging from basic ideas to civ-specific strategies, over in the war academy. I highly recommend you take a look - got me more comfortable with war, as well as finally learning what a Great Person farm was all about and helping my economy (which you'll need, as you'll be building more units!)

3) Get familiar with units and (more importantly) their counters.

Enemy have Swordsmen/Axemen? get out your maces and axes for their bonuses vs melee units. Ghengis Khan on the border, building horse units and looking meaningfully in your direction? Look for spears and pikes to fend off the mounted units... The list goes on, but recognize the inherent weakness of the enemy units, and the strengths of your own - then fight as much as you can with your strength vs their weakness...

That's about it, for starters - one of the wise men here in the forums told me once that it's not the library you build that causes you trouble, it's the 3 axemen you DIDN'T build while you were building the library... :) so recognize the opportunity cost of being a builder, and work to intermix units in your build loops. Some people alternate building units and buildings in all their cities, some have one or two dedicated military cities doing nothing but churning out troops and military buildings - however you do it, just learn to consider the development of your units at least as important as the development of your culture/science/etc.

Or, as the forums told me, "Shaka doesn't care how many libraries you have..." :) (Thanks to whomever said that to me first, by the way - I've lost the name, but I'll at least credit the forum with this quote!)

So, play around and experiment, but give yourself a leg up through the War Academy!


EDIT: I forgot religion - don't be afraid to use religion as both a culture/economy tool, and a DIPLOMATIC tool... often, especially early, you can gain good relations (and therefore perhaps hold off an attacker) just by sharing a religion with them. Those early shared religion bonuses can be very large, depending on the leader... As far as starting religions, yes, it can give a nice economic boost later (esp. coupled with the proper civics) but how important that is depends on your style of play.

I have become a VASTLY better Civ player in the last two months or so I've been reading on these forums. Maps don't matter very much, leaders do but only to a degree... pick one that suits your strengths. On Noble, I would go with Huyana Capac if you're a builder. He's by far the easiest one to use, the Quechua is nice early on, and the UB is dope.

I would recommend these articles: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/earlygrowth.php
This one shows what the optimum early building strategy is. At very high difficulty you have to prioritize defense more, but in terms of just raw early power, this basically just shows you starting with a worker is non-optional, and plains hills are the best city locations.

Second, you should learn about the two basic economies.
Specialist Economy - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197818
and Cottage Economy, which was actually summed up already.... build as many cottages as you possibly can. To find out how many you can, read this:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/city_specialization.php

I too thought once that warfare must be the answer because I was struggling so much at winning peacefully, but really I just didn't know what techs would be valuable to the computer (learn that for sure!), which wonders make the biggest difference (Pyramids! Stonehenge!) and the right way to specialize cities.

pick a financial leader . cottages is a must , but if you only have 2 cities it doestnt help either . So important thing is rapid expansion at the beginning try to grap 6-8 cities , leave
2 cities for troops production (which mean farm+workshop or hills) , the rest just for cottages :D that enough for noble ...

Most of the time when someone says they are having difficulty, it's because they aren't building enough cottages. Commerce rules the world... commerce lets you financially support a larger civilization, which gives you a higher production base, commerce buys you a tech lead, which combines with your better production base to build you a technologically and hopefully numerically superior army.

Pick a financial leader of your liking (I recommend Netherlands, England, or Carthage), research pottery and bronzeworking fairly early, and chop down those forests and replace them with cottages and mines everywhere.

I have found that even getting your first 3-4 main cities heavily cottaged makes a huge difference in the end. Starting them soon and often gives them time to grow to full size. Later in the game I often cut back a lot on how many I build and opt for other things.

Paydro: Exellent resources, to be sure.
But I've really got to put my faith in India, whatever leader you may choose. If you're going to war on turn three, then forget what I'm saying; otherwise...

India is very strong, no doubt... but so is Mali, and Inca, and England, etc. etc.

I don't think it matters THAT much who you have, though there's a "top tier" which gives an advantage over those not in it.

Hello all, and greetings from the world’s most inept BTS player! Try not to laugh, but I am a builder who just can’t seem to get over the “Noble” hump. As such, I am guessing I should take a more militaristic approach, perhaps…?

I am playing the official 3.13 patch. See how bad I am? I can’t even figure out how to add the unofficial patch. But that isn’t the point of this thread, and I’m sure I’ll trip over that answer before too long. :blush:

So which types of maps would you recommend for me, and what are a couple of Civ/Leader combos that should increase my chances of being successful?

Should I start a religion? If I miss out on the early religions, should I open my borders to allow religions in? Or should I go isolationist all the way?

Any tips to get me off on the right foot would be much appreciated. If you have any questions for me, I’ll do my best to address them. Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply! :goodjob:

Dave :)


Seems to me like you're afraid to pick a fight, either because you perfect your cities so much that you can't afford to loose them or because spending 10 hours on a game and loosing just isnt fun :lol:

For a map i'd recommend world map and play as china. China is a really fun way of getting your first success when you advance because you're almost guaranteed to win. their very productive land and extremly recourse rich country is very powerful. Here's some things that i'd do to be sure i won.

build a military!
Take turns per city you have to build a military unit, whenever you're unsure of what to build. you don't NEED a granary in EVERY city and what's the point of an aqueduct if your town is clean? ..

Warhead is right, the higher the difficulty level, the higher the need for military. I once would build everything in my cities... whether I needed it or not. And I would often be screwed when I got invaded. On higher difficulties, you might just get invaded anyways, so you should be prepared.

Crushing neighbors can be beneficial, but take your time and pick your spot. I often have my best success with macemen+trebuchets, so rushing to that point could be a good time to attack.

Read some articles, post some games and ask for help, and you'll be moving up the levels in no time. I was playing Noble 2 months ago, and I just won my first game (beginner's luck?) on Emperor last night.

Warhead is right, the higher the difficulty level, the higher the need for military. I once would build everything in my cities... whether I needed it or not. And I would often be screwed when I got invaded. On higher difficulties, you might just get invaded anyways, so you should be prepared.

Crushing neighbors can be beneficial, but take your time and pick your spot. I often have my best success with macemen+trebuchets, so rushing to that point could be a good time to attack.

Read some articles, post some games and ask for help, and you'll be moving up the levels in no time. I was playing Noble 2 months ago, and I just won my first game (beginner's luck?) on Emperor last night.

macemen trebuchets.. thats an interesting combo, never tried that. how do you like playing on emperor, doesn't it bother you that the odds are unfair? to me it's not that i should have the better odds, it should be completely even and then the best one wins?..

you don't NEED a granary in EVERY city and what's the point of an aqueduct if your town is clean? ..

Ok, bad example there. EVERY city needs a granary, unless it's a tundra city planted to grab beavers or silver that will never grow past size 2. Better example would be that not every city needs a library or a university.

Well, the problem is I'm always "the best" on a difficulty lower than monarch, and recently it's become nearly always on Monarch. I don't really find that entertaining, I want to keep pushing myself to play better. I'm only at one game so far on Emperor, but I didn't notice very much difference. Maybe it'll become more obvious soon.

As for macemen+trebuchets... the game is definitely designed for you to win with siege. I just build a crazy number of trebs, promote them all with collateral damage, bombard the defenses, attack with the trebs until enough damage is done, and as long as it's nothing above longbowmen (and the computer almost never even seems to build crossbowmen) you will annihilate with CR macemen. You do of course have to accompany them with some war elephants/pikemen to protect against a mounted counter-attack, but again... it's just usually too little too late.

Balbanes is right, granary is a bad example. You could also say barracks, walls, etc.

macemen trebuchets.. thats an interesting combo, never tried that. how do you like playing on emperor, doesn't it bother you that the odds are unfair? to me it's not that i should have the better odds, it should be completely even and then the best one wins?..


Crossbowmen (plus a few Pikemen/War elephants to defend vs cavalry) are better for invasion than Macemen IMO. Maceman v Maceman even fight, Macemen vs Crossbowmen is 8 vs 9 in favor of the Crossbowmen. Once you smash the city with a bunch of trebs, it no longer matters that macemen are better city raiders, all the units are going to be too weak to defend against any attacker.

In CIV 3, I was a builder coming over to Civ 4 forced me to rethink my approach. Here is what I can suggest:

On a standard size map, normal speed, I usually like to play with 2 continents for Noble with 8 Civs (hopefully it ends up to be 4 on each, but that is not guaranteed).

I learned building 3 cities in resource friendly spots is ideal. Don't build the 3rd one until you know you have iron. Then start building about 10-15 swordsman beat up your nearest neighbor. You will probably want to raze every city except thier capital. Only keep cities that will really help you, because the finacials hit will be a lot for that early in teh game.

Then, be a builder until you get to Knights and knock out another neighbor or at least take over half of thier land. At this point, keep any good cities, you should be able to afford to do it.

Go back and build, because by now you should have enough land to grab a tech lead and choose your victory type. Obviously, the knight attachs aren't really necessary if you are going for a cultural win, but for all the others you will want to do it.

The other things that really help are
- Cottage spam at least 2 cities. And really spam the cities. These cities may lack a little production, but when you can get 100+ commerce out of a city in 1500AD, you know it's spammed well - Instead of cottages, sometimes costal cities can do this well too.
- Make sure you have at least 1 Great Person farm - farm almsot every square. On Noble, you get less wonders (unless you play industrial), so to keep up with th e normal amount of great people, the far will help.
- Get a religion. I tend to get Christanity because I go for Theology quickly to use the Vassalge/Theocracry combination.

Well, that's my brain dump.

First post on this forum... I was able to win noble in the original Civ 4, but I haven't made it far enough in BTS to know yet. It feels harder so far. I've got a few different multiplayer games going on with friends, and I'm generally doing pretty well, but I haven't played a lot of single player yet. Anyway, just wanted to say that some of the answers on this thread were educational for me as well, and this looks like a pretty wicked forum overall.

Gilfan... I don't really follow, why are crossbowmen better? They can't get the city raider promotions, so they're inevitably going to have inferior strength when attacking cities. Unless you're attacking a city defended by macemen or other melee units, aren't you better off with macemen against longbowmen or even musketmen?

I guess you're more likely to see melee units in the field, in which case crossbowmen are handy, but to me that's not really worth the inferior city attacking. That would suggest you should include a couple, I guess, though.

Tproc, why knights? They're paralyzed against pikemen, which the computer really does often build, and they can't get the city raider promotions. They're great to use in the field, and as units in case the computer has the occasional crossbowman, but in general they're not my main attacking force.

Crossbowmen are better because they defend your stack of trebuchets better than a maceman would against incoming axeman or maceman attacks. The city raider upgrade is irrelevant IMO because your stack of 10-20 trebs are going to reduce the defenders to strength 1-2 anyway.

If i'm going to wipe out a civ with X cities, I take 3X crossbowmen (leaving 2 behind to hold each captured city), 3X trebuchets, and 1X pikemen or war elephants, if the enemy has a significant cavalry force.

The easiest way to save yourself from your builder tendencies, in my experience, is to build a unit pump.

This city has no cottages inside its BFC. Pick a spot with a good mix of hills and food, mine the hills, farm what you have to in order to eventually work all 20 tiles, and workshop/watermill everything else you can reach. Ideally, this will be your second city.

Build a barracks there and start pumping out units. Don't build a granary or a forge until your second unit pump is up and running. Build a temple or a market when you hit the happy cap and build an aqueduct or grocer when unhealthiness strikes. Beyond that, nothing but units. You will feel like you have enough units, but you will continue to build units. You will desperately want to build a library. You will resist the impulse.

Eventually, and with perseverance, you will end up with a great big army. And once you figure out all the fun things you can do with a great big army...how much more polite your neighbors are, how seldom the sudden sneak attacks, how easy the wars...it won't be quite so hard to build a decent size army in your next game.

And if it's still too hard to leave the library out, it doesn't hurt to name the city something like The Stronghold or Thunderdrome or Beatingsburgh or Pointy Bits Inc. You may find it helps you achieve the proper mindset.

Gilfan: Okay, I guess this isn't really a very important distinction, since we're only talking about getting attacked by random units in the field. But even in that situation, wouldn't you want knights for this purpose? They're 10 STR instead of 9, so cbows are still not the best defense, or the best attack. Even with shock, Knights with combat II are better (12 vs. 11.1).

Honestly I guess you're right that it matters not at all, since you are going to be destroying the enemy almost entirely with trebs inside cities, and any mixed-arms SoD will be unstoppable in the field.

Sure, you could sub knights for crossbows if you have the tech for them. I use crossbows as an example for two reasons... 1st, crossbowmen from your SoD can be left behind as garrison troops and get the benefit of city defense values. No attacker trying to retake the city gets a bonus vs crossbowmen, but speakmen/pikemen could easily retake a city defended by knights.

2nd, the original example was macemen... if you can build macemen, you can build crossbowmen. Knights require different techs which you may not have.

Also, the obvious one - knights don't get def. bonuses, so for stack defense on the move, wouldn't the xbows win out?

Don't listen to all these warmongers. It is quite possible to play a peaceful game at levels far above Noble. Consider the PeaceMongers's section of the War Academy, for example. There are Deity guides there. It is also possible to win without a mad rush for a ton of cities. The Always War Deity One City Challenge has been achieved. Admittedly this was a stacked map but still... it proves the power of a good cities in Civ. OCC is easy on Monarch.

Here are the two rules to a powerful civ game. They apply whether you plan on a peaceful game or not.

1. Don't work unimproved tiles.

Every time a citizen is placed a tile which hasn't been improved, this is a huge loss to your civilisation. This is why your first build should almost always be a worker or a workboat. The only exception is when the worker would have nothing to do. You start in the hole. Get out of it as fast as possible. Every time you start working unimproved tiles, it is time to train another worker. In fact, it is really too late at this point; the worker should already have been trained. And don't forget workers for wood-chopping too. You should have at least one worker per city. In the very early game, two is closer to the ideal.


2. Don't build crap cities.

In the beginning, every city should have good land. Early cities should normally have two resources (at least one of them food) and preferably three. Other desirable city sites include places with lots of grass and flood plains. Cottaged, they provide commerce. Farmed, you get GPs. Hills + farms = production. It doesn't matter whether they overlap a bit or whether there is a bit of unused terrain in between. In civ3, cities were laid out in a regular fashion. This doesn't work in Civ4. Place the cities to capture the good tiles. You may find that dot-mapping helps your game. It's good discipline if you are serious about improving your game.

Some other points:

If you want a peaceful game, don't worry about honing your warring skills.

I know this goes against everything the bloodthirsty dogs on this thread tell you, but it's true. Be nice to your neighbours. Give into demands. Keep your power graph up (about half the leader is a good rule of thumb). You are not likely to get a declaration under these circumstances but if you do, don't be afraid. The AI is dumb nuts stupid. Let it suicide on your defences. You rarely even get pillaged. Oh. Don't forget to bring other folks into the war. Just wait until it is ready to talk.


Forget about religion

There is almost nothing valuable down the religious path except the religions themselves - and they just make your neighbours mad at you. If you really want a religion, the good ones are Taoism and Confucianism. Later on, you can trade for the other stuff.


Forget about early wonders

The only one that is really good is the Great Library, and you should make sure you get it. Stonehenge is good in some circumstances. The opportunity cost of the others is just too great. Sure they are fun but, if you want to improve your game, get used to living without them.

Tech

Worker techs first. These are situational and depend on the map. The most important is whatever food techs your opening needs, followed closely by Mining and Bronze Working. Bronze is probably the single most important tech in the game, not for the metal so much but for the chopping. You want to turn your civ into an eco-freak's worst nightmare. Fit the wheel and pottery in somewhere.

Next you might consider a couple of other techs like IW (no Bronze? lots of jungle?) and sailing (lots of seafood?).

After that, your beeline is up the top side of the tree towards Liberalism. Key techs include: Writing (libraries - build 'em and hire scientists, open borders - do it), Literature (Great Library), Alphabet (tech trading), Currency (markets and trade routes), Code of Laws (Confucianism and courthouses), Civil Service (Bureaucracy).

Whip

Use it early. Use it often. As cities grow, it becomes less desirable but new and captured cities need to get a granary, a courthouse and a source of culture before they are allowed to grow larger. Depending on the city, you might add forges, lighthouses and libraries to the list. If you want to play a peaceful game, you can switch civics after your initial expansion is over. After all, a slave revolt is painful and the alternate civics have their uses too.


This approach will serve you well up to Emperor level. Above that, sad to say, you are going to have to learn the art of war.

Really? No place for the Pyramids in your view of the higher difficulties? I would say the difference of having representation is much bigger than even the Great Library.

Sure, if you use terrain, I suppose the crossbowmen would match up better against melee attackers than knights. The point that they can be used to defend is more compelling, as is the fact that you don't have to have guilds and horseback riding to get them. I think I should reconsider.

Neat thread.
I smell some kind of challenge coming on.

Noble game save.
Someone plays builder!
Someone plays warmonger strat!
Someone does anything and everything BUT build cottages!
*** Compare notes/saves

Post a save? :mischief:

...I don't understand. A lot of people run SEs that don't involve cottages, and on Noble it's easy to win either way. How would you "compare notes"? A warmonger would probably win first, but that doesn't mean he'd be "better."

I was thinking more about proving that you could, in fact, win regardless of the strategy. Almost all of the ideas in the thread are good ones.
Specialize cities
Work good tiles
Have a great defense
Stay ahead in tech
Yes, Cottage

One of the best pieces of advice I recall reading here early on was to cure the "wonder" mentality simply by not building any wonders at all and instead concentrating on the basics.
Another was simply go out a break some heads purposefully in a game.

So, I was just suggesting alternate approaches to the same save, then just compare notes about how you acheived that victory.

Playing (a lot) and reading the CFC forums does wonders.
That and playing above your level whenever possible, even if you get creamed, is good too. Provided you learn something everytime and apply it in the next game. :goodjob:

Really? No place for the Pyramids in your view of the higher difficulties? I would say the difference of having representation is much bigger than even the Great Library.Is this addressed to me? FWIW, I agree. However, the Pyramids comes much earlier than the GL. Therefore the opportunity cost is far higher. You cannot simply say that the Pyramids are better; you also have to consider what you re trading them for.

Well, you had praise for the GL and a little for Stonehenge but that to have a high level of play you have to abandon the rest. So that seemed to me to suggest that you don't think the Pyramids have a place on higher difficulties. They are difficult to build, but I think their benefit is so enormous for such a long stretch (the time between completing the pyramids and Constitution is sooooo long) that it is worth the cost.

Stonehenge is so easy to get that I build it basically every game other than ones where I end up with a creative civ.

PS - I definitely agree with the bulk of your post however. Giving up on getting the Oracle every game, or the Lighthouse, or Temple of Artemis, or even the Parthenon, is important.

Oh, one other wonder can often be quite worth it, and not hard to build: the Great Wall.

It seems you can learn from me since I play on noble too, am a bit of a builder and won my first game on something else then Time... :)
Tonight it was a Diplomatic Victory on an Archipelo map. The good thing about Archipello is that you have to pay attention on one enemy island at a time. In my game it turned out that 2 transport ships with 2x4 units like Tanks or Modern Armor was enough to caputure the tiny islands. With ofcourse frigate, destroyer, etc. to lower the city defences.
Then, every time that you capature a city, look for the capitulation option. And offer the AI to become a Vassel under your command.

Declare war to the Civ leader who is low on points.
Make sure you have the same religion as the Civ who is highest on points, or #2 when you are #1 :D

I had a Diplomatic Victory because every other Civ was a Vassel under my command so they voted for me as UN leader :D

One piece of advice... don't pick up Vassals as soon as it's possible to do so. Do it when it's worth your while; when you have captured all the cities you want, or when it would no longer be worth it to do so.

Don't just make friends with the most powerful civ... you don't want to get out-done by a rival, you want to bring that guy down.

Well, you had praise for the GL and a little for Stonehenge but that to have a high level of play you have to abandon the rest. So that seemed to me to suggest that you don't think the Pyramids have a place on higher difficulties. They are difficult to build, but I think their benefit is so enormous for such a long stretch (the time between completing the pyramids and Constitution is sooooo long) that it is worth the cost.

Stonehenge is so easy to get that I build it basically every game other than ones where I end up with a creative civ.The GL is the one early wonder that clearly pays for itself. All the rest are situational. While Representation is a great Civic, The Pyramids are extremely costly. As for Stonehenge, if you build it every time you're not Creative then you build it too often. The real need is get your good tiles worked by your early cities. There are other ways to achieve this. Perhaps placing a city in a less than ideal position (but still good) position is the answer. Chopping a couple of monuments? Missionaries. Once I get libraries, I pretty much stop building monuments. IOW, how badly do you need the culture? If it's only for one or two cities, Stonehenge ain't worth the money.

Oh, one other wonder can often be quite worth it, and not hard to build: the Great Wall.So lessee. First the Pyramids are essential. Then you build Stonehenge every time. Now it's the GW? At the higher levels, it can be useful for stealing techs. At Noble? About the best thing you can say for it is the Movie. Awesome. :goodjob: But if you think you need it for protection from barbs (at Noble???), you really need to re-visit your basic skills.

Eh, don't overstate my case. I didn't say Pyramids are essential or the Great Wall. I think they're both powerful and useful. The Great Spy can easily be worth two free technologies, making it even better than the Oracle. The fact that barbarians are no threat is also handy. If you want to talk opportunity cost, how about not having to build an extra couple units just in case a barbarian gets lucky? Pyramids I don't even really have to make the case for. The computer doesn't try to build them very early (obviously, since they are expensive) but we're still talking about literally hundreds of beakers off of specialists (presumably one of the main bonuses for the GL, no?) and all that bonus happiness for a very long time.

Stonehenge is the only one that I really do build nearly every time. The ability to have my borders pop automatically is of tremendous power, considering I A) never found an early religion and B) think fighting the computer for city placement is of critical importance. It's like having the creative trait, for the cost of 120 hammers? Sign me up. Chop two forests and you're halfway there. Plus if you're the Native Americans, Egyptians, or Ethiopians, it's even more ridiculous.

Anyway, I obviously don't try to build all of those other wonders every game. It depends on the presence of things like Stone and Marble, whether I have other good stuff to build, etc. But if it's possible to get the Pyramids, or the GW takes like 6-8 turns to build, odds are it's a good decision.

One note: Of course none of these are necessary on Noble, though on that low of a difficulty it's quite possible to get them all, if you're industrious.

The Great Spy can easily be worth two free technologies, making it even better than the Oracle. The fact that barbarians are no threat is also handy.On Noble? You have got to be kidding me. What free techs? What threat? Look dood, at this level I expect to have macemen before my warriors cannot protect me from barbs and I expect to be in Bureaucracy while some of the AI still don't have Alphabet.

And BTW, two Meditations does not equal one Feudalism. Never mind a CS. At this level the Oracle is far more powerful.

Holy smokes, you folks are awesome! Many thanks for all of the great tips and ideas! I have been on vacation for the past couple of days, and I will chime back in after I have had the time to digest all your ideas. Thanks again for all of the help! :)

Dave

Yeah you're right Abegweit... to be honest I have never built the Great Wall on Noble, at the time I was playing that difficulty level I didn't understand espionage at all yet, my holdover strategies from Civ III were enough. So again... you don't really need ANY wonder on noble. Most likely the problem is far more basic if you're losing on that difficulty level. I just think that getting at least one early wonder can have a dramatic effect on your game, so I was taking issue with your dismissal of those besides the GL.

BTW your avatar is one of my all-time fav internet pics.

Okay...is there actually a forum/subforum named War Academy?

And for the record, I can't wait to name my next troop building city Pointy Bits Inc. :)

Edit - As I often fall into the Wonder trap, I am going to bypass all Wonders next time around and take the time to learn a new (and better!) approach.

Dave

Stonehenge and Pyramids are worth building, IMO. In addition to expanding your borders quickly so you can access bonus resources 2 tiles from your city, it also gives you an early great prophet. Great Prophet special building could easily mean 10+ gold per turn for the rest of teh game, which is particularly useful early on. As for Pyramids, it's impossible to overstate how useful early representation can be.