Basically, after losing countless times on Noble difficulty, I decided I need help ;)

I usually lose on my first war, a neighbouring empire will attack with a massive stack of units, and either completely destroy me or decimate my country enough that recovering would be impossible.

I've checked all the guides I can find, and as far as I know i'm doing everything ok, not too many cities, no lavish spending, going for the right technologies...

Yet at noble I have never won a single game, it seems I am constantly at war and I never have time to build a big enough army to stop it or get culture/technologies for other victories.

It seems as if I'm doing something wrong, and its always on the earlier periods. Does anyone have some much needed advise? I pretty much know all about how the game works, but just my strategy is lacking :p

I'd love to help, but I am a Civoholic from 1993 and I can't even beat Warlord. I last longer than you do on Noble. But when I play noble, the same happens to me.

You need to keep up your military at all times. You can't fall below a .8 in comparison to the other civs with your power rating. If you do they will attack and usually as a mob.

Use F1 and the map to figure out which city is going to be able to produce the most amount of hammers and just pump out military units. once you hit the money cap and start losing cash (don't sweat it too much until you hit 60% research) then figure out what you need to do to get more income.

You need to read the guides on the forum.

I can vouch for the much acclaimed Sisiutil's guide for beginners.

The other tip would be go through the civ IV manual. I did six times. Focus on city management screen.

If you can get city management right (good growth, health, happiness etc.), you will find all sorts of resources to do all sorts of things - fast unit buildup for fighting, money for maintaining the units, higher research, higher culture and so on.

Pick Rome. Spam Praets.


Oh and welcome to the forums! :dance:

I think Scoottr hit the nail on the head. From your description, you're doing too much building/research and not paying enough attention to military.

In your next game, one potential way to compensate for this (which EweezE was hinting at) is to try to do an early rush of a neighbour. That way, you're entirely focused in the beginning of the game on your military before anything else. It doesn't have to be Rome, although Praets are terrific. You'll probably find if you do this that you don't get attacked for a very long time because you start powerful and stay that way for some time.

To further the idea of the "unit pump" city that Scoottr mentioned, try to earn a Level 4 unit either in an early rush or by fighting barbarians, or a combination of both. Then research Literature and build the Heroic Epic in that production city. This will give it 100% production when building military units, which it should focus on, only building other things to keep it happy and healthy as needed.

Another thing you should consider is posting a saved game file from the early game and ask for specific advice.

Specialize your cities. Use your first production-rich city (ie good mineral resources/lots of hills with enough food to support working these tiles) and just have this city focus on only creating military units and military buildings. Focus these military units near the closest city you have to the neighboring civ. Keep your power rating in check. (How do you check your power rating, by the way?)

Keep your power rating in check. (How do you check your power rating, by the way?)

F9 _

The main thing that helped me beat noble level was to use raging barbarians setting. I was forced to adapt to raging barbarians in my game and in doing so, automatically came into a dominant position after the barbarians were gone!

Another simple rule of thumb that works for noble level - build 1 military unit for every 1 city improvement! I got that idea from playing civilisation Call to Power 2 because i have to always build a unit after a city improvement otherwise the game does not centre on the city after a city improvement is built, so the city goes idle and is very easy to miss for many turns!!

I have to agree with the suggestion to play with 'Raging Barbarians'. Of course, this would be once you're more familiar with balancing the military aspect of the game. But all points considered, while you could survive on a peace with friendly neighbours (for a while), barbarians are relentless. Before you know it, you'll be forced by necessity into balancing the military, economy, and even having fog busters to stem the unwashed masses. Lastly, a combo of chop rushing + slavery is what nearly always carries me through the early game. I'm not a civ pro but they haven't failed me yet.

Oh, and, believe in the power of defensive siege weaponry :D

I'd imagine as a now veteran noble player that you are probably a little too focused on REXing. Expansion isn't quite as important on noble that it is on the higher levels. Many times, 2 cities can take you a long way. I just started a game with random settings, and it gave me Sumeria. I have never used gilgamesh, and as a matter of fact, I've never tried either trait that he has (CRE and PRO). Wouldn't you know that Rome was only 4 tiles away from my capital. I quickly researched BW, and it was only 2 tiles north of my capital. So I plopped a city down to get the copper, overlapping with the capital to share a corn to help it grow faster.

After that, I whipped a Barracks in both cities, I pumped out 8 Vultures (wow they were good!), razed Cumae and some other little city, and then took Rome. Now I have a lot of land to expand without a nearby neighbor, and I own 2 capitals! Rome will make a great GP farm because it has 4 food resources AND is on a river. Needless to say once this happens, the game is already all but won.

Remember, take the FIGHT to them! You don't want Praets knocking on your door...

Oh, and BTW-try a few OCC games. The strategies are definitely different, but it helps learn how to manage a city very well.

I've heard that raging barbs cripples some of the AI civs. The AI is not as crafty as a human at countering barbs, let alone raging barbs. If he's getting owned by AI why turn the barbs loose on him?

I've heard that raging barbs cripples some of the AI civs. The AI is not as crafty as a human at countering barbs, let alone raging barbs. If he's getting owned by AI why turn the barbs loose on him?


It is much better to loose to Barbarians than the AI - because you learn so much quicker!!

You know, all the AI does is march over you with a huge army all at once, and what do you learn from that? Well, i guess you do get to learn where the restart option is but thats about it!

Wow, thanks for all your replies guys!

I think you've spotted my problem, by what you've been saying I definatly havn't been focusing enough on military. One thing I surely havn't done enough is go out and find a good place for a city that produces military units (hills etc), I usually just place a city wherever looks nice.

So it seems I just need 1 or perhaps 2 cities that focus on units only, and spam as many units I can from them, then send them over to defend my bordering cities. And if there's a country that looks like a threat/is weak, I should attack them first.

This is really fantastic advise, thanks for your help! I just hope I'm not the only country with Hinduism faced against 7 with confucianism like last game ;)

In your last game it might have been wise to convert to Confucianism, eh? :p

I would say you need 1 military city for every 3-5 cities you have. This exact number depends on the size of map you are playing on. I personally play on a Gigantic size maps in Nevermind's XXL World mod. SO I usually run 1 every 3-4 cities. Of my first 5 cities, usually 2 are military pumps. And the AI better hope I don't start out in a hammer rich area because a few games 4 of my initial 5 cities have been military pumps. Hehe. That means I make an army for every direction I can go, and I will use the scorched earth policy and burn everything in my armies path to clear room and "worry" about the barbs that spawn as a result later. (These larger maps usually make taking a city at that distance early on suicide.) But usually burning a nation to the ground pre-construction will yield about 500-800 gold for your treasury. This all works on any size of map though, just determine how many military cities you feel you need but make sure that at LEAST 1 out of every 5 cities is a military pump no matter the map size. (NOTE: Killing all surrounding nations or all but 1 can hurt you as then tech trading will become unavailable. This is where practice in rapid expansion techniques come in. USing the nearby luxury resources you can manage to efficiently run at 20-30% science and keep up with the rest of the world. And the slingshot of your economy will soon storm you into the lead if managed right. This takes some practice though and don't be discouraged if the first few attempts fail to gain you the tech lead. PLus, some maps just simply won't allow you to do this - it takes practice to spot if you can or not I suppose.)

If you play on larger map sizes and go every 3-4 cities you can merge them with either science or commerce as well. Just to give any income they have a little more benefit. Then if you find yourself in a period of peacetime and friendly foreign affairs, you can have these high hammer producing cities make either wealth or research if they need no more buildings and you are ok on units. (Markets and Libraries don't multiply wealth or research from hammers but its a noticable boost nonetheless.)
Thanks to some recent advice I picked up on these forums - I have any military cities I plan on settling GP or GGs in also act as a science city when they get a moment to build a library or university etc. That way when I run representation I get +3 beakers for every GP/GG settled in the city. (Which is multiplied by libraries and such.) Military pumps I don't plan on settling any GP/GGs in I make commerce cities which get banks and markets and such.

I would also say that the power rating is a factor you should keep an eye on and probably don't (judging by your DOW commentary).

The very useful BUG mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235633) adds, among other things, a power rating right into the scoreboard. It shows you in a decimal value your strength relative to others. (i.e. 0.8 when your 20% weaker, 1.1 when you're 10% stronger).

Having this in sight all the time (without the need to check an advisor) has proven very helpful to my game. Although I never had problems with AI DOWing on me, I now know when I can DOW on them or at least can feel safe to build other stuff than military. If my numbers are showing 1.0 through the board, I know I don't need to build military but can build all those pretty little buildings I always wanted.

In the beginning an archer and a warrior each are probably enough for your first couple of cities; then gradually stock up.

Also, try a rush on your neighbour early, eventually stealing a worker and parking a warrior or two outside his city. You don't even need to attack him. The AI has a problem with your unit outside his city and will warrior/archer spam and stay inside his city. This cripples his initial expansion tremendously. Before you know it you have three cities and Catapults, while he is still boxed up in his initial capital (I am talking Noble/Prince here). It's a bit cheap, but effective :D

And yes, do go read Sisiutil's beginner's guide (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632). Great work!

cheers,
wannabewarlord

In your last game it might have been wise to convert to Confucianism, eh? :p

If only I had a city with that religion in it ;)

(And I didn't have Theocracy either)

You would have if you captured one from the AI. This could be one of those rare instances where declaring war is good for diplomacy.

Another simple rule of thumb that works for noble level - build 1 military unit for every 1 city improvement! I do it slightly differently - for each improvement, I spend roughly the same number of turns on military. That way building more expensive buildings doesn't sideline the city from keeping up it's military obligations.

I think the key is the city that specializes in military.

It gets a barracks, maybe a granary to help it grow, maybe a market for happiness, a forge... and military, military, military.

Civ IV really rewards city specialization - your military city doesn't have to be all that big to be really useful.

I gave up on Noble a while back as well but the next level down was far too easy, so as mentioned above, I turned on raging barbarians, aggresive AI, and turned off villages (goodie huts). Now after playing many games that way and doing so well it was getting boring, I'm trying noble again with much better results.

slavery can be used well to boost military early on. You don't really need to set up a production city right away if you are slaving units.

In fact, slaving buildings more too would probably help your game. I think people tend to avoid it at first (I did too)

If only I had a city with that religion in it ;)

(And I didn't have Theocracy either)

If that had been me, I would have run "No State Religion". Sure, you will lose the happiness bonus, but diplomacy between you and the others would have improved immensely, which I would deem more important - and eventually, if you had allowed open borders, the others would have spread Confucianism to you and you could have converted.

If you trying to play a peaceful game, almost always only use religion to position yourself strategically, nothing else. I wouldn't adopt a religion until I am at least certain what the others are going to do, the +1 happy isn't worth going to war for!

Well, since I last posted in this thread. I won my first Noble in CONQUEST. Basically I cheated. I was Julius and did a very early Praetorian rush. I only founded 4 cities the entire game. I was aggressive for once and took the war AWAY from me. I earned Vassals and they assisted later.

Well, since I last posted in this thread. I won my first Noble in CONQUEST. Basically I cheated. I was Julius and did a very early Praetorian rush. I only founded 4 cities the entire game. I was aggressive for once and took the war AWAY from me. I earned Vassals and they assisted later.
Since when is playing as Rome and doing a Praet rush "cheating"? :confused: Good for you for stickin' it to that uppity CPU and winning your first noble game. :goodjob:

Now try to win without Rome but using the same strategy and just building more units. Using Rome and doing a Praet rush is certainly not cheating. It makes things a hell of a lot easier on you for the duration of the game, but it's not cheating. It feels like cheating that's how easy it is. You won't get as much respect for winning with Rome as you would winning with say --- America. The point being a civ with a real late UU and UB. Of course this is only an opinion and someone will likely take a shot at this view. :rolleyes:

Now try to win without Rome but using the same strategy and just building more units. Using Rome and doing a Praet rush is certainly not cheating. It makes things a hell of a lot easier on you for the duration of the game, but it's not cheating. It feels like cheating that's how easy it is. You won't get as much respect for winning with Rome as you would winning with say --- America. The point being a civ with a real late UU and UB. Of course this is only an opinion and someone will likely take a shot at this view. :rolleyes:

Happy to. :D ;)

Winning wars when playing as Rome is obviously easier than with just about any other civ. Praetorians are strength 8, 2 more than any other unit until either War Elephants or Macemen show up, which can take awhile. Time things right and you'll be sending them up against nothing stronger than Archers. Since you'll have time while researching Iron Working to build barracks, they'll have at least one promotion (probably Combat or City Raider) on top of that. In fact, by the time I field my Praet stack against another civ, they often have 2 promotions thanks to barbs.

The challenge with Rome is the economic one. Julius Caesar has a minor economic advantage (lower cost civics and courthouses), while Augustus has none. Sure you can field a whack of Praets and conquer your neighbours, but how do you keep your research going and avoid going into strike? Especially since the time to strike with Praets is ASAP--long before you have Currency or Code of Laws to help you out. That's the challenge with Rome, not winning the war, but winning the peace afterwards.

Once you know how to rescue an economy and the limits war puts on research, there is really no disadvantage with Rome. You can always raze cities if you don't wish to rescue the economy. Razing cities will keep the praets in battle, where they belong.. Cottages will need to be worked to support a large army, a lot of cottages. Increase happiness cap and work more cottages. And CoL is not too far along in the tech tree if you decide to keep a couple nice cities along your conquest. I never have problems with my economy anymore. I've learned the limits of the economy for my style of play long ago. You need to break the economy a few times while learning so you can understand its limits.

Once you know how to rescue an economy and the limits war puts on research, there is really no disadvantage with Rome. You can always raze cities if you don't wish to rescue the economy. Razing cities will keep the praets in battle, where they belong.. Cottages will need to be worked to support a large army, a lot of cottages. Increase happiness cap and work more cottages. And CoL is not too far along in the tech tree if you decide to keep a couple nice cities along your conquest. I never have problems with my economy anymore. I've learned the limits of the economy for my style of play long ago. You need to break the economy a few times while learning so you can understand its limits.

Good post :)

I still play too often as Rome on my prefered difficulty (Monarch), as I can win more than 75% of the time compared to 50% with other leaders. But I still sometimes manage to screw things up big style by not paying any attention to my income/science rate if the offensive is going well (If it's going badly I tend to declare peace, and then notice how badly behind my infrastructure/science is)

I kill off the nearest Civ, capture 2-3 of their cities, then notice the next nearest Civ has founded 2 religions or built a couple of wonders... I still have several well promoted prets around doing nothing, so it's time to attack again :)

Then I capture another couple of cities, and notice my tech rate is 20% or less, and I have 5G in the bank.

Once you know how to rescue an economy and the limits war puts on research, there is really no disadvantage with Rome. You can always raze cities if you don't wish to rescue the economy. Razing cities will keep the praets in battle, where they belong.. Cottages will need to be worked to support a large army, a lot of cottages. Increase happiness cap and work more cottages. And CoL is not too far along in the tech tree if you decide to keep a couple nice cities along your conquest. I never have problems with my economy anymore. I've learned the limits of the economy for my style of play long ago. You need to break the economy a few times while learning so you can understand its limits.

Good post :)

I still play too often as Rome on my prefered difficulty (Monarch), as I can win more than 75% of the time compared to 50% with other leaders. But I still sometimes manage to screw things up big style by not paying any attention to my income/science rate if the offensive is going well (If it's going badly I tend to declare peace, and then notice how badly behind my infrastructure/science is)

I kill off the nearest Civ, capture 2-3 of their cities, then notice the next nearest Civ has founded 2 religions or built a couple of wonders... I still have several well promoted prets around doing nothing, so it's time to attack again :)

Then I capture another couple of cities, and notice my tech rate is 20% or less, and I have 5G in the bank.

Well, since I last posted in this thread. I won my first Noble in CONQUEST. Basically I cheated. I was Julius and did a very early Praetorian rush. I only founded 4 cities the entire game. I was aggressive for once and took the war AWAY from me. I earned Vassals and they assisted later.

If you play on a highly congested map you rarely have to found more than 4 cities with any civ. For example, I play earth 18 scenario often and have won prince level conquests with rome building only 2 cities, england building 3 on my island and then one in norway, and I'm currently working on a game as persia doing slightly more expansion into africa I've founded 5 cities total.

It's way more beneficial to let the AI found cities while you build units and just take them from them, so long as they don't have terrible placement.

If you're losing on noble I'd look to one of these 4 reasons first:

1. Expansion, over or under expanding: Building too many cities and crippling your economy, or vice versa, just building a couple without conquering neighbors for more or founding more yourself. Poor city placement falls in here too I guess.

2. Not balancing production: Trying to build every improvement available, even though the benefit is minimal for some in some cities, going wonder crazy, neglecting military, or building way too much military (hardly ever happens, but if you're using twice as many units as you need you wasted a lot of turns).

3. Researching the wrong stuff: Trying to get cool techs like ones that found religions, instead of the most useful like beelining bronze or iron working. I was guilty of this for a long time, trying to found every religion, when it really didn't benefit me at all.

4. Poor diplomacy: Trading with everyone, or not trading with anyone, adopting the wrong religions, not keeping your power rating high enough etc. If you do everything else right (strong techs, economy etc) you can adopt a me-against-the-world policy and piss off every AI, but it's much easier to take them out one at a time and with allies.

im not the best player around, but i beaten noble a few time my fist time a week ago or so, i had to make major adjustments to my game.

-military is a big part, you need power rating so your not a easy target
-commerce drives your economy, research, culture and so forth i over looked this alot build lots of cottages
-diplomacy try and get a tech buddy, and a war hungry leader, use your war hungry friend to fight for you
-slavery is a great civic early on, use it to whip up settlers so you dont lose growing time, use it often but dont use it when you already have -1:mad: from before, if used right the benefits are amazing

-to learn how to play noble i tried many nations, one that helped me alot was the dutch, not a great UU and UB can be expensive but nice if map works with it, but with creativity for early border popping so no need to waste time on early culture buildings, and finance trait for good commerce, if you have a flood plain and build a cottage you automatically get 3 :food: and 3 :commerce: and just wait for them to grow and your economy will be great to build your military.

like i said im not a pro but some things i did to change my game, if your having trouble try something new and dont repeat event or moves that caused you to lose before.

Be very careful with religion early in the game. I generally let the AI grab everything up to Judaism as those are the hardest to spread. If nobody on your continent has a religion, you can use a variety of tricks to get either Confucianism or Theology and spread that around.

Another alternative is to go for the Pyramids. If you have 6 cities running under Representation you're bound to be in a good position and have a lesser need for religion.

Otherwise, make sure you aren't an easy target because of a weak military.

I think Scoottr hit the nail on the head. From your description, you're doing too much building/research and not paying enough attention to military.


I'm going to completely agree with this.


In your next game, one potential way to compensate for this (which EweezE was hinting at) is to try to do an early rush of a neighbour.


I'm going to COMPLETELY disagree with this -- unless the situation calls for it, which means:

1) Your nearest neighbor is so close that you will be unable to expand peacefully to a large enough size without being cut off, which also means that their cities border yours as early in the game as one contemplates an axe rush (so that it can be feasible to keep and develop at least some of them); and

2) You have copper readily available (BW should be one of your first research targets so that will be obvious quickly), OR you are playing the Egyptians or Persians and you have horses readily available, OR you are playing Huayna Capac and your near neighbor is not Mansa Musa.

If your nearest neighbor is halfway across the continent, an axe rush is a waste of resources and time that could better be spent producing settlers and expanding peacefully. If you have no copper or horses and you aren't playing the Inca, an early rush isn't feasible.

There are times when it is called for, and Sisiutl's how-to guide in the War Academy has some good tips on ways to go about it, but in my sincere opinion, in MOST games it's not a good idea.


To further the idea of the "unit pump" city that Scoottr mentioned, try to earn a Level 4 unit either in an early rush or by fighting barbarians, or a combination of both. Then research Literature and build the Heroic Epic in that production city. This will give it 100% production when building military units, which it should focus on, only building other things to keep it happy and healthy as needed.


Another good idea and I second this and always do it. Later on, settling Great Generals there and building West Point in that same city also are good notions, but of course that's not something for the early game.

In general, people who have played previous Civ games sometimes run into problems with Civ4. Even if you know the differences, the implications of those differences can be very confusing. Getting used to the idea of a single combat strength instead of split attack/defense, which means some of the units that used to be strictly for defense (e.g. Riflemen) are now good for attack, to the way siege units work and what that means for city defense and attacking cities, to how promotions operate, to the use and leverage of Cottages and specialists, to the limitations on expansion built into the economy and how to stretch those limits, to the increased diplomacy options, to the way religions work, to the changed happiness features, all took time for me. There's a lot of unlearning that needs to be done.

Also, although this doesn't seem to be your problem, one can run into equal and parallel difficulties if one warmongers too much and builds too little, mainly because of the hit to your economy from war weariness (more so than the fact that you won't build wonders and stuff that way). There's a rhythm to these things. But for sure, you need to pay enough attention to the military that the other civs don't see you as easy prey. One thing I always do is to build 10-12 Swordsmen and about 5 each cats and Chariots or Horse Archers in the Classical Age, even if I don't plan to go to war and use them. That way, number one I look scary and the AI is less inclined to mess with me, and number two if I do decide to do some early warmongering (or if that nut job Montezuma is a neighbor, which almost always means I have to), I'm prepared for it. Plus those Swordsmen upgrade nicely to Macemen later on.

I'm going to COMPLETELY disagree with this -- unless the situation calls for it, which means:

1) Your nearest neighbor is so close that you will be unable to expand peacefully to a large enough size without being cut off, which also means that their cities border yours as early in the game as one contemplates an axe rush (so that it can be feasible to keep and develop at least some of them); and

2) You have copper readily available (BW should be one of your first research targets so that will be obvious quickly), OR you are playing the Egyptians or Persians and you have horses readily available, OR you are playing Huayna Capac and your near neighbor is not Mansa Musa.

If your nearest neighbor is halfway across the continent, an axe rush is a waste of resources and time that could better be spent producing settlers and expanding peacefully. If you have no copper or horses and you aren't playing the Inca, an early rush isn't feasible.

There are times when it is called for, and Sisiutl's how-to guide in the War Academy has some good tips on ways to go about it, but in my sincere opinion, in MOST games it's not a good idea.
Good points; I would add you should also hesitate before rushing a Protective leader, or Hammurabi with his anti-melee Bowmen. However, the reason I was suggesting an early rush was not as a sure-fire strategy for every game, but rather as an exercise for a peaceful player to try to get acquainted with how to build an early military. I should have made that clearer.

You can change the game settings so that an early rush is going to be more palatable if you want to try it. Just choose a map, like Pangaea, continents, or hemispheres, that ensures you won't be isolated, and then add some more civs to the map using the Custom Game screen; this will increase the likelihood that you'll have a nearby neighbour. You can even hand-pick your opponents if you want to avoid any Protectives/Mansa/Hammy.

Then the only requirement is a source of copper for Axemen, although there again you could tip the scales by playing as one of the other leaders you mentioned who don't need copper, though Peria or Egypt require horses instead. The Mayan Holkan and the Native American Dog Soldier do not require a resource in order to be built, and you can base an early rush on them. The Aztec Jaguars also don't require a resource, though they come along a little later and iron, frankly, is more common than copper anyway.

You can also base an early rush around the awesome Roman Praetorian, even though you have to research Bronze Working, Iron Working, and probably the Wheel (to hook up the iron) before they're available. If you're lucky enough to have a source of gold, silver, or gems to boost research, you can get those techs relatively quickly. Or you can use advanced start and purchase Bronze Working to get a head start.

I presume you don't have BTS which made the game a bit harder and lots of people had to drop down a level. I find nearly every one of the difficulty levels requires a slightly different strategy and you will have to change your style of play when you change difficulty.
I would suggest playing on a level you can win >50% then introduce tougher components (use a weak civ, raging barbs etc). Then you can go up a level, probably Noble in your case, and introduce easier components for example use a civ with a financial trait which is arguably the most powerful trait in the game, and while you're there choose opponents which are not financial. Also try turning off tech trading which I personally believe can help the weaker player, of course you have to research every single tech but so does the AI! and if you have a financial trait (more cash means more research) you should win the tech race.

There was an excellent walkthrough by WoundedKnight I believe.