Hello,

After very slowly getting to grips with the more basic concepts of BTS on "noble" difficulty, i am now baffled by a new problem, no matter how hard i try i can't avoid becoming the leader of a mediocre civilization.

I build as many cities as i can during the early land grab, but after about 6 or so the borders of nations are pretty much defined and there is no more land to expand peacefully into, (normal sized map, 7 civs and continents) is war with your neighbours the only way to avoid becoming a very average civilization?

I really hope not because i don't seem to be very good at it, every war my civ has ever been in has left me in a weakened position, i rarely lose cities but then again i never manage to capture any either, my workers have to stop what they are doing and hide, my cities spend time making units instead of structural improvements, and what ensues is usually a tit for tat pillaging of farms and roads as their cities seem impossible to capture, if they have walls there does'nt seem to be any point in attacking at all.

The end result is always the same, about 30 turns wasted, infrastructure to rebuild and my civ way behind everyone else, oddly the civs i have been at war with don't really seem to suffer the kind of economic and technological stagnation i go through when at war with them.

What can i do to get an impressive civilization peacefully? I've tried specialists, tried coastline cities and trading, i've tried causing neighbouring cities to revolt by using superior culture (although they come close to joining my civ they almost never do) but it really does seem that the amount of cities held and not their quality is the deciding factor that separates mediocre civilizations from more powerful ones.

Must i own as many cities as everyone else or can i tweak 6 cities to rival a 12 city civ? is war the only way? and if so where can i learn to hold my own against rival civs? because at the moment i can just barely defend my civilization and am most definitely unable to win a war that was started on me, nevermind plan an attack,

In fact i have become quite good at pacifying neigbouring civilizations by adopting their religions, giving in to their threats and basically bending over backwards for them so that i don't have to hear that terrifying trumpet that pretty much means game over, so to sum up, can i peacefully become great? or do i really have to learn how to fight?

Thanking you in advance for any answers received. :)

You don't have to own as much cities as the Ai. Quality > kwantitie. IN other words more isn't always better. Try to have 3/4 good cities. Keep it friendly and launch your space ship. If you tech at a normal speed this will be an almost garanteed victory. But if you want to do some war. Beeline to a good military tech. And slaughter everyoen with your advanced units. Make peace and beeline to the next military tech.

Play a Terra map. It begins like a regular pangaea with the regular early land grab, but there's a second continent out there inhabited by nothing but barbarians. During the halfway point of the game you get astronomy and can start a whole new fun "colonization" of the new world, shipping across settlers, workers, defenders, and fighters to drive out the native peoples.

If you want to get lots of new land peacefully, that's the map to do it. If you beeline astronomy quickly (grabbing it with liberalism is good) you can get a large headstart on the AIs... plus if you then beeline Chemistry you can build a small army of privateers and have the pirates guard your new lands from AI galleons.

Use emancipation and your new world cottages will mature plenty fast enough to give you a huge advantage in the end game.

Unfortunately, grabbing land by war is the easiest way to success. You can win with 6-7 cities also, but it is harder and need much more planning, micromanaging, resource trading, diplomacy etc.

Civ is still essentially a war game, and warmonger gets huge benefits. Large empire is allways better than small - you have not only more land for commerce and production, but also more happiness and health resources, which means your cities can grow bigger and better. Warmonger also has larger army and is less likely to get backstabbed by brainless AI declaring of war -mechanism, which can completely ruin a peaceful small empire game.

I just started my first game on noble (yes, I know I'm a noob) and I must say this: playing as medicore civ is the best gaming experience I ever had. It can be far more entertaining to play as small nation than as a big empire (too much micromanagement). But I must note this: if you are small choose your enemies carefully.

I build as many cities as i can during the early land grab

I would first pay close attention to this. The early land grab does not equal the same thing it did in previous civ games. With the cities incurring maintenance, building as many as you can, as fast as you can is a sure fire way to send your economy to the ground.

i rarely lose cities but then again i never manage to capture any either, my workers have to stop what they are doing and hide, my cities spend time making units instead of structural improvements, and what ensues is usually a tit for tat pillaging of farms and roads as their cities seem impossible to capture, if they have walls there does'nt seem to be any point in attacking at all.

This sounds like you don't have enough military to control the area you reign. Build units often. Have barraks in every city that you can. I usually build a national gaurd and a foreign army. That way I have 1-2 stacks (early on is 3 catapults, 2 swords, 2 axes, 1spear, and 2 chariots with 1 horse archer) This will allow you to pick off any incomming invasion. Then build as many "divisions" of the same make-up of units to go capture cities. Bombard city defenses with cats. After the city is 0% def, attack with cats, then follow-up with swords, axes, horses, spears in any order you wish (whatever gives you the best odds is best).

Remember having a few very strong cities (highly specialized, but all able to produce units efficiently), will keep maintenance low, so you can build larger armies. You can always take cities or raze them to the ground and rebuild your own.

Instead work with your capital for the begining of the game and develop it. Make sure to build 2-3 units between your building projects, this way you're sufficiently defended. Once you feel comfortable controling the area around you're capital, have your settler and a gaurd go out and build another city.

I find that you can get by peacefully in the mid/late game, but war is pretty important early on. Especially if you're sharing a smallish continent with only one or two other civs. Good thing about an early war is that you don't risk pissing off potential future allies because friendly relations have not had time to develop among AI's, assuming they've even met! Also, early rushes are easier. The AI tends to build up lots of defenders over time, but is relatively weak early on. Usually a few swordsmen or axemen is enough to take non-capital AI cities. Also, horse archers can be pretty effective (and fast) if you don't get metal right away.

You really only need to cripple your neightbors. Don't worry so much about defeating them outright or even taking a lot of cities. Just cripple them enough so you can get a significant tech lead and swoop in finish them off with riflemen or whatever later on. By then you'll be able to support the new cities. Personally, I find teh game gets a litte dull without war so I usually find a reason to start one. Sometimes I'll even attack an ally if they are stupid enough to put that one annoying littel city on my continent.

Even doing stuff like stealing their workers can be a significant setback for the AI very early on. If they have a resource near the edge of their cultural borders, stick a unit there and be ready to pounce on the worker. Or time it so you can get two workers before they go runningn for cover.

But don't waste much time warring. Do your damage and declare peace (be sure to ask for something in return). Sometimes I just keep doing that over and over until my neighbor is perminantly stuck in the bronze age. ;)

I think your playing the start of the game pretty well, getting a good number of cities and building them up ok. I'd be interested to know the size of army you have when you declare war... at a guess, not enough! On nobel I suggest 10 maces with 10 catapults... beeline the maces techs (civil service and machinery) to get the maces before the AI. With this army you should be able to walk over a few AI cities... probably not completly kill them if you take losses, but get a few cities out of them.

When attacking, first use your catapults and any other seige to bombarb away the defences (or if your good with espionarge, use a spy to create a city revolt which will remove the cultural defence for 1 turn only)... once defences are gone, use catapults to attack first as they cause collateral damage... once they're all done you can use the maces who should have very good odds of winning. Don't be surprised if you lose catapults, the first 2/3 may well die, but after that the collateral damage will have weakened all the defending units enough to greatly improve the odds for the rest of the catapults, followed by macemen. Have your cities keep making a few catapults to replace ones that are lost.



With regards to a peaceful victory... on Noble skill level a good player can get ahead in tech, but for someone who just usually plays on Noble it might not be quite so easy... Tactics such as chopping, whipping etc some in a lot aswell as some more micromanagement.

Thank you very much for your advice guys it is much appreciated, with these new strategies i think my civ may stand a much better chance. :)

Naturally, it's preferable to have a more productive empire than the opposition. If you don't wish to get that advantage via land, I suggest world wonders. Both the effects and the steady stream of Great People (preferably for permanent gains like academies or settling) can give you the substance to out-everything empires several times the size of yours.
This works well up to Immortal (can't do it on Deity unless I get a near-perfect start).

It's possible on Monarch and some Emperor starts to play the entire game from the leading position, with mostly any coherent strategy. Even a mediocre human player will be better at city/civic optimisation than the AI. This advantage is more prounounced in the early game; later on, the AI will catch up in terms of infrastructure at least.

can i peacefully become great? or do i really have to learn how to fight?
The key to a peaceful game is building a big army, and other 'power' things like Walls, Castles etc. Then the AI is much less likely to attack you.

Otherwise you need to learn how to fight, as war is the simplest way to win once you learn how to do it. Read a War Academy article here, then go practice what it preaches. To practice:

Custom game, Duel map, Always War condition on--raging barbs too if you like. Assuming you lose, reload the initial auto-save and play differently, using what you learned about the enemy's approach. Repeat this enough times until you're comfy attacking various forces and defending against various forces.

Duel games are quick and distraction free, great for learning the mechanics of one of Civ's aspects. You don't need to finish the games of course, reload once you've learned whatever.

I seem to have a similiar problem, ive never been a great offensive player and my armies are generally built to be defensive in nature and more a deterrent than anything else. In my most recent game i was Greece bordering Khmer and he was Furious with me for about the last 200 turns and didnt DoW me....wonder was it because i stockpiled about 4 nukes and 4 tactical nukes?

I usually get bogged down trying to expand and grow as much as possible, in the above game i got crammed onto a big peninsula and could only produce 6 cities, a further three on another landmass found after Optics.

I dont set myself long term targets and seem to go with the flow, always conscious of the score and where i am in terms of tech but i usually find by middle or late part of the game i start to slip back or stagnate as others grow. I know i should have a win objective at the start but i become too engrossed in whats happening to pay any heed.

I had one war in this game with the Dutch, they invaded one of my home islands but were beaten backs as they had inferior forces. I landed some forces on his mainland and pillaged away and harassed but eventually left my navy of destroyers and an aircraft carrier to hem him in and destroy improvements. I didnt commit enough ground forces to make a difference for fear of exposing my mainland although they were some distance away.

Any brief suggestions for future

Cultural victory is easy with the new corporations. Save some great people for them and pick the ones with cultural bonus(which is hugh), together with the catherals, a few hundred cultural point per turn is easy to achieve.

And if you found a religion and many of your neighbours share the religion with you and have built the appxxx palace, you can easily win an early diplomatic victory. Remember to sign open borders with all the rivals and spead your state religion to at least one of their cities.

It really just sounds like you don't have enough units. You need to build more, even though you think you have enough and want to build more buildings.

One way that I think helps with this (from an overall gaming point of view) is to play 'always war.' It will force you to win by at least being decent at fighting the enemy.

One thing I dislike about fighting offensively (which I do almost exclusively) is that it can get so tedious. Especially if I'm not fighting a direct neighbor and have to use transports. I usually won't even bother fighting someone with equal tech... except maybe a short "get off my land!" (shakes fist) war. And if I think I'm going to go for domination I'll play a marathon or Epic game because it just seems wierd that my transports should take years in game time to get from one place to another. My whole outlook on the game will probably have to change once I decide to start playing above Noble where I won't be miles ahead of my enemies in tech.

I know there were early complaints that it is very hard to win on higher levels without warring. Oddly, this result seems to come from having the AI improve, especially at infrstructure. Conversely, AI's just aren't that good at war. So, on Emperor, I guess some of the best players can win without conquest, but it is hard. I know I can't.

I also find that after the land grab, on Monarch/Emperor I can get about 6 cities, maybe squeeze in a few 'border' cities. I can win these, but I have to get lucky that there isn't a monster AI. That is, it is OK as long as the other Civ's are about even, but if one of them gest very strong, I lose.

I agree the best way to win one of these is wtih a culture victory. Despite the knock on them, a prtoective leader can be good for this.

Best wishes,

Breunor

...than as a big empire (too much micromanagement).

I find this interesting - and not just because the guy above you said that smaller was more micromanagement but because I agree with him. How is a larger empire more micromanagement at Nobel level?

I'm a Noble Level player (disclaimer below) who's been struggling a bit with just winning much less placing ahead of Ethelred. But lately I've been mongering early - MUCH earlier than I thought I should. It's had some interesting results.

I'm doing failry well is the main one. (I think I was Churchill the last game)

Mind you I'm not always wiping people out on the first go round - I forget who suggested it, but someone brought up the concept of choking instead of all out domination and when I haven't had an early unit (or resources) it's worked really well. REALLY well.

But I'm getting off point. I find large empires not at ALL about micromanaging and more about "Oh man I'm not through all of the city screens yet? Does it really matter?" (it does when come random thing keeps placing spies as your specialists, btw - annoying!)

See because aside from specific things you've set out (a commerce city, a heavy military production city and maybe a Great People Farm) - all the rest are just the rest! It doesn't MATTER what city builds what when after a while. There's always one to pick up the slack on military units when you need some health or happy buildings in your military center, for instance.

If you only have a few cities, you really need to be careful about, and micromanage, what you place on what plots. What I'm finding on Noble (and I'm by no means an expert) is that if you have 20 cities or more you can almost do ANYTHING and be just fine. Even if you're isolated for half the game because you wiped out your continent.

Heck one game I slacked a little on military and shaka came to vist with a MASSIVE stack of doom (2, actually and took a couple of cities). But if you have 20+ cities you just switch out some civics and have them ALL create military units and you're golden. You don't have that option if you only have 6 and you're met with 35 Cavalry and 12-15 cannons.

The micromanaging is in the smaller ones I think.

** Here's the disclaimer - I know that moving forward I'll need to adopt a different strat because it's jut not going to be that easy to take out other civs on the higher levels because of their bonuses. And I also realize that you DO get a better rating for wiping people out. But I used to eschew warring because, frankly, I was BAD at it. It took a lot of restarts and a lot of mucking about but it helped me in ways not really at all related to warmongering.

I've learned a lot about my commerce level, my production levels, my REx abilities and how to recover from (my oh so many) mistakes. Maybe most of all that there IS a way to pull out of them. It's easier (or maybe it's just me) if you have some time and space to actually focus on that by, you know, killing the people you share the continent with.

I still can't master the Pangea map, but soon, soon! And then, Prince!

(course I'll also have to figure out how to do it without a financial leader...)