Foundation and Empire

We're still seeing new players struggling with Noble, and under questioning we find that they spend and awful lot of time and energy on things that aren't winning. So this is an attempt at stripping away all the things we do that aren't winning.

The lessons within are expected to be simple, and generally applicable. In particular, a lot of "important" elements of the game mechanics are going to be completely ignored, because they are a distraction from the basic approach. Also, simple matters of technique may or may not get much attention - it depends on the kinds of questions that are raised.


The Plan for this game is Land, which offers a straightforward sequence of objectives

1) Claim more than our fair share of good land
2) Claim a neighbor's fair share of good land
3) Claim all of the good land we can reach
4) Win.


Settings
Difficulty: Noble
Speed: Normal
Map: Continents
Huts: Disabled
Events: Disabled

Leader: Roosevelt/USA

The map gods are kind - we get an easy map, with a straight forward start.



The SAVE.

First checkpoint is at Turn 0.
Second checkpoint is at Turn 15.
Third checkpoint is at Turn 28.
Fourth checkpoint is at T45.
Fifth checkpoint is at T75.
Sixth checkpoint is at T90.

Not sure if i can follow you to where this is leading... Basicly: do you want people to play this for themself or will you do the gameplay to show something off and want discussion?

Anyway, t-up for any kind of helping hand you may offer the less experienced players, that's great.

Warrior SW, either SIP or on the plain hill, i'd go for the PH most likely. But then again that might be something you want to keep out of the thread, so once again: what should happen here?

Wait, there's a Nobel prize in Civ 4 now? Sign me up! Lol. But seriously, this is a good idea. Is this supposed to be a follow-along or are we supposed to make suggestions about what we think you should do, and then you correct us? I like how some of your comments had milestones for us to reach. I think that that is a good idea, if you can. Even if they're really general (build four cities by blah turn) would at least keep us focused.

Oops, someone beat me to asking the question. I think we should move to the plains; gobble up a less useful tile and have two food resources immediately. Get the resources for food, then check if the map has lots of hills or commerce. Go for mining or pottery, depending.

1E could be good too, since we'll have more green tiles. Actually, I change my mind, 1E is the best. Looks like it's pretty dry to the west.

OK - first order of business: settle in place.

Yes, we could fuss and fret over moving to the plains hill, and trying to figure out which square is the optimal one to move the warrior. And it's not wrong to consider those things; it can make a significant difference in the opening, and that can easily snowball you into a win.

But if you are having trouble with Noble, it's the wrong problem to be worrying about. Moving the settler on the opening turn is a very specific sort of problem, and we're giving our attention right now to the Big Ideas [tm]

So get the city down so that we can get on with it.



First order of business is make the capital productive. That means improving tiles - which means training a worker, and discovering the useful technologies. As a rule, there are four technologies that top the priority list

• Agriculture
• Mining
• Animal Husbandry
• Bronze Working

The relative priority of these technologies depends on the start you are dealt, and occasionally Hunting or Fishing will force it's way in. But in most cases, you are shuffling the big four.

On this start, America has already discovered Agriculture. Cows are a very strong tile, and we don't have many trees, so Animal Husbandry - Mining - Bronze Working.

If we discover Hunting before Animal Husbandry, we get a discount. Should we do that first?

No. "That which can wait, must wait." We don't have any way to use Hunting right now - no deer, no furs, no ivory, so all we manage to do is put ourselves behind in time. Leave it alone.


There's not much to do during the first 15 turns except move the warrior around. But it's worth keeping two things in mind.

One: the principle responsibility of the initial unit is to discover places to put new cities. Think circles around the city. We don't want to break off after finding a single good place, because we want to be sure that our cities fit together reasonably well.

Two: we've got time - a fast settler isn't ready until turn 35 or so. You've got that long then to poke around. So when you see a good tile (corn, pigs, horse copper, gold), it's worth taking a couple turns to figure out if there's a good place to drop a city nearby.


On the image, I've shown my initial scouting plan - I'm heading around the pigs so that I know what goodies are nearby, and then I'll circle away from the coast line to circle the city clockwise.

The primary goal is to be exploring green areas. "Food is life". You can often use hints on the map to guess which direction is likely to be best. Not worth fretting over - just get on with it.

Next checkpoint: Turn 15.

Um the Muse said:

Is this supposed to be a follow-along or are we supposed to make suggestions about what we think you should do, and then you correct us? I like how some of your comments had milestones for us to reach. I think that that is a good idea, if you can. Even if they're really general (build four cities by blah turn) would at least keep us focused.

Click to expand...

Some context first: I've already played this game out to turn 100 or so. Twice, actually, because the game screwed me over when I started writing it up.

The primary lesson is intended to be a focus on what to do, not so much on how to do it - and very little about how to optimize it. Essentially, "what should I be thinking about to achieve a winning position?"

So it's a bit less exercise like than some of the other things I've posted.

It's certainly NOT intended to be a contest - for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my own vanity. My game is pretty rusty, and I don't think it's going to help anybody to have TMIT chariot rush the world before I've managed to get my first worker trained.

So I'm hiding behind "ideas over execution".


Really, what I want to be writing is a strategy guide. But I don't yet know if it works - that is, can I distill the main points down so that they are readily understood. So the ambition is to play out a few of these, and then see where we stand.

Check points are roughly 15 turns apart, which is about the interval where a new idea comes up in the opening. I'm not sure whether its going to work best if the audience races to the end, or waits. That's all part of what I'm trying to figure out.


I am hoping the that more advanced players who understand the goal (simplify! simplify! simplify!) will pitch in with critique and their own ideas.

Unmoderated discussion is encouraged. But I do have a "main line" in mind, so I'm hoping that people won't chase too far down paths that diverge wildly from the main point.

I'm not intended to publish saves other than the initial one (subject to later revision), so it's up to you to figure out what you want to do if you run 30 turns ahead and then discover you diverged from the main line.

Ok. I think I understand. Cool. I'm really not sure what my level is, due to the way I play, but I know I have trouble with the big picture.

I'll be following eagerly!

There will normally be time between checkpoints - I don't intend to push everything up at once. I'll probably submit the T15 update tonight.

Okay, think i got it. If there's something i might be able to add to the discussion, i will do it. Your intention about this thread aims at the weak spot of most players, and therefore will be very helpful as "gameplan" is something almost everyone can improve largely at (myself included, that's for sure).

Well, I’m certainly no expert, but I think this thread is a very good idea. Without wishing to sound in any way condescending, even some very recent posts by players struggling with noble illustrate all too clearly IMHO, that some civvers at and around noble are struggling with their planning in the short, medium and long term. (And my planning is far from perfect as well.) The problems (and advice to remedy them) which then get highlighted by the good folk on here are then, more often than not IMHO, actually manifestations of a lack of planning by the poster – and a failure to act in accordance with that plan. All too often the noble civver’s game then gets bogged down in micro details – when taking a step back and adopting (and acting in accordance with) a simple macro level plan, which just focusses on a few key points, would take them to victory. There’s an awful lot to be said IMHO for keeping it simple.

As far as your opening sequence goes VoU, the point I’ll be interested to see is how much you scout around the pigs in the next segment. As you rightly point out, one of the goals of scouting is to locate future city sites – and the pigs could potentially be a food source for a nice city.

Look forward to seeing how you go.

Clever thread title. I love the books.

It's also a good idea to teach the noblettes what to do. I'm worried that they might be too stubborn to listen. But with your higher post count, they might be more inclined to listen to you than to me.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

First order of business is make the capital productive. That means improving tiles - which means training a worker, and discovering the useful technologies. As a rule, there are four technologies that top the priority list

• Agriculture
• Mining
• Animal Husbandry
• Bronze Working

Click to expand...

There, you have outlined some powerful advice. What I find illuminating is that you have given a set of targets that seriously simplify the early-game tech path decisions.

I would go so far as to say that in most games, you probably want at least your first 3 techs to be selected from the 4 techs on that list. For a beginner, the main exception to this rule of "pick at least 3 of those 4" is when you already start with 2 of the techs on that list, in which case pick the other 2 first. The only other exception to keep in mind is when, as you mentioned, you want one or both of Fishing or Hunting, in which case you probably still want to pick at least 3 of those "big 4" in addition to getting Hunting and/or Fishing. Thus, the early-game tech selections, which can be daunting when you are asked to choose between 8 different techs, can be greatly simplified, allowing the player to have a consistently good opening play.

What's even more interesting is that there is NO RELIGIOUS TECH on that list. In fact, when you say that:

The relative priority of these technologies depends on the start you are dealt, and occasionally Hunting or Fishing will force it's way in. But in most cases, you are shuffling the big four.

Click to expand...

we see that there is no mention of Mysticism.

I used to be an early-Religion-hogging nut. I really could have used your advice, as you have presented it here, a few years ago, as, over time, I have discovered what you say to be true and in most cases, opening your tech path by chasing after an early Religion will end up being a strategic mistake--which is a common stumbling block that is hard to get past once you get addicted to founding an early Religion. However, one must resist that temptation, as doing so will often make your game fall behind.

Animal Husbandry is in hand, but we haven't discovered any horses yet. Mining is just now coming in, and with no surprises Bronze Working is the obvious follow on.

First warrior zipped around the pigs, then went west. East was still an option, but we can see that the coast line is right there - not much land to be discovered. South finds tundra, so we note that we are near the bottom of the map. On the principle of "food is life", we're not going to drop a city in that area any time soon, so we don't need to explore the tundra thoroughly.

It will probably make sense to explore that area later, probably with two movers (chariots, perhaps). If there are interesting goodies available, we can chase after them after we've got our basic foundation laid. If the AI beats us to those locations... well, in that case either they are in a world of hurt, or we are.

The pigs aren't really thoroughly explored - we do want to know more about that east coast before we figure out how to split pigs/corn/fish. But clearly there's a city there somewhere. It's going to be strong (food, green hills), and relatively easy to start up (convenient trees).

Gold/Wheat/floods is another obvious choice. There's more to look at down there, but it's clear there's a city in that neighborhood that helps finance everything else.

In the north, a giant stack of floodplains - that sort of city is fun (food!) but slow to get going.

We've found pigs on the river, so we clearly have to explore that. That area essentially marks the end of the exploring circle, so my usual solution in that situation is to turn the warrior outside and around the other direction.

Builds at this point look like warrior/warrior. We'll use the new warriors to explore the little crinkly bits that we missed on the first pass, and to stake out a safe route to the various city locations we like.

The worker's tasks are straight forward - corn first (food is life), then cows, then hills.


We need a bit of time to grow so we can take advantage of these great tiles. Corn gets farmed first (food is life), then the cows, then we start improving the hills.


Once Bronze Working comes in, we'll know where the strategic resources are, and will be ready to make some decisions about cities, and tech plan.

Next checkpoint: Turn 28.

Corn, pig, fish looks nasty! That needs to be the first settler.

ecuwins said:

Corn, pig, fish looks nasty! That needs to be the first settler.

Click to expand...

On higher levels I'd probably go for gold city to grab land/block and for commerce. However, on Noble or whatnot the pig city might be better to help produce early settlers/workers.

Either way, you're going to want to grab both of those sites fast.

Benginal said:

Clever thread title. I love the books.

It's also a good idea to teach the noblettes what to do. I'm worried that they might be too stubborn to listen. But with your higher post count, they might be more inclined to listen to you than to me.

Click to expand...

Indeed, I noticed the title reference also .

There will always be noble players who ignore advice and stay noble forever, but there are always players who are actually capable of learning/adapting, too. Don't let the former discourage you.

I notice that you (VoiceOfUnreason) founded the city before moving the warrior. This allowed you to spot the pigs and therefore start the warrior off to the SE. I usually move my warrior to a convenient hill, in case this leads me to decide to found my city in a different place. Choose the city site with less information vs choose the exploration path with less information.

RJM

I always thought that for most people, winning at warlord and noble was really just a matter of learning the rules of the game (which are quite complicated). Once you've got the rules figured out, it's not that hard to grasp the basic strategies that will let you beat noble level.

I suppose the whole meaning of this thread is that the more complicated you make it the harder it gets?

I often use the KISS Principle wherever I go.

Keep
It
Simple
Stupid

But what if you get a start that isn't as pleasing as this one?
What about this:


This was a pangaea map on multiplayer quite recently after about 4 restarts mainly due to tundra or desert starts.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Spoiler :

Animal Husbandry is in hand, but we haven't discovered any horses yet. Mining is just now coming in, and with no surprises Bronze Working is the obvious follow on.

First warrior zipped around the pigs, then went west. East was still an option, but we can see that the coast line is right there - not much land to be discovered. South finds tundra, so we note that we are near the bottom of the map. On the principle of "food is life", we're not going to drop a city in that area any time soon, so we don't need to explore the tundra thoroughly.

It will probably make sense to explore that area later, probably with two movers (chariots, perhaps). If there are interesting goodies available, we can chase after them after we've got our basic foundation laid. If the AI beats us to those locations... well, in that case either they are in a world of hurt, or we are.

The pigs aren't really thoroughly explored - we do want to know more about that east coast before we figure out how to split pigs/corn/fish. But clearly there's a city there somewhere. It's going to be strong (food, green hills), and relatively easy to start up (convenient trees).

Gold/Wheat/floods is another obvious choice. There's more to look at down there, but it's clear there's a city in that neighborhood that helps finance everything else.

In the north, a giant stack of floodplains - that sort of city is fun (food!) but slow to get going.

We've found pigs on the river, so we clearly have to explore that. That area essentially marks the end of the exploring circle, so my usual solution in that situation is to turn the warrior outside and around the other direction.

Builds at this point look like warrior/warrior. We'll use the new warriors to explore the little crinkly bits that we missed on the first pass, and to stake out a safe route to the various city locations we like.

The worker's tasks are straight forward - corn first (food is life), then cows, then hills.


We need a bit of time to grow so we can take advantage of these great tiles. Corn gets farmed first (food is life), then the cows, then we start improving the hills.


Once Bronze Working comes in, we'll know where the strategic resources are, and will be ready to make some decisions about cities, and tech plan.

Next checkpoint: T28.

Click to expand...

I haven't seen you mention meeting anybody yet. In the early game the goal is to settle/block/work as many high-yield special tiles as possible (or rush someone to get them). When I look at this picture I see only 2 justifiable spots for city #2: Riverside pigs 3 or 4 N (depending on what scouting reveals) or the gold site (early commerce and food w/o needing a border pop).

Both sites set up very quickly and can help train additional workers/settlers off the high-yields to give us even more. The gold site has raw commerce to work, but the pig site has an instant trade route w/ the capitol w/o roads and has a very high 6 yield basic tile a worker can improve quickly (priority).

- Pig/corn to the south isn't a high priority; there wont be any AI in the tundra and you need a border pop for the pig. One can consider settling it for marble/pig/corn later using capitol border pop to pre-improve it so it actually sets up faster and has fresh water...not a bad GPP site long-term.

- Flood plains are only interesting if it blocks an AI from settling. They just don't offer high enough yields by themselves to justify for city #2 or possibly even #3 unless they're needed for blocking or contain an important strategic resource nearby we don't see yet.

- Fish takes too long to set up and be useful (especially with no other coastal cities to put up a work boat) and is low-priority as a result.

I recommend the pig site probably 4N based on this info, growing first onto the high-yield tiles in the capitol and then building a setter to grab that site ASAP as it adds benefit the instant it is settled.

Remember: high yield tile priority. If you're not afraid of barbs I could even see justifying building a settler for that site at pop 2 just after growing (I pull this stunt routinely at much higher levels so it should be plenty safe on noble, arguably safer than units since you add to your production base with the awesome tiles).

Why is bronze working a priority right now? We don't have any known rush targets and there seems to be plenty of land to grab peacefully. Wouldn't pottery or writing (for short and long-term tech potential) be stronger plays? With all this riverside I'd probably advocate pottery to set up some commerce income and fund LOTS of cities. Given very little chop priority in city 1 (capitol) or 2 BW can wait. We're more interested in getting as many improved special tiles as possible and IMO pottery helps us most with that via financing it somewhat.

Tech path beyond that will depend somewhat on scouting; the jungle may or may not be attractive but probable 3rd cite is gold/floods.

@TMIT: I think the reason for BW here is because VoU is pursuing an opening designed to achieve two very simple goals: (i) feed your civ and enable it to grow, by working the tiles around the capital; and (ii) defend your civ from attack. The first of these goals is met by teching agriculture (with which Roosevelt starts) and AH here, so the capital can work the corn and plains cow. The second goal is met by teching AH and BW to reveal horses and copper (assuming they’re around). My guess is that once these two goals are met, VoU will then consider pottery to address the issue of how to fund expansion (ie. the need for commerce), assuming of course that BW reveals some copper in the vicinity.

Coincidentally BTW, this is the very approach mentioned in the vid (made by a fellow civver) contained in my signature. I’m not saying this approach is optimal either BTW, but I do think that an opening geared toward (i) growing your cities / working tiles in the capital's BFC (ii) defending your civ and (iii) funding expansion provides a solid foundation for someone struggling with noble.

@VoU: Perhaps it might be worthwhile editing your second post, to mention why you think that those four techs top the priority list? I see that you amended that post to cover the point I made re: the need to scout near the pigs to identify potential city sites.