Nooby in need of help

[Bucktiar]

Alright guys so heres the deal. I got civ 4 as my very first civ game, and a month ago finally decided i was ready to beat the game on noble. Personally my favorate maps, are continents and terra and real world 24 civ map. (I only play on warlords now). So heres my problem, Every time I try playing the game I really want a world domination victory so I can finish the game in relativley early time. My problem though is, that my wars take forever, and by the time they're over my new cities are really messing up my economy, i get behind in tech race, and by the 1900's I'm definently guranteed a Point victory, but I want more. It's not satisfying enough. And when I try to reset my cities to complete military production and go to war with the next biggest power after myself, they can already hold a really successful defense and I get frustrated and quit. And finnally, theres always that navy and airforce, that I really neglect. It would be nice to have a useable navy that I could transport alot of troops with, but I usually am too caught up making land units for that. So here's my questions;

-How do I acheive world domination quickly as possible?
-How can I acheive a substantial navy/airforce?
-How do I keep my economy from being destroyed after capturing cities?
-And What is the best Civilization and civic for this?

Thanks a million guys

 

[Nestorius]

Try Rome, use lots of catapults and raze most of your captured cities. That's what everyone else does.

 

[Bucktiar]

Ok, but when's the best time to start my war efforts, like after 3 or 4 well devoloped cities, or later?

 

[MoonZar]

Ok, but when's the best time to start my war efforts, like after 3 or 4 well devoloped cities, or later?

Hello,

Maybe you can try to bribe another civ to help you to kill one or two civ and then you kill your ally when they appear weak after a couple of war. Usually this work well on noble difficulty.

 

[Bucktiar]

Alright great, but now I need to know how to keep a good navy for transporting troops to other continents

 

[Winston Hughes]

Are you trying to conquer entire civs in one long war? If so, you might find it easier to break it down into several smaller ones, forcing your victim to give up techs or cash in exchange for peace, and then restarting the war once the cities you've taken can support themselves.

As far as building a navy or airforce is concerned, I find that it helps to force myself to set aside periods in which most production-heavy cities turn out ships or planes. It doesn't have any significant advantages in game terms, but it makes it easier for me to avoid ending up with huge armies with no transport and no air support.

Edit: btw, if you haven't done so already, I would strongly recommend reading aelf's Emperor Masters' Challenges and Sisiustil's ALC Games. As well as the ongoing games, there's a wealth of useful ideas and advice to be found in the earlier ones.

 

[Bucktiar]

Well usually, it ends up in me beating them down after 2 wars to the point where the have like 2 cities left, and end up falling under capitulation to me which is probably a mistake i'm guessing?

 

[ratrangerm]

If you are going for a domination victory, it helps to go after neighbors as soon as is possible and practical.

Example: If it's in the early game, you have copper and horses and your closest neighbor has neither nearby, that should immediately tell you that you need to build some axemen and a couple of chariots for a very early rush and take your neighbor out right away. If you can do that, you then analyze where his cities are located and decide whether you want to keep or raze them... if you raze them, you can always build settlers later to reclaim sites.

It's a good idea to become close friends with at least one neighbor, particularly if you have a neighbor who is a warmonger and you haven't found him quickly enough to take him down. Adopt his favorite civic or convert to that warmonger's state religon if he has one, and he'll become your friend, and then you can use him to declare war on his rivals. That keeps him busy while you take out other rivals.

When going for domination, you have to strike early. Don't wait too long, or it will be harder to take them down because their defenses will be better or they will have a huge number of units to deal with, even if you happen to outrank them in tech.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Well usually, it ends up in me beating them down after 2 wars to the point where the have like 2 cities left, and end up falling under capitulation to me which is probably a mistake i'm guessing?

I'm afraid my experience on Warlords is rather limited, so I can't comment on capitulation. But it sounds like you're having to work too hard for your victories. How do you get on in the tech race? Do you manage to pull ahead of the AI civs? If you fall behind in tech, then the AI will probably have a few advanced units there to fend off your attacks.

Alternatively, if you're playing on huge maps with lots of civs (like the earth one) it might just be that you're setting yourself too high a target. At standard or quick speed, you'll have to be some kind of demon warmonger to conquer the whole world in those circumstances.

(In faster games, the relative speed of your units is much slower, so it can take an age to send an army from one end of a continent to the other. On slower game speeds, your units will arrive much quicker (in terms of the years that pass and techs/buildings that get researched/built), giving a major advantage to the aggressive warmonger.)

 

[futurehermit]

1) prioritize bronze working.

2) if you see copper nearby, settle that first. then get 1 more city so you have 3 total. scout out nearest neighbour. crank axes. attack, taking down their core cities first (highest amount of population) if possible. take as many cities as your military allows (try to attack with around a dozen axes). raze any cities that are far from your capital, keep ones that are close enough not to cripple your economy.

3) if you don't have copper nearby, beeline to construction. if you see ivory nearby, settle that for war elephants. build about 5-6 cities. scout out your nearest neighbour. once construction comes on line mass catapults (and elephants if possible) with some defenders. attack following same attack procedure as outlined above.

4) after your attack, beeline to code of laws (trading/suing for it if possible). build courthouses in all of your cities and once you have 8 total cities (try to get there asap) build forbidden palace in the best possible location to help reduce maintenance.

5) scout out 2nd neighbour.

6) rinse and repeat.

 

[cabert]

you may be missing on some basics :

- early war (read ^^futurehermit's post)
- early economy build up : go for currency! those trade routes will help greatly + ability to extort money + markets, then go for CoL (read ^^futurehermit's post)
- cottage spam (3 commerce cities per production city is a common ratio, but it's not a rule)
- whipping (you see those food resources? those are the most important tiles to have in the fat cross)
- triangle diplomacy (there is a very nice article out in the articles subforum about it).

For noble level, doing those things right should be enough.
For higher levels (starting at prince), you'll need to focus on specific goals and put your efforts towards it.
Then you'll need to use cunning diplomacy.
Then you'll need to focus even more on short term goals.