Always feel overwhelmed at the start

[ironic_lettuce]

Hi everyone

I won my first Noble game yesterday, but it was with two less civs than normal (perhaps even 3!) and no barbarians, and I've just started a new game with the default amount of civs (on a standard map) and barbarians, and I'm struggling again a bit!

I think the problem is that I'm still used to Warlord level, where I always get Stonehenge and The Oracle first, and manage to make lots of units before my opponents build their armies up, but that's not happening here! I am getting plenty of settlers and workers out through chopping and slavery, but I still feel a bit overwhelmed at the start and end up giving up really quickly!

I think one of the reasons is because of the use of slavery to make workers and settlers etc. which leaves all my cities with hardly any pop. and my score is always right down at the bottom!

Does anyone have any general tips for how to start out? I tend to build a worker first, then chop another one, then chop a settler and repeat this a few times to grab my nearest resources, but I never know when to stop and start building up my cities a bit more again! I'm not very good at the balancing act!!

 

[Xurr]

I would search through this forum( Strats and tips) for walk throughs. There are quite a few and many have excellent starting strategies. I found a starting strat that I liked and practiced it with a few different civs. By practicing it I would start the game and run it to about 1000bc-0bc or so then start a new game.

This allowed me to perfect and modify the strat for my play style. I now play on emperor and will probably be moving up in difficulty soon.

 

[qwertz]

-build less (early) wonders; especally when you go up a level, you shouldn't care much for wonders. once oyu became more comfortable on the level, you can start building some
-don't care much about pop. early on. the most important thing at the start is to get enough good land. once the most land is taken, you can start building up your economy and surpass the AI because of the superior land area. if you economy can't handle the expansion, build some cities to block the AIs and backfill the land later
-the score is totaly irrelvant (unless for time victory (which is rather a tiebreaker than a victory)). on the higher dificulties you will be the last in the score for 2/3 of the game anyway, so get used to it

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You need to ask why you are building the wonders you are building. If you build both Stonehenge and the Oracle in the same city, you are going to get a lot of Great Prophets, is that what you want? Do you have a plan for what you are going to do with them?

What tech are you taking from the Oracle? Make sure it is a good one (code of laws or metal casting say, although you can get civil service from it much of the time at noble level).

I hardly ever build stonehenge these days unless I am going for a domination win, to pop borders on newly founded cities quicker. On the level I play at (monarch-emperor), I hardly ever build the Oracle, I am better off researching a good tech and trading it for lots of backfill techs.

I normally only build 1 early wonder anyway. 2nd wonder is normally the Great Library.

 

[Kepi]

The AI is very unlikely to attack you in the early game, even if your score/power are a good deal lower than them. So the only immediate threat to your empire are the barbarians. At this point you can simply concentrate on doing some land grab while building up an anti-barbarian military. Soon you'll have a good amount of land (which also means less room for barbarians to spawn from) and a fairly respectable army that you'll see your score rising quickly.

If you still feel a little overwhelmed, try starting a game with a smaller map with the default number of AIs and/or no barbarians. (this one can make you develop some bad habits though, so use with caution) You'll have less to worry about then, and have a smoother time adjusting to the differences between warlord and noble.

 

[ironic_lettuce]

I hardly ever build stonehenge these days unless I am going for a domination win, to pop borders on newly founded cities quicker. On the level I play at (monarch-emperor), I hardly ever build the Oracle, I am better off researching a good tech and trading it for lots of backfill techs.
.

That's something else I was going to ask!! When I'm teching up, if I see a later tech that takes, say, 20+ turns, compared to an earlier one that takes less than 10, I tend to go for the earlier tech, regardless of what it is. Is that really, really stupid? If I have an earlier tech available that takes 6 turns, but no real application, and a later tech that would take 28 turns to get to, but i can really use, should I go for the late one? Again, I'm always worried I'll get left behind, but I'm still new to the whole tech-trading game as well!

But I am learning

 

[Xurr]

That's something else I was going to ask!! When I'm teching up, if I see a later tech that takes, say, 20+ turns, compared to an earlier one that takes less than 10, I tend to go for the earlier tech, regardless of what it is. Is that really, really stupid? If I have an earlier tech available that takes 6 turns, but no real application, and a later tech that would take 28 turns to get to, but i can really use, should I go for the late one? Again, I'm always worried I'll get left behind, but I'm still new to the whole tech-trading game as well!

But I am learning

Yes because there are some techs that you want to be the first to get. The only real way to do this is to B-line and skip other techs. Sure you can back fill those other techs later but the B-line is a priority. Some examples of techs that many people B-line to are Priesthood(build the oracle), Liberalism(free tech), rifling(to warmonger with a big advantage), astronomy(galleon can move settlers etc), Assembly line, Communism and fascism for the free GPs etc.

 

[Black Mech]

Well, with the tech situation (I play marathon so 28 is actually fast for me but this still applys) if you have the ability to reserch the tech you need but its gonna take a while to reserch, you need to think of several things:
1. Do you need the tech badly (Is it on the path to your victory conditions or you need new military hard ware to raise your power graph readings).
2. Can you pop a great person who can reserch it sooner then it takes to reserch normally
3. Try to get a SE (specialist economy) up while reserching so that you can make this reserch (plus all other reserch after) faster.
4. If SE is notwhat you want and your trying to run a different economy, check to see if you can improve it so the reserch goes faster.
5. try to get the people in citys to work more commerce since comerce turns into reserch.
6. See if another civ is offering it (doubtful but still try)

 

[qwertz]

it doesn't matter how cheap a tech is if you don't need it, you don't need it. e.g. why should you research HBR if you have no horses/ivory? even if you can research it in 1 turn, it's just a vaste of beakers. you should tech more exensive techs (especally the ones noone knows yet) and trade them to the AIs for other, cheaper techs. with good tech trading you can get much more from a tech, than it is actually worth

 

[Hammurbabble]

with good tech trading you can get much more from a tech, than it is actually worth

This is true but I feel a need to clarify it. You can't do this on one trade. You CAN do it if you trade the same tech to multiple AIs. Each of them will give you less than the tech is worth in trade, but all of them together will give you much more. The multiplier (the fact that you gave it to all of them) doesn't count, because they would trade with each other anyway if you didn't get in first, so you're denying the first person you traded it to, all that he would have gotten from the second, third and so on person by trading it to them yourself.

I feel it's a good idea to build only one early wonder, maybe two if you're Industrious. By "early" I mean Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Great Wall, the Oracle, the Parthenon, the Great Lighthouse, the Temple of Artemis. Pick one of these, or if you're Industrious pick two. Forget the others, or get them by conquest later. If you're Industrious you CAN get more, but you sacrifice so much else you could have been building instead.

One thing to bear in mind is that your first city can move on to something else while your second city is chopping out settlers and so forth.

I find I get my best results if I get ten cities up and running in the early game, and then stop and build for a while. I may have to violate the 60% rule doing that, but only temporarily. Courthouses and Marketplaces do wonders. So does a religious shrine.

 

[ironic_lettuce]

This is true but I feel a need to clarify it. You can't do this on one trade. You CAN do it if you trade the same tech to multiple AIs. Each of them will give you less than the tech is worth in trade, but all of them together will give you much more. The multiplier (the fact that you gave it to all of them) doesn't count, because they would trade with each other anyway if you didn't get in first, so you're denying the first person you traded it to, all that he would have gotten from the second, third and so on person by trading it to them yourself.

I feel it's a good idea to build only one early wonder, maybe two if you're Industrious. By "early" I mean Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Great Wall, the Oracle, the Parthenon, the Great Lighthouse, the Temple of Artemis. Pick one of these, or if you're Industrious pick two. Forget the others, or get them by conquest later. If you're Industrious you CAN get more, but you sacrifice so much else you could have been building instead.

One thing to bear in mind is that your first city can move on to something else while your second city is chopping out settlers and so forth.

I find I get my best results if I get ten cities up and running in the early game, and then stop and build for a while. I may have to violate the 60% rule doing that, but only temporarily. Courthouses and Marketplaces do wonders. So does a religious shrine.

Thanks again everyone for your replies. So should I be chopping and whipping settlers and workers in only one or two of my cities, and letting the others grow? At the minute I've been chopping and whipping in most of my cities!

 

[schwartz]

If you're starting to play with barbs, make sure you get at least a couple warriors to fog bust and escort the first settlers. (if you usually go worker x2 => settler, go worker => warrior x2(or 3) => settler or something.)

 

[ironic_lettuce]

I have one more question regarding expansion at the start - if I have a city that has lots of flood plains or grasslands, but very few hills, should I keep some of the forests intact so that I can build some stuff like library, courthouse etc. ?

I can't find any articles in the War Academy related to what I'm looking for, can anyone point me in the right direction of one please?

Thanks again for all the help

 

[JujuLautre]

it's really a game and player dependent situation. Basically, if you feel you need production, then keep them; otherwise, do what you like with them. You could also want to keep some forest to offset the unhealthiness of flood plains.

personnaly, I like to have at least some hammers (being from a mine or from plains doesn't matter) to produce commerce buildings and growth buildings in commerce cities (lots of cottages), because I don't like to see a building taking 100 turns to build. But that's a question of personal taste. and I already have built cities with only cottages, just because it was insanely powerful.

 

[Milly]

Yeah... keep the forests. Who knows, if you have enough forests, you can build a National Forest there and get tons of great people.

 

[qwertz]

you can just use slavery to whip the basic infrastructure in production-poor cities.

 

[schwartz]

As qwertz said, make use of slavery to rush the basic infrastructure.

Check out Sisiutil's Strategy Guide if you haven't already done so.

 

[Airefuego]

As a few have already said, main things that help move up levels are to learn the power of the whip (food = buildings!) and to learn to live without Wonders. Test playing a whole game without wonders, you might be surprised at how many extra troops and workers you have. This is a Good Thing.

 

[zeolite]

I may have to violate the 60% rule doing that, but only temporarily.

What's the 60% rule?

 

[Jazzmail]

You don't need slavery though.

I have never used slavery and I got no troubles on monarch difficulty. So a noble game or moving on to prince should not limit the OP.
Whipping may be powerful but it is certainly not required here.