Am I ready for Noble?

[Meiguoren]

Hello all! I've been playing Civ4 BTS for about a year and a half-ish, and I have been playing on Warlord difficulty a lot, both alone and with friends a lot, and I have been wondering when I would know that I am ready for Noble difficulty. I have tried it before, a few times actually, and I try and keep one neighbor always happy with me, expand fast, start with worker, go for bronze working, etc... but I seem to always get stomped on in early to mid AD.
Should I wait till I can just obliterate on Warlord difficulty even when I am in the worst possible area and having the worst type of luck?
I am asking because I can almost always destroy on Warlord difficulty, just never really early, and this is just points or domination, not political, religious, etc... on victory condition.
Please help me out a little I am just getting annoyed at my position, and I also want to beat a friend, when we play direct IP, without luck because he wins almost all the time

Sorry for the long post, Thanks for any help that can be offered.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Do this:

1- Open an account in an image hosting service, such as Photobucket or Imageshack.

2- Start a game on Noble.

3- Take screenshots of your starting location with the resource bubbles turned on.

4- Save the game and close it.

5- Upload your images to your image host and start a thread here.

6- In the thread, post your starting location and your save.

7- Give people time to post advice.

8- Follow the advice.

I would also recommend you checking out Madscientist's RPCs, the classic and the next generation ones because they usually highlight certain aspects of the game and that teaches you a lot. Make sure to also read the games of the All Leaders Challenge - the discussions are awesome.

 

[kossin]

Move up. You don't learn anything from trashing AIs on a level. You learn when you lose, figure out why, and adjust the next game.

Play the map and get more workers.

Check walkthroughs on this site or make your own with screenshots+saves while you play short rounds to allow people to critique your play.

 

[Shafi]

If you are winning regularly on warlord by all means move up a level, you may have some difficulties, i would suggest posting screenshots + game saves here and asking for feedback to iron those out.

 

[Shafi]

Damn .... Beaten by not one but two others ...

Dont you guys have anything to do than hang around for someone to ask a question ???

 

[kossin]

Dont you guys have anything to do than hang around for someone to ask a question ???

Quick! A question! Must... answer... before... IT... finds... it....

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Quick! A question! Must... answer... before... IT... finds... it....

 

[Meiguoren]

Thank you all for the replies and I have been looking at the game posts mentioned and thought about trying them out. I guess I will keep trying to beat noble I just didn't think the difficulty gap would seem so big.

 

[LeHam]

Noble is really tough for me. I find I can normally hold my own in a good starting position, until the medieval age. Then it all goes downhill. My only chance I've found is to do some successful warrior-spamming early on, capturing an opponent's capitol.

 

[trc]

Noble is really tough for me. I find I can normally hold my own in a good starting position, until the medieval age. Then it all goes downhill. My only chance I've found is to do some successful warrior-spamming early on, capturing an opponent's capitol.

Post games, and stats.

I recently switched from vanilla to BTS and reset myself just to get a feel. Unlike vanilla, BTS Noble is a bit more than simply knowing the difference between hammers and gold, as has been suggested.

At medieval at Noble you should be easily out teching the AI.

Are you building a research infrastructure? Are you Whipping it to get in sooner rather than later?

Are you using the 2 scientists that the library gives you?

 

[Zavior]

Work improved tiles! If you are working unimproved tiles, build more workers or whip the excess population away!

 

[LeHam]

Well, I have begun in my most recent game (at Warlord difficulty) to use whipping more. And, I have also begun micromanaging more. Generally I find micromanaging to take away from my enjoyment but managing city specialists doesn't take too much time.