Cannot beat Noble

[Dimmidy]

Basically, after losing countless times on Noble difficulty, I decided I need help

I usually lose on my first war, a neighbouring empire will attack with a massive stack of units, and either completely destroy me or decimate my country enough that recovering would be impossible.

I've checked all the guides I can find, and as far as I know i'm doing everything ok, not too many cities, no lavish spending, going for the right technologies...

Yet at noble I have never won a single game, it seems I am constantly at war and I never have time to build a big enough army to stop it or get culture/technologies for other victories.

It seems as if I'm doing something wrong, and its always on the earlier periods. Does anyone have some much needed advise? I pretty much know all about how the game works, but just my strategy is lacking

 

[Eddogegr3]

I'd love to help, but I am a Civoholic from 1993 and I can't even beat Warlord. I last longer than you do on Noble. But when I play noble, the same happens to me.

 

[Scoottr]

You need to keep up your military at all times. You can't fall below a .8 in comparison to the other civs with your power rating. If you do they will attack and usually as a mob.

Use F1 and the map to figure out which city is going to be able to produce the most amount of hammers and just pump out military units. once you hit the money cap and start losing cash (don't sweat it too much until you hit 60% research) then figure out what you need to do to get more income.

 

[sanjay_111]

You need to read the guides on the forum.

I can vouch for the much acclaimed Sisiutil's guide for beginners.

The other tip would be go through the civ IV manual. I did six times. Focus on city management screen.

If you can get city management right (good growth, health, happiness etc.), you will find all sorts of resources to do all sorts of things - fast unit buildup for fighting, money for maintaining the units, higher research, higher culture and so on.

 

[EweezE]

Pick Rome. Spam Praets.


Oh and welcome to the forums!

 

[Sisiutil]

I think Scoottr hit the nail on the head. From your description, you're doing too much building/research and not paying enough attention to military.

In your next game, one potential way to compensate for this (which EweezE was hinting at) is to try to do an early rush of a neighbour. That way, you're entirely focused in the beginning of the game on your military before anything else. It doesn't have to be Rome, although Praets are terrific. You'll probably find if you do this that you don't get attacked for a very long time because you start powerful and stay that way for some time.

To further the idea of the "unit pump" city that Scoottr mentioned, try to earn a Level 4 unit either in an early rush or by fighting barbarians, or a combination of both. Then research Literature and build the Heroic Epic in that production city. This will give it 100% production when building military units, which it should focus on, only building other things to keep it happy and healthy as needed.

Another thing you should consider is posting a saved game file from the early game and ask for specific advice.

 

[war ensemble]

Specialize your cities. Use your first production-rich city (ie good mineral resources/lots of hills with enough food to support working these tiles) and just have this city focus on only creating military units and military buildings. Focus these military units near the closest city you have to the neighboring civ. Keep your power rating in check. (How do you check your power rating, by the way?)

 

[EweezE]

Keep your power rating in check. (How do you check your power rating, by the way?)

F9 _

 

[mystikmind2005]

The main thing that helped me beat noble level was to use raging barbarians setting. I was forced to adapt to raging barbarians in my game and in doing so, automatically came into a dominant position after the barbarians were gone!

Another simple rule of thumb that works for noble level - build 1 military unit for every 1 city improvement! I got that idea from playing civilisation Call to Power 2 because i have to always build a unit after a city improvement otherwise the game does not centre on the city after a city improvement is built, so the city goes idle and is very easy to miss for many turns!!

 

[ThatGuyChaps]

I have to agree with the suggestion to play with 'Raging Barbarians'. Of course, this would be once you're more familiar with balancing the military aspect of the game. But all points considered, while you could survive on a peace with friendly neighbours (for a while), barbarians are relentless. Before you know it, you'll be forced by necessity into balancing the military, economy, and even having fog busters to stem the unwashed masses. Lastly, a combo of chop rushing + slavery is what nearly always carries me through the early game. I'm not a civ pro but they haven't failed me yet.

Oh, and, believe in the power of defensive siege weaponry

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

I'd imagine as a now veteran noble player that you are probably a little too focused on REXing. Expansion isn't quite as important on noble that it is on the higher levels. Many times, 2 cities can take you a long way. I just started a game with random settings, and it gave me Sumeria. I have never used gilgamesh, and as a matter of fact, I've never tried either trait that he has (CRE and PRO). Wouldn't you know that Rome was only 4 tiles away from my capital. I quickly researched BW, and it was only 2 tiles north of my capital. So I plopped a city down to get the copper, overlapping with the capital to share a corn to help it grow faster.

After that, I whipped a Barracks in both cities, I pumped out 8 Vultures (wow they were good!), razed Cumae and some other little city, and then took Rome. Now I have a lot of land to expand without a nearby neighbor, and I own 2 capitals! Rome will make a great GP farm because it has 4 food resources AND is on a river. Needless to say once this happens, the game is already all but won.

Remember, take the FIGHT to them! You don't want Praets knocking on your door...

Oh, and BTW-try a few OCC games. The strategies are definitely different, but it helps learn how to manage a city very well.

 

[EweezE]

I've heard that raging barbs cripples some of the AI civs. The AI is not as crafty as a human at countering barbs, let alone raging barbs. If he's getting owned by AI why turn the barbs loose on him?

 

[mystikmind2005]

I've heard that raging barbs cripples some of the AI civs. The AI is not as crafty as a human at countering barbs, let alone raging barbs. If he's getting owned by AI why turn the barbs loose on him?

It is much better to loose to Barbarians than the AI - because you learn so much quicker!!

You know, all the AI does is march over you with a huge army all at once, and what do you learn from that? Well, i guess you do get to learn where the restart option is but thats about it!

 

[Dimmidy]

Wow, thanks for all your replies guys!

I think you've spotted my problem, by what you've been saying I definatly havn't been focusing enough on military. One thing I surely havn't done enough is go out and find a good place for a city that produces military units (hills etc), I usually just place a city wherever looks nice.

So it seems I just need 1 or perhaps 2 cities that focus on units only, and spam as many units I can from them, then send them over to defend my bordering cities. And if there's a country that looks like a threat/is weak, I should attack them first.

This is really fantastic advise, thanks for your help! I just hope I'm not the only country with Hinduism faced against 7 with confucianism like last game

 

[Junuxx]

In your last game it might have been wise to convert to Confucianism, eh?

 

[King Flevance]

I would say you need 1 military city for every 3-5 cities you have. This exact number depends on the size of map you are playing on. I personally play on a Gigantic size maps in Nevermind's XXL World mod. SO I usually run 1 every 3-4 cities. Of my first 5 cities, usually 2 are military pumps. And the AI better hope I don't start out in a hammer rich area because a few games 4 of my initial 5 cities have been military pumps. Hehe. That means I make an army for every direction I can go, and I will use the scorched earth policy and burn everything in my armies path to clear room and "worry" about the barbs that spawn as a result later. (These larger maps usually make taking a city at that distance early on suicide.) But usually burning a nation to the ground pre-construction will yield about 500-800 gold for your treasury. This all works on any size of map though, just determine how many military cities you feel you need but make sure that at LEAST 1 out of every 5 cities is a military pump no matter the map size. (NOTE: Killing all surrounding nations or all but 1 can hurt you as then tech trading will become unavailable. This is where practice in rapid expansion techniques come in. USing the nearby luxury resources you can manage to efficiently run at 20-30% science and keep up with the rest of the world. And the slingshot of your economy will soon storm you into the lead if managed right. This takes some practice though and don't be discouraged if the first few attempts fail to gain you the tech lead. PLus, some maps just simply won't allow you to do this - it takes practice to spot if you can or not I suppose.)

If you play on larger map sizes and go every 3-4 cities you can merge them with either science or commerce as well. Just to give any income they have a little more benefit. Then if you find yourself in a period of peacetime and friendly foreign affairs, you can have these high hammer producing cities make either wealth or research if they need no more buildings and you are ok on units. (Markets and Libraries don't multiply wealth or research from hammers but its a noticable boost nonetheless.)
Thanks to some recent advice I picked up on these forums - I have any military cities I plan on settling GP or GGs in also act as a science city when they get a moment to build a library or university etc. That way when I run representation I get +3 beakers for every GP/GG settled in the city. (Which is multiplied by libraries and such.) Military pumps I don't plan on settling any GP/GGs in I make commerce cities which get banks and markets and such.

 

[wannabewarlord]

I would also say that the power rating is a factor you should keep an eye on and probably don't (judging by your DOW commentary).

The very useful BUG mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235633) adds, among other things, a power rating right into the scoreboard. It shows you in a decimal value your strength relative to others. (i.e. 0.8 when your 20% weaker, 1.1 when you're 10% stronger).

Having this in sight all the time (without the need to check an advisor) has proven very helpful to my game. Although I never had problems with AI DOWing on me, I now know when I can DOW on them or at least can feel safe to build other stuff than military. If my numbers are showing 1.0 through the board, I know I don't need to build military but can build all those pretty little buildings I always wanted.

In the beginning an archer and a warrior each are probably enough for your first couple of cities; then gradually stock up.

Also, try a rush on your neighbour early, eventually stealing a worker and parking a warrior or two outside his city. You don't even need to attack him. The AI has a problem with your unit outside his city and will warrior/archer spam and stay inside his city. This cripples his initial expansion tremendously. Before you know it you have three cities and Catapults, while he is still boxed up in his initial capital (I am talking Noble/Prince here). It's a bit cheap, but effective

And yes, do go read Sisiutil's beginner's guide (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632). Great work!

cheers,
wannabewarlord

 

[Dimmidy]

In your last game it might have been wise to convert to Confucianism, eh?

If only I had a city with that religion in it

(And I didn't have Theocracy either)

 

[Clam Spammer]

You would have if you captured one from the AI. This could be one of those rare instances where declaring war is good for diplomacy.

 

[Tennyson]

Another simple rule of thumb that works for noble level - build 1 military unit for every 1 city improvement!

I do it slightly differently - for each improvement, I spend roughly the same number of turns on military. That way building more expensive buildings doesn't sideline the city from keeping up it's military obligations.