Critics on won noble game

[LuiGGi]

Hi you all civvers! I'd be very grateful if you could have a glance to a game I played some weeks ago...

I'm not good player at all, I've been always playing in noble since the very beginning, though I hope one day I'll jump to the next level... You'll certainly find many many mistakes I would never spot, so I ask you to comment on my match and tell me about the weaknesses I should take care of before I, someday, increase the difficulty level...

The match was pretty easy actually, it's the first time I win so comfortably... I've almost never won before ... I usually get stuck during the middle of the game, especially when other civs start attacking me... Somethings, I leader research though I get inevitably screwed...

Anyway, that match was pretty easy, maybe because of the other leaders' traits (Amurabi and Gandhi)... At the beginning, I just didn't choose the victory condition I'd follow during the match, Cultural victory is my favourite though, and sometimes I play space race as the only remaining way to win... It was my first time with ramsses, I thought that being spiritual would be nice to try civics and building wonders would let me have many great people to empower my empire...

First, I dediced to wipe off Amurabi... Then, I went for a space raceI checked the victory conditions tab by chance and I saw that Gandhi, the only standing leader (we where three on a tiny pangea map IIRC) had two cities with enough culture points and the third one was 15000 aprox... So I nuked him up the city till I saw its culture points got stuck... Then, a forth city took its place and jumped in the cultural race... Yet again, I nuked it up...

I didn't have intentions in winning by war, I'm no warmonger at all, so I nuked him the necessary to stop him from winning while I could tech and produce the ship parts... When time was almost up and I realised I would win by points, not by the space race, I took the final decission and raced many of his closest cities... I didn't even bother to keep them...

Well, that's my summary... Hope you'll spot manymistakes and post tons of tips!

oh BTW, the game felt much easier for me, who am used to playing huge maps with eight leaders in noble... Was it because of a good start, few leaders, cool leaders, or just luck?

 

[vranasm]

Make another game, play 100 turns and then we can talk.

We probably will find something if we put effort in your final save, but it's not worth it. The crucial part is much much sooner

 

[Paw]

Posting an endgame save and asking people to pick apart your game is way way too late.

Your best bet would be to start a shadow game here in S&T and get people to follow along as you play. You can post the start and discuss what you think your opening moves should be, or go ahead and play the first 30-40 turns and then post screenshots/saves and ask for feedback. This way you can explain your thought strategy as the game goes along and people can give you feedback at specific stages of the game much easier.

 

[Gumbolt]

My main critique is it is 2037??? What were you doing for the whole game??

I agree with above post a save at 1ad and then ask for advice. Seems to me without looking at save you didn't expand enough or try to attack an Ai early on.

I assume you used cottages and made use of specialists early on?

Overall noble shouldn't last to that date!

 

[Gumbolt]

Hmmm only you and 2 Ai. You could of built 6 war chariots and won this by around 2000bc. Even a warrior rush would of worked.

I don't like fact you have grassland forest in your capital and you never cottaged them.

A win is a win but you didn't make it easy really.

I can see you used a lot of nukes. Perhaps you just wanted to have some fun.

 

[LuiGGi]

Hi all, what a pity it's difficult to comment on the match now that's finished =/ I thought you could find some "inconsistencies" after all...

Anyway, you Gumbolt are right when stating that I only wanted to have fun, that's true and my ultimate aim is to have the great civilization and only merely "winning the game" or "achieving victory conditions ASAP"... However, wipping off hammurabi took me more time than I expected... unfortunately, I'm not good at war =/

It's not that I don't follow the stack of doom rule, that is tons of catapult bombarding and then a nice mix to attack... But, I'm only late at producing military unit... When I produce one, other leaders produce millions... It's damn true, in other game I'm playing, I defended a city and killed a hole stack, then I took a stack defending his city (I was sort of counterattacking) and some AI's stack suddenly turned out! grrr!

About the grassland in my capital, I can't see the game now since I'm at work (and I should be working right now, not posting on a forum about how to conquer the world), I don't remember those tiles yet I guess that, if I don't have cottages, then I might have built some farms...

I built so many ICBM cause it was the easiest way to attack gandhi's far cities... I was running out of time, I thought nuking was better than building an army and moving them beyond their borders...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

a win is a win, in my mind. I have no problem with nuking to deal with issues like that. Game is supposed to be fun, and if building 5 transports, loading 'em with units and sending them across the sea with destroyes, battleships and carrier escorts isn't for you because it's a lot of work... well, why not nuke him?

 

[Derakon]

You should try to have at least one city that is solely dedicated to churning out units. This city should have strong production (generally means it's built next to several hills and probably near copper/iron), and is also where you should build the Heroic Epic and settle your first Great General. The only other things you should worry about building in this city are a granary, a barracks, a drydocks/stable (if applicable), a forge, a factory, a power plant, one culture building, and, if necessary, a few happiness/health buildings to keep it working all of its production tiles. Notice that I didn't include any research or money buildings like libraries, groceries, etc. This city doesn't make knowledge or money; it makes WAR! It should spend as much time as possible churning out military units.

One city like that should be able to cover the bulk of your warmaking needs. Ideally it should be able to build 1 unit every turn for most of the game. Other cities can chime in from time to time to supplement it, but generally speaking this one military city will leave them free to focus on more peaceful matters.

 

[LuiGGi]

I really appreciate your colaboration =)

It's true that I try to push city specialization as far as possible, but I guess I've never achieved it... A productive city as descripted by Derakon seems easy to get, I'll bare all those tips in mind next game! I tend to build some "complementary" buildings that aren't very useful when it comes to producing, like library or markets (not for the purpuse of the health/hapiness bonus, but just to get a marginal quantity of commerce... rather silly huh^^)...

I'll also take into consideration what Gumbolt said and I'll try to be less "long term oriented" during the early game and start attacking other civs with as soon as I get charriots and swordmen...

Besides, I'll try to set the production-oriented city in second place, after setting my capital, so I can build up my army rather early in the game...

Ah! I almost forgot, hope I'll not play the fool but...

building 5 transports, loading 'em with units and sending them across the sea with destroyes, battleships and carrier escorts isn't for you because it's a lot of work

I've neved gone very deep in sea units... Believe, I didn't realise that using ships to move my squad would help me transport units faster and safer even when the AI is in the same continent...

 

[Derakon]

If you're going to rush an apponent with chariots/axes, I'd recommend only building a second city if you need to to get access to the strategic resource (horses/copper), and then build that second city so it has immediate access to that resource (i.e. the resource is in one of the 8 adjacent tiles). Otherwise, a rush can be better-run from your capital, since the longer you delay getting your army out the door, the more garrison forces it'll have to deal with. A newly-settled city is not going to be able to contribute significantly to your army by the time it has to leave, but it does cost you a 100 delay in production from your capital, which is three chariots or axemen!

In a game with a rush, your second city may end up being rather useless because it was built just to take advantage of a resource. That happens sometimes.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Broad strategic comments:

Food is Life. Where's the city that works the corn? Do you realize that's a 6F tile? 7F if you manage to get fresh water to it? One of the strongest tiles in the game, but there's no city that can use it.

Likewise, a fish here, a clam there... in all, I think I saw 4 food resources in your fare share of the map that had no cities to work them. "I award you no points..."

Simple rule: every city gets at least one food resource, every food resource gets at least one city.


Second point: the opening is about units. Units units units. Workers to improve your land, settlers to claim more of it. As it stands, your cities were founded very late, and you never really had enough workers to improve the land quickly.

Building shinies is fun, but its much easier (on Noble) to win the game first, then build all the remaining shiny.


Third point: Not enough catapults.

There's no such thing as "enough catapults".