Got Whooped on Noble!

RegentMan

RegentMan

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I finished my first game of BTS yesterday as the Holy Roman Empire. It is a rule I have to play the first game of a Civ expansion with all of the new leaders/civilizations, so it was sixteen of us on a large fractal map (with low sea level to balance things out). I had an unsuccessful war with a neighbor and was trucking along when I noticed something I have never seen before:

An AI tank on the other continent while I was researching education!

I have never been that far behind in any Civ game I have ever played. It blew my mind. Perhaps the added AIs to a large map made for a bigger trading frenzy or they just are better.

Long story short, my continent had four civs (Babylon and its two vassals and me). Babylon was the Confucious holy land and we were all the same religion. They even gifted me a tech or two. Then one interturn, I hear the war horns blow and discover Babylon declared war on me. :( I just hit enter every turn as I knew my longbowmen were no match for infantry and artillery.

Case in point, the AI is better this time around! :eek:

Now to try a normal-sized game...
 
I hear ya! I made a post with a nearly identical theme...Catherine sneak attacked. I was great in tech, but not much production in the cities and little room to expand....grrr.
It really makes me want to be back home playing more so I can improve!
 
Your research must have been pretty poor if the AI had tanks when you were only at Education. I fully understand wars can grind research down to snail pace, but on noble you can usually get away with wars until your cities start to starve through unhappiness. In fact, it's pretty doable on monarch too.

Would it be possible to post a save, mate?
 
Yeah, I can relate. I picked up BTS yesterday and played as William Van Oranje (Netherlands) on Noble, (I usually play Prince) because I wanted an easy game to get used to the new wonders, espionage, corps, etc.

I think I was holding my own in tech -- hard to say for sure, as I was playing Fractal, Normal and shared a large island with only Shaka and Pacal II -- the rest of my opponents were on another island and I haven't met them yet. I was buddies with Shaka and he asked me to go to war against Pacal. Well, I was amazed at how well Pacal defended his cities and kept pressuring me at our shared border. I had just built 8 swordsmen to complete a game quest and was using them to try and conquer a couple of his border cities, and he countered with waves of axemen and catapults. I finally had to ask for peace after only getting one of his cities. I was very impressed with the AI intelligence.

I've also heard that aside from the AI upgrade, they don't tech as fast as they used to. I'm assuming because it's necessary to apply some of the research toward espionage. Has anybody else noticed this?
 
Yeah, my dip-my-toe-in-the-water game was a tiny 4-civ noble-speed pangea game as Julius. I won, but the AI militarily was a bit smarter - not hunkering down and rushing archers, it actually seemed to concentrate on axemen and made conquest a lot more interesting and difficult than the usual sledgehammer approach.
 
In my current game, when checking the victory condition screen, I was suprised to see Gandhi edging closer and closer to a cultural victory. Before, I had never even seen the AI get more then one city close to my big 3, yet this time, I am staring a cultural defeat in the face.

But whats that Gandhi? You see ships on the horizon? Whose are they? Well they're mine, and there full of tanks. MWAHAHAHAHA :mwaha:
 
I'm in the same boat. Scaled down to noble to get used to the new stuff. I did make some bad calls while experimenting, and I'm just now starting to get ahead with the musketeer era, but for a while I was behind. Taking down cities was definitely harder, but I'm really happy to see that. I'd rather see the AI play better than the higher levels changing the game rules to give myself all sorts of handicaps.
 
The first game I played w/ BTS was a prince game where I tried to axe rush Persia (they had no horses) and was immediately grounded to a halt.

Then they send a huge stack of troops at me out of left field and I restarted...

Lucky for me, my restart had 5 gold next to floodplains in the capitals bfc...

:lol:
 
In the game that I finally finished (at 3AM btw) it was close. Elizabeth was really close to a cultural victory, and had tried to sneak a Diplo victory by me earlier with the Apostolic palace. Luckily I was way ahead in the tech race and was able to storm her cities with tanks and mech infantry while waiting for my fully decked out space ship to reach alpha centuari.
 
Does seem much harder than before to be i usually play noble level and can usually tussle it out for 1st or second place towards the end of a time game but now seem to be behind on tech more or less always. Mind u have not fought one battle yet so maybe am not being aggressive enough?
 
BlackJAC said:
Your research must have been pretty poor if the AI had tanks when you were only at Education. I fully understand wars can grind research down to snail pace, but on noble you can usually get away with wars until your cities start to starve through unhappiness. In fact, it's pretty doable on monarch too.

Would it be possible to post a save, mate?
Click to expand...
It was pretty poor. I'm bad at building cottages, so that was a huge chunk of it, I'm sure. Attached is the last save I have.

But in other news, I am on my second game, this time as Gilgamesh, and am doing much better. I'm #1 on tech, but the others are constantly in the shadows! Great expansion pack!
 

Attachments

  • Charlemagne.CivBeyondSwordSave
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I've been doing poorly as well...maybe it's because Brennus goes to war with me when he's friendly or because Genghis Khan is knocking out three other AI before BC is even over.

:crazyeye:
 
Just did an axe rush on Huyana in my first BtS game as Washington. He put up quite a fight. We both earned a great general before I killed him. I was impressed. The peasant uprising that occur when you raze a city is quite annoying though. Does anyone know if it's a permanent feature or is it just a random event?
 
RegentMan said:
It was pretty poor. I'm bad at building cottages, so that was a huge chunk of it, I'm sure. Attached is the last save I have.

But in other news, I am on my second game, this time as Gilgamesh, and am doing much better. I'm #1 on tech, but the others are constantly in the shadows! Great expansion pack!
Click to expand...

Your first major problem - you've got 6 cities, yet only 2 workers. One of whom is building a mine next to the capital [size 10], a capital that has stagnated due to having no extra food. You've got plenty of grassland tiles, next to fresh water, but they're covered by forests. Had you chopped at least 3 of them you'd have had a) a larger population i.e. had some specialists and b) been able to rush some of those improvements. your land is waaaaaay under developed compared to others.

Hammers are useless if you've no one to work them.

You're also building a monastery in one of your border cities when in fact you should have been building your UB - a courthouse.

The Ottomans started in close proximity to yourself and would have been an easy target for your axes or swords. Now, though, they're tooled up to the hilt and attacking them later on would have ended in disaster.

There's tons more, but it's about 1.30am here, so won't list every single thing.

Two things before I go

1 build at least one worker per city. Two per city is ideal, but not mega necessary.

2 If you're going to adopt slavery utilise it properly i.e. grow your population. Otherwise it's a waste.
 
Arkengate said:
lmfao u sux hahahaha....
rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl!
SUX!
Click to expand...

Rather than acting like a complete loser, why not give some constructive advice to those that are struggling a little?

After all we've all been there at some point or another.
 
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