Hello. I have some specific questions about playing Civ4.

[Larwin]

Hello I been playing civ4 for a few weeks now. I find I can beat Warlord level at least half the time. I want to start playing more Noble games.

I mostly use the regular version then when I start getting good at that version want to try more the expansions.

Some Questions I have may be easy to answer or maybe not. LOL.

1. How many cities should I have settled before building wonders?
2. When rushing whats the minimum and maximum number of units I should build.
3. When is the best time to declare war. When I or another civ gets a certain technology? When a rival civ cancels open borders?
4. How do I stay ahead of the AI and still tech the way I should.
5. I been trying to play montezuma is there any techs I should beeline first based on his personality.
6. Is building a baracks right off the bat a bad idea?
7. Should I be picky where I place new cities even if theres a strategic resource there?
8. Should I turn of recomended production for the cities production. Seems when I do this I build the wrong stuff LOL.
9. How do I go from not winning to winning?

Thanks,

Larwin

 

[Larwin]

Another question:

Should I try to select the civs I play against or do random?

I know some civs may be stronger early in the game than others.

What civics should I beeline? When should I change Civics?

I also want to play on small maps with 4 rivals. I think maybe I could reduce this to 3 or 2 til I get better at the game.

Thanks,

Larwin

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Welcome to CivFanatics

I mostly use the regular version then when I start getting good at that version want to try more the expansions.

If finances are not an obstacle, I'd recommend getting Beyond the Sword right away. The bug fixes are important, and the community is more actively playing that variation of the game.

1. How many cities should I have settled before building wonders?

All of them.

2. When rushing whats the minimum and maximum number of units I should build.

All of them

3. When is the best time to declare war.

Now.

4. How do I stay ahead of the AI and still tech the way I should.

Don't do anything else.

5. I been trying to play montezuma is there any techs I should beeline first based on his personality.

No.

6. Is building a baracks right off the bat a bad idea?

Yes.

7. Should I be picky where I place new cities even if theres a strategic resource there?

Yes

8. Should I turn of recomended production for the cities production.

Yes. You are trying to beat the AI, how are you going to do that if you are making the same decisions it would?

9. How do I go from not winning to winning?

Don't do anything else except win.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Somewhat less facetiously...

The simple trick to beating noble is to sit down with a plan of how you will win, then follow the plan without being distracted by the shiny diversions that the game offers.

At Noble, virtually any plan will work. But the simplest plan is "land".

Step one - claim your fair share of the good land.
Step two - claim a neighbor's share of the good land.
Step three - claim all of the good land you can reach before discovering Astronomy.
Step four - discover that having much more than your fair share of land means that you can win the game any way you want.

Any idea that doesn't logically lead to claiming more land or capturing more land is a distraction from the plan. So don't do it.


Now, sometimes you will find two ideas that both seem in line with the plan. So the second principal is anything that can wait, must wait.

So consider your question about the barracks. Does it contribute to the plan? Sure - a barracks will give you stronger units when it is time to capture land. Are you capturing land now? No. Are you capturing land soon? Not really. Do you need promoted units now? Well, they'd be nice... and you wouldn't turn them down if they were free, but you don't really need them - unpromoted units will be sufficient for quite a while.

Compare that training a Worker. On most land based maps, you need a worker Right Now, and there really isn't a substitute. So either you have to train one, or you have to capture one from somewhere.

And welcome to CivFanatics.

 

[Floating Pants]

Another question:

Should I try to select the civs I play against or do random?

On the forums, people usually go random. Customizing your enemies for your benefit is a pathetic way to win, so I wouldn't suggest ever doing that. But, say if it's something that would be harder for you to go up against (IE: Archipelago w/ Viking enemy), do it.

What civics should I beeline? When should I change Civics?

If you ever want to spontaneously change civics, the best is to do it during golden ages. You don't have to go in anarchy during golden ages (at least that's how it is on BtS). Other than that, when you're not researching a vital tech or building a wonder is fine.

If you have a few number of cities and capital-focused, it's a good idea to beeline bureaucracy, which is with feudalism. Other than that, you can't go wrong with liberalism for free speech, free religion, and 1 free tech.

I also want to play on small maps with 4 rivals. I think maybe I could reduce this to 3 or 2 til I get better at the game.

Try using an inland sea map. Those are always fun small maps with 2 or 3 people.

How do I go from not winning to winning?

Plan out your victory from the very beginning. For higher difficulties you aren't used to, you'll want to focus on your victory from the start. Map out your tech line, cities, wonders, etc.

For example, if you decide early that you're going for a cultural win, make sure you get at least 2 religions in all your cities, build temples, and get music early. That helps for building cathedrals, the biggest hitters for culture.

 

[Larwin]

Ussually on a small pangea map I can get 4 cities without having to take AI cities. But the fourth citie I usually only have one option thats not taken. Also is declaring war to steal workers going to impact diplomacy too much?

I guess religion as a spiritual civ might be a good focus. then maybe get Alphabet and trade for some the skills like iron working and metal? working.

I guess it just depends on what kind of win I want to get. I did manage to win a prince level game against 2 other civs by spamming about 10 or 20 Jaguars. But the early wins arent that ez on small maps since theres a lot more cities to capture and raze.

I read somewhere having 60% research most the time works for teching and expanding cities. I just wondered if starting with it at 60% would be a good idea and save the excess money for upgrading units and citie upkeep. I think maybe if I play the small maps and if I find I cant find more land I guess I could start thinking about planning out a war and have at least 2 cities produce units and try get a wonder like pyramids being built in my capitol.

Seems to me the capital is most suited for your first wonder. then maybe second and third citie could be dedicated to unit building. the later cities could be outposts to house veteran units or for planning campaigns to set up units for an attack.

Thanks,

Larwin

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

You shouldn't build cities. They are bad. You should only buy workers.

 

[Larwin]

So build one pristine citie then capture the rest?

 

[Floating Pants]

So build one pristine citie then capture the rest?

Come on, don't be so gullible.

I read somewhere having 60% research most the time works for teching and expanding cities. I just wondered if starting with it at 60% would be a good idea and save the excess money for upgrading units and citie upkeep. I think maybe if I play the small maps and if I find I cant find more land I guess I could start thinking about planning out a war and have at least 2 cities produce units and try get a wonder like pyramids being built in my capitol.

Solid 60% is a bit low for most high level games. But, if you play your cards right you could be producing just as much, if not more, than your enemies. You have to be looking at what the science value you're producing is, because that's what matters (just look over your research bar to view it).

60%. Hmm... let me map you out a timeline if you were to try solid 60%.

Turn 1 - Keep high as possible
Early expansion - dip from 40%-70%
Build libraries
Research Currency - return to 80%
Education & Astronomy - University & Observatory spam - lower to 60%

That's the only reasonable way I suppose you could do it. If you're planning to tackle an opponent, them having more advanced troops is the last thing you want. Unless you beeline civil service & machinery for early maceman rush. But... weren't you looking for an earlier swordsman rush?

Best way for early money boom is religion. Found one, and build Stonehenge or Oracle. They will give you a great prophet to build the shrine and get your big money. But, you may be a bit restricted if your late on the prophet or your religion is small. So maybe build a temple in capital and use the priest.

 

[Infrared]

Oh boy, the trolling is too much to handle.

1. By the time the 'mids or what have you come along 3 well placed cities would be good.
2. If you're playing below monarch, you could probably go for broke.. Well, not broke. Remember to slide research down to 0% a few turns before the war, so you can support more units. This will make early combat much less painful, and more viable.
3. A good war should have some siege support, so let's assume you're forgoing a rush and want to go around and stomp the AI at some point in a sustainable way. See how your eco is and when you can leverage out enough units. If axe/catapult is out of the question, consider mace/cata mace/trebuchet or go for faster rifles.
4. Get used to staying behind, research what you can actually make use of and ignore everything else. If you think religions are cool you can permanently remove that part of your human brain. Make trades to try to cling onto some tech parity, then push an economic advantage later on.
5. Build his UB, whip until you bleed.
6. If it's the first thing you build, that's very bad. Throw out a worker if there's something you can improve. Otherwise prioritizing warriors for fogbusting barbarians would be great while the capital grows.
7. Try to prioritize food resources. Flood plains are good too if you need a commerce city (cottaging).
8. Turn it off
9. Ask more questions

 

[Larwin]

My Experience playing montezuma of the aztecs with his UU is that I can most the time win tiny size maps by building just jaguars for attacking and maybe a few archers. I really only need one city for these maps. Best I attempted and won was a prince map. Moving up to small map from tiny map takes a little more teching I think.

I'm beginning to think for small and bigger maps If I'm starting from ancient I may need to plan on a medieval or later conquest victory. Because the cost of running enough units to take out the AI on small maps Is too high for building just ancient units and swordsmen. I might need to hold off on a conquest victory for the small map until I can at least build macemen and maybe upgraded archers for defence or maybe even musketeers. I was thinking of trying Japanese samurais since they are a strong medieval unit.

Probably when I want to start playing standard maps I would spread out my conquests more. Or build as much cities as I can grab good land for and start warring about 1800 if I can get at least cannons and cavalry and riflemen by then and make sure I can maybe get first to librilism for a boost.

There seems to be several directions we can go when teching. But I think the hardest part for me is knowing when to trade techs and when not to. I read some about this but think it's to ez to trade the wrong techs. The AI seems very greedy when it comes to tech trading a lot of the time.

Is there a certain point in the game where you shouldn't trade techs at all? Like after librilism or later? Sometimes I want to take tech trading off just so I wont trade a tech that will make the AI jump ahead of me LOL. One of my more recent games Rosevelt was giving me techs because he was about a half dozen techs ahead of me.

Can someone list wonders and techs that accelerate research faster than the AI? Maybe I can learn to prioritize these when going for longer games hehe.

Is it possible to get a Wonder Victory anymore? The way the games designed now I almost think it would be impossible or very difficult. I think this may have only been in civ1 maybe civ2.

Another thing I wondered about when growing a city is it good to start with all farms then build over the farms later with production buildings or commerce?

On noble should I have 1.5 workers per city still? Or possibly get extra from capturing AI workers. Or are we looking at too much strain on the budget to have excess workers? One thing I think would help is if you got shields or coins back when deleting a unit LOL. I think civ3 you could have workers help build wonders and get some the shields back from the worker.

 

[Larwin]

5. Build his UB, whip until you bleed.

I think i did that a few times hehe. I get to the point my economy starts deleting units LOL. Thats the games I say whoops I think I built too many units. If I get to the point I can build macemen or the AI can these Jaquars are kinda weak. LOL. Are they still good for city attack backed up by catapults or would it be better to switch to promoted macemen with city attack?

If I'm taking on two AIs on a small map where I have a long way to travel maybe I should only build swordsmen to take out the first civ then concentrate on getting techs up for macemen then take on the second civ seems I might be able to do that.

 

[georgel123]

So build one pristine citie then capture the rest?

Not exactly, but it is a doable option. I would suggest maybe that you play with the Dutch on continents with 4 rivals, Duel. You can axe rush your opponents off your continent. That would get you maybe one or two capitals that are placed in very good spots. After you get your economy fixed, beeline to astronomy to get East Indiaman, the Dutch UU. Then go for Steel for the cannons. It's a good way, IMO, to practice amphibious assaults since East Indiaman go in territory w/o war. Cannons would help with dominating the other continents.

If you like Monty, whip like crazy. In my experience Jags are pretty situational, but since this is Noble it is possible to successfully rush.

Spoiler :

The answer to question number nine is to become Charlie Sheen

 

[stimpyhoek]

Do what I did, start on Monarch level and just get beat till u win.

 

[coanda]

I think i did that a few times hehe. I get to the point my economy starts deleting units LOL. Thats the games I say whoops I think I built too many units.

Too many units? Too many units?! Blasphemy! The problem is not enough enemy units to put up a fight. Perhaps you could gift the AI a few of your units before declaring war to make things more even.

 

[prayandr]

Echoing what Voiceofunreason said re: building things when you have to, I think when I was starting out the best thing I learned was how to avoid working unimproved tiles. So in almost every game the very first thing you build should be a worker. A special case is if you have a coastal capital w/a seafood resource, in which case you may want to build a workboat first. Avoiding working unimproved tiles is also important when you expand. If you have like 1 worker and are settling your third city you will pretty much inevitably be working unimproved tiles in each city (unless you are a magician in microing your worker). Of course if you work an unimproved tile or two for a few turns it's not the end of the world, so long as it's the exception and not the norm. There are some cases where land is at a premium and you need to pump out settlers in order to grab it while it's still available. When you do this it'll be impossible to keep up w/the amount of workers you need to keep working improved tiles, but the situation calls for it and you can then catch up in workers later. It's impossible to generalize about civ in that there are an infinite # of possibilities to every game, but avoiding working unimproved tiles is a great fundamental rule to start from.

 

[Htadus]

Hello I been playing civ4 for a few weeks now. I find I can beat Warlord level at least half the time. I want to start playing more Noble games.

I mostly use the regular version then when I start getting good at that version want to try more the expansions.

Some Questions I have may be easy to answer or maybe not. LOL.

1. How many cities should I have settled before building wonders?It depends but at least 1 good city that can help you grow would be nice. Also as long as you have at least one worker and defender, up untill about monarch and some emperor games you can actually let your city build a wonder and alllow it to grow into very state and then use the whip to build settlers and workers. Wonders and growth is not mutually exclusive. You just need to consider unhappy faces as a hammer factory. Oh yeah, you need food in the capital
2. When rushing whats the minimum and maximum number of units I should build.3:1 (if axes against archers) or about 5 to 1 warriors. I have lost even with 12 warriors against 2 warriors. Arches against warriros is about 3:1
3. When is the best time to declare war. When I or another civ gets a certain technology? When a rival civ cancels open borders? When you are ready
4. How do I stay ahead of the AI and still tech the way I should.I am guesing you are talking about balancing expansion versus tech rate. I typically expand untill my tach rate is about 20% but by this time I have a couple of cities with growing cottages (capital plus another early cities) and couple more running scientists. So tech rate will stay up there.
5. I been trying to play montezuma is there any techs I should beeline first based on his personality. Iron working if you do not have copper, else you need to use what the terrain give you
6. Is building a baracks right off the bat a bad idea?Yes if you are going for an early rush. If you are talking about Rax bing your first build, then absolutely bad.
7. Should I be picky where I place new cities even if theres a strategic resource there?Every city should be a choice site but if you are going for a resource you will need then just make sure you economy can handle it.
8. Should I turn of recomended production for the cities production. Seems when I do this I build the wrong stuff LOL.Cities need only a few things. Monument if not creative and need to expand, grainary, Lighthouse, and perhaps a Forge. After that it all depend on what you want that city to do for you. Rax for military, Lib for runing scientist or for high commerce cities, Markets in high food cities to run merchants(This will allow you to increase the science slide) and rest of the time have the cities build science or gold.
9. How do I go from not winning to winning?Expand peacefully (6-7 cities min), develop economy and expand warring toward the victory of choice. Also try not to work undevelop tiles in cities. So build workers as far as there are unimproved tiles being worked. I try to get at least 1 per city but most folks will tell you that you need about 1.5 per city

Thanks,

Larwin

FYI, I am only a Emperor player but can win that level almost always. Good luck.

 

[Htadus]

Somewhat less facetiously...

........

Step one - claim your fair share of the good land.
Step two - claim a neighbor's share of the good land.
Step three - claim all of the good land you can reach before discovering Astronomy.
Step four - discover that having much more than your fair share of land means that you can win the game any way you want.

.......
And welcome to CivFanatics.

I like these 4 steps.

 

[Hortulanus]

Hi Larwin,

Welcome to the game and to the forum.

The "War Academy" section of this site has a lot of very useful guides. Sisiutil's Beginner's Guide" in particular will give you a lot of great tips, especially for handling the beginning phase of the game. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Hortulanus

 

[Larwin]

I been working on a game on a small inland sea map with two rival civs. I tried a sword rush since that didnt go well but i managed to capture a couple cities. I'm finding if I build wonders more often than just regular infrastructure this boosts my tech rate a lot.

Seems that if I can build at least 70% of the early wonders and have more cities than the AI I can start keeping ahead of them in tech. Like on this map I was doing recently keep capital focused on wonders after 3rd city is built. And have at least one city getting workers and settlers ready for next spot a land. Another idea i had Is kinda have a pattern for expanding. like worker worker a couple defense units then settler from new cities to next ciy. I ussually grab at least one defense unit when moving my settlers never know when a barb or something is gonna wonder by. I could then start focusing each city on building infastructure based on what kind of land was around them. Like baracks if it has hills for production or commerce if it has a lot of grassland and floodplains. It seems for a production city we need at least 2 good food resources in the BFC. Otherwise it wont grow much past size 10. I guess what matters most is discovering lots on health resources and happiness resources. Or just be grabbing more land faster than the AI. And If the AI has more land take a few cities from them so you have the advantage.

I guess conquest victories can be done later in the game if Its not doable early. I think maybe I'm trying to conquer without keeping my techs matching the AI. Or spam more units than I have been lol. start with 10 jags and 10 cats. capture/raze as many cities as i can. meanwhile all my cities build reinforcements.

any comments is 10 jags and 10 cats a good start for taking out the ai. should I forgo teching and concentrate on spamming both these? or maybe take them in stacks of 5 each for each AI city. since this would be fairly early in the game most defenders an AI city would have is maybe 2 or 3.