[BTS] Help a noob out on noble

[yodude4]

Hey all, I haven't played civ for a few months but am returning, and I've found that I can't play like I used to. I used to be able to beat noble pretty regularly, but I've found that I just can't catch up to the AI on that difficulty anymore. I've been reading up on all the tips about city specialization and trying to tighten up my worker game and teching, but it's just not working. My early game usually involves an early rush and then a late classical era war (500 AD - 1000 AD) to expand, and I can't seem to balance my economy with my expansion. Plus, when I try to slow things down and not expand too rapidly, the AI blocks me off and I'm way smaller than them.

To help you get a sense of where I am, I've attached a save file to this post - could someone just figure out where I'm going wrong? Thanks in advance!

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

I had a quick look at your save; it's not that easy to jump in at a 1470AD save and say too much apart from obvious stuff: all the important decisions were made long ago. Some quick observations in no particular order:

1) Civics. You're at war and are running Caste. Why? You should be whipping as many Trebs as physically possible. You're also not running a religious civic for some reason, despite having a state religion.

2) Buildings. Only build what you need. Universities and Observatories are pointless. Once you get to Engineering and Civil Service, you don't need to tech. Just whip units and roll the map.

3) Why is your stack halfway across the map attacking Musa? You should have been going after Justin.

4) Initial expansion. How did you let a Noble AI (even an IMP one) out-expand you so badly? Losing the Nicomedia spot in 225BC is unforgivable. Parsagardae is a poor second city choice. Too far from your capital, too close to the Mongols. Going after the Mongols first makes sense, but no need to build at them. Let them come to you. Build more cities early, and closer to your capital. Gems and corn should be the second city for me.

5) You have 3 Academies. Standard procedure is just to have one in your heavily cottaged Bureau cap. Use scientists for bulbing or even a Golden Age.

6) Liberalism. Why? You took Astro, I presume. How does that help you win the game? If you're going to bother with Lib, at least try and set up Steel (or Chemistry on the way to Steel if the AI is getting close). Cannons good, observatories bad.

You've still got a huge tech lead, this game is more than winnable. Basically you need to stop dicking around and crank your economy into war mode.

Best thing to do is to start a new game though, post the starting save in a new thread on here, play very short turn sets and let the forum experts guide you through the vital early decision-making process.

 

[yodude4]

Thank you for the help! A few questions and comments:

Spoiler :

6) Liberalism. Why? You took Astro, I presume. How does that help you win the game? If you're going to bother with Lib, at least try and set up Steel (or Chemistry on the way to Steel if the AI is getting close). Cannons good, observatories bad.

My goal in this game was to go for a science victory since a couple AIs were on other islands, so I went Astronomy both for observatories and to settle cities on other continents. How are you keeping up with AIs in tech without any universities or observatories in your science cities?

4) Initial expansion. How did you let a Noble AI (even an IMP one) out-expand you so badly? Losing the Nicomedia spot in 225BC is unforgivable. Parsagardae is a poor second city choice. Too far from your capital, too close to the Mongols. Going after the Mongols first makes sense, but no need to build at them. Let them come to you. Build more cities early, and closer to your capital. Gems and corn should be the second city for me.

The problem I run into is that if I settle a bunch of cities early, my economy tanks and I'm getting 30 beakers per turn well into the ADs, no matter how many cottages I try to build. How do you keep your economy afloat with all those cities?

I'm going to take you up on the game thing. I started a new save, and here's the opening screenshot:

I'll follow up with turns 1-20 shortly.

 

[yodude4]

Turn 1 settled on spot, began building a worker and researching meditation

Turn 5 borders expanded into a goodie hut, got 36 gold

Turn 9 founded buddhism, began researching agriculture

Turn 15 finished agriculture, began researching the wheel (working towards pottery)

Turn 17 popped a goodie hut, got the wheel, began researching pottery

Here is the screenshot at turn 19, with dot maps:

I'm planning to settle the upper-left spot with the corn as my second city, and I'm settling on the desert to have less dead tiles in range. Is that a good city location?

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

I think you should probably be settling the Gold city first (coming from a Prince/Monarch player, now)
I'm not sure how fast your Capital could end up expanding, but if it's in any way fast you may want the Gold soon enough for that +1 Happiness.
Even if the growth is slower than I expect then the extra will prove useful anyways.
Your Rice spot looks like, but that jungle means it would probably be best left until near Iron-Working.
Considering you have Buddhism I'd also find a way to convert Hannibal to Buddhism soon, he doesn't look to be too far away.

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Thank you for the help! A few questions and comments:

Spoiler :

My goal in this game was to go for a science victory since a couple AIs were on other islands, so I went Astronomy both for observatories and to settle cities on other continents. How are you keeping up with AIs in tech without any universities or observatories in your science cities?



The problem I run into is that if I settle a bunch of cities early, my economy tanks and I'm getting 30 beakers per turn well into the ADs, no matter how many cottages I try to build. How do you keep your economy afloat with all those cities?

Ah ok, that explains some of your play a little bit more; I'd just assumed that you were going for a Conquest/Domination win. That said: if I'm wanting to take out multiple AIs before heading for space, then I'd focus on war first until I'd secured the land I need, and then focus on space.

Over expanding and crashing your economy early can be a problem. Even experienced players get it wrong from time to time. Avoiding the crash is a hard thing to explain briefly, and varies a lot depending on circumstances. Managing to crawl over the line to Currency (usually using specialists / conquest gold / wonder fail gold) and build wealth is often the saviour of over-expansion.

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Turn 1 settled on spot, began building a worker and researching meditation

Turn 5 borders expanded into a goodie hut, got 36 gold

Turn 9 founded buddhism, began researching agriculture

Turn 15 finished agriculture, began researching the wheel (working towards pottery)

Turn 17 popped a goodie hut, got the wheel, began researching pottery

I'm planning to settle the upper-left spot with the corn as my second city, and I'm settling on the desert to have less dead tiles in range. Is that a good city location?

FIrst turn, first mistake! No need to research meditation. Founding an early religion is nearly always frowned upon by high-level players: largely because on Immortal and Deity, you'll very rarely get there first, even if you start with Mysticism. It's not a terrible choice on Noble (depending on your worker tech situation), but I think it's a habit best avoided if you're aiming to play on Immortal+.

I agree with SIP (settle in place). It's tempting to settle on the sugar for a 3 food capital, but as that loses us the corn it's a pretty questionable play.

I played through to T30 (the point at which "our" land seemed fully explored). My tech path was Agriculture > The Wheel > Fishing > Pottery > currently researching Writing. I went for fishing as we're going to need it in the medium term, it speeds up pottery and there are no pressing techs that it's slowing down.

I popped BW from a hut on T3 On higher levels this would be very useful as I only need hunting (doesn't matter if we don't have copper) to open up the Holkan which will solve barb defence problems. I'm not sure how much we need to worry about this on Noble. I also got 109 gold and a map from huts. The map revealed the edge of Hannibal's land, although unlike you I've not actually met him yet.

My dot map:

So, what are you thinking? What's the early plan?

 

[yodude4]

@PsychopathicWarmonger Good point! I'm going to settle the gold city first. My settler is there as of turn 42.

@Chase_2_Rabbits

I really wish I had been smart enough to read your post BEFORE I started playing ahead, because I'm now at 2360 BC and I haven't gotten fishing; I researched BW instead and picked up the wheel from a hut. Also, your dot map is extremely compressed; are you worried about all that overlap?

As for early planning...

I've played up to turn 42. Not much else happened; I farmed the corn, dug a mine, and got two cottages in my cap before making a road to the gold city, and researched pottery and bronzeworking. I'm quite torn; on the one hand, I'm beginning to highly suspect that I'm on an island with just me and Hannibal, and if so it would be a really good idea to polish him off before 1000 BC. On the other hand, I have no copper or horses remotely near my territory and my capital has mediocre production. Should I go for something here or try to expand around him until I can get gun units or iron or something? (And if youd like a screenshot I'll post one, but it looks basically the same as earlier)

 

[DrCron]

are you worried about all that overlap?

Overlap is good, cities help each other working cottages to make them grow faster (for more commerce). Also, many cities close to your capital means many cities with low maintenance cost.

I'm beginning to highly suspect that I'm on an island with just me and Hannibal, and if so it would be a really good idea to polish him off before 1000 BC

On Noble I would b-line Alpha and trade with him first, to back-fill early techs. Then you can tech to construction and take him out, since on this difficulty he won't be a good trading partner for much longer. That being said, maybe you want to keep a few of his cities along for a while, for foreign trade routes (they give more commerce than internal ones).

Regarding the previous conversation on universities, when going for a scientific victory you can totally build 6 of them (maybe more if you are philosophical because they are cheaper) to get Oxford. For other victories one in your capital can be enough (together with the academy), though on a long game I'd probably build more of them if I'm playing with a philosophical leader. You can get an observatory in your academy capital, but that's it. They usually don't justify their cost.

Remember there are not many buildings that are really worth building, and you can always build science/gold to speed up things. Granary on every city is good, library almost on every city as well. Everything else depends on the map. A few things you don't need to build:

- Monuments if you have a religion in the city (the religion already gives your city +1 culture, for free).
- Marketplaces (unless you need great merchants for Sid's sushi, or for a trade mission to upgrade a lot of units, but they are usually easier to get by changing to caste system during a golden age).
- Banks (by the time they come around, chances are they won't pay for their price, just build gold instead).
- Temples/cathedrals (unless you are going for a cultural victory). Trade for luxuries to get happiness.
- Observatories (just build gold instead, except maybe in your academy capital with a lot of developed cottages and running bureaucracy).
- Grocers/Supermarkets/aqueducts (just trade for health resources instead).

There are more but I think this should be enough basic guidance to win noble.

To keep up with your maintenance cost get Currency early, to get more trade routes. If you are semi-isolated Astronomy will actually be useful, also for foreign trade routes. But otherwise you don't need to prioritize it.

 

[Fippy]

and my capital has mediocre production.

Food = production
Way more powerful than mines early (unless a city can get 15+ hammers / turn with copper or so).

So with slavery your land can easily provide you with any units you like.
Also why granaries are so good, they double regrowth speed after whipping.
Some consider that a game flaw, but it's working that way..mines are not needed for an army (or settlers, or workers..or anything ), only food (or forests).

 

[Olafeson]

Hi there @yodude4,

So first about me i play on Immortal Difficulty and pretty much can win every game, lately i tried a lot of deity games of which i lost every single one.
Surely there are better playes around, but here are a few suggestions i would make at turn 30.

So let us use Chase2_2_Rabbits Dot Map. It shows you locations for 7 cities and i would say it is basically perfect. I added some more information to it, how i would approach the expansion.

So let us assume you play on higher difficulty than noble in the future. Maybe Monarch or Immortal. You can hit your head against a wall for a full hour and still outperform noble A.I. .

Minor mistake:

2 wasted worker turns early to road the corn 1SW cap. Pacal is Expansive leader and you are on a river so you have tons of extra health and will only need corn to trade with another civ.

Minor mistake:

do not play with huts on when you play a forum game, you got BW and gold for free but in other games you do not and that will leave you with a false sense of how to do a proper tech path in the very early game. On higher Dif you also maybe get 1 hut while A.I. gets 3-4 so you bascially boost them even more.

Numbers: city order
W:Warrior
C:Cottage
Small dots: early roads to your cities for traderoutes

First of all a big concern would be that Barb cities spawn on the locations you want to settle. So next turn you have 3 warriors, move them to the locations i marked with W for warrior and fortify them and let them spawnbust. Your third warrior can stay in capital for happy faces. Make sure to adopt slavery at turn 31 if you do not have it already.

Next turn warrior finishes and you build can now either build:

a) 4 pop settler / chop forest 1 N to capital, 2 pop whip into worker with maybe another forest chop
b) 5 pop settler /make another warrior then start settler at pop 5, chop forest 1 N capital, 2 pop whip into worker

Settle spot 1 and build a Monument (if buddhism spreads, then no need ofc) there to get border pop for the corn. With your 2 workers make a road into 2nd city for traderoute commerce then start 2 cottages
1N and 1NW of capital. Let Cap regrow to size 5 and chop/ 2pop whip a settler into another worker. Now grab city 2. Work the corn and the gold.

Maybe finish the granary in capital since it is the best building in the game, regrow to size 5 and 2 pop whip another settler into a library,. Now you can grab spot 3 and secure yourself 7+ free cities and very good cities since you block out every enemy A.I. from your land. I can tell you that it is a struggle on higher diffculties to grab the nice spots before any cheating A.I. will do it. So want to grab em as soon as possible.

Now you can lean back a bit and slowly settle all the seafood while running 2 scientist in your cap for GS and early academy. Get fishing shortly before settling sea. Tech to Math/Alpha and maybe trade some older techs with Hannibal. Cottage every gras tile around your capital and share it when cap can t work them yet.

Beeline Currency/CoL/CS and get Bureaucray cap. From there on you basically can choose if you want to go to war and wipe hannibal with maces/trebs or better tech,
go for cultural victory or space.

Also on Immortal/deity you can see that you do not have copper. As soon as you see that, you need to tech to archery ASAP and get 2-3 archers or the barbs will overrun you.

 

[Pedro78]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with the dotmaps. Unless you're playing a creative leader, early game cities must have the food resource in the first ring (99% of the time). Therefore, the clearest second city spot here is 3N2E of your capital : connected by river and has corn in the first ring. Third city would probably be 1N3W of your capital (irrigated rice + can share a farm/cottage on the sugar tile). Only then I might worry about grabbing the gold (unless Hannibal is really close and might beat you to it), and it would be on the plains hill 1SW of it (2H city center tile, would still be able to share the corn with your second city). The wet corn spot is appealing as well, but you'd have to settle very far away from your capital if you don't want to waste the fish.

As you're playing a financial leader, and your capital isn't a horrible cottage spot, this is a good game to familiarize you with the mechanics of sharing cottages. It is good for early game commerce (especially with a FIN leader), and allows you to get a very good research rate once you get an Academy in your capital. By the way I would cottage these riverside Sugar tiles (you only really need 1 sugar late game, having 3F cottage tiles for many turns before Calendar helps you more).

That's just a few pointers, there are many other things going wrong but many people here have already given you good advice on these. Hope this helps

 

[Fippy]

Good point by Pedro, 3N2E of Cap seems like the most hmm...advanced? gameplay for a 2nd city ~~
Especially cos it can be combined with gold city needing no monument now (i would settle on the ph there), think i would build the gold city 2nd.
Powerful commerce tiles can be an exception to food in first ring, i would have no problems with working only gold there for some time cos it's what that kind of city is built for (and happy).

 

[Olafeson]

Yeah bascially Fippy and Pedro78 are right here, sorry my mistake. My suggestion of first city to settle would definetly slow you down, since monument would be necessary. Therefore 3N2E of capital is a lot better.

Also i checked the plantation and it is really a bad improvement (only +1 food / +1 commerce) so Pedro78 is right here too, basically cottages on the sugar is the way to go.
Really nice advice, thanks for that Pedro78, will definetly consider to cottage sugar in the future.

Still would argue about second/third city. The 1N3W will help you grow cottages sooner and so might be better, but if hannibal can grab these cities i marked with 2 and 3, would be pretty bad since these are good spots.

I disagree with settling on PH at the gold city though. You get 1 extra hammer in your city but you lose the sea. Basically you want to work the corn and the gold there and then let the city grow, built a lighthouse and work all these 2food/3commerce sea tiles, since you are financial. Also allows for better sea traderoutes which always are better than inland trade routes. Especially early game these are really good tiles to work, even better when you grab the colossus. Not enough food anyway to work anything else than coast on the gold city

Would be interesting to read your opinions about settling PH non-coastal 1SW of gold VS. settling 1S of gold on the coast. I can not see the advantages of 1 extra hammer, but Fippy and Pedro78 definetly are better players, so i am sort of interested why you choose PH.

Not only yodude4 can learn here, i need every bit of info or deity A.I. will continue to beat the crap out of me.

 

[Pedro78]

I'd still argue about the third city location. Going for the gold spot as a third city gives higher commerce but lower hammers. Unless Hannibal is really far away, I'd like to secure the wet corn spot as soon as reasonably possible. Not only is it a strong spot, but it will block anyone off from settling our land. So I'd probably delay commerce in favor of hammers here : expand quickly to 5 cities, then build up "vertically" until I can afford to settle the rest of the available space (typically until currency). That's a rather simplistic explanation, hard to plan so far ahead at T30 though, very little information right now.

Now on Noble things are probably different and you're probably safe remaining at 3 cities then building up your economy (library in Capital, granaries everywhere, improve key tiles...). In a learning perspective, I wouldn't even care if Hannibal "steals" the corn spot, as economic development is basically the only thing you should focus on for now. @yodude4 I'd suggest you play very short turnsets (5-10 turns), I know it's not very rewarding in the beggining, and can feel really slow, but it's really the best way to learn all the basic (and more advanced) game mechanics. Many people here will be more than happy to give you constructive advice

One last thing, these are the Civ Illustrated guides :
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-1-know-your-enemy.478563/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-2-case-studies-city-placement.546356/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-3-city-specialization-explained.547564/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-illustrated-4-hybrid-economy.548667/

I'd suggest anyone who doesen't know these to read the #2, #3 and #4 carefully, they give a much smarter explanation of the Civ mechanics than most guides out there. They basically give you all the knowledge you need to have, the rest comes with practice

You get 1 extra hammer in your city but you lose the sea.

The simple answer is that you don't need the sea. The main role of that city will be working the gold, it isn't gonna grow much anyways. In 99% of the cases, you shouldn't grow into working coastal tiles, it is more productive to whip away the extra population. The only cases where I would work coastal tiles in a non-capital city is when I'm going for Space and when I have crappy land and struggle with early game commerce. And even on the long term, the PH settle is a superior spot : more land tiles. Oh and you should almost never worry about late game traderoutes when settling a city in the early game, the extra hammer from the PH completely outweights that, as you have it right from the start. One of the most important Civ4 concepts is the balance between short term and long term benefits.

 

[yodude4]

Thank you all so much for the comments! It's a lot to take in, but I think I'm starting to get it.

So about the second city; at about 3:00, before most of you posted, I settled my second city on the gold location (on the flat desert). I know, I really should have waited, but I'm kinda new to this forum thing. So that debate is kinda moot, but I'm open to considering location 1 marked on the map for my third city.

Anyway, I played to turn 55. Animal husbandry popped turn 48, and I got some nice horses right outside the range of my fat cross I cottaged the tile north of my capital and built a monument in Lakamha to get the corn out. Other than the second city snafu, does this give you any more information about where I should go?

 

[Pangaea]

Maybe those cottages were put up prior to the above posts too, but in any case, you have put them in the wrong spots. First one to be cottaged should be the floodplain or one of the sugars, because it gets you extra food. With that very nice river, you shouldn't consider putting cottages on non-riverside tiles for a long time, particularly non-riverside plains. Early workerturns are very important, so you shouldn't waste them.

Do you have Bronze Working? (Probably not since you have AH) If so, it makes sense to chop down the riverside forests, for instance into settlers/workers, and cottage those. Cities overlapping with the capital can help grow cottages, like Fippy argued. This is something new players rarely do, and is a bit of an advanced play, but it's very strong. It's all about preparing for that luscious Buro capital that will power your empire for a long time. Once you get access to more happiness and can grow the capital faster, it can gradually take over already developed cottages instead of starting afresh.

The mine has also been put on the 'wrong' tile. If you want a mine this early, build it on the riverside tile, since this gets you an extra commerce. May not sound like much, but so early that one commerce is a fairly big deal. Way down the line (post Rep Parts really), you can start changing mines to windmills, in which case the riverside ones should be first. Being financial, that riverside windmill will give you 3

No idea why you went for AH here btw. The map doesn't show a single AH food resource. Would have made more sense to grab BW instead, to enable slavery and forest chopping, and then probably skipping AH on the way to Alpha (self-teched or through trade) and then backfill techs like AH.

I hope this doesn't sound too harsh. All about learning, and you have come to the right place

 

[Fish Man]

Hey all, I haven't played civ for a few months but am returning, and I've found that I can't play like I used to. I used to be able to beat noble pretty regularly, but I've found that I just can't catch up to the AI on that difficulty anymore. I've been reading up on all the tips about city specialization and trying to tighten up my worker game and teching, but it's just not working. My early game usually involves an early rush and then a late classical era war (500 AD - 1000 AD) to expand, and I can't seem to balance my economy with my expansion. Plus, when I try to slow things down and not expand too rapidly, the AI blocks me off and I'm way smaller than them.

To help you get a sense of where I am, I've attached a save file to this post - could someone just figure out where I'm going wrong? Thanks in advance!

Ohhh, a new map! With Pacal, no less!

I'm going to record a playthrough with OBS and post it somewhere in a couple of days. I'll be aiming for sub-t300 space, which is going to be difficult considering the highly uncottageable land but easier due to Pacal being financial and the AI being a pushover on noble. Maybe you'll learn more from watching what I do than me just giving walls of text; either way, I personally find watching or playing games more fun. Keep on the lookout for this!

 

[Anysense]

I know, I really should have waited, but I'm kinda new to this forum thing.

The most important here on forums is to share your thoughts. That is exactly what the whole forum thing is about. Besides, learning to play better means learning to think better. Simply describing what you did is not enough, you should also tell why you did it. For instance, you researched AH without apparent reason and ignored food and riverside. It's difficult to say what is wrong with your thinking not knowing the reasoning behind those bizarre decisions.
I altered the dot map a bit. #3 is supposed to build The Great Lighthouse (adjusting to noble difficulty). #6 will make a decent GP farm. Perhaps its better to swap 2 and 4 like Pedro78 suggested.

Spoiler :

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Yeah bascially Fippy and Pedro78 are right here, sorry my mistake. My suggestion of first city to settle would definetly slow you down, since monument would be necessary. Therefore 3N2E of capital is a lot better.

Also i checked the plantation and it is really a bad improvement (only +1 food / +1 commerce) so Pedro78 is right here too, basically cottages on the sugar is the way to go.
Really nice advice, thanks for that Pedro78, will definetly consider to cottage sugar in the future.

Yeah, 3N2E is a better spot, my bad...although it marginalises the clam city to the east of that into a pretty crappy spot. The early turns are so valuable though, so they're right about not waiting an extra 15 turns or so to get the corn online.