Help on Noble game

Libadanda

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 27, 2012
Messages
19
Hey everyone,

Im pretty new to this game and this forum. I play civ 4 BTS for a couple of months now and I tried hard to beat it on Noble.
I read a lot on the ‘war academy’ and ‘Strategy en Tips’ forum.

I tried hard to use all the tips I read on this website like
- use slavery
- micromanagement cities
- specialize cities
- try to have at least 6 cities by 1 AD.
- Try to have the good techs first like alpha, mathematics, currency etc
- build a lot cottages in the early game
- try to have enough food for cities to grow
- build cities on good places, with resources and food

But without any luck. Im still unable to win on Noble.
So ive decided to post a game of my and hope you can give me some constructive feedback.

I read that Huayna Capac, Willem van Oranje and Elizabeth are good leaders to start with for beginners. I played a lot with Capac and focused on wonders. But now I play only with Willem van Oranje from the Netherlands. The main reason for that is that im a dutch guy myself :D

Here are 2 saved games of mine.
The first is the starting position and the second is later on around 500-BC
In this game i lacked in military strenght. This was because i had The Great Wall and i was on a peninsula. I know that those are not good excuses.

I would like to have some constructive advice about my game.
- am i expanding to slow/fast?
- are the city locations good?
- are there things i lacked in micromanagement?
- are there enough cottages?
- Did i choose the right techs?
- Are there better ways to improve your economy?



At this point i am at the top of the scoring system. But later on in the game around 1000 AD i got surpassed :(
So i decided to post a saved game of around 500-BC.
 

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A couple things based on first glance. Good play using stone for Pyramids. Great Wall, not so much. On Noble barbs are not much of an issue if you spawn bust. However, given all the space you have to yourself, the GW is at least a little helpful. You are placing your cities too far apart. You have room on your peninsula for a least 12 cities, but you have limited yourself by spreading them out too much. The BFC for your Cap isn't that great, but settling one south on the river would've opened up a dike for you later. The UB for the Dutch comes late, but is very useful, so you want to build as many cities as you can on coasts and rivers.

Also, Writing came way to late. You want to capitalize on those cheap libraries ASAP and start getting scientists out. Also, you need more workers. You are working unimproved resources (CORN of all things) in two cities, which is a no-no. You want to aim for 1.5 workers per city. Also, pay no attention to the score. It is not an accurate assessment of how you are actually doing. I'll post my own save in a little while for you to take a look at with more details.
 
In this game i lacked in military strenght. This was because i had The Great Wall and i was on a peninsula. I know that those are not good excuses.
These are excellent excuses to build no army. Maybe park a unit in the direction of toku to see what he's up to?

What's good:

- you have more land than anyone else.
- you have the great wall and the pyramids.
- you have a tech lead on 4 AI's and excellent opportunities to trade.
(and how does Pacal tech like that with 2 cities?)
- city placement is ok, I would have built Nijmegen 4 tiles north of Amsterdam, to get a much better cottage city.

Not so good:

- 21 beakers at -1 gold is not a good tech rate for 525 BC.
- You're not using the representation bonus on specialists anywhere
- You need earlier and more libraries.
- The Hague and Rotterdam are good cities for running scientists
- You need to establish foreign trade, you need a scouting workboat for that.
(or maybe better a galley by now, or follow the coast with a chariot)
- The Great Lighthouse would be very strong here, and you could still build it in The Hague. Don't forget ordinary lighthouses.
- Why did you tech horsebackriding, and why are you teching Ironworking?
- I would go for currency here for selling techs, begging money, resource trades, extra traderoute, You can get there with a 100% tech slider
 
. The BFC for your Cap isn't that great, but settling one south on the river would've opened up a dike for you later. The UB for the Dutch comes late, but is very useful, so you want to build as many cities as you can on coasts and rivers.

You can build a dike if you're next to a lake.
 
You can build a dike if you're next to a lake.

Can you? I was wondering about that. The reference page said it had to be river or coastal, and I couldn't remember if a lake counted. I'd already planned out where to but cities based on the cap there, although I guess it doesn't really matter that much.
 
OK, here's my save five turns later. My play has actually been somewhat sloppy on this. I forgot to switch into Rep until four turns after I finished the Pyramids. :cry: Also teched Wheel ahead of Writing, forgetting that since the stone was on a river I didn't need a road to hook it up. Also chased down the techs for Oracle but someone beat me to it. I delayed Pottery since this map is a little too food poor to build a lot of cottages. Notice how I've mapped out the cities to share the food resource tiles and be built closer together. I've also expanded a little more aggressively to the east to get a little more land. I'll be able to expand out to 12-15 cities fairly easily without any war. Toku may get grumpy, but I can probably throw a few techs at him to keep him from DOWing.

I'm going to try to squeeze out the GLH in Utrecht, it will really boost the commerce on this map quite a bit. Like barbertje said, there is no real reason to worry too much about military yet, thus no need to tech Horseback Riding. You have lots a room to settle peaceably without fighting anyone. You can probably start a few wars between the AI to keep them sidetracked if you want.
 

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hi, i'm playing your game right now and this is what I have.

despite having the financial trait, i think the best idea here right now is run specialists, please note the civics.

now I'm not trying to show off or anything, in fact I believe you are A LOT better than me:eek:, you developed ur cities much faster than I did ( i only had 3 cities by 1000 BC), but i think that with a few tips here and there you can become a MUCH better player than you already are.

so my point is that when you encounter yourself on a peninsula, it is best to go coastal, which means that great lighthouse is a must! also, the lack of river tiles means that it might be better to run specialists than cottaging.
 

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ok, new update, here with the same strategy i come to the industrial age at 1400AD being ahead of every1 else, what's more is that I am next to Catherine and Toku and they can't do anything to me!

toku is so behind that he can't even think about declaring war on me and his presence is simply negligible. Cathy on the other hand has demanded tribute at least 3 times now and I gave in every time, in fact, i gifted her Optics (which is pretty useless btw) and we are at a point where she is friendly with me...you can try to access this file and play around with it, I'd recommend beeline here to UN and get urself a nice diplo victory.
 

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we advance to the modern age, meanwhile Catherine goes apehorsehocky and vassalized every1
 

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i used the GE to finish up this:



btw, anyone noticed that the flags next to the UN are all the civs that are currently in game?



EDIT: okay, epic fail on my part. everyone voted for Huayna Capac wdf?:eek:


i guess you're on your own from here, it's probably gonna be hard to win this game without battling it out with some1.
 
Everyone thanks for all the tips, i will gladly use them :)

Oke, so more cities and less terrain is better then more terrain and less cities? I always thought that expanding your borders as much as possible in the early game is very important. To gain al the good resources and land. On the other hand, it is true that my maintenance cost ascend drastically.

I find this very hard choices to make in the game.
military vs economy vs expanding vs culture.
when are you going for what? i know there doesnt exist a straight answer for this. Because if there was, this whole game wouldnt be a challenge anymore.

I will play this exact game of my all over from the start and try to build my cities closer to each other. go for more coastal cities, build the great lighthouse. gain early librarys. focus more on specialists and representation.

Sorry for the starting pos. unfortunately i had my first save when i allready build the city. im working hard to break this habit ;)

And for Barbertje, why did i teched horsebackriding and ironworking??? i dont have an answer to that. At this point im not that experienced yet to do everything with a purpose in the game. sometimes it feels like swimming in a big ocean and dont know which way i should go. Then i just decide to go one way, because it feels that way and not because it is based an a rational consideration.

Civnoobie and Thbrown81 thanks for playing my game, tomorrow i will play your saved games and see what i can learn from it.
 
CN-I see two friendly faces, 1 pleased...that's not going to get you a diplo victory, especially when one of the friendlys is most likely your opponent for the UN in the first place....
 
EDIT: okay, epic fail on my part. everyone voted for Huayna Capac wdf?:eek:

This must have been the apostolic palace. For a Un victory your opponent would have been Catherine, and she would vote for herself, and her vassals would vote for her too, and you could never win that way, no matter how friendly everyone might have been.
 
try gifting catherine and mansa both liberalism and make them switch to free religion, do the same with victoria, pacal and a couple others.

also, never vote never on a resolution, this gives 5 unhappy faces too all yur cities.
 
Everyone thanks for all the tips, i will gladly use them :)

Oke, so more cities and less terrain is better then more terrain and less cities? I always thought that expanding your borders as much as possible in the early game is very important. To gain al the good resources and land. On the other hand, it is true that my maintenance cost ascend drastically.

I find this very hard choices to make in the game.
military vs economy vs expanding vs culture.
when are you going for what? i know there doesnt exist a straight answer for this. Because if there was, this whole game wouldnt be a challenge anymore.

I will play this exact game of my all over from the start and try to build my cities closer to each other. go for more coastal cities, build the great lighthouse. gain early librarys. focus more on specialists and representation.

You don't necessarily need to settle your cities close to each other right away. It's more that you leave room to add cities later on when your economy can handle it. As you will see from my save, I settled fairly far from my capital, because with Willem's Creative trait, you are able to carve out extra land with fast border pops. I hooked up the most valuable tiles, even if they weren't close, but will be able to back fill the other cities in later. So you are correct that, at least on this map, more terrain important first, because it will enable more cities later.
 
FWIW, here's my most recent save. Noticed how I've expanded mostly towards Toku and HC, and have carved out quite a bit of territory. Now I'm just starting to fill in the city sites nearer to my capital. I'm grabbing as many techs as I can before I pursue Lib. Will either use it for Steel or even Physics if the AI is to far behind. Then Rifle/ Cannon rush and go for Dom/ Conq/ Diplo or SR Victory.
 
that sounds easier said then done (well, for me that is)
I will try it out myself and hope the best for it.

thanks for the help ;)
 
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