How long does it take to be a good player?

[hotdeck]

I've spent 30+ hours on Civ 4. Tried 3 games at Noble level. Read Sulla's guide. Still losing it. Can someone tell me if I am just lacking talent for this game or it's normal? I've never played Civ series before. How long does it take you guys to beat Noble?

 

[Danielos]

I've spent 30+ hours on Civ 4. Tried 3 games at Noble level. Read Sulla's guide. Still losing it. Can someone tell me if I am just lacking talent for this game or it's normal? I've never played Civ series before. How long does it take you guys to beat Noble?

I´ve played Civ since 1993 and still play like crap sometimes... You might have had bad luck with starting positions and civilizations. Just keep playing and ask questions here for things that are unclear. I don´t think you should play on lower difficulties since you learn more from a tough, challenging game...

 

[Finite Monkey]

Yeah just stick with it. Though each iteration of the game has added new items some of the players who seem to learn quickly probably played old versions. The easiest advice I can give is to jsut find a game type and level that when you play it, its fun and you want to try again. If your goal is to get better it will come with time. I personally learn slowly and though I ultimately made it to top difficulties in past versions I'm not there yet for CIV 4 either.

 

[Meffy]

This depends a lot on your playing style and personal goals, but I'll disagree and recommend at least one game at an easier level just to get used to how the interface and various simulation systems work. For someone who's never played any Civ before, it seems an even better idea to me. It won't provide as much challenge, but it lets you pick things up without being battered down before you can learn anything.

Discouragement and constant defeat doesn't lead to enjoyment... not unless you make progress and can see you'll soon be on the winning side of the line.

 

[Canadian Bacon]

Try switching your game around a bit. Play against fewer AI's, or on a different size of map. Regenerate the map until you have a good starting position. Change the victory conditions to match what you want.

Once you get used to a variety of situations you will become a better civ player. Most of all, keep playing and keep having fun.

PS. Is there a specific point where you feel like you are losing? Advice is easier to give if you have details.

 

[TCGTRF]

I've spent 30+ hours on Civ 4. Tried 3 games at Noble level. Read Sulla's guide. Still losing it. Can someone tell me if I am just lacking talent for this game or it's normal? I've never played Civ series before. How long does it take you guys to beat Noble?

The Pangaea map has some advantages. There's not quite as desperate a rush for resources and if you decide to be a warmonger, you don't have to spend a lot of time and money on a large Navy. If you've got a Spiritual Leader, you can spread your religion more easily, too.

If you're a builder-type, you can start on an archepelago map and be pretty sure you'll only have to deal with barbarians and perhaps one competing Civ early on.

Two things that really help me--I make a "cheat sheet" of my leader's/Civ's advantages and techs/wonders that will work well with them.

I also never, EVER, take a tech, make a build or order a worker to do something without there being an advantage to doing it, either now or in the future. The computer is never as smart as you are.

After that, it's lose a lot of games and practice until you start winning 80% of the time (there's always really BAD starting positions.) At that point you're ready to go up a level in difficulty.

 

[Rayjr]

I think I can speak for most civ fanatics here in saying this. 30 hours might as well be five minutes of play time its still brand new to you. I am sure that guys like me who started with civ 1 and got all 4 games can't even calculate how many hours they have waisted sitting in front of a small computer pondering what tech to research next and how to eliminate your biggest oponent. Stick with it. Use the easier levels to play and read these forums even with my experience I am learning a lot here.

 

[hotdeck]

Try switching your game around a bit. Play against fewer AI's, or on a different size of map. Regenerate the map until you have a good starting position. Change the victory conditions to match what you want.

Once you get used to a variety of situations you will become a better civ player. Most of all, keep playing and keep having fun.

PS. Is there a specific point where you feel like you are losing? Advice is easier to give if you have details.

Thanks for you guys' advice and encouragement. To make things short, I think my problem is that I don't exactly know what are good decisions for a specific situation, e.g. what building or unit to build in the next turn, if I should accept a proposal from AI? etc. I guess the only way to improve is to play more games and gain experience? I also can't balance things very well. For example, in one game, I was trying for the space race and I only focused on technology leading to Rocketry, but then I have the lowest score of the 7 civilizations and rather weak military units. It seems so hard for me to have the highest score on Noble level. It is frustrating at times, but at least I learned something from each game.

TCGTRF, do you mind sharing your 'cheat sheet'? It will be extremely helpful for my situation.

 

[Rane Khan]

I've spent 30+ hours on Civ 4. Tried 3 games at Noble level. Read Sulla's guide. Still losing it. Can someone tell me if I am just lacking talent for this game or it's normal? I've never played Civ series before. How long does it take you guys to beat Noble?

I've been playing these games for years (Civ II, CTP, AC, Civ III and now cIV) and only recently have I been able to beat the mid-difficulty levels in cIV, in my first game I had trouble at Noble so stepped down to Warlord. Now I'm playing Prince and winning regularly. This while I could beat higher levels in Civ 3.

My advise: Take small steps. If you are having a hard time on a new level you might want to look at the world map through worldbuilder, before playing to see if it is winnable (like, if there is a bottleneck that will be easier to defend). Maybe add some extra resources on your first visit to make it a bit easier. Play a few games like that and once you think you have the hang of it you start playing without that stuff.

I did the same when 'moving' to both Noble and Prince. Doing fine now without it. Just makes the steps a bit easier.

 

[Yooka]

Here's a related question to all.

What do you think of the idea that you should only move up a difficulty level when you can regularly win via (practically) any victory condition and by almost double the points of your closest competitor AI? Overkill? Not enough?

Personally, I can do just about anything on chieftan, but I still have to work at warlord. An aggresive AI always finds a way to slow me down. Still, I win as often as not, and for the most part, I'm having fun.

 

[warpstorm]

One setting you can try is Great Plains. Restart till you get a multi-Cow start (this isn't hard on Great Plains - you may get one the first time). Ignore water related techs as there is likely no major body of water. This should give you enough of a head start over the AI to let you get your feet wet.

One thing to warn you is to never neglect building military. The AI will pounce on a perceived weakling.

 

[Meffy]

Yooka: Are you in it for fun and giggles, as I am, or as a more serious thing? If the former, don't worry about it. Do what feels good. If you prefer a stiffer challenge and don't find tougher opposition to be a drag, by all means go for the deluxe enchilada.

I've been winning pretty easily at Warlord level by adapting my old Civ III "expand fast, weather the financial slump, expand more" strategy to accommodate Civ IV's greater penalties for excessive growth. I also lucked out to an amazing extent in the early game last time 'round, so it's not much of a testament to my skill. Just the same I'll probably try Noble level next time. We'll see. I might be back at Warlord in the game after that. :-D

 

[TCGTRF]

Thanks for you guys' advice and encouragement. To make things short, I think my problem is that I don't exactly know what are good decisions for a specific situation, e.g. what building or unit to build in the next turn, if I should accept a proposal from AI? etc. I guess the only way to improve is to play more games and gain experience? I also can't balance things very well. For example, in one game, I was trying for the space race and I only focused on technology leading to Rocketry, but then I have the lowest score of the 7 civilizations and rather weak military units. It seems so hard for me to have the highest score on Noble level. It is frustrating at times, but at least I learned something from each game.

TCGTRF, do you mind sharing your 'cheat sheet'? It will be extremely helpful for my situation.

OK, let's say you're doing a Pangaea game on Noble. You've selected Saladin as your leader. Your starting position is on a Freshwater Lake with Pigs, Stone and Gold within your "fat cross."

First you note your starting Techs--The Wheel and Mysticism and your Civ Qualities--Philosophical and Spiritual.

Decide from the start what direction you want to go in to win the game. Make sure you've got a second choice in case the first one falls through. In this case, a Domination victory might be possible, and, failing that, a Space Race. Every decision you make from now on should be pointing in that direction.

Every move that you make in the first 100 turns of the game is going to have repercussions later in the game, so you need to be careful here.

Note on the sheet your advantages first--Philosophical means a double rate of Great Person creation. That means that you need an overall strategy of what to do with each one that pops up. This also means that any Wonder that increases the number of Great People that you get has its effect doubled. Note the wonders that give you Great People that fit in with your plan (Scientists and Prophets, for instance) and the Technologies that give you those wonders.

You start with Mysticism and are Spiritual. This means that you are in a good position to start one or more religions. Note on your sheet the technologies that give you those religions so you don't forget them.

Since you've noted the resources within the "fat cross", after you've founded a religion, you've got an idea of worker techs that might be helpful right away--Hunting, Masonry, Animal Husbandry and Mining in whichever order you wish. Write them down. You've got an advantage with The Wheel, since you can make a worker at population 2 or 3 and, rather than him sitting around while you research these techs, he can be already making a road to the resources that will be opened up by them. If you time it right, he can be there exactly when you finish the needed tech. Mining opens up Bronze Working immediately afterwards and reveals Copper, which is very important, and enables you to chop your forests with workers to get hammers fast.

List the techs that will help you on your road to victory on your sheet. For a domination and/or Space Victory, you might want military, happiness, economic and science techs. Watch the tech tree for these.

Keep your sheet next to the computer and when you find yourself in a quandry as to what to do next, look on it for things that will work best with your particular advantages and goals. Try not to get too far ahead of yourself. A Tech that will take 29 turns to research might be neat to have for trading purposes, but will set you back in everything else. If you can't get the Pyramids for 42 turns think about all of the things that you could be getting instead (and hell, if you pop an engineer due to being Philosophical, you'll be able to get a nifty wonder with him--one of the reasons to keep the list on the sheet.)

EVERY game is going to be different.

I recently had a Terra game where I was playing Montezuma and had everything planned as to what I wanted to do. After exploring, I found that I was on a sub-continent alone. This forced a different approach from the original, trust me. I didn't win, but I gave a good showing in the New World.

I hope this helps. I developed this as a reference tool because of my ADD. Anything you've got on it should *never* trump common sense, of course. If Catherine's sitting next to you with a bunch of Knights, it certainly would be in your best interest to be researching Gunpowder and not trading it to her afterwards.

Tom

 

[vbraun]

How long does it take to be good at anything?

How long it takes is directly poroprtional to how much time and effort you spend on it.

 

[Sir Janus]

Try posting a saved game for people to look at. I am sure that you will get lots of helpful advice on where you could improve - plus a few not so helpful remarks

With Civ 3 beginners the problem was almost always not enough workers so that unimproved tiles were being worked. I would hazard a guess that this is also likely to be the most common problem with Civ4.

 

[shadow2k]

I've spent 30+ hours on Civ 4. Tried 3 games at Noble level. Read Sulla's guide. Still losing it. Can someone tell me if I am just lacking talent for this game or it's normal? I've never played Civ series before. How long does it take you guys to beat Noble?

Nobel is the starting level that's advised for players familiar with the series. If you've never played Civ before, it will take you a bit before you can beat it, even with such great reads like Sulla's guide...you just won't understand a lot of the concepts in it.

Everyone learns at their own pace though. There's no magic number for when that lightbulb will turn on.

The best thing you can do at this point, is to replay starts over and over. Not the same start, different starts each time. The start is the most important part of the game. I played Civ3, but before playing a full game of C4, I probably played about 10-15 games 100 turns in on Noble, just to get a feel for everything.

Learning the tech tree, and opening game concepts will help your game the most. And of course, read more Succession Games, mainly just the starts. Pay attention mostly to the discussions about why they do things, not just what they do. Every situation will be different, but seeing how they make their decisions and why will be as helpful as anything else.

 

[Black Guard]

Good positions for cities is crucial as well, expanding to resourses or large food supply quickly can put you in a good position for wonder creation and great person creation if you can rush wonders with enough people from your pop town. But thats only a small strategy, sometimes works, depends on where you are, there are many different strategies, so read around. If you can find other peoples stories, that could help as well.

How good you are depends on whether you are a good learner and can adapt to what the AI throws at you or your starting positions. I can whip Noble on Pangea map, after playing 1 game on Settler, but perhaps not on archepeligos (I haven't tried). And I have also played CIV 3 a bit on Warlord. lol. So basically, it is quite hard for us to help you if we don't know what sort of games you are playing, or what you have played before, but read around, this site is brilliant. You can find anything you need and if you can't, just ask.

 

[cleverhandle]

I've spent 30+ hours on Civ 4.

You're short a couple of digits. Civ is not a game you excel at in a few days, or a few weeks, or even a few months usually. I doubt that any of the people consistently beating Emp/Imm/Deity right now spent less than 1000 hours playing previous Civ titles. And most of them have probably already logged 100's of hours on Civ4. Pretty serious stuff by the standards of other games out there.

 

[Josquire]

Hey Hotdeck, Civ 4 is also my first civ game. For me, the most useful thing I have read on this forum is Woundedknight's guide. It definitely helped me fast-tract an effective overall strategy. I am currently playing a noble game and have the highest score.

 

[Liquidated]

hotdeck, join an Sucession game and tell them exactly what skill level you think you are.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=168

SG's are where 2-8 people sign up and trade sets of turns...

Basicly, you play 10-15 turns , I play 10-15 turns etc. with the first person to play more like 30 turns since the going is slow at the start.

When you write your turns in a 'log', you explain why you did X or Y and what options you saw you had. Lots of VERY polite people on this board to nudge and encourage approaches you may not have seen.

This allows a person to really THINK about the 10 or so turns they have and turns it into a real turn based game that one can spend a few hours on.

You'd be amazed how much of a better player you are when you don;t feel rushed and have others to offer suggestions as how the game progresses.

a "noob" (I use the terms ever so kindly ) SG just filled up over at

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=153572

but penwa is willing to step aside to let a newer player play.

I would humbly suggest you head over and at least 'lurk' that thread.

Nothing wrong with being new.

Cheers!
-Liq