How the heck do I beat Noble?

[jl255]

just wondering, when you guys say 'beat', do you mean without loading & unloading saved games? or do you sometimes revert to saved games when things don't go right?

i can beat Noble, but not without rolling back to saved games numerous times

 

[zeolite]

Well reloading and doing things differently for learning purposes is not really cheating but I would not get the same satisfaction from winning that way.

 

[Supr49er]

In Single Player, play the way that you want to. If you make an inadvertent move, restore. I don't think there is such a thing as cheating in Single Player, except you may be cheating your own progress toward being a better player.

I have saved a game at a particular place, and gone back to try different strategies. This can be a good learning tool.

For me, I normally won't go into worldbuilder or restore saves. I find playing through my mistakes make me play better and think more creatively.

Welcome to the Forums jl255.

 

[hexem3117]

Sometimes I'll reload, but quite seldom. Because I forget to pay attention all the time to every single "enemy unit sighted near _____" occasionally I'll end up with a barb pillaging my pasture, farm, cottage, etc. I'll reload then just because I feel that of COURSE I would send a unit to deal with it, I just got lost in everything else that I had to do on that particular turn

 

[Evil Beejeebers]

i only save when i stop playing, i personally think its cheating to save and reload to try things. usually when i mess something up i simply just take the first item in the house which is semi important and then damage it beyond repair then need to wait until the day after to get a new one. anyone fancy some play station controllers.

 

[jl255]

haha, never said it was cheating. i try my best not to load & reload but sometimes you just got to

and definitely if you make it a rule never to load & reload, you will find your gameplay quite different. you are be much more careful and take fewer risks, which actually affects the outcome. well, i'm not at that stage yet, i'm just playing whatever style that makes it most fun. ha.

 

[Unconventional]

I actually think the biggest jump is between Warlord and Noble. On a random map type/civ I can win Warlord about 95% of the time, but less than 50% at Noble. Things like starting position, the nearby civs, and early random events can make a huge difference.

Yeah We're in the same boat! I can beat warlord easily but noble sucks. I know for players on higher levels noble is absurdly easy but transition from warlord to noble is a hard one I think.I read many articles about city specialization and I try to do my best but dealing with micro management keeps me really busy.For instance when I found a city for production around one or two food resources and some hills for mining, it takes at least 30(or more) turns to use this city in production of units more effectively. I mean I try to increase the population to the happy and health caps and it generally means 5 or 6 population.Then I stop not to deal with unhappiness or health problems but when I show my game to experienced players they say 'you can increase population in that city so more mined hills could be worked'.But if I let city grow then I have to built colleseum or adequet and other buildings to keep it happy and healty which slows down my early army building.If I turn off city growth then eventually production is low anyway.How can I do both effective city growth and military production at the same time? Early in the game I also try to work tiles with first so that my early reseach would be faster but that means less How should I decide which tiles to work on? production tiles or commerce tiles?

 

[Alki]

Sometimes I'll reload, but quite seldom. Because I forget to pay attention all the time to every single "enemy unit sighted near _____" occasionally I'll end up with a barb pillaging my pasture, farm, cottage, etc. I'll reload then just because I feel that of COURSE I would send a unit to deal with it, I just got lost in everything else that I had to do on that particular turn

It might be more realistic to leave it. Sometimes there is just too much going on for a leader to take action effectively. The Armour Reserves not comitted in the DDay landings becuase the General was at his wife's birthday party and couldn't give the order to attack is one such example.

 

[Deadmeat238]

@Unconventional

Pick a spot for your 2nd-3rd city (so you've had time to scout) that will make a good production city (couple of food, grasslands/hills etc), build a barracks/granary and use this city to start filling your other cities with defenders. When you see this city nearing happy limits (don't worry as much about health yet) exchange food tiles for hammer tiles and continue to make units, either defenders or attackers depending on your early strat. Once i feel like i have a reasonable defence force i start throwing production/happy/health buildings into the cities queue. This was probably what helped me most, warlord and below i used to basically neglect military until someone DoW on me ;o

In your commerce cities you want to focus on growing cottages (my preference anyway). Make sure you have enough workers to at the very least keep pace with the rate your cities are growing. If you think you might not have enough workers, build more workers. Get granaries and libraries in these cities asap and use your food surplus (you did found near a food resource right -.o ) to run some scientists to get that nice early GP and prevent your cities hitting the happy cap ahead of your ability to build improvements due to low hammers. Workers are another good way to control population growth early on in commerce cities, so build more of them New cities come online pretty quickly when you have 3-4 workers improving their tiles, get the roads to resources built while your settler is on the way to the site.

Pay close attention to the "worst enemy of" when you are trading in case you have an aggressor on your doorstep. If you do check their trade screen under 'declare war' and watch out if they say "we have enough on our hands" as they might be about to declare on you.

I've just stepped up to noble and tend to win unless something really random happens, typically playing dutch. Using this strat I usually have a good size army for a axe/cat or hold off for a techlead and go mace/trebs, which leads nicely into mace/cannons with a lib->steel path. Once you start killing civs it becomes addictive and a bit like whack a mole

 

[Cicerosaurus]

As with few posters, I culd have written the original post. Warlord to noble is a big leap.

I am getting closer though and, apart from the good tips above, I would suggest:

1. If you are a manic builder like myself, see the terrain around each city and decide what it will be- GP farm, hammers, money or such. Do not deviate- write it down if necessary so that you don't think "A few turns and this will build a wonder- it won't hurt".

2. Get bronze working and iron working as soon as you can so you can identify these resources for hammer producing cities.

 

[CHEESE!]

I've been playing Noble a little now for fun. (I play Emperor/Immortal) Wow. It actually is very fun. I love relaxing and having fun (which is difficult at Emperor and impossible at Immortal- it's more satisfaction) with trampling my foes with Cavalry.

 

[Olfart]

The best thing for me was to post a couple of games and ask for advice. The advanced players here are very willing to help (provided, of course, you are willing to listen). That's how I got my first wins at Prince. I heartily recommend looking in on the Nobles Club series. Play some NC +starts on your own, then look at how others did. It usually makes me feel like an idiot, but I learn something every time. I've probably picked up more tips for early game and managing my economy from NC than just about anywhere.

I still usually play at Noble, just because that's my comfort level, and I enjoy it. If I get bored, I can always move up a level.

 

[Dumanios]

I play on Prince now.

 

[Gamache]

I play on Noble myself but I am able to complete games without too much difficulty. The least I can say is ask people here, look for tips and post saves. After all some of the best Civvers are regulars on this forum.
Also, one little thing I noticed while gaming: Wiping out civs near you early in the game make the rest of it a lot easier, most of the time.

 

[joanne]

Read high-level walkthroughs from the most experienced players in the forum, like this one. You'll be playing monarch+++ in no time

EDIT: I didn't notice this thread was 1.5 yrs old; for all we know the OP could be playing deity by now

 

[insaneweasel]

i only save when i stop playing, i personally think its cheating to save and reload to try things. usually when i mess something up i simply just take the first item in the house which is semi important and then damage it beyond repair then need to wait until the day after to get a new one. anyone fancy some play station controllers.

That's the best anger management system that I know of!

Oh yeah, about beating noble, it does usually help to save at critical times (like before a war) and see which way is best.

It isn't cheating if you're still learning

 

[Gamache]

Read high-level walkthroughs from the most experienced players in the forum, like this one. You'll be playing monarch+++ in no time

EDIT: I didn't notice this thread was 1.5 yrs old; for all we know the OP could be playing deity by now

I just looked that up too, but this thread can still be useful to other people struggling on Noble though .

 

[Cicerosaurus]

More likely he topped himself cause he kept getting beaten on Noble.

 

[jetsfan1159]

yea i suggest wacthing the play of themienteam alought he plays higher then noble i was able to jump from settler straight to noble, because at first playing civ i just wanted to win so i would play on easy and didnt really understand alot of the gameplay elements. Now i prefer a challenege and after wacthing those vids it prepared me to take the step to noble and so far i won three games out of the 5 i have played.

 

[plasmacannon]

Been trying to beat noble for a while...

I rolled back to Warlord and stomped (at least I think I did, I only scored Warren Harding, IIRC).

Anyway I am just getting creamed on Noble.

Now I do seem to be weak at fighting wars (heck I still don't have warlord or domination victories) but I turtle up well enough--on Warlord at least that Space or Cultural victories aren't a real challenge.

You are going to look back on this post in a few months to a year and think, Did I post that?
Noble is easier than Prince and so on.
When you are on tougher difficulties, Noble will seem like a cake walk.