How to become a noble?

[Nictel]

Untill now I've been a complete lurker around this site, however now with Civ4 I can't beat Noble .

My problems:

Number one is deffinetly militairy, I'm a peace lover. Montezuma is not...

Number two is resource management, I can only concentrate on one thing at the time. When I'm a brilliant scientist then the enemy walks over me with ease. When I'm a great general then my warriors are being killed by tanks.

Number three is that I'm a wonder whore

I just can't seem to get a good balance, if I try then I get this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/126173/Nicky_Tellekamp_Dutch.CivBeyondSwordSave

Could you brilliant people here, as I have seen in my many lurkings and reading great tales, help me become a bit better at my favourite game?

 

[Defiance]

Do you smoke.. ya know the good stuff.

Well, I guess I can help either way..

You've already Identified your problems, so you don't really need anyones help you just need to work on the things you've identified. If you want specific help with a certain strategy then be more specific in that regard other then that you already know your problems from the look of it.

Looking at the save I don't see anything you haven't mentioned.

1) Your military is too small, you've got maces bordering an enemy that has a stack of infantry on your border. Bad Idea, besides for the fact if someone declared on you right now you'd be screwed it also makes them more likely to declare war, have most your units forming a ring around your empire with your best units on the outside facing the enemy and just a few token defenders on the inside.

2) Cottages are better then coastal squares even with the dutch dike, looking at your capital your working coastal tiles and some forests.. Cottaging your capital is always a good idea to take advantage of Beauracracy, not sure if you were doing that but it's something to keep in mind.

3) You have cities one tile away from the coast, that is a bad idea, those tiles are completely usless if your not touching the coast to build your dike/lighthouse/whatever. If your gonna have cities near the coast try and have them touching it on atleast one square.

4) Besides for your capital all your cities are cottaged, you have no production, even if your being peaceful you need production to build defensive units/wonders.

5) It doesn't look like you've chosen your victory condition, you should have an idea of how you want to take the game on within the first few turns, remember most games are decided within the first 200 turns, possibly 300.

6) I don't like the way you've expanded, you should try and build more with your cities circling your capital as much as possible to lower maintenance.

7) It looks like your building wonders just to build wonders, if you build a wonder it should have a purpose and fit into your overall strategy, you don't need to spend 600 hammers on a wonder that isn't going to help you win when you could be spending those 600 hammers on something thats going to be game deciding.

8) You have cities in unhappiness, some in a lot of unhappiness, every unhappy person takes 2 food and doesn't do anything, think of it like this, every unhappy person you have is a scientist you could be running.

9) You can build artillery and infantry yet your military consists of archers and maceman..

10) Zara is about ten turns away from taking Rotterdam, you have spearman guarding a city with 20+ Infrantry/Cavalry sitting right by, if the AI has a stack like that outside one of your cities they are going to attack nine out of ten times.

11) You have no GP Farm.

12) Specialize your cities better.

13) I would of killed Zara and built a Forbidden Palace in his capital.

I prob would of killed everyone by now so thats prob not fair to say

Remember to when you play.

 

[overdose]

-Beeline important techs like Liberalism
-Wage wars
-produce a decent army
-don't produce useless buildings/wonders
-make lotsa gold (cottage up and don't use autoworkers)

When I first tried warlords I played on noble, used autoworkers, never produced/teched anything outside recommendations and I still was able to pull a points victory. I was aggressive though (I played as Stalin).

 

[Defiance]

I didn't stop automating workers till Monarch I still automate my city governor half the time heh

 

[Gflat]

I'll take a shot at this. I'll be the pot calling the kettle black, I only just completed my first game at Prince.

Number one is deffinetly militairy, I'm a peace lover. Montezuma is not...

Two thoughts. Any non-religious civ will massacre you and feed your corpse to their children of you're military isn't at least in the same time-era as theirs. If they see you as an easy target, they'll go for it, so build some walls, build a few defenders, upgrade said defenders as your techs progress.

Also, civs are much less likely to dream of murdering you if you if you a share a religion. Based on your play style, you likely start with a leader that has mysticism. Rush Hinduism and spam it out to all neighbors ... this may solve half your problem.

Number two is resource management, I can only concentrate on one thing at the time. When I'm a brilliant scientist then the enemy walks over me with ease. When I'm a great general then my warriors are being killed by tanks.

See above. Both of these problems would be solved by the above suggestions.

Number three is that I'm a wonder whore

STOP IT! Bad Civ Player! Have a few win conditions in mind when you start your game. There are only a handful of wonders that are universally needed (ie stonehenge, pyramids). Only build the wonders that help you reach your win condition. You only get to win one way, so don't try for them all.

Hope I was a little helpful. Good luck with your conquests on noble. Also be sure to check out the War Academy section of this site for some great strategies and suggestions.

 

[Corm]

Building "pointless" wonders is one of the biggest and worst mistakes you can make. Not only will you not get all the ones you are going for, some are simply pointless overall but appear tempting early on.

Without going into detail I never progressed beyond Nobel until I realised this. I still curse the Pyramids whenever they pop up in my building ques.

 

[Gwil]

Just to say though, if you have stone and are attempting a SE the Pyramids is an extremely useful wonder, easily catchable at Prince with the right start/leader. Wonders aren't entirely useless but I agree that yes, trying to take them all is worthless (eg Chichen)

 

[Defiance]

Pyramids are a must have with an SE but I still won't build um usually without a source of stone, I'll try my hardest to find one and settle it and then just make a stack of three workers and chop every tree in sight lol Build the thing in 2 turns I swear..

Stacking workers is just about the most badass move you can do hehe, cutting forests in one turn is uber.

 

[Gflat]

Pyramids are a must have with an SE ...

I'm new to the community, so I'll ask a stupid question. What the heck is an SE?

 

[Angel-Julia]

"How to become a noble?"
-Marry a princess

 

[McGoo]

I'm new to the community, so I'll ask a stupid question. What the heck is an SE?

SE = Specialist Economy. Basically, build lots of farms and use the extra food to maintain lots of specialist. The Pyramids allows you to switch to representitive gov which gives all those Specialist an extra 3 . Combine that with Caste system and you can really tech up.

The typical alternitive is CE = Cottage Economy. Build cottage which will grow to towns and generate a lot of . This is turn can drive faster research.

 

[Gflat]

SE = Specialist Economy. Basically, build lots of farms and use the extra food to maintain lots of specialist. The Pyramids allows you to switch to representitive gov which gives all those Specialist an extra 3 . Combine that with Caste system and you can really tech up.

The typical alternitive is CE = Cottage Economy. Build cottage which will grow to towns and generate a lot of . This is turn can drive faster research.

Got it! I'm familiar with both types of economies, I just wasn't familiar with the abbreviations. Thank you!

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Just a couple quick observations from the save ...

1) Your military is too small, you've got maces bordering an enemy that has a stack of infantry on your border. Bad Idea, besides for the fact if someone declared on you right now you'd be screwed it also makes them more likely to declare war, have most your units forming a ring around your empire with your best units on the outside facing the enemy and just a few token defenders on the inside.
...
9) You can build artillery and infantry yet your military consists of archers and maceman.

You've got 4K just begging to be spent, and updating your military and rushing a few extra units would be a great investment.

Spoiler fix your unhappiness and spend that gold :

8) You have cities in unhappiness, some in a lot of unhappiness, every unhappy person takes 2 food and doesn't do anything, think of it like this, every unhappy person you have is a scientist you could be running.

The first thing you need to do is make your people happy. Your close friend, Gandhi has 3 resources he wants to trade you (Fur, Ivory, Records), which given your Markets and the upcoming Eiffel Tower will more than nullify the citizens all over.

If you run 100% , you'll have a deficit of just -92 ... making those 16 citizens will help decrease that. Even more so, talk to your neighbors, because they all want to give you a total of 138 per turn!

It'll take some resource juggling, but it's possible to come out with every resource you're missing and everybody's GPT to boot!

Spoiler so many resource trades just waiting to happen :

11) You have no GP Farm.

12) Specialize your cities better.

The most surprising thing I noticed is that neither Oxford nor Wall Street even can be built!

These National Wonders are absolutely crucial to effective city specialization and should be built as soon as possible.

Another note on specialization ... you have three holy cities (Rotterdam, Nijmegan & The Hague), yet your Corporate HQ is in Utrecht.

If you're capturing HQs, there's nothing you can do, but if you found a Corporation, do it next to your best Shrine and build Wall Street in that city.

Spoiler prioritize these and build them ASAP :

When you have a substantial tech lead, make the most out of it. Over the next few turns, you can amass another 2K by selling off your tech lead, which could go a long way towards updating your military or towards rush-buying buildings throughout your empire.

Spoiler turn your tech lead into shiny coins to line your pocket :

I'd also recommend spending at least 10% on .


-- my 2

 

[Nictel]

Thanks a lot for everyones tips, my next game is going much better. I really have to concentrate though on investing enough time on managing recource trading and keep observing my cities.