I Am One Frustrated Noob...

[tazar]

I'm sort of getting that frustrated feeling where u don't really know which Difficulty level you belong to...

My games at warlord level seem to all go in the same direction: Kill weak civs before bronze working, get about 20 cities before 1066 and win a domination victory by about the 17th century. Yeah, it gets boring...

So i tried a noble game, all went well, having destroyed Stalin and Victoria (never liked the way she looked at me) and then... whats this! Gandhi and Monty seem to have put their differences aside and taken it upon them to wipe me from the face of the Earth. Died shortly after.

So i really dont know what to do. Warlord sucks and noble is just slightly to difficult for me

Could u guys give some general advice to help me improve my game. Any tips aside from the obvious would be greatly appreciated! Thnx

 

[torsoboy]

It's kinda hard to find out what exactly the problem is without a savegame. Are you teching too slow? Is your economy ok? Do you build enough units? Do you specialize your cities?

 

[tomaalimosh]

Well ... at higher difficulties it's harder to disregard diplomacy... (not impossible, but harder)... so ...try to have at least one civ that you can bribe into attacking someone, and generally if someone wants to start a war and asks you to join, join (if you were going to attack someone anyway)

At higher difficulties it becomes much harder to go Chuck Norris all the time.

Not impossible, and maybe even more fun, but much more difficult

 

[RedRalph]

Had this exact problem up til a few months ago, and the advice I got here (which worked, thank you) was all about city specialisation. A really good tip is to specialise your first three cities, capital a GP farm, as it usually has a few food sources and the bigger the pop, more specialists, more GPs it generates, next tow cities, one a moneyfarm/sciencefarm (almost always same city), Ideally with gold, silver, some luxury resources or floodplains in its fat cross, and one production city, i.e. one with plenty of hills. then after that place cities to gain resources or deny them to others... you need a far bigger and more combgined force army on Noble than you do on Warlord. Try and keep a tech lead but not at the expense of upgrades, i.e. if you are reasonably high on tech, and youve just become able to build macemen, stop all tech spending for a few turns, if it captures you a few good cities its well worth it in the long run.

 

[Spearthrower]

"Slightly too difficult" is good - it means that you are on a learning curve that's not too steep.

If you lose, try to assess what you did wrong and then improve upon that.

Try to stick to 1 civ that you are comfortable with.... and 1 leader for a few games until you win. Then try a leader with similar traits.... see if you win there too. If so, you might have found traits that suit your style. If so, then look at what the speciality of that trait is - why does it aid you in your game.... conversely, can you live without that trait by understanding the strength it gives you and adapting your play to live without that particular bonus.

This is all theory-work, but its hard to help without more details.

 

[Jedoc]

Top four changes to make when going from Warlord to Noble:

1. Hard specialization in your cities. Don't build a library in your military city. Don't build a cottage in a production city's BFC if you could build a farm and work one more hill tile. Don't break off unit production in your military city to chase a wonder. Not even if it's your best production city. Not even if you need that wonder. Stick to the roles you assign. Specialization is like writing: once you get really good, you can start to break the rules, but not until you know how to follow the rules in the first place.

2. Pick out a few must-have wonders at the outset, and then take steps to ensure you get them. This analysis is best carried out after you've explored the immediate area and know what resources you have to play with. On your first game, allow yourself five and work up from there. If a wonder's not on your list, don't start building it just because it's available. There's almost always something else you could be doing with those hammers. Exceptions can be made for Great Engineers, since they don't really interfere with your specialization. Once again, when you start getting the hang of Noble you can go back to Wonder-chasing, but for now less is more. Get a feel for which wonders you can do without, and which you prefer to capture from your Industrious neighbors.

3. Divide the world sharply between people who love you and people who hate you. This is generally decided by religion. If someone who doesn't share your religion asks for Open Borders, say no. You don't want to take the Diplomacy hit with your friends for trading with their enemies. If someone who shares your religion asks you for a tech, say yes unless you have a very good reason not to...such as completing a wonder, founding a religion, or racing to Liberalism. In exchange, don't be afraid to ask your friends for free techs. You've nothing to lose diplomatically, and it's really nice when they say yes. Join in on wars with your friends when possible, and ask them to help you out if your own wars start going downhill. Remember, you can always backstab your friends when you run out of enemies to kill.

4. Keep your defense up. If you're not the leader on the power graph, consider postponing some useful buildings until you can crank out a few more units to make up the disparity. The AI declares war when it smells weakness. Diplomacy can help, but unless they're at "Friendly," a small army is still dangerous. Spread your defenders out. The AI will attack if they see a lightly-defended border town. After Astronomy, all coastal cities are border towns. Being able to win a defensive war is not enough. You want to take away every incentive for the AI to declare war in the first place.

 

[Rusty Edge]

"Slightly too difficult" is good - it means that you are on a learning curve that's not too steep.

If you lose, try to assess what you did wrong and then improve upon that.

Try to stick to 1 civ that you are comfortable with.... and 1 leader for a few games until you win. Then try a leader with similar traits.... see if you win there too. If so, you might have found traits that suit your style. If so, then look at what the speciality of that trait is - why does it aid you in your game.... conversely, can you live without that trait by understanding the strength it gives you and adapting your play to live without that particular bonus.

This is all theory-work, but its hard to help without more details.

While I personally agree with Spearthower on this advice , maybe it isn't for you if you are already bored.

I often try playing as Rome when I first move up a
level. I often try various victory type and leader combinations before I leave a level to improve my sense of mastery.

 

[Bino]

Being a noob myself, i can say that at noble specialization is still not strictly necessary, as well as a very focused playing. Now i play monarch, finding noble what the OP feels for warlord level, and here yes a better gamestyle is needed. My humble advice is always remind to have enough military units to discourage agressions, and to try to get some enemy cities for your empire...

 

[hecubus]

Top four changes to make when going from Warlord to Noble:

1. Hard specialization in your cities. Don't build a library in your military city. Don't build a cottage in a production city's BFC if you could build a farm and work one more hill tile. Don't break off unit production in your military city to chase a wonder. Not even if it's your best production city. Not even if you need that wonder. Stick to the roles you assign. Specialization is like writing: once you get really good, you can start to break the rules, but not until you know how to follow the rules in the first place.

2. Pick out a few must-have wonders at the outset, and then take steps to ensure you get them. This analysis is best carried out after you've explored the immediate area and know what resources you have to play with. On your first game, allow yourself five and work up from there. If a wonder's not on your list, don't start building it just because it's available. There's almost always something else you could be doing with those hammers. Exceptions can be made for Great Engineers, since they don't really interfere with your specialization. Once again, when you start getting the hang of Noble you can go back to Wonder-chasing, but for now less is more. Get a feel for which wonders you can do without, and which you prefer to capture from your Industrious neighbors.

3. Divide the world sharply between people who love you and people who hate you. This is generally decided by religion. If someone who doesn't share your religion asks for Open Borders, say no. You don't want to take the Diplomacy hit with your friends for trading with their enemies. If someone who shares your religion asks you for a tech, say yes unless you have a very good reason not to...such as completing a wonder, founding a religion, or racing to Liberalism. In exchange, don't be afraid to ask your friends for free techs. You've nothing to lose diplomatically, and it's really nice when they say yes. Join in on wars with your friends when possible, and ask them to help you out if your own wars start going downhill. Remember, you can always backstab your friends when you run out of enemies to kill.

4. Keep your defense up. If you're not the leader on the power graph, consider postponing some useful buildings until you can crank out a few more units to make up the disparity. The AI declares war when it smells weakness. Diplomacy can help, but unless they're at "Friendly," a small army is still dangerous. Spread your defenders out. The AI will attack if they see a lightly-defended border town. After Astronomy, all coastal cities are border towns. Being able to win a defensive war is not enough. You want to take away every incentive for the AI to declare war in the first place.

This is excellent advice. 1 and 4 especially are things I had to learn to improve above Warlord difficulty. I used to choose tile improvements based almost entirely on the tile, not on the city itself. Once I started planning cities based on the tiles/resources around it -- often knowing what kind of city it was going to be even before settling -- I found things going a lot more smoothly.

Keeping up defense was something I had to learn the hard way, and in most cases it's not for the purpose of actually defending, but a deterrent. Keep your cities well defended (following the principles of point 1, have one city spam units to reinforce all your cities) and the more bloodthirsty civs will leave you alone, you can continue being a happy builder...most of the time.

Point 3 is the one I'm still having trouble putting into practice, I'm still far too selfish to give techs that others demand from me. Not to mention I often found my own religion but fail to spread it to neighbors, so I rarely have religious allies.

 

[SlipperyJim]

Top four changes to make when going from Warlord to Noble:
...
4. Keep your defense up. If you're not the leader on the power graph, consider postponing some useful buildings until you can crank out a few more units to make up the disparity. The AI declares war when it smells weakness. Diplomacy can help, but unless they're at "Friendly," a small army is still dangerous. Spread your defenders out. The AI will attack if they see a lightly-defended border town. After Astronomy, all coastal cities are border towns. Being able to win a defensive war is not enough. You want to take away every incentive for the AI to declare war in the first place.

Can I get an "AMEN"? The BtS AI is actually playing to win, not merely to stay in the game for as long as possible. They'll pile on and start carving up your empire if you let them....

I had a moment in my current game when the AI tried to carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I'm playing Darius (yeah, yeah, I know) on an Archipelago map with Raging Barbs, Aggressive AI, and No Tech Brokering. Noble difficulty, Epic timescale.

After a bloody conquest of Spain, I'm nicely in the lead. I have nearly double any of the AIs' scores. My next-closest competitor is the aforementioned Hatty. I'm near the end of the Industrial Age, and Hatty is a full age behind me. So I figure I'm in good shape to cruise to a Space victory....

However, as I'm watching Kublai Khan shuffle around his huge stacks of units, it occurs to me that I should check the Power graph. After all, most of my military is obsolete by now (I conquered Spain with Maces, Knights, and Trebuchets), and I never really had all that many troops in the first place. I wonder if I'm starting to look tasty? Sure enough, I've dropped to #3 on the Power graph, behind Kublai and Hatty. Uh-oh.

So I shut off research for a few turns and start pouring cash into troop upgrades. All across the Persian empire, my soldiers start to trade in their longbows for modern rifles. And just to be extra-safe, I decided to upgrade the troops on the islands that were closest to Hatty and Kublai first. The home island can wait for a few years, but let's have some Infantry on the border now.

As soon as the newly-upgraded Infantry are re-fortified in their defensive positions, I spot a whole lot of Egyptian ships headed my way. Hmmm ... what could that be? Sure enough, Hatty tries a sneak attack against Seville, right along the border! I could be in serious trouble! Yeah, I have Infantry, and Hatty's army is still medieval junk, but that's a whole lotta Maces and Knights. Will my three fortified Infantry hold the city?

And this crucial point is where the AI decides to smoke something very funky. Instead of landing her obsolete SoD and attacking on the next turn, Hatty decides to attack directly from her Galleons! So we add in the 50% penalty for amphibious assault to the already-hideous odds that Hatty's troops were facing ... and the entire SoD crashes against my fortified Infantry. Swarms of loyal Egyptians die for their Queen, and my defenders are completely unharmed.

After her SoD croaks, Hatty declares war on me. Yeah, I had already guessed that. Thanks for the notice! My Destroyers and spare Transports swoop in to sink a whole armada of Egyptian Galleons and Caravels. Meanwhile, I load my offensive stack on some more Transports and send it to Thebes. Persian Bombers pound the Egyptian defenses into rubble and cripple her troops. Airlifted Tanks supplement the offensive stack, and eventually take the brunt of the attack. A few years later, I've claimed Egypt's home island as my new vacation home, and Hatty has capitulated to me. I like to imagine that we signed the surrender right in front of the Statue of Zeus (in newly-Persian Thebes) that had given me so much war weariness....

The point of my whole sordid tale is this: Keep an eye on that Power graph! If you're falling behind the AIs, you are a target. If I hadn't started my Rifles-Across-Persia campaign, Hatty's SoD would have encountered Longbowmen, and I would have lost Seville for sure. Other cities would probably have followed swiftly.

My other point (which we already knew ) is that Tanks + Bombers + Infantry versus medieval armies is an appalling slaughter. Man, airpower is scary when there's no opposing fighter/SAM coverage. Better luck next time, Hatty!

 

[eewallace]

I recently made the jump from warlord to noble, but I had pretty much the same experience when I first tried noble. I had perfected basically one strategy for always winning on warlord, and it didn't work on noble. So I went back to warlord and tried to get each kind of victory (never did get diplo though...) and tried various new leaders, and variations on more-crowded and less-crowded maps. Then moved to noble. (Still get beat, but at least not ALWAYS because I've got a variety of strategies instead of just one.)

 

[Bast]

I had a slight difficulty adjusting to BTS too. I plays different to Warlords. I jumped down to Warlords the difficulty and found it way too easy and boring and so jumped back up to Noble where I'm doing very well now.

What I like to do is play a variety of games on each difficulty and go for different victories: space race, cultural and domination/conquest. If I can do well in all of them on a difficulty maybe it's time to move up. If you feel you're not ready make conditions challenging for yourself. If you do well again then really move up.

Also, don't give up on a difficulty too quickly. That's the mistake I did with Noble. Played a few times with Victoria to try and wage wars and found myself on the end of stack invasions. Not anymore.

 

[Fugl]

i mostly win on emp, and i lose more than i win on immo, thus i play immo most, i like not knowing who will win or what it will end with, tho i may reroll crappy spawns a few times, i usually play with random leaders to play the hand that are dealt, gives nice insight in various playstyles

 

[Draknith]

All the help given so far is excellent info. I really don't have too much top add other than to emphasize the posts about military production. When I first started making the moves to higher levels, I found this was the only thing that really made the difference. There's a line that the computer says, "Don't use fifty when five will do." I always agree with that, but add that yes don't use fifty, use one hundred and fifty!!! I know that's a bit overboard, but the biggest problem people have with large armies is the cost... the whole thing though is what are you going to do with 10K of gold? You don't need to pass it down to your children or pay the funeral costs, so you might as well spend as much as you can on your military. Afterall the most efficient economy is one that spends as much as it makes.

 

[KMadCandy]

you asked for tips aside from the obvious. i'm a weirdo, and mine aren't really about how to become a better player. they're to maybe possibly help in getting you over that jump, as a temporary measure.

we don't want you to be bored on warlord, so if this sounds boring, skip it. rule #1 is that it's a game, play it to have fun in whatever way is fun for you.

perhaps play at Noble level, but handpicking leaders that you have experience playing against at Warlord level and know their style there. my hope there is that it wouldn't be boring, since it's on the higher level, but it wouldn't be frustrating either. since you know those guys, you have a bit less pressure of "what is this jerkface going to do now" and can focus on "man they expand SO dang fast this level" (which they do, the increase in their expansion was fastest at that level jump iirc), how to stay up in the tech race, how tech trades are different (they value your techs less, which continues every level), etc.

i don't know your style, that might feel too predictable and boring to you. if you have a wonder addiction at warlord level, you can try playing again at warlord but handicapping yourself by not letting yourself build any at all. the great library of course doesn't count when i do that, it's a throne room addition *giggle*. but that's more what i advise folks that are moving up and say "OMG i miss out on wonder races!!!eleven!!!" which doesn't seem to be the case with you.

good luck, i do hope you find a way to have fun

 

[jackdog]

All the 1-4 advice is of course ace but learn a few of the additional trick strats, of which there are tons of examples;

Get oracle and slingshot to build early forges, or to code of laws for increase expansion with early courthouses.

Ignor stone henge but be sure to get great wall, and only have this in the city so you guarentee getting that early great general, not a prophet, then infiltrate the tech lead and steal 5-6 techs right up to macemen. You can still build other wonders in your capital if you want but don't finish them until the great general, you can build other stuff to plan to finish the wonder when the GG pops. Starting to plan your production timing more carefully isn't really necesary for warlord but may as well get into good habbits early.

there are post with better expalined tricks to play but you get the picture, these are the things that can make a difference.

 

[tazar]

WOW, great advice from everyone, thnx

Tried noble again yesterday and defeated 3 opponents by 560AD
Things went well until Catherine threw about 12 transports full of marines at me (we were at friendly, yeah i know! )

Still think i will be able to carry on with noble despite the Brutus-esque loyalty that comes with it!