I'm stuck on Noble

[ReusableGore]

I have been stuck on Noble for years. I don't know how to effectively play the game beyond researching Code of Laws. I can easily clear my continent with Axe/Swords/Cats and have a good economy in place before the war is done. But when I think I'm ready to declare war on a bigger more established civilization I get embroiled in a conflict that I cannot win, I'm fortunate to even destroy one city. If I just sit on my continent and go into defensive mode the AI wins a cultural or diplomatic victory before I can launch my spaceship. The only way I know how to win is via cultural victory, but its not my preferred method of winning.

The early game is easy, I know what techs to aim for and how to use the units. But after getting Code of Laws I don't know where to go next. I don't know what military units to aim for. I have been experimenting with various leaders and unit types, but nothing cracks the AI's defense.

 

[Belisar]

You call the early game easy but just because you have less work this is essentially not true.
Your position in the later game depends on your opening, if you don't play efficient early you play catch-up later.

You stated "I'm ready to declare war on a bigger more established civilization I get embroiled in a conflict that I cannot win"
which tells us 2 things:

1. there are bigger civs than you (which on noble means you aren't playing efficiently)
2. you might just "think" that you are ready to declare.

It's hard to tell from the little information, maybe you don't expand enough, maybe you tank your economy by long, early wars, maybe you don't build enough workers, maybe you don't raise your happy cap to raise your population and work more tiles, maybe you build to few military, maybe too much, maybe you build way too much wonders, the list goes on and on.
You see, 101 reasons why you might fall behind the AI, so please post a save at ~1000BC and one at ~1000AD for more specific advise.

I would also recommend reading a walkthrough like this one
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246889
where players explain the basic stuff.

 

[Cabay Jet]

I say grin and bear it; I've been a Noble for several years, and on Civ II I couldn't get past Prince. It's really nothing to be ashamed about.

 

[oyzar]

I started at noble and got past it almost imeadiatly. As soon as you understand the basic mechanics of the game things should go easier and easier. Learn to claim resources, expand properly, building a good economy learning diplomacy, learning how to micromanage can each get you up a level alone... Try following the noble's clue thread(play some games there maybe) and see what others does different from you? You could also post savegames from different parts of your games to let other look at what you do bad. If you want to imporve you can. If you don't want to imporve you won't...

 

[JTMacc99]

Sounds like it is the economy. My advice would be to go into the strategy articles section and find the article on city specialization. After you clean house in the early game, it is very important to focus your cities on being the most they can be. With the standard cottage economy (build lots of cottages around cities with grassland and rivers/build markets/grocers/banks and/or libraries/universities in those cities), You should be able to out research the AI comfortably at Prince if you have efficiently wiped out your nearest neighbors.

 

[ReusableGore]

Here is a save at 1050 AD. Up to this point this is one of the best games I have ever played. I thought I would have a huge tech lead so I expanded to cover the rest of the continent, and tried to win a Space Race victory. I lost to a Cultural Victory.

 

[futurehermit]

If you are warring effectively and owning your own continent (how large is it???) then you are past one major hurdle noble players have. How many cities does this usually leave you? I'm thinking it should give you 30+ cities and make you, by far, the largest civilization in the world. If not, then either 1) you are on a small continent; or 2) you are not settling enough cities (ie., there is empty space on your continent).

If you are falling behind the AI by the mid-to-late game your are probably struggling with another difficulty noble player have: you are not building enough cottages. Most of your mid-game cities should be commerce cities meaning aside from food resources you are working primarily cottages (maybe the odd grassland hill to build necessary buildings). These cities should be >= size 10 by mid-game.

 

[ReusableGore]

I play on standard size maps, I have never come close to having 30 cities. In the end of the game on that save file I posted I had 12 cities, putting any more down on my continent would have required placing them on tundra/mountains with very few workable tiles. Should I be doing that?

 

[oyzar]

You don't expand enough. Having 6 cities at this stage of the game is really poor, you don't build enough workers(you have 4 workers at this time!!) and you don't grow your cities enough... Obviously your build priorites are way off.. Market? Monument? If you follow some walkthrough's you should easily see what you are doing wrong. Building a worker in a size 1 city doesn't make much sense at this point of the game either... You want a worker ready to improve a city imeadiatly once it is founded. Also corinth obviously doesn't have enough food to run much specialists as such you should probably have cottaged it up instead. It should also have been founded to get both floodplains(2E). You say you don't have problems with the early game but i see that as your biggest problem. You don't know how to expand and how to improve your cities. Also your economy is in shambles because you are not working enough cottages / specialists. Settle more cities with this in mind. Working mines all over the place sure give you nice production but using it to build markets and other gold/beaker multipliers in production cities won't help you much...

 

[digitCruncher]

There are also many games based on that noble - limit (EVP, and the Nobles Club are two examples), and reading them would help alot.

I am finally starting to win quite nicely on noble So... here are the main problems I had:

Firstly: I had the opposite problem with you. I didn't build enough military units, and never declared war to expand my turf. However, if you DO go to war, let ALL your cities build military units, unless you are in major trouble with 1 or 2...

Second: I had almost no workers. I think I had 1 worker for every 2.5 cities. The GOAL is 1.5 workers PER CITY. This allows you to improve your land in the critical early-game.

Third: Expansion. Try to expand as fast as 40% tax will allow you to do, and if you think it is benificial to expand even further, do it! (My current game I have expanded till I was running on 70% tax, before realising that the AI could foot the bill )

Fourth: City specilisation. Don't have many (ideally, at your level, any) hybrid cities. Try and make 1 or 2 military producing cities that have a forge, a couple of happyness buildings, a couple of health buildings, a barracks, a stable, and (in the higher producing one) a Herioc Epic. After that, just build ONLY units. Constantly.
In your OTHER cities, try and find out which ones you want. If it is able to be cottaged, make it a gold city (or if gold isn't a problem, make it a science city). If it is able to grow to an obsene size, then make it a Great Person farm (a city that pops out tons of great people). If it has LOTS of water, make it a coastal production city (if it has a hills or two), with the Maoi Statues.

Five: Practice. This game is all about trying new things... and if you continue to do new things, you can always have fun with this game.

 

[futurehermit]

I play on standard size maps, I have never come close to having 30 cities. In the end of the game on that save file I posted I had 12 cities, putting any more down on my continent would have required placing them on tundra/mountains with very few workable tiles. Should I be doing that?

No, you don't have to do that, but if you only have room on your continent for 12 cities then you need to prioritize intercontinental expansion or else pursue a cultural victory. Otherwise, it will be difficult (unless you pursue a specialized strategy like Obsolete's wonderspam) to win via spacerace (although at Noble you could probably do it if you specialized the cities really well and teched appropriately).

 

[oyzar]

You can certanly win space race with 12 cities at most levels... Certanly doable on emperor at least...

 

[futurehermit]

I'm not saying it is not possible, but for your average-Joe noble-monarch player it is helpful to have a larger empire. And having a larger empire will usually mean you finish earlier as well.

 

[Jaaboo]

I am always stuck on Noble too, but mostly its because I get really lazy after the early game. Or impatient. Which is a game killer for me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not saying it is not possible, but for your average-Joe noble-monarch player it is helpful to have a larger empire. And having a larger empire will usually mean you finish earlier as well.

12 should do on most levels. Dave and obsolete both took their styles to win a space race on immortal...with 8 cities.

More cities IS easier, though, unless doing it sinks you badly diplomatically.

 

[ReusableGore]

Alright, I have been playing a game trying to improve. These are my two saves ~1000 BC ~1000 AD. I know I'm short on Cottages at the 1000 AD mark, and just after it I went on a Cottage spamming binge. The biggest problem is now I don't know what to do. I have my continent secured, my economy is ramping up, but I have no goals. I want to go to war but I don't know when or how, and based on past experiences I'm hesitant to try.

 

[Tennyson]

Haven't looked at the save, but if you're bored try circumnavigating the globe and getting Liberalism. Meet the other civs, find out who is weakest, and either start or join in a war against them.

 

[JBossch]

A few comments on the 875BC save:

First the good: Congratulations on conquering 2 civs already! A well-executed phalanx rush. Also, it looks like you are beginning to convert the floodplain farms in your capital to cottages which is probably well-timed.

Your city placement might need a little work though. Sparta was built to get the copper and will be a decent production city with the pigs but 2S would have given it corn and copper in its first ring without missing the pigs or any of the plains hills.
Corinth is just simmering in the jungle without iron working to clear it, no food resources, and one away from the river. 1SE would have been better but it should have been postponed until after IW.

I see that you are building workers in two cities but you really need a ton more (only 2 workers in 875BC makes me ). You now have a massive expanse of land to yourself and when Madrid comes out of revolt your econ will tank (at least by noble standards). Aim for 2pop whips to get them out quick. In fact, I don't see any whip anger in your cities. You could be a lot more developed if you had been whipping earlier. For example, Thebes is building a library at size 5 while it is completely surrounded by forests, except for its few bonus resources. Whip out a worker (or 3) and you can chop the library and whatever else you want in no time.
Also, some cities are working sub-optimal tiles like Sparta which, though it was founded 2 millenia ago, only popped its borders 7 turns ago.

I know you have since played much further in this game, but my advice based on this save (and the fact you have conquered the founding cities for the first 3 religions ) would be to go for a culture victory using Athens, Thebes, and Madrid as your 3 legendary cities. Madrid would be great as a GA farm and Thebes would be perfect for keeping the gold situation in order since it has founded 2 religions and already has the shrine for one. Athens will be a good science city with cottages under bureaucracy.
Tech-wise, just go for CoL. It will give you confucianism and courthouses, both of which you need, and you are on the way anyhow. Being philosophical it should be no problem to pop a couple GSs for Philo (taoism) and to get you to Lib.

Hope this helps.

 

[digitCruncher]

Looked at the save...

My reccomendation, is the same as ALL my reccomendations if you are unsure about where to go.

SPACE RACE!!

You control a continent... thats great. If you could expand to cover the entire continent before Astronomy (leave the 3 furs till last), you should be able to fend off the AI even with a slightly weaker military power.

Great rush, BTW. That is something which I wouldn't do, but it seems to have payed off entirely! (I normally leave someone alive so that I can back-trade to help them.

When alone on a continent, don't forget to fog-bust. You have the military to cover the entire continent in LoS... so use it!!

Finally, you tend to keep ALL your cities... do you ever raze them? Consider it, as the AI has poor city placement issues.

You are going good. I would beeline Optics to get caravels and start tech-trading with the AI on the other continent, then research economic techs, and spread your religion to the other continent, using caravels, so you can expand your cultural influence over the entire continent. After you are profiting, despite having an entire continent, you have two choices. Firstly, you can increase your tech rate, and go for a space race victory. Alternatively, you can build a GIANT military, and practice your amphibious invasions (that would be slightly harder, unless you are naturally good at war. Which I am not)

You have a good game going. I expect you to win it

 

[FreyGuy]

Better than me, my friend and I work together and we still lose on warlord .