For those of you who struggle to beat Noble, or struggle to beat Prince, or for that matter, struggle to beat any level. The idea here is that if what you are doing isn't working, you should try something else. To start with, there are a couple of key things that must be kept in mind throughout the game, but most importantly in the early game:
1. You must have production. Whether you want to peacefully build, or go to war, without hammers you will fail.
2. You must advance in technology.
One way of thinking of this is to consider that at some point in the game, you want to have maximized both your total hammers produced by your empire, and your total advancement in technology. Civ IV is a very dynamic game, and often short term gains are forgone for long term benefits, and just as often, short term gains outweigh long term considerations. The key question for all of us non-Immortal and Deity level players is how do I manage the best long term result from the current situation?
This brings us to what I think is the most important thing to realize for all who struggle at Prince level and below:
First Theorem of playing decent at CivIV: Whatever you do, make sure you have a plan and stick to it.
And the Corollary: If you truly have a real plan and follow through on it and still struggle to beat Prince, you have a basic misunderstanding of the game, and are following a bad plan.
Putting all this together, one should always have a plan for their game. Part of this plan is determining how to get production and how to advance in technology. These 2 things are very important. If you play a game without considering both of these points, you are probably not going to do well. The plan will not always be the same. Starting locations, available resources and land, who your neighbors are and local geography will all play parts in deciding the proper path to take. And now to my real advice:
If you come to a point in a game and have several long term options available, as an excercise to improve your play, try them all. Save the game, and play it in several different ways and see what works the best. Don't just play game after game getting your behind handed to you at Noble. Try different strategies. Experiment with the possibilities, and see what really works in that situation.
An example from about 6 months ago. I was just starting to play Emperor at Vanilla CIVIV. I almost always dominated Monarch, but Emperor was a challenge. I played a random leader small continents map, and drew Elizabeth and got an isolated start.
I had some positive factors to consider:
Being isolated I wouldn't need a big military for offense or defense for a long time.
I had a rather large island for a small map ... room for about 12 cities.
3 calendar happy resources
Copper nearby
Many grasslands good for cottages.
But also negatives to consider:
Being isolated I would not be able to trade techs.
No mining happy resources. My cities would be very small until I found a source for happiness.
With a rather large island, barbarians would have to be dealt with.
The island was overall rather food poor. Very few cities would grow quickly.
I quickly realized I was isolated, and the nature of available resources. The second city was founded quickly to grab copper on a coastal location. Metal Casting was prioritized for the Colossus as it was obvious almost all of my cities would be coastal. The real challenge was what plan to use for happiness. I had 3 choices. Build the pyramids for Representation or Monarchy (fortunately my capital had enough forests for this). Beeline to Monarchy for hereditary rule. Or I could beeline calendar for my 3 available happy resources.
First try, I chose to beeline calendar. I didn't want to have to build so many otherwise useless military units under HR, and thought the benefits of expansion would outweigh the investment in the Pyramids. Eventually, 2 of the other AIs found me around 1200 AD, and shortly thereafter, Liberalism was discovered with me still only having a handful of size 5 cities and hopelessly behind in tech in 1450 AD. Playing this game, I realized it just took too long to go for calendar while simultaneously trying to fight barbarians and expand my empire. I reloaded from the beginning to see what would happen if I had chosen a different plan.
So second time, I chose to build the Pyramids. After grabbing the 'mids, I switched to Representation, and my first 5 cities got the benefit of 3 happy faces, and great was the commerce therefrom. Once I got up to 8 or 9 cities and all of these cities were struggling to grow from unhappiness, I spammed a bunch of warriors and switched over to HR. End result was having 12 commercially productive cities and discovering Liberalism in 1100 AD. A fairly easy Space victoy ensued for my first Emperor win.
My eyes were opened to just how important grabbing the quickest possible route to happiness is at high difficulty levels. Size 3 cities cannot compete with the AI. Now high happiness caps is not always as crucial, but it certainly is with an isolated start. Beelining monarchy for HR may have been as good or better, but I did realize that you can't wait for Calendar in such a situation.
So, in closing, if you are struggling, make some plans and choose one. If one doesn't work, try another, reloading the same game, either from the beginning, or a key point later in the game. You may learn a great deal. Don't just beat your head against the AI with the same old strategy time and again.
1. You must have production. Whether you want to peacefully build, or go to war, without hammers you will fail.
2. You must advance in technology.
One way of thinking of this is to consider that at some point in the game, you want to have maximized both your total hammers produced by your empire, and your total advancement in technology. Civ IV is a very dynamic game, and often short term gains are forgone for long term benefits, and just as often, short term gains outweigh long term considerations. The key question for all of us non-Immortal and Deity level players is how do I manage the best long term result from the current situation?
This brings us to what I think is the most important thing to realize for all who struggle at Prince level and below:
First Theorem of playing decent at CivIV: Whatever you do, make sure you have a plan and stick to it.
And the Corollary: If you truly have a real plan and follow through on it and still struggle to beat Prince, you have a basic misunderstanding of the game, and are following a bad plan.
Putting all this together, one should always have a plan for their game. Part of this plan is determining how to get production and how to advance in technology. These 2 things are very important. If you play a game without considering both of these points, you are probably not going to do well. The plan will not always be the same. Starting locations, available resources and land, who your neighbors are and local geography will all play parts in deciding the proper path to take. And now to my real advice:
If you come to a point in a game and have several long term options available, as an excercise to improve your play, try them all. Save the game, and play it in several different ways and see what works the best. Don't just play game after game getting your behind handed to you at Noble. Try different strategies. Experiment with the possibilities, and see what really works in that situation.
An example from about 6 months ago. I was just starting to play Emperor at Vanilla CIVIV. I almost always dominated Monarch, but Emperor was a challenge. I played a random leader small continents map, and drew Elizabeth and got an isolated start.
I had some positive factors to consider:
Being isolated I wouldn't need a big military for offense or defense for a long time.
I had a rather large island for a small map ... room for about 12 cities.
3 calendar happy resources
Copper nearby
Many grasslands good for cottages.
But also negatives to consider:
Being isolated I would not be able to trade techs.
No mining happy resources. My cities would be very small until I found a source for happiness.
With a rather large island, barbarians would have to be dealt with.
The island was overall rather food poor. Very few cities would grow quickly.
I quickly realized I was isolated, and the nature of available resources. The second city was founded quickly to grab copper on a coastal location. Metal Casting was prioritized for the Colossus as it was obvious almost all of my cities would be coastal. The real challenge was what plan to use for happiness. I had 3 choices. Build the pyramids for Representation or Monarchy (fortunately my capital had enough forests for this). Beeline to Monarchy for hereditary rule. Or I could beeline calendar for my 3 available happy resources.
First try, I chose to beeline calendar. I didn't want to have to build so many otherwise useless military units under HR, and thought the benefits of expansion would outweigh the investment in the Pyramids. Eventually, 2 of the other AIs found me around 1200 AD, and shortly thereafter, Liberalism was discovered with me still only having a handful of size 5 cities and hopelessly behind in tech in 1450 AD. Playing this game, I realized it just took too long to go for calendar while simultaneously trying to fight barbarians and expand my empire. I reloaded from the beginning to see what would happen if I had chosen a different plan.
So second time, I chose to build the Pyramids. After grabbing the 'mids, I switched to Representation, and my first 5 cities got the benefit of 3 happy faces, and great was the commerce therefrom. Once I got up to 8 or 9 cities and all of these cities were struggling to grow from unhappiness, I spammed a bunch of warriors and switched over to HR. End result was having 12 commercially productive cities and discovering Liberalism in 1100 AD. A fairly easy Space victoy ensued for my first Emperor win.
My eyes were opened to just how important grabbing the quickest possible route to happiness is at high difficulty levels. Size 3 cities cannot compete with the AI. Now high happiness caps is not always as crucial, but it certainly is with an isolated start. Beelining monarchy for HR may have been as good or better, but I did realize that you can't wait for Calendar in such a situation.
So, in closing, if you are struggling, make some plans and choose one. If one doesn't work, try another, reloading the same game, either from the beginning, or a key point later in the game. You may learn a great deal. Don't just beat your head against the AI with the same old strategy time and again.
