mediocre player on noble difficulty

NightWanderer

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 16, 2005
Messages
15
I have an issue. Whenever I play on noble difficulty, I just can't seem to cut it. I can't seem to build settlers fast enough at the start. If I do build lots of settlers, I get fenced in too quickly to settle them. I can't warmonger very well at the start because production isn't high enough to quickly build units. So, I get about 4 cities settled, and by then I'm fully crowded by the AI on most occasions. I can get alphabet first and trade techs alot, but then I have a ton of techs and a huge to-do list production wise. Anyway, enough rambling.

On noble difficulty, as the french (creative/industrious):

about how many spaces apart do you tend to spread your cities?

On a continental/pangea map, how do you produce a military and/or pump out enough settlers quickly enough to avoid getting fenced in at the beginning of the game?

What size do you let a city grow to before building settlers/workers?

I use the automated functions for my workers. Is this bad on noble difficulty? Also, in the options menu, you can choose wether or not workers will build over pre-existing units. -IF- you choose to automate your workers, is it better to allow them to do that, or not?

For great people: when is it best to use a great person as a super specialist vs the one time boost? Example: academy vs. points towards technology for scientists
 
BTW, I win Prince consistently and Monarch every so often.

I have an issue. Whenever I play on noble difficulty, I just can't seem to cut it. I can't seem to build settlers fast enough at the start. If I do build lots of settlers, I get fenced in too quickly to settle them. I can't warmonger very well at the start because production isn't high enough to quickly build units. So, I get about 4 cities settled, and by then I'm fully crowded by the AI on most occasions. I can get alphabet first and trade techs alot, but then I have a ton of techs and a huge to-do list production wise. Anyway, enough rambling.

On noble difficulty, as the french (creative/industrious):

A screenshot or saved game would be nice.

about how many spaces apart do you tend to spread your cities?

Depends on the map topology / resources, but my first few cities are seldom further than 10 tiles from the capital (max) but also tend to overlap no more than 2 tiles when close.

On a continental/pangea map, how do you produce a military and/or pump out enough settlers quickly enough to avoid getting fenced in at the beginning of the game?

My 2nd city is usually a high-production city (with Horses or Copper) dedicated to ONLY building a Barracks + military units.

What size do you let a city grow to before building settlers/workers?

Worker? 1
Settler? 2

I use the automated functions for my workers. Is this bad on noble difficulty? Also, in the options menu, you can choose wether or not workers will build over pre-existing units. -IF- you choose to automate your workers, is it better to allow them to do that, or not?

Never. The Worker queue is plenty long enough to keep them occupied for centuries on end.

I recommend turning both options on anyway, so if a Worker does get automated somehow he doesn't wipe out a Town.

If you absolutely feel the need to automate a Worker, tell them to build a trade network.

For great people: when is it best to use a great person as a super specialist vs the one time boost? Example: academy vs. points towards technology for scientists

Polling 100 people will usually result in 99 different answers to that question.

My 1st GS becomes an Academy 98.9% of the time.

I seldom lightbulb anything off the Liberalism path.

The 1st GS I consider settling becomes a 2nd Academy 82.6% of the time.



-- my 2:commerce:
 
Having been in the same boat, I have some questions and a few tips.

1. Chopping and whipping. Early on, I only thought of chopping Forests as a way to assist in building Wonders. Now I chop in order to speed up the second city, sometimes the third, and the results are great. Once you have your cities growing, knowing how and when to use the whip can shave a lot of turns off building your military, and several key buildings.

2. Workers. More is better, and early is good too. I never wanted to take away from other things for a second Worker (hey, one will do until you capture some more right? Wrong), until I started making the connection between big cities and developed tiles. It took a while cuz I'm dense.

3. Automated workers? Anathema. If you want to see why it's a bad idea, see what AI Workers are doing when you're in their territory. Hideous, most of the time.

4. Four cities by Alphabet? That's actually about right. It took a while, but I realized what the money techs are (Code of Laws, Currency), and not to expand too much until they were researched. REXing is harder than in Civ3, but it's still the key to winning in the long term.

I find Pangaea maps to be rather violent. Everybody knows who you are right away, so diplomatic demerits pile up right away, and if the AI has poor territory, you'll be a nice target. On the plus side, lunatics like Monty will actually attack the AI next door, so there's always a chance you'll get left alone.

Hope some of this helps.
 
I have an issue. Whenever I play on noble difficulty, I just can't seem to cut it. I can't seem to build settlers fast enough at the start. If I do build lots of settlers, I get fenced in too quickly to settle them. I can't warmonger very well at the start because production isn't high enough to quickly build units. So, I get about 4 cities settled, and by then I'm fully crowded by the AI on most occasions. I can get alphabet first and trade techs alot, but then I have a ton of techs and a huge to-do list production wise. Anyway, enough rambling.

On noble difficulty, as the french (creative/industrious):

about how many spaces apart do you tend to spread your cities?

On a continental/pangea map, how do you produce a military and/or pump out enough settlers quickly enough to avoid getting fenced in at the beginning of the game?

What size do you let a city grow to before building settlers/workers?

I use the automated functions for my workers. Is this bad on noble difficulty? Also, in the options menu, you can choose wether or not workers will build over pre-existing units. -IF- you choose to automate your workers, is it better to allow them to do that, or not?

For great people: when is it best to use a great person as a super specialist vs the one time boost? Example: academy vs. points towards technology for scientists

First off, watch your trading. Trading with everyone will eventually just get everyone mad at you and ready to Declare War.

Second, don't worry so much about that To-Do list. Not every city needs every city improvement. That will hurt your military production as well as make your maintenance costs higher and ruin your economy in the long run. Don't build an improvement unless in makes sense.

And definately do not automate the workers. Plan out your cities Yourself. You will do better.

Lightbulb techs if you are making a push at something specific, otherwise settle them as great people.
 
So, I have a lot of advice, so I'm going to chop it up into a few posts. I'll start by saying I'm no expert, and for whatever reasons can't win generally on prince, but win handily on noble almost every time. I think maybe my few forays into prince we're just poor starts.

My early game strategy is almost always the same: build a worker, use the warrior to scout other civs' capitals and a second city location. Research any techs necessary for resources in the city's cross (agriculture, hunting, or animal husbandry, and always the wheel, but it should come after the resource one). If you happen to start with wheel and AH/hunting and it all works out, then go for bronze working. You should know if there's any horses around by this point. Once the worker is done, build a warrior to let the city grow to size 2 or 3, then build a settler. Warrior 1 should have finished scouting by the time the settler finishes, and should be getting in place for city 2. Once you can see bronze, find a spot with either horses or bronze near a good food resource and settle.

Hook up your resource and immediately start on units. Sometimes I'll have time for a barracks in my capital, but if the resource is in my capital, never mind it. Chop and whip as much as you can. Build up your army at the borders of another civ, and once there's 5-6 of them, invade their second city (usually poorly defended), and if you can see that they have military resources somewhere, send a pillager or two to take it out. Sometimes I keep this site, sometimes I raze it. It depends on the placement (which is usually poor). Then on to the capital with reinforcements. Lay siege, let them exhaust their excess troops on your stack, and then assault when you've got 3:1 numbers (6 axes for 2 archers, although 4-5 should suffice, I like to be safe).
 
If you're on a continent with only two other civs, you should have already started invading the second before the first falls. You will only have a military tech lead for a little while, remember. The AI almost always goes hunting->archery at first and therefore doesn't get the bonus of whipping or axes for a while. Whipping is the real key. You can push out two units for every one the AI can almost, and since you aren't wasting turns on settlers for 3rd and 4th cities and have your forces all consolidated in one stack instead of spread out defending those cities, you should be able to take them easily. Yes, you will lose some opportunity costs of building your own cities and workers, but that's what the AI is for! You build the military and they build the rest. It's just a matter of exchanging ownership after that...

If, however, you find yourself on a continent with many civs, just go after one. Don't overextend yourself, and remember that you've already got your war. If you weaken another civ, there's a likelihood you won't be able to finish it off, and another neighbor will. You just lost a lot of building time and only ended up helping a future rival. You'll need to focus more on settling your own territory safely and working up some cottages in such a scenario. The point of a 1-2 other civ continent is claiming it all for yourself until astronomy and expanding at your leisure once you have the commercial base to support it.

With a larger continent you should just look to close off as much land as you can. Expand into the continent instead of into your own little niche, if you're not in the middle. If someone does beat you to the punch in some free space in your corner, you can easily take the city out later when you have the army and commerce to afford further expansion. Again, let the AI do the settling and working for you. 5-6 cities is best for this period without going under 60% science.
 
Start preparing for the second war: cottage spam, and get CoL and currency for your economy, and then look for construction and civil service, building markets, barracks, and courthouses while you wait. Don't whip at this point, let your happiness penalties subside (they can get extreme) and get those cottages worked. You can usually trade for construction if you go straight for CS. You'll need catapults for the 40-75% defense bonuses, and they help to soften up city garrison I/II defense units. Macemen should make short change of whatever is left.

The second war should be quicker than the first. No need to completely finish off your opponent, just look to take 2-3 cities. The first should fall very quickly. Preferably it would be on your border, and you'd just have a two turn walk to get set up. Bombard it, if necessary, and wait a turn to sacrifice a few cats if necessary or just go ahead and take it. Expect a counter attack, and be sending in reinforcements. Remember that excessive whipping at this point is going to hurt you more than before if it's not in a production city. You didn't have hamlets/villages the first time around, and your economy/science weren't dependent on them. You should have two production centers already properly specialized anyway, with the other cities chipping in whenever possible. Growth will stagnate, but hopefully won't decline much overall.

The importance is brevity. The war shouldn't be drawn out over 25-40 turns, unlike the original one(s), which would have been fairly long. Take a city, defeat the enemy's stack, take another city, sue for peace, get a tech or money, start building your economy again. The army, of course, will have to be larger this time around. A nice 15-unit stack does me well, but 11-12 will suffice against smaller enemies. 5-6 catapults minimum, with another 6-8 macemen. Probably a good idea to ship a couple city garrison I/II longbows/crossbows/pikemen along for the ride. Chariots can still be useful in pillaging stacks, if you want to waste some hammers on extra units to cripple the enemy for a later expansion (hit his villages/towns and, of course, any military resources). I wouldn't look into horseback riding until right before guilds, and probably wouldn't need knights for such a war.

Remember, get a tech advantage as early as you can and exploit it with a quick war before the enemy can get the tech himself and even the playing field. Finish the war, build up, and aim for the next expansion. Grab some "building" techs, then go beeline some advanced war techs. Don't trade too much unless necessary, keep everyone else as backwards as you can afford to.
 
Yikes, I can be long-winded, but I think it helps spelling things out. After this, you should get the idea. Generally, you'll need one further expansion to be tops if you started on a large continent (or if you were lucky you've had your own for a while, and hopefully beelined to optics for the foreign contact and tech trade - remember to not actually trade until you've met everyone and have a lay of the diplomatic land). The worst starts, imo, are one- or two-man continents. You're pretty much guaranteed a tough, intercontinental war, or a run at cultural/space race with a highly specialized "island". Both are risky. Diplomatic is always available if you can get the UN or get astronomy quick and settle an uninhabited island, plus a little invasion if necessary.

I usually hold off on too many wars in the late game, instead focusing on building, but I usually get bored and go on a rampage for fun anyway :P



Now to address some other points: your leader. Creative is a rather poor trait, as it only really helps in the early game by saving you on having to build obelisks for resources in your second ring. Other than that it isn't of much use, and honestly 10-15 turns isn't too much on epic to have to wait for a border pop. Industrious I've found to be also less useful simply because I don't focus on wonders until late game (Eiffel Tower, space elevator, etc), by which point I should have a large enough tech lead to not have to worry about the bonus. Then again, I don't go for cultural victories, and don't run an SE, so I don't need to worry so much about them.

If you want extra help, find a leader with financial first off, then with something like philosophical, aggressive (really useful in the early game), or spiritual (great flexibility). Louis is nice and all, but the Americans, British, and Mansa are my favorites (especially since then I don't have to worry about Mansa beating me at space race all the time).
 
A few other points: don't automate. Unless it's for trade networks when you get railroads, just don't do it. You should learn how to specialize your cities. This involves a few steps:
1. Locate strong locations for cities. Preferably utilize dotmapping (extremely useful, not only in helping you map everything out, but also in getting you used to taking a step back and actually planning everything. Remember that the game really necessitates planning and a big picture approach, especially on higher levels).
2. Plan it out according to necessities and style (I, for instance, like to have a decent hammer output in any city, so I tend toward a more hybridized approach than a pure CE). Reading the threads on this forum is the best source for that.
3. Run it as it was meant to be run: if it's commerce rich, build universities and libraries; production, forges and units when it's in down time.

Also, remember to keep an eye on your adviser screens. Look for new trade possibilities, watch the diplomatic situation, plan your science approach, and watch the statistics especially. Don't fall behind in power or else expect to have an unfortunate surprise invasion with little chance of fending it off without losing precious real estate or improvements/population. If you're falling behind in total land area/pop (I use the victory condition screen for this one), plan an "expansion." I like to have a comfortable lead. Define it as you like, for me it's ~40% or more over the next best.

If you're a small fry, you won't be able to manipulate much diplomatically, but once you have a good checkbook and tech lead, you can get a lot more play in the other civs. Fighting together has many benefits, the least of which is the diplomatic bonus.

As for how to use great people: be flexible. If it's the difference between a great tech you need or an academy, take the tech. I usually use GS's for techs at the beginning, and for academics in the mid-game, unless it's a really good tech I need. GAs usually get culture bombed, and merchants settled (extra food is very nice), engineers are always trickier, but I think it's nice to hang on to them for wonders since I otherwise wouldn't bother. But the real key is to use them flexibly, and when you're good enough, to actually plan their use out ahead of time.



Anyway, this has been veeery long, and I'm tired now. So much for quitting early! If you actually got this far, thanks for listening. I'm sure not everyone will agree, and maybe I made a few mistakes here and there, but this has worked well for me. Hope none of it was too basic, as I can't tell your exact knowledge base. Best of luck :goodjob:

P.S. (of course I wasn't done yet...) play around with the game a bit to understand the mechanics better. Look around all the screens and get used to them, there's actually a lot of information there (no, it's not just to busy up the screen and look important :p). Pop up menus come on almost everything! Go into your financial adviser screen (F2) and look over the numbers, hovering the mouse shows more info on many. Play with civics (I prefer to do this with a spiritual leader so I can get instant feedback on the changes) to see what their exact effect is. Go into worldbuilder and add in buildings to see what their effect is, too. I mean, what's +50% trade route yield if you don't know what a trade route yield is worth to begin with? Should you build a harbor or a market then? Why switch to free market? Well, a quick change with a spiritual leader will show you exactly why.

There's tons of resources on these forums. They're really like a second manual that's 10x more useful than the one that shipped with the game.
 
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