My first Noble Game...end game tips please!

Hunter Noventa

Overlord
Joined
Sep 21, 2003
Messages
310
Location
New York
Attatched is my file of my first attempt at the Noble difficulty. Things started off fairly well, no serious barb troubles and I was able to eliminate Saladin with Axes and Catas. Byt the time I would have been able to turn my attention to Asoka, she was a bit too big for me to chew on.

So I cranked up the research as I knew I was way behind, especially when Asoka circumnavigated the globe. I was able to catch up and even get ahead of everyone in the game, tech-wise.

I built the UN, knowing that backdoor domination had worked for me before...but sadly Napoleon got elected Secretary general and decided to ruin it for all of us by forcing us to use Environmentalism. The only benefit I got was being able to build factories without worrying about health.

So here's how it stands now, 47 turns left, quite a few votes short of a diplo win after eliminating Montezuma. A pile of units in awkward places outside france, and france being much to big to bring down to size for the diplo win. Asoka is in my corner enough to vote for me for the win, but not enough to go to war with Napoleon. I already tried warring once, the turn after this save, and got fairly decimated. I have a plan of what I need to do here-

1. Reinforce Defenses. All my cities over near france need at least twice as many if not three times as many defenders. I have enough gold to easily rush Infantry every other turn, barracks + pentagon means City Defense 2 right out of the gate.
2. Reposition Offense. My stack of tanks are trapped by the border of France that has expanded around Montezuma's last city, I need to get my transports up there and move them.
3. Reinforce Offense. I need mroe tanks and bombers, simple enough. My huge stack of infantry has enough artys in it to level a city's defenses quickly.
4. Choose the right targets. I need enough votes for a diplo win. I either need to take over or raze enough cities to get there.

And some game stats-
Civilization- Chinese, Mao (Random choice)
Map Style- Continents
Map Size- Standard
Game Speed- Marathon
Victory Conditions- All
 
I think you should forget about reinforcing your defenses on France's continent. Like you said, build tanks and bombers. Your offense will be your defense. Just get a stack of bombers that's large enough to reduce any stack they send you to 50%. Put them in a city that's just off the front line, though, so the bombers can't be taken in their first counterattack turn. Just don't send in a stack of units until you've eliminated their offensive. Maybe send a few to bait them out.

Attack from the south, since you're close to the heart of France down there. There are three large cities fairly close to you, I think Paris, Tours and Lyons. Take 1 and raze 2, just because keeping them would be a pain in the ass. The one you keep should be the new base for your bombers so you can reach the rest of France's cities. Continue until you've eliminated enough of their pop.

It sounds like you know what you're doing, but that's just what I would do. You're not too far from the Diplo victory (what was it, 20 or 30 votes?), so it shouldn't take too long. The biggest problem is that they're considerably more powerful than you are. They'll probably send a crapload of Can/Inf/Arty at you (do they have tanks yet?). But once you turn that back, you're all set. They'll just sit in their cities and wait for you to win the Diplo. Just make sure you can do it before Asoka gets his spaceship done.
 
Oh, question. Did the map generator randomly give you three continents, or did you achieve that somehow? I want to play maps with three continents, but Custom_Continents only seems to create stock maps depending on how many continents you request. I've always wanted three randomly generated continents, but the game always just creates two.
 
Tom Thumb said:
Oh, question. Did the map generator randomly give you three continents, or did you achieve that somehow? I want to play maps with three continents, but Custom_Continents only seems to create stock maps depending on how many continents you request. I've always wanted three randomly generated continents, but the game always just creates two.

I've only played two continents games, both Standard size. Both times I ended up with 3 continents.
 
Tom Thumb said:
Oh, question. Did the map generator randomly give you three continents, or did you achieve that somehow? I want to play maps with three continents, but Custom_Continents only seems to create stock maps depending on how many continents you request. I've always wanted three randomly generated continents, but the game always just creates two.

It might be the size of the map, I've never really paid too much attention to it.
 
Byt the time I would have been able to turn my attention to Asoka, she was a bit too big for me to chew on.

i allways thought asoka was a man
 
I think your biggest downfall was your start. You didnt build your second city until about 2000bc. I normally like to have 3-4 cities by then playing on Monarch. worker worker settler at start usually gets my games going. I develop bronze working first so i can chop the forest. The worker worker helps speed up expansion and provides shields by chopping down forest. First worker chopping forest to speed up second worker production then both on settler. Alternatively build 2-3 warriors and steal a nearby ai worker. Anyway .............

As for this game im slightly confused how you managed to take out some cities on the other continent but let the indians over run your island. I think this is more down to lack of early growth to expand borders and build up your city network.

I think amassing units is key. You have 16k to spend on hurrying units. You could buy a unit a city every 2 turns. I cant see a conquest win here as it would take a huge effort to overturn the French and Indian larger armies. But attack attack and take over as much as you can is all you can do now.

I think you do need to change your start of games. I like to have crippled nearby civs on my island before they grow too strong and i sail the seas for new wars. On higher levels you will need more cities to keep up with AI research rates. On a large map i could have 40ish cities by 1930. About 6 or so i build myself the rest i capture. I normally aim for 13 or so cities by 1300AD but this is relies on a 1000bc war or earlier using axemen and/or swordsmen.

Be interesting to replay game and improve on start. Once you get the start right you soon find on Noble you will have a healthy tech lead once the cottages are bringing in commerce.
 
Gumbolt said:
I think your biggest downfall was your start. You didnt build your second city until about 2000bc. I normally like to have 3-4 cities by then playing on Monarch. worker worker settler at start usually gets my games going. I develop bronze working first so i can chop the forest. The worker worker helps speed up expansion and provides shields by chopping down forest. First worker chopping forest to speed up second worker production then both on settler. Alternatively build 2-3 warriors and steal a nearby ai worker. Anyway .............

As for this game im slightly confused how you managed to take out some cities on the other continent but let the indians over run your island. I think this is more down to lack of early growth to expand borders and build up your city network.

I think amassing units is key. You have 16k to spend on hurrying units. You could buy a unit a city every 2 turns. I cant see a conquest win here as it would take a huge effort to overturn the French and Indian larger armies. But attack attack and take over as much as you can is all you can do now.

I think you do need to change your start of games. I like to have crippled nearby civs on my island before they grow too strong and i sail the seas for new wars. On higher levels you will need more cities to keep up with AI research rates. On a large map i could have 40ish cities by 1930. About 6 or so i build myself the rest i capture. I normally aim for 13 or so cities by 1300AD but this is relies on a 1000bc war or earlier using axemen and/or swordsmen.

Be interesting to replay game and improve on start. Once you get the start right you soon find on Noble you will have a healthy tech lead once the cottages are bringing in commerce.

While I don't quite remember why my city took so long to build, I do know the big reason India was able to get a foothold on my island was because I was tied up eliminating Saladin. By the time I was done with him, I felt that i couldn't afford to take on Asoka. It was by this point that I felt a Diplo win might be doable, as Asoka and I had very good relations and it would jsut be a matter of taking out or befriending some other people.

And I must have started half a dozen noble games today, none of them seemed to get off to a good start, maybe I ought to look for tips on that first.
 
I normally spend most of 4000bc to 2000bc building workers, settlers and warriors. Unless i have mysticism i normally go for bronzeworking for slavery and the ability to chop forrest. You dont really need anything else till you have a good network of cities set up. Most warriors and archer barbs dont arrive till around 2000bc ish and the animals never enter cultural borders.

Pointless building any wonders/ buildings untill you have set up a working base then you go for wonders and other items like barracks for an early war. Even on Monarch city unkeep for 4 -5 cities is affordable once you have built a few cottages.

Can you post the starting year game? Should be in auto saves.
 
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