Need some help with Noble

[daishi5]

As a player who just started winning reliably on noble, I think I see a problem here. You have a plan before you see your map, and you seem to be trying to make your situation work inside your plan, instead of making a plan for your situation.

For example, I started a game with the idea of conquering the world with roman praetorians, I found myself on a huge piece of land, with 3 AI's connected by a land bridge one square wide. I changed all my plans when I saw that land bridge, and I instead hunkered down, let them fight it out and teched up, and then came roaring out with cannons and riflemen. The point is, you need to look at the map before you try to decide how to play the game. If your map has a lot of grasslands, cottage it all. If you find stone near your first city, and you have a lot of food resources, then try the SE. You will do a lot better if you take a look at your situation then try to make a plan. Also, try to do things that you have not done before. If you suck at diplomacy, try to make one AI your super-best-friend next game.

Oh, and when you are in the first part of the game, chop those trees around your capital to expand faster, and use slavery to rush buildings, that helps a lot too. (It helps an incredible amount.)

 

[Shafi]

Guys but really, please... stop claiming that rush is the only way. CivilizationIV is much better game than that - all the way up to Deity. And rep1826 here is talking Noble difficulty for gods sake.

But you must admit if you can pull off a sucsessful early rush, it does really set up he game and on Noble if you play half decently i think i's ame won.

I agree it's not the only way, but it's something very powerful, and to be quite honest i believe REXing peacefully takes more skill than rushing. (based on personal expirience)

 

[CornPlanter]

But you must admit if you can pull off a sucsessful early rush, it does really set up he game and on Noble if you play half decently i think i's ame won.

I agree it's not the only way, but it's something very powerful, and to be quite honest i believe REXing peacefully takes more skill than rushing. (based on personal expirience)

I totally agree with you and my former post was in response to Fabio's, who has clearly said "Rush rush rush as in the beginning is the only way to get any good from your citizens due to the low happy cap and to the few land improvement" . But if we come to that, I believe you just pointed out why new players should avoid rushes

Lets see, you say rushes are relatively easy. After successfull rush game is basically won. It makes rush a surefire trick. Now, where exactly is the fun in that? Where's learning? What if you cant rush for one reason or another?

CivilizationIV is a very rich game and making it all about whipchopping 7 axemen is... lame. It's like using nuclear submarine only for opening beer bottles.

Now there are ofcourse situations which call for rush, and/or certain civilizations like Incans and Persians and so on, I'm not saying never rush, I'm just saying learn the basics before you learn rushing.

ranting and whinning below.

Spoiler :

Lets start with Victoria, Financial is nice, ok, now lets whipchop 7 axemen, cool, game's over, congrats. Now lets try Stalin, always wanted to try that Industrial, ok, here's BW from the hut on turn 2, dang, Copper's nowhere around, lets just build 5 Aggressive Warriors, hi Gandhi, ok, we just won again, congrats. OK lets take Asoka now, he kinda has no usefull traits and no decent unique unit at all but whatever, ok, here are our 7 axemen, its about time to start scouting, ok - wait, what??? OMG its Churchill, f***k, game's unwinnable, I hate that goddamn Protective trait, its clearly overpowered in AI hands Noble is so hard

In my opinion if someone cannot win without rushes on Noble then there's always Warlord level or checkers. I'm sorry, I used to win on Noble constantly, with Tokugawa, pursuing wonders and religions and not going to war before having 2 eras tech advantage. Its just a goddamn Noble, it takes no strategy, no skill, no REX/rush/SE/CE, no civfanatics forums, no nothing. You can just play it and win it, provided that you have a general idea about game mechanics (beakers mean science and hammers mean production, not the other way round) and generally use your brains once in a while. It only takes a few games for practice, thats all.

Then again, if the goal is to win without learning to play, rushes on Noble are awesome.

 

[vicawoo]

A player who plays a noble game with emperor level skill will do have a much better game than a player who plays with noble/prince level skill. They might both win, but the emperor level player will make better decisions, be less wasteful, and so on. Usually strategies translate across difficulty levels, with the exception of warrior rushes.

And rushing isn't that easy; you have to learn to streamline your rush so it hits before the AIs bonuses, extra cities, and tech overwhelm you. Sometimes it's the right decision, sometimes it costs more than it's worth and lets your other neighbors grab too much land.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I just loaded up your 1400's save and I see some glaring problems!

1) Techs - You are missing a LOT of useful low end techs! You don't even have animal husbandry researched - this tech reveals horses so you might have horses somewhere on your island and you wouldn't even know it! You are missing Civil Service which allows you to chain irrigate your farms so you can farm areas that are not next to fresh water, plus this tech allows the Bureaucracy civic which increases your capitol production by 50% (hammers and trade both). At any rate you should at least revolt to vassalage (or Bureaucracy if you trade for CS) ASAP because the do-nothing civics are usually good to get out of ASAP. Somewhat less important you are missing Hunting, which leads to Archery. Archery allows two good city defenders - the crossbow (with Machinery) and the longbow (with Feudalism). Finally, you are missing Code of Laws, which allows you to build Courthouses. Like Civ3, these cut city maintenance in half (and unlike Civ3, they actually act as advertised!) and that makes for less money spent per turn. Courthouses also provide +2 epionage points per turn as well. You could have all of these techs this turn because most of the computers are willing to trade them to you. Just pick a few to make allies with and do some trading.

2) Workers - You have six workers for seven cities which isn't very good. The target goal for workers is 1.5 per city. You also have a LOT of undeveloped tiles in your city radii, so building a couple more would be good. Plus, there are two workers just sitting in that newly colonized city on the new island. Put them to work pronto! Also, your northern fish has no workboat. Build one and put it to work there - +3 food!

3) City Placement - Much has been said already on city placement so I will give my recommendation. You have room enough for two more cities between London and York/Coventry. Put one on the grassland NW of the third sugar in that sugar row, and put the other W of that rice in Coventry. You also have room for enough for another city between York and Cantebury, and I would suggest putting it on the desert tile in the middle there.

4) Exploration - You need to concentrate on exploring your nearby areas first and then radiate out because there are nearby Barb islands that should have been colonized by now. Build some triremes (at least 5) and some galleys (at least 3), kill Charley's fleet, and go invade them.

5) Civics - I already mentioned revolting to Vassalage or Bureaucracy soon, but you may want to consider revolting to slavery also. I will admit that Serfdom is still useful to you because you need more workers, but after they get built, switch. You will find that Slavery is much better because it lets you build stuff lots faster by sacrificing people. Civs grow back so don't be afraid of the whip. Also, if you trade for Code of Laws, you can switch into Caste System, too. This civic is much better for a Specialist Economy as it allows unlimited specs to be assigned.

6) Extra Resources - You have 5 dyes and 7 sugars. Note that you only need access to one of each of these to get the happiness bonus for both. Trade away the others for resources you don't have. Izzy, Sitting, and Wang all have stuff you can trade for and the others you aren't at war with have gold per turn to trade for.

7) Religions - Your current religion is Buddhism, which is OK as this makes Izzy happy with you. Make her one of your allies. However, your cities don't all have Buddhism so build a couple monasteries and spread it to them by building missionaries. Also you can spread other religions (you have 4 different ones in your cities) to them if they need extra happiness - you can build one temple per religion in a city. You also might want to get the Monotheism tech soon so you can revolt to Organised Religion which increases building hammers in cities with it by 25%.

By the way, you aren't using a specialist economy as you actually have more cottages than farms. Unfortunately for you, many of them haven't been worked yet, which is very bad for the late date, and so most of them are still cottages. I would recommend replacing most of them with farms and workshops after you get Civil Service and the ability to chain irrigation. Cities can also carry a chain of irrigation if they aren't on hills.

You might try playing smaller maps - like Small size - for faster games so you can practice your game more in different situations. Huge maps are OK (if your machine can handle them) but they do take a LOT longer to play out, so you get fewer games to practice on.

NPM

 

[Fabio GP addict]

I totally agree with you and my former post was in response to Fabio's, who has clearly said "Rush rush rush as in the beginning is the only way to get any good from your citizens due to the low happy cap and to the few land improvement" .
...

In my opinion if someone cannot win without rushes on Noble then there's always Warlord level or checkers. I'm sorry, I used to win on Noble constantly, with Tokugawa, pursuing wonders and religions and not going to war before having 2 eras tech advantage. Its just a goddamn Noble, it takes no strategy, no skill, no REX/rush/SE/CE, no civfanatics forums, no nothing. You can just play it and win it, provided that you have a general idea about game mechanics (beakers mean science and hammers mean production, not the other way round) and generally use your brains once in a while. It only takes a few games for practice, thats all.

Then again, if the goal is to win without learning to play, rushes on Noble are awesome.
[/SPOILER]

I see your point but I can't agree. I am still a Noble player and still not able to win all the time. I think this is the level where you really improve your way of playing, where you understand where your mistakes are and where you can change your strategy according to such mistakes.

I saw in this initial post that the biggest issues were size (too few cities) and power (no army even to defend from barbs !). I just tried to give an easy solution, as IMHO to improve your game you must start from your weakest point.

Well, I personally found out that if you lack in an optimal Rex strategy, you'd probably better go for early rushes. I'm not saying that this is THE only way.

I always got to the point were land was almost entirely settled and my city vs AI's ratio was 2:3 and around 1,200 AD I always started to fall behind. Now that I go conquer to best cities in the beginning it's always much better. If any of you can suggest better ways I'll be glad to learn

 

[Shafi]

I have to say i have the same expirience as Fabio when i used to play on Noble, thats why i too support the idea that early rushing is an important skill for a beginner.

In fact i used to play on warlord and fall behind by mid game or regularly get Dow'ed by the AI, i agree that this is because i did not understand the game mechanics properly and did not play too well but once i learned how to rush i was able to move to Noble and win more often than not and i began improving other areas of my game which has allowed me to progress up to Emperor now.

 

[CornPlanter]

I am still a Noble player and still not able to win all the time.

Thats what I am talking about. Try to play without rushes and it will not take long before you start just owning Noble. The games where you rushed... well, not entirely wasted, but you certainly learned much less than you could. Its only my opinion of course, I dont want to force any playstyle upon anybody Civ is just a game after all, meant for having fun in any way the player likes.

If any of you can suggest better ways I'll be glad to learn

Am... Playdamapo? I believe there are quite a few posted games that manage to win own with no early axe rushes or no rushes at all. But as I said dont get me wrong, if you like rushes by all means do them. Its all about having fun.

 

[Fabio GP addict]

... But as I said dont get me wrong, if you like rushes by all means do them. Its all about having fun.

Look, not because I followed your advice , but in my last game with Hannibal I made no rush. I had a continent map, was lucky to have only 1 neighbour on my continent (Joao the Portoguese), and decided to go for coastal cities, GLH and a peaceful expansion. I passively got buddhism from him and now he's my best friend, but you know how it's going ?

After a nice start, I'm falling behind 'cos land is settled, he has 12 or so cities and I have 8 (and the last 2 with terrible placement as I had no more resources to grab). I am the first who got Astronomy, got my caravels round the world but not able to find any more suitable land. What now ?

The only way out I see is attacking my dear Joao but then it was much better to attack him way way before

 

[KaytieKat]

Look, not because I followed your advice , but in my last game with Hannibal I made no rush. I had a continent map, was lucky to have only 1 neighbour on my continent (Joao the Portoguese), and decided to go for coastal cities, GLH and a peaceful expansion. I passively got buddhism from him and now he's my best friend, but you know how it's going ?

After a nice start, I'm falling behind 'cos land is settled, he has 12 or so cities and I have 8 (and the last 2 with terrible placement as I had no more resources to grab). I am the first who got Astronomy, got my caravels round the world but not able to find any more suitable land. What now ?

The only way out I see is attacking my dear Joao but then it was much better to attack him way way before

Hi

There is always the option attacking another AI on a diff continent since you have astronomy, while keeping jao as a tech buddy.

Kaytie

 

[learner gamer]

@rep1826: as others have said, welcome to the forums.

Having cast a quick look over the thread, it seems to me that you've received some excellent advice from a number of players. As is the case with anyone who's climbing the levels, you're finding that there are a number of issues in your game that need ironing out. Don't sweat it....we've all been there.

Whilst I haven't taken a look at the save, my $0.02 would be to firstly, read a couple of the articles that have been included in other posts if you haven't already. They really do contain some great advice. Once done, you are obviously looking to finish your game. Irrespective of whether you win or lose (as others have mentioned, the idea with Civ is to have fun after all), I'd then suggest it might be worthwhile posting another game employing the model used in the HUI series that is currently hosted by Shafi (and there are and have been other games too) during which you post updates after reasonably short turnsets. That will enable (i) others to point out any errors before they seriously impact your game (ii) you to learn much more quickly (having had the errors pointed out) and (iii) you to receive the help you need in bite size chunks, which are more easily digestable. Indeed, there may even be value in following one of the other games currenntly being hosted or even taking a look back at some older games such as Sis' ALCs (which you'll find inside the Sample Game Directory stickied on the forum) to help improve your game.

Happy civving and look forward to seeing you reach deity.

 

[CornPlanter]

Look, not because I followed your advice , but in my last game with Hannibal I made no rush. I had a continent map, was lucky to have only 1 neighbour on my continent (Joao the Portoguese), and decided to go for coastal cities, GLH and a peaceful expansion. I passively got buddhism from him and now he's my best friend, but you know how it's going ?

After a nice start, I'm falling behind 'cos land is settled, he has 12 or so cities and I have 8 (and the last 2 with terrible placement as I had no more resources to grab). I am the first who got Astronomy, got my caravels round the world but not able to find any more suitable land. What now ?

The only way out I see is attacking my dear Joao but then it was much better to attack him way way before

Well there sure might be situations where rush is good option or situations where rush is clearly the best option I never denied that

That said, cannons are always an option. If you have 8 cities and Joao has 12, its certainly not so big difference especially on Noble. You can beat him. Also, what Kaytie said. But I personally find warring on different continent more difficult. Depends on how friendly towards you Joao is.

Also, blocking your neighbors and taking the best and the largest deal of land is usually a good alternative to rush. This time you didnt really manage it (I dont know your situation, maybe I wouldnt have done any better myself, idk). Be the more you play this way the more you learn to do it.

 

[Continental Op]

Look, not because I followed your advice , but in my last game with Hannibal I made no rush. I had a continent map, was lucky to have only 1 neighbour on my continent (Joao the Portoguese), and decided to go for coastal cities, GLH and a peaceful expansion. I passively got buddhism from him and now he's my best friend, but you know how it's going ?

After a nice start, I'm falling behind 'cos land is settled, he has 12 or so cities and I have 8 (and the last 2 with terrible placement as I had no more resources to grab). I am the first who got Astronomy, got my caravels round the world but not able to find any more suitable land. What now ?

The only way out I see is attacking my dear Joao but then it was much better to attack him way way before

I'd say now's the time to start preparing to wipe Joao out with either cannons or cavalry. Try to get a power lead and scout Joao's land to find out what you need. Kill him, claim the continent, win the game. I often wait for cannons or cavalry before my first offensive war, and this is quite doable strategy at least in the noble level (on prince I seem to struggle with this kind of delayed warfare, so yes, rushing is easier).

 

[Fabio GP addict]

I went through the stats to understand exactly where I'm losing ground ... and I gained more confidence that nothing is lost yet

GDP (gold) I am waaaay ahead, 1st with 380, best opponent is around 250 (my traderoutes are making the difference, GLH+coastal cities+cothons and some castles even if they have short life on normal).

PRODUCTION (hammers) not so bad, 2nd place but here opponents are closer

SIZE (land) and FOOD: here is the crap, I'm by far the smallest one and that's what I already knew, but the gap looks insanely big.

POPULATION: surprisingly I'm the 2nd civ on this, what does that mean ? I even whipped a lot, I'm around 1250 AD and still on Slavery and whipping sometimes, if I have such a few cities how could I get so good with population ?

TECH: apart from Joao who benefited from trading with me, I have a 2/3 tech lead with everybody, and well positioned to get Liberalism.

I scouted my overseas neighbours and founded out the Viking as the closest and weakest target. I'm more convinced that, having founded AP with buddhism and being Joao the only buddhist, I should keep him as my diplo/tech buddy (thx Kathye) and go conquering overseas even if it'll be much more challenging

 

[Continental Op]

I went through the stats to understand exactly where I'm losing ground ... and I gained more confidence that nothing is lost yet

GDP (gold) I am waaaay ahead, 1st with 380, best opponent is around 250 (my traderoutes are making the difference, GLH+coastal cities+cothons and some castles even if they have short life on normal).

PRODUCTION (hammers) not so bad, 2nd place but here opponents are closer

SIZE (land) and FOOD: here is the crap, I'm by far the smallest one and that's what I already knew, but the gap looks insanely big.

POPULATION: surprisingly I'm the 2nd civ on this, what does that mean ? I even whipped a lot, I'm around 1250 AD and still on Slavery and whipping sometimes, if I have such a few cities how could I get so good with population ?

TECH: apart from Joao who benefited from trading with me, I have a 2/3 tech lead with everybody, and well positioned to get Liberalism.

I scouted my overseas neighbours and founded out the Viking as the closest and weakest target. I'm more convinced that, having founded AP with buddhism and being Joao the only buddhist, I should keep him as my diplo/tech buddy (thx Kathye) and go conquering overseas even if it'll be much more challenging

The Vikings sound like a prime target to me. Try to get steel from liberalism, pair cannons with CR maces (later you can upgrade them to CR rifles) and they should be easy prey.

 

[yanner39]

I just loaded up your 1400's save and I see some glaring problems!

1) Techs - You are missing a LOT of useful low end techs! You don't even have animal husbandry researched - this tech reveals horses so you might have horses somewhere on your island and you wouldn't even know it! You are missing Civil Service which allows you to chain irrigate your farms so you can farm areas that are not next to fresh water, plus this tech allows the Bureaucracy civic which increases your capitol production by 50% (hammers and trade both). At any rate you should at least revolt to vassalage (or Bureaucracy if you trade for CS) ASAP because the do-nothing civics are usually good to get out of ASAP. Somewhat less important you are missing Hunting, which leads to Archery. Archery allows two good city defenders - the crossbow (with Machinery) and the longbow (with Feudalism). Finally, you are missing Code of Laws, which allows you to build Courthouses. Like Civ3, these cut city maintenance in half (and unlike Civ3, they actually act as advertised!) and that makes for less money spent per turn. Courthouses also provide +2 epionage points per turn as well. You could have all of these techs this turn because most of the computers are willing to trade them to you. Just pick a few to make allies with and do some trading.

2) Workers - You have six workers for seven cities which isn't very good. The target goal for workers is 1.5 per city. You also have a LOT of undeveloped tiles in your city radii, so building a couple more would be good. Plus, there are two workers just sitting in that newly colonized city on the new island. Put them to work pronto! Also, your northern fish has no workboat. Build one and put it to work there - +3 food!

3) City Placement - Much has been said already on city placement so I will give my recommendation. You have room enough for two more cities between London and York/Coventry. Put one on the grassland NW of the third sugar in that sugar row, and put the other W of that rice in Coventry. You also have room for enough for another city between York and Cantebury, and I would suggest putting it on the desert tile in the middle there.

4) Exploration - You need to concentrate on exploring your nearby areas first and then radiate out because there are nearby Barb islands that should have been colonized by now. Build some triremes (at least 5) and some galleys (at least 3), kill Charley's fleet, and go invade them.

5) Civics - I already mentioned revolting to Vassalage or Bureaucracy soon, but you may want to consider revolting to slavery also. I will admit that Serfdom is still useful to you because you need more workers, but after they get built, switch. You will find that Slavery is much better because it lets you build stuff lots faster by sacrificing people. Civs grow back so don't be afraid of the whip. Also, if you trade for Code of Laws, you can switch into Caste System, too. This civic is much better for a Specialist Economy as it allows unlimited specs to be assigned.

6) Extra Resources - You have 5 dyes and 7 sugars. Note that you only need access to one of each of these to get the happiness bonus for both. Trade away the others for resources you don't have. Izzy, Sitting, and Wang all have stuff you can trade for and the others you aren't at war with have gold per turn to trade for.

7) Religions - Your current religion is Buddhism, which is OK as this makes Izzy happy with you. Make her one of your allies. However, your cities don't all have Buddhism so build a couple monasteries and spread it to them by building missionaries. Also you can spread other religions (you have 4 different ones in your cities) to them if they need extra happiness - you can build one temple per religion in a city. You also might want to get the Monotheism tech soon so you can revolt to Organised Religion which increases building hammers in cities with it by 25%.

By the way, you aren't using a specialist economy as you actually have more cottages than farms. Unfortunately for you, many of them haven't been worked yet, which is very bad for the late date, and so most of them are still cottages. I would recommend replacing most of them with farms and workshops after you get Civil Service and the ability to chain irrigation. Cities can also carry a chain of irrigation if they aren't on hills.

You might try playing smaller maps - like Small size - for faster games so you can practice your game more in different situations. Huge maps are OK (if your machine can handle them) but they do take a LOT longer to play out, so you get fewer games to practice on.

NPM

So I had a look since I like being able to see for myself. Just for my own info, how can/ why would you fit 2 more cities in that tiny spot? Wouldn't that be some serious overlapping? I am only asking because the OP's game seems like one of my games. Is it because the additional commerce the 2 additional cities would bring through:

1. The city center tile.

2. Working the cottages around the city would generate commerce

3. New trade routes per city.

4. Because the cities are close to the capital, minimal maintenance

Does this make sense? Because if so, I've been missing out on alot

 

[I-imp]

You'de actually be surprised at the beakers that a mid-sized city working 8 tiles will give you in the industrial era. Around 100 beakers in my games. I usually settle them in the medieval period.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

POPULATION: surprisingly I'm the 2nd civ on this, what does that mean ? I even whipped a lot, I'm around 1250 AD and still on Slavery and whipping sometimes, if I have such a few cities how could I get so good with population ?

Because the population demographic is all messed up. It scales exponentially with city size; in other words, one size 4 city has a lot more population than four size 1 cities.

Total Population = Sum ( CityPop ^ 2.8 / 1000 )

 

[SelfionDarkfire]

I play on Prince/huge/18 civs/Normal.

For me the most important lesson of Noble was diplomacy. After I acquired all of my early land improving worker technology, I'd go Math-> Currency -> Alphabet. This allowed me to trade for religious techs that I didnt research myself. Math is usually tradeable to some of the more backwards civs, while currency was tradeable to all but the most tech savvy 1 or 2 civs in the game. Even when other civs didnt have a tech to trade me, they would sometimes have decent sums of gold that I could trade for to keep my economy afloat just enough to get out of the dark ages.

Also, if you are playing huge maps with less AI civs, that gives a lot more room for barbarian spawns, which is why you might feel besieged by them.

Good Luck

 

[yanner39]

Because the population demographic is all messed up. It scales exponentially with city size; in other words, one size 4 city has a lot more population than four size 1 cities.

Total Population = Sum ( CityPop ^ 2.8 / 1000 )

So how much important should be placed on the number of cities, if any? I mean, I've always assumed that if I can get 15 cities, I should be able to win. In some games, the AI has had 4 or 5 more cities than me.

So for a diplo victory, I could still win, if I have less cities than my AI counterparts, simply because my population would/could be higher?