Need to improve my game (going to Noble)

[Sir Booboo]

Long time lurker, first time poster.
Moving up to Warlord so far has been going without a hitch, but Noble is giving me some head ache. Most likely I am not doing a few things correctly, so I would like to get some advice.
I usually play with random leaders, so I may not be using them to the full advantage.
The problems I see I have - I have attached the autosaves up to AD225, in the hope that someone can pinpoint WHERE I go wrong.
1. Not enough workers. Between buildings and trying to build up armies, I don't know where I should have put more workers on the job
2. Culture - I did not get Stonehenge, and research religion late, so I had to build Libraries for my first culture. That meant getting some resources later than I am used to, but at least it meant I went for Calendar faster.
3. I am Spiritual (Mansa Musa), so I should have founded an earlier religion, but without mysticism, I doubt I would have. Got Confucianism though.
4. No stone, no marble = no early wonders.

What I would like to know - how bad is my opening, how would I proceed next?
Orginially, I would have wanted to cross over to Hathy's territory before she settled there, but I did not have sailing yet. In my current position, I would have to go for Bismarck, but he is my Buddy so far. However, I could convert to Judaism and ally with Hathy instead.

Thanks for any and all insights.
MansaMusaAuto_Noble.zip

 

[Gumbolt]

Barely 1 unit defending each city. Needs immediate action. Its all very well building barracks but no use if you dont build units to use them. Same goes for libraries. Only build in cities with a decent science rate. You need to decide if a city is going to be used for production or growth or science.

specialise cities. Military production/ Great people cities- excess food for specialists or wonders/ commerce cities with lots of cottages to pay for your empire. When you decide what type a city is stick to it all game. No deviation please. No building libraries in a military production city. Granaries and aqueducts only if needed for the city.

2-3 of your cities lands are barely worked. No cottages etc when they could be using cottages. You should try to have at least 1 worker per city. One of your workers is chopping a jungle that will not benefit you at this stage. In early game i try to have 2 workers per my first 3 cities then spread them out building more workers as needed.

You have 2 gold resources around Kumbi Saleh that at present your unable to use due to lack of food. Difficult to use anyway with desert and barren terrain. capital is hard put to choose between the gems and gold at start of game. Tough call on city placement at start especially with land hemmed in where you are. AI has plenty of good land area to be captured.

City placement. I tend to leave 4 squares between cities so there is no overlap and cities can grow to maimum size. Also allows larger encatchment area for resources. there is a good city spot by the corn below GAO with pastures and corn nearby although the Egyptian city is over the seas.

The rice is worked but no road connected to it so you cant use the extra health for all your cities. You have 2 resources of gems that due to city placement you can only use one. Each would prove 6+ commerce once used.

Gao on the city screen is not using the iron resource that provides 6 hammers for production. its mined but not selected on the city screen. It would halve the time to build the barracks

You seem to be using a lot of mounted units like chariots. Chariots will struggle to attack cities with spearmen. Axemen will be better equiped to attack archers and defend against swordsmen. Swordsmen will be a good attacking source. Mounted units like mounted archer can be used to mop up stradling units wondering about. Also you seem to have 3-4 units with the medical promotion selected. Wait till you have a stack of units that could benefit first i think. You only need one medical unit per stack of units attacking a city.

Your start seems pretty good three cities by 2300bc is reasonable. I assumed you used a lot of chopping. Your growth after that somewhat slowed. Perhaps your building libraries and courthouses too early? I tend to use courthouses with -4 gold cost. Kumbi Saleh has little to gain by one at present. A cost of 2 gold is small for a city. (for me -4 - -12 is a high cost.)

Perhaps you need to play a military based game. Build 4 cities quickly develop copper/ iron and use forest to chop axemen and attack a rival with 5-6 axemen by about 1000bc or earlier before they get spearmen and cultural defence bonuses.

Final point beware the barbarian city by your undefended one on the western front.

Overall good start but more workers needed. More specialising of cities needed. More military units and less time wasted on court houses, granaries on low growth cities and barracks in cities not producing military units. Be selective on what you build and think ahead on city placement. Scout the land and work out how you can best use the resources and land. Make sure to place cities to ensure ai dont capture key resources too.

Sorry if this was a bit harsh but hey. I used the 225ad game.

 

[jimbob27]

Ok, I've had a little look and it seems the situation isn't too bad. Firstly...... see that german axeman on your border? He's heading straight for that barbarian city to the west of your civ. If you follow him with your horse archer and your chariot, he's weaken the barb city so you can capture it the next turn.

Secondly..... why are you defending with horse archers? They've not the best defenders.... expecially when you've got skirmishers available. You really want at least 1-2 of these guys stationed in each of your cities. At the moment you've got undefended cities, just waiting for the barbarians to capture.

Your priority in each city should be granary, library then barracks. Courthouses are wasted production at this stage. With your cities so small the courthouse is only going to save you 1 or 2 gold, and it'd be better to build granarys and let the cities grow so they can work more tiles, to get the money that way.

Use the cities that already have barracks to get skirmishers to defend everywhere quickly. After that, it's time to build an army to take the germans out. You really shouldn't be making chariots or horse archers; the units like axemen that require metals are better value than the early horse units. Build a ton of axemen and a few skirmishers and swordmen. The germans don't have horses so don't build any spearmen.

You're already doing good on science, so don't worry about that. You'll want a few more workers soon, but for the moment you can make do with what you've got. You've got a couple of resources waiting for plantations, so improve them, then after that concentrate your workers on removing every last bit of forest in your borders (to get the army and buildings produced quicker) and then spam cottages all over the lovely grassland you have.

I reckon you should make friends with hatty. Your relationship with the germans isn't great... so I say stab them in the back asap then once they're gone......... start worrying about monty.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Various bits and pieces after a quick review....

1) You can modify the civilizationIV.ini file so that your autosaves offer more resolution (AutoSaveInterval and MaxAutoSaves )

2) I always start reviewing games by looking at the power graph. If I'm not first in power, I get twitchy. If I see another civ running up the power charts (hi Alex) I get very unhappy. Your graph says to me "not enough units", which in my experience also means "too many buildings".

Another sign of too many buildings is erecting wonders when you don't have the capasity to do so (you cannot afford the lighthouse right now).

3) Obelisk in the capital? What for?

4) Culture: a missionary, to convert a new city, may be a wiser initial investment than a library (yes, you'll want the library eventually - but not YET. As a rule, you want to hold off on building anything before you can leverage it profitably.

5) Religion: OK, you've got a holy city. How are you going to take advantage of that? You should be thinking about (a) how you are going to get the shrine built (b) how you will want to specialize the city with the shrine in place (c) what cities are going to be tasked with getting the missionaries built to spread the religion, etc.

6) Production - right now your best city is at 8 hammers per turn, your next best at 5. That's not going to do it. You don't have a particularly good production site anywhere right now, so I would look at (a) taking the sites you do have, and dedicating them to production, (b) heading toward Metal Casting, so that you can toss in some workshops.

7) Targets - personally, I'm not too keen on the location of that barbarian city. I'd choose to raze it, and erect a city next door (with access to both fish, the bananas, maybe even the rice) to use as a GP farm. On the war front, you'd really like to go after Hatty, as she is the one with the cool toys. But the logistics are likely to be awkward, and Hamburg is right on your doorstep.

 

[Gumbolt]

Be interesting to see scenario replayed by 225ad using same map of course. Good way to learn replaying a map. The lower levels like noble i see as training levels for monarch and above. Learn a technique and take it forward in your game play. Took me a while to figure out what resources did what. micromanagement of cities too.

Started a game with greeks on monarch today. I managed to chop 5 axemen by 925bc and took out 2/3 Egyptian cities capturing 1 and razing one on the cultural border of thebes. Final city has 60% cultural defence with 4 archers defending, Gonna pillage and make peace now the cultural threat and civ threat is reduced. Why lose all my axemen with that defence. Wait for catapults. (City was size 8 ackkkk) Aztecs are next. I lost 2 axemen taking out three archers defending the 2 cities. I now have 5 cities.

Net result of war. Gained one city. loss of 70 hammers versus 100 needed for a settler for the city i captured. plus the 80 or so gold from the 2 cities. Plus i can now chop the 5-6 forest where memphis was for the oracle. Job done.

My point is war is good. Its a good way of winning games on civ 4. Assuming you win the wars and go for a city at a time not over stretching resources.

 

[Sir Booboo]

Thanks, all very good points.
Some answers: No idea what possessed me with the Obelisk. I think at that point I was desparate for culture, but yeah, did not need it in capital.
I built the libraries for the culture, as I did not have a religion when I built them.
The horse archers were going to be an offensive force, not a defensive one. And yes, I don't have a lot of defense. Oddly enough, barely anyone attacked me except for Monty halphassardly.
Production stayed pretty low all game, but I did build the iron works in the capital soon.
Allies change quickly in this game. I ended up going to war against Germany for Alex, and took Monti's place. I then also invaded Hatty cause she was close. Alex was a bit too strong.
I ended up being an easy tech leader, so I went for the easy Space Race. Kinda a lame ending to a lame game.
I ended up not attacking a lot for a long time as I was trying to get better units than the competition.

Thanks a lot for the criticism.
I have one more question - where do you get your culture from if you don't found a religion and do not have stonehenge/obelisks yet?

Here's my 1978 Space Victory Save
View attachment AutoSave_AD-1978.zip

 

[dutchfire]

I have one more question - where do you get your culture from if you don't found a religion and do not have stonehenge/obelisks yet?

obelisks are easy to get, mysticism only costs 50 beakers. And you only need 10 culture to get the fat cross. You don't need any more at the start of the game

 

[Sir Booboo]

obelisks are easy to get, mysticism only costs 50 beakers. And you only need 10 culture to get the fat cross. You don't need any more at the start of the game

I guess that's the way to go then. For some reason I thought it would be best to skip mysticism when not founding a religion, but it makes no sense.

Again, thanks everyone. That should improve my game.

 

[Solo4114]

Just to jump in on the issue of war = good, I think that should be clarified as LIMITED war with clear objectives = good. I'm still getting the hang of Civ 4 and warfare in particular, but total war is NOT good. By that I mean trying to eliminate your enemies too quickly.

The strategy described above -- of taking one or two border cities and then pillaging the surrounding area of the tougher cities to slow the AI down -- is much better than continually pumping out military units and smashing them against the city's defenses.

When you're going to attack another civ, the view I have now (After having wasted maaaaany turns trying to destroy enemy civs) is that it's better to target, say, three cities and execute surgical strikes. Find the weakest ones and take them out, or take the border cities. Alternatively, simply raze the cities and then build in those spots later.

This is another general tip to keep in mind -- the AI has a HORRIBLE sense of civic planning. They throw up cities in terrible locations which generally are not worth keeping. They'll also plop down cities that are guaranteed to overlap later in the game. Even to the extent they won't overlap, a lot of times you're better off razing two nearby cities and putting your own down in between to maximize the effect of your fat cross.

So, with that in mind, pick your spots for warmongering, identify specific targets that are ideally close to your borders, or which you intend to raze to deprive the enemy of resources (IE: if you wanted to take down an important resource city deeper in the enemy's empire), accomplish your goals and sue for peace.

One tip (which others should feel free to correct me on) is that when you found a religion, you can see the units in every city on the map which has that religion. So remember, you can use your missionaries as de facto spies. Not as good as being able to pop open the city's production window, but still pretty good for identifying targets.

Remember: protracted war is bad. It's costly, inefficient, and time consuming. Limited war with clear, concise aims, is good. Hit hard, hit fast, get what you want, and get out.

 

[Gumbolt]

Culture in the early stages is only important to expand city borders to acquire resources and keep enemy cultural borders at bay. If you have the creative trait its less of a problem as you get +2 culture a turn in each city. Although the great prophet created from stone henge eventually comes in handy if you capture a holy city or start a religion. All those great person points add up

So even with creative i would normally try to chop forest for stone henge instead of building an obelisk in each town. The AI never seems quick enough to get stone henge.

If i build a library its cause i want a good science rate. Its only your top 3 cities that count towards a cultural win if you choose that route and most of the culture will come from the last 100 turns or so. Even so 50,000 culture takes ages to reach.


The enemy will come at you in much larger numbers on higher levels so dont be fooled on Noble.

I dont think a religion will add culture to each city.

 

[Sir Booboo]

Oddly enough, they did build Stonehenge very quickly this time - before I had Mysticisms, if I remember correctly. Then again of course I got mysticism way late.
With religion I meant getting a Monastery or a Temple for some quick culture.

It's an interesting idea about the surgical strikes. I have read about it before. I guess on noble you can still get away with it, and over all, I think my city placement is not a whole lot better than the AIs. In this game, the town north of my capital was going to be my "production city", but my capital ended up being one for most of the game. In the end, Cologne from the Germans ended up being the best to receive West Point and National Epic - go figure.

So, my city placement/specialisation is what I really need to work on, although I think I have the cottage spam mostly right.

 

[Nials]

Your priority in each city should be granary, library then barracks. Courthouses are wasted production at this stage. With your cities so small the courthouse is only going to save you 1 or 2 gold, and it'd be better to build granarys and let the cities grow so they can work more tiles, to get the money that way.

I disagree.

City specialization is key. Identify a city that has good potential to become a production powerhouse, let it build military buildings such as barracks, later on drydock, etc., and let it do nothing but produce military units.
The only buildings that should be built in this city should be ones that help raise production / health / happiness. That is it.

Check out some of the specialization threads. They really helped me improve my skill on Noble.

EDIT: Oh and one more thing. Adopt Slavery

 

[jimbob27]

I dunno..... I don't like to over specialise my cities because it can leave you weak if you loose a city you're particularly reliant on. I've had games where all my troops were produced in 2-3 cities.... which I then lost, which ruined my game.

I like to get my cities to a basic all-round level to start of with, then start specialising a bit later on. I'll plan what city is gonna do what, but don't start specialising till every city has a barracks and is producing a reasonable amount of currency/beakers. I'll specialise them by how I work their tiles, but in the end a lot my cities get most of the buildings regardless of their usage.

On higher levels I find my production cities need grocers and harbors to get the health and happyness bonuses, and everywhere needs a forge and factory so you can get the building bonuses quicker; regardless of what you're doing in that city. If you're going for a space race, you suddenly discover you need all the science buildings in your production cities, to get the labotories to speed up the space ships, so you might as well get build them sooner when you've got a spare moment.

I have a barracks in most of my cities because..... well........ if I was an AI I'd be less popular than monty

 

[uncarved block]

Solo4114, just remember that you can't run Free Religion and get this advantage-- a mistake I made more than once, when I got curious what had happened to those huge stacks of Grenadiers Caesar had had 25 turns earlier. He never attacked me, but that was a bit of the burned hand approach to learning about that little wrinkle.

 

[Uiler]

I disagree.

City specialization is key. Identify a city that has good potential to become a production powerhouse, let it build military buildings such as barracks, later on drydock, etc., and let it do nothing but produce military units.
The only buildings that should be built in this city should be ones that help raise production / health / happiness. That is it.

Check out some of the specialization threads. They really helped me improve my skill on Noble.

EDIT: Oh and one more thing. Adopt Slavery

I disagree. I play Noble and win handily practically every time with random leaders, different land types (continents, archipeligo, pangea), random climate and sea level etc. I usually am No. 1 in tech, wealth, land, population, and production by a significant margin and in the top 2 in military. The computer rarely sees fit to give me financial or industrious leaders in the random leader settings either so I don't have those powerhouse traits. In fact I seem to get Aggressive a lot which is useless as I tend to be a builder. I never specalise cities. Maybe you need to on higher levels but Noble definitely doesn't need specialisation. However, I do take a good look at each city before building things to make sure they are actually useful.

 

[bob rulz]

If you're winning that easily you should move up a difficulty level (don't know what the next one up is...).

 

[Nials]

I like to get my cities to a basic all-round level to start of with, then start specialising a bit later on. I'll plan what city is gonna do what, but don't start specialising till every city has a barracks and is producing a reasonable amount of currency/beakers. I'll specialise them by how I work their tiles, but in the end a lot my cities get most of the buildings regardless of their usage.

I do not understand why you would want to build a barracks in every city. Those that severely lack production should not be relied upon to produce military in the first place.
I agree though that some cities have good potential to produce both very reasonable commerce and hammers and should receive more buildings.

In the end it is not so much about which buildings you should build where as it is in which order you build them.

On higher levels I find my production cities need grocers and harbors to get the health and happyness bonuses, and everywhere needs a forge and factory so you can get the building bonuses quicker; regardless of what you're doing in that city. If you're going for a space race, you suddenly discover you need all the science buildings in your production cities, to get the labotories to speed up the space ships, so you might as well get build them sooner when you've got a spare moment.

I have a barracks in most of my cities because..... well........ if I was an AI I'd be less popular than monty

Agreed, you typically need to improve health and happiness in all of your cities at some point. I do not agree with the factory part. There is no reason to put a factory in a poor production city and waste valuable hammers producing it.

I disagree. I play Noble and win handily practically every time with random leaders, different land types (continents, archipeligo, pangea), random climate and sea level etc. I usually am No. 1 in tech, wealth, land, population, and production by a significant margin and in the top 2 in military. The computer rarely sees fit to give me financial or industrious leaders in the random leader settings either so I don't have those powerhouse traits. In fact I seem to get Aggressive a lot which is useless as I tend to be a builder. I never specalise cities. Maybe you need to on higher levels but Noble definitely doesn't need specialisation. However, I do take a good look at each city before building things to make sure they are actually useful.

I agree that specialization is probably not needed on Noble. I was able to win most of the time as well up to a point where I still did not specialize cities.
What I am saying is that assigning different cities to different tasks makes everything more efficient and improves your civ more than trying to do everything everywhere 

 

[Solo4114]

Solo4114, just remember that you can't run Free Religion and get this advantage-- a mistake I made more than once, when I got curious what had happened to those huge stacks of Grenadiers Caesar had had 25 turns earlier. He never attacked me, but that was a bit of the burned hand approach to learning about that little wrinkle.

Very good point, although you can also supplement this with explorers and open borders (if you trust the guy or have a strong enough military not to care). Alternatively, you can use spies once you have the technology.

I do still maintain that (from my own experience anyway) you have to REALLY carefully consider trying to exterminate a civ, and are often far better off simply messing with the civ, taking a city or two, and then suing for peace. You don't have to kill the other guy, just make sure he's weaker than you and stays that way.

I just started a new game on Warlord (I'm still testing out some theories for strategies) and ran into Alexander pretty early on. He's my next-door neighbor and I know from what others have said that he's NOT to be trusted. I'm seriously debating, once I have three or four cities established, waging a war of extinction, but only because he's probably only got one or two cities himself, and I've got some pretty good positioning production-wise.

Later in the game, if I'd expanded my civ and suddenly found my borders touching his, I'd be much more likely to take a city or two of his, pillage his resources, and try to slow him down some. Maybe repeat that process every 20 years or so, assuming I can keep him from expanding elsewhere, and gradually whittle him down or just keep him weak so I can pursue other means to victory.

 

[A_Turkish_Guy]

If you're winning that easily you should move up a difficulty level (don't know what the next one up is...).

winning easily is not a sign to move up for the next level.try a best score and if you get the score you should the next level.and do the same thing.if you do that you will be an elite player.

 

[Solo4114]

I do not understand why you would want to build a barracks in every city. Those that severely lack production should not be relied upon to produce military in the first place.

I can see a value for this on occasion, if you have a more far-flung empire and want to make sure your border towns can produce reasonably well trained units if you need them. In the old Civ 1 and 2 days (and I think even in Civ 3), barracks healed your garrisoned troops in one turn (if memory serves), and made up an essential part of any city's defenses, so this approach may be a holdover from those days. Now that barracks only give you a bonus for your units, the main reason I could see to build a barracks would be to let the city build trained units in a pinch.



As a side issue, what do you guys think of the strategy of having certain specialized cities, as well as more generalized cities?