Noble Advice needed!!!

[Unconventional]

Hello guys! I've been playing civilization bts for almost three years but I've been merely able to beat warlord level.Recently I've got many domination victories and scored as Augustus Caesar at warlord.It's now really easy to beat warlord so I decided to try a noble game and before doing that I read some helpful threats about noble level (including Orion's home school) and above and I learned many useful tips.Now I'm playing a noble game but it's really difficult for me to keep up with the AI.I mean I haven't messed up yet and I'm in the middle of both power rank and the score table.I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.I'm playing as Elizabeth for her being financial anf philosophical and as far as I know they're very strong traits.I've tried to imrove my cities as far as I can but I still don't know what I'm missing.I added my save game and I need some help. I would really appreciate if you tell me my mistakes with city management,diplomacy and military so far and thanks for your help.

 

[kossin]

Too many bloody unimproved tiles. And your 5 workers are either asleep or I dunno...

Also, stagnating your capital at size 6 by 1370AD isn't a great idea.
3 of your cities don't even have a granary.

I could go on and on...

What you need is to learn city management! Specialization...

->what does every city need?
1. Food! Settle the food resources.

exception: you can settle a food-less city for some resources you absolutely need (happy, strategic etc.)​

2. A granary!!!

A granary stores the food you accumulate up to 50% of your food bar, making growing take half as long.​

3. A specialization'

Not every city is good at making a lot of things. Some can only focus on commerce, some on GPP, some on hammers, etc.​

I would suggest you try the Noble's Club and after playing a number of turns compare your game with other games posted there. You'll see how differently they played and pick up tips by learning rather than mindlessly applying a rule you don't understand (and possibly apply it in the wrong context).

 

[Jbourne]

Can't see the game at work.

Are you using her traits?

Cottages and a GP farm is a must for Elizabeth.

Do you have at least 1 worker per city? I hear 1.5 workers per city is better.

Do you let the city grow to its max happy asap?

Most cases your first build should be a worker followed by warriors and let the city grow. This depend on the available resources. When there are seafood near, build a WB using the most hammer rich tile even if it mean no growth. Then use the seafood while building your worker and after to lett your city grow.

Tech depend upon resorces available around the capital and if nothing available then at least get pottary for cottages and then writing to build the library to run 2 scientists. after that all is dependent on what and who is around.

 

[Unconventional]

Too many bloody unimproved tiles. And your 5 workers are either asleep or I dunno...

Also, stagnating your capital at size 6 by 1370AD isn't a great idea.
3 of your cities don't even have a granary.

I could go on and on...

What you need is to learn city management! Specialization...

->what does every city need?
1. Food! Settle the food resources.

exception: you can settle a food-less city for some resources you absolutely need (happy, strategic etc.)​

2. A granary!!!

A granary stores the food you accumulate up to 50% of your food bar, making growing take half as long.​

3. A specialization'

Not every city is good at making a lot of things. Some can only focus on commerce, some on GPP, some on hammers, etc.​

I would suggest you try the Noble's Club and after playing a number of turns compare your game with other games posted there. You'll see how differently they played and pick up tips by learning rather than mindlessly applying a rule you don't understand (and possibly apply it in the wrong context).

Thanks for advice but I have a question about city specialization. To be honest with you I didn't think about each city's location specifically but I considered about the functions of some cities when I built them.I mean there was jao close to me with his cheap settlers and I tried to be as quick as I can to claim the strategic resources and Saladin&Huayna Capac were also expanding faster than me so I don't think I had the time to think over about city locations cause I had to hurry up.Besides that while I was trying to expand Capac and Saladin began demanding tribute so I was afraid and a little confused so I tried to keep up with the military but that cost me many buildings and improvements.How can I choose the best possible location for cities while the AIs are expanding rapidly.I mean I see a place with one or two food resources and a couple of hills and a river and I think this would be a good production city but when I send my settler(as quickly as I can) I see it already taken by an AI so I have to settle down somewhere else which is probably not a good location as the previous one.(maybe I should try bigger maps to have enough space). When I follow those game posts I see that experienced players are able to choose best locations easily even at emperor level.How can they do that? I also chop down forests to speed things up.Maybe it's because I never tried whipping? Is that really that helpful? By the way I'll check the noble's club again.

 

[tinstaafl]

Slavery is helpful, but not the issue here. It really only helps after granaries. You will found your second city without it, and usually your third. I looked into the save. Your 2nd and third city were founded 1440BC and 950BC. That's very late. Try to aim for 2400BC and 2000 BC respectively, for now. That means usually doing the following: building a worker, improving the tiles that give high food/hammers (research the techs needed for the improvements you need first).

After the worker, grow to size 2-4 depending on how many good tiles you have, build warriors until then. Then, typically build settler worker settler worker worker.
Don't build stonehenge for now.

note: You had a food poor start, so that was unlucky. There was really only one good tile so probably settler at size 2 with farmed rice and a mined plains hill. The arabs never should have founded Kufah. Would have been a good 2nd city, in fact.
Oh, and try to take out Barbarian cities with a force of 3 or 4 swordsmen.

In the 2nd part of the early game, as was mentioned, grow every city to your happines limit! You can't have a size 6 capital when it has 14 happiness.

 

[Unconventional]

Slavery is helpful, but not the issue here. It really only helps after granaries. You will found your second city without it, and usually your third. I looked into the save. Your 2nd and third city were founded 1440BC and 950BC. That's very late. Try to aim for 2400BC and 2000 BC respectively, for now. That means usually doing the following: building a worker, improving the tiles that give high food/hammers (research the techs needed for the improvements you need first).

After the worker, grow to size 2-4 depending on how many good tiles you have, build warriors until then. Then, typically build settler worker settler worker worker.
Don't build stonehenge for now.

note: You had a food poor start, so that was unlucky. There was really only one good tile so probably settler at size 2 with farmed rice and a mined plains hill. The arabs never should have founded Kufah. Would have been a good 2nd city, in fact.
Oh, and try to take out Barbarian cities with a force of 3 or 4 swordsmen.

In the 2nd part of the early game, as was mentioned, grow every city to your happines limit! You can't have a size 6 capital when it has 14 happiness.

Okey then I'll try another game and won't bother with wonders and try to expand earlier by producing Worker+warrior(till city grows to size 4) then settler+worker...

But how many cities should I built? And should I build monuments in my new cities or barracks?Or should I just build what the city's specialization requires?If I do that the borders of the cities wouldn't expand?Maybe I should try to find confucianism through oracle and then spread it to new cities?Should I give oracle a shot or just build it if I have marble?What about the early AI threats? I generally give whatever they want to buy some time but should built an early army and do an early rush if I have a strategic resource like horse or copper?Or just do as you said and expand? I know too many questions but I really appreciate your help, thanks.

 

[amalgam]

But how many cities should I built? And should I build monuments in my new cities or barracks?Or should I just build what the city's specialization requires?If I do that the borders of the cities wouldn't expand?Maybe I should try to find confucianism through oracle and then spread it to new cities?Should I give oracle a shot or just build it if I have marble?What about the early AI threats? I generally give whatever they want to buy some time but should built an early army and do an early rush if I have a strategic resource like horse or copper?Or just do as you said and expand?

These are all really, really subjective questions. The thing about this game is that there are not a lot of 100% true, always-do-this rules; nearly everything is flexible to some degree.

For instance, if your neighbor is a Creative Civ and his borders start stealing some of your resources from one of your cities, you might consider either a Monument, Library, etc. to fight back against its borders. Or you might consider using your early rush against that Civ instead to relieve that cultural pressure. Either one works.

Wonders are certainly somewhat easier on lower difficulties, but the higher up you go the less likely you are to obtain them. However, I would try to abstain from building one in the very early game unless you have extremely early access to Marble/Stone. and even then it may or not be the optimal course of action.

The other problem is your diplomacy. You said you normally just give in when the AIs demand tribute. This is probably a poor way to look at it. You'll likely want to do this just for the neighboring Civs (the ones you are about to wipe out) so they stay amiable and in happy-build mode for a bit longer or so they are less likely to declare war on you first. The further away the Civ is from my starting location, the less likely I am to give in to tribute.

Now there is one exception to this rule: triangle diplomacy. Basically pick two Civs you want to ally with in the game and then do almost everything you can to help them out. Make trades, share a religion (if necessary), etc, but don't give up your advantage. Pick two AI Civs that either research tech that you can trade for to backfill what you skipped or that you know can be a reliable ally in times of war. The three of you will be a "triangle" alliance of sorts: everyone else can piss off. As a final note, try to keep your two allies in the middle of the pack on score: you don't want to be in this alliance with a Civ that might stand a chance of being your late-game competition for victory unless you KNOW you can overtake the AI's rate. Remember, the higher the difficulty, the more bonuses the AI gets toward research, so plan carefully.

The other consideration to be made is what exactly the AI is demanding from you. For instance, I am reluctant personally to give Montezuma any military techs due to his somewhat extreme belligerence. I like to keep him nice and backwards so if he becomes a problem he can be easily rolled over and his land incorporated into my empire.

Just keep in mind that all of this is somewhat flexible. Like I said, there are very few courses of action that are 100% right across all games and difficulties.

 

[DaveMcW]

Build at least 6 cities.
Press Ctrl R to turn on resource bubbles.
Build 1.5 workers per city.
Check F9 Demographics often.
Stay near the top in soldiers.

 

[tinstaafl]

Rushes can be powerful but you need not rush every game. Giving in to Ai demands can often be a good idea. You can build the oracle without marble but you should have good reasons to build it, with or without.

Monuments are a very typical build in most of your new cities. It is often the first build, so that the city can access all its tiles. granaries are another default build. Baracks on the other hand should only be built in select cities.

For noble games on a large map, as a standard beginning, try if you can manage to found 8 cities by 200 or 300ADfor now. At the same time try to build 11-13 workers.
(You can actually build more cities /workers in that timeframe, especially on levels like noble). The reason why you want to have that many workers is that while you want to grow your cities to your happy cap (after initial expansion), you also do not want them to work any unimproved tiles. Working unimproved tiles just does not give enough of a return for the food cost of growing to work them.
Make 2 of those cities, cities that have 3-5 hills and some food, unit production centers. Those get barracks. They don't get marketplaces or universities because those buidlings multiply science or gold, which those cities typically won't produce. This is specializing: by assigning cities certain roles, you save on buildings.

In your other cities, focus on commerce. Those cities will get libraries, marketplaces and so on. The science buildings are of higher priority. they do not need baracks or stables, and sometimes not even forges. As for their land, cottaging most of their tiles is a simple strategy that should be good enough on noble. Beware that it will not work very well if you have a of of brown land and no food. So try to get at least one food ressource per city. Especially your second and or third city should be settled near some good food/production so that they can help with expansion before they assume their respecive roles (military or commerce).

Build workers in your somewhat established cities and scatter them to all cities, when a new city is built a worker should be there improving the land as soon as possible, so that you don't work unimproved tiles often. The new city should build its essential buildings (often monument, always granary, sometimes library sometimes barracks) because they can only be built there. Workers can be built anywhere, and will cap the grwoth of a city, thus, they should be build in the cities that have already grown/have their basic buildings.

Note that there are other ways to open, and the land/enemies you are dealt may dictate other, especially on higher levels. But the above is a basic strategy that adresses typical low-level-play errors. I hope you can get anything from this, it's hard to anticipate what you could do wrong and how tips are understood or maybe misunderstood. Another problem is that it is probably too general. As mentioned,it may be better if you join one of the noble's club games, where all play the same game and compare. You can get more detail about why someone thinks on this map, research order should be so and so, or city x should be founded first, or a settler should be built on size x in this case.

 

[lymond]

Try to get in a habit of getting out a 2nd worker either right before or right after the first settler, depending on how fast you get the cap improved and how productive it is - or the need to expand quickly. If you get BW early, note that chopping forests adds hammers that speed production. Chopping is a great way of getting out additional workers or settlers - as well as wonders - but for now focus on using chopping for expansion (which means workers/settlers). By the time your 1st settler is complete there should be enough improvements in your cap to so that it's likely 3 or 4 citizen are working improved tiles (specials first, of course). The 1st worker can follow the 1st settler to new city to start improvements. Ideally, if you have The Wheel already you have started a road to the new city site or you can have the second worker just built create this road. A road between these two cities creates a trade route for additional commerce (but also note that rivers can create trade routes and roads to rivers, so utilize that to decrease worker turns devoted to roading). As your cap continues to grow to it's happy cap (likely 5 to 7 depending on Leader or resources), make sure a worker is laying down additional improvements so that the city is never working unimproved tiles. After building that first worker and the few turns after to improve a couple of tiles, the cap should never be working unimproved tiles nor should any city.

As far as early rushes, my general rule is to hit an AI if they are within 10 tiles of your cap, especially if you pop copper or horses in your BFC or close by with a second city. Warrior rushes are not out of the question either at Noble level, but I generally don't do them. Nice thing about early rushes is you are generally going to net yourself a very nice second city - sometimes a better site than your cap. You may get additional cities depending on how that AI has expanded, but I would not keep conquered cities if they are marginal. In the case of early rushes, so with chariots, you would do this in lieu of getting out that first settler early, unless you need a second settler to grab a strategic resource for better units.

 

[Jbourne]

But how many cities should I built? And should I build monuments in my new cities or barracks?Or should I just build what the city's specialization requires?If I do that the borders of the cities wouldn't expand?Maybe I should try to find confucianism through oracle and then spread it to new cities?Should I give oracle a shot or just build it if I have marble?What about the early AI threats? I generally give whatever they want to buy some time but should built an early army and do an early rush if I have a strategic resource like horse or copper?Or just do as you said and expand? I know too many questions but I really appreciate your help, thanks.

# of cities depend upon your available Techs. However, a good rule of thumb I use is to build as many cities that will allow me to keep science at 50% at least in a cottage economy when all cities are connected for trade. As cities get CH's and the commerce cities get markets/banks/groce, the science rate will go up. And if you secure areas for more cities, then you can build them or get it from AI.

 

[Unconventional]

I have considered your advice and criticism and started another game.This time I've played more carefully and spent much more time thinking and planing.I focused on early expansion and founded 6 cities ASAP but when my research decreased to 30% I decided to cease axpansion for a while(Recently I founded one more city).I have also tried to found cities at the best possible locations.I've spent much time with micro management but I know it's far from perfect.Now I've reconstructed my economy up to a level so I can raise my research slider to 60% again. After a war with Ragnar Izzy wanted to be my vassal and I accepted cause I think I can benefit from her beakers.I decided to stop here and request your advice again. A save is included. I looked at the diplomacy table of Ragnar and noticed that he doesn't want to fight with others but he's building an army very fast and I see some stacks of troops around my borders.Is he planing to attack me? If so what should I do? I can attack before he does cause the power gap b/w us is not so great but I'm afraid of his berserkers and he also has longbows.Anyway I will not continue till I here from you.

 

[jabberwalkee_]

If you are having trouble beating noble I suggest a thorough read of Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners
. The sections on how to run your economy and city specialisation are a must.

 

[huerfanista]

London is working 9 unimproved tiles. 3 of those are riverside grassland, which should have been cottaged long ago - they'd be towns by now. It's really bad to work unimproved tiles - either improve them or whip away the pop that's working them.

Nottingham is the next city which will produce a GS, but it's working an unimproved pig. It could easily have 2 more scientists assigned if you improved the pig, which would get you a GS in5 turns instead of 9.

Warwick is working a watermill (which is a terrible improvement to a riverside grass tile, especially pre-RP, cottage it instead) for 211, but if you chop the jungle on those elephants they'll yield 221 each. You should chop and mine the grass hill as well.

For a financial leader, riverside grass tiles are some of the best tiles to be working. You should cottage and work them early and often!

Why are you building colosseums in cities that are 4-5 below their happy cap? Build units or wealth, or something useful.

There's a barb city SW of London that you should be able to capture easily. Build a settler and raze it (you have maces - use them) and resettle 2S of the lake to grab corn, gold, and iron. It's got hills and grassland and will make a fine production city with chain irrigation.

Settle more cities - there's still unclaimed land, even if it means jungle. That means more workers as well. Settle that river to the SE - lots of juicy riverside cottages there.

Qin is the only one who will declare war at pleased. You're safe from all of the others as long as you're at pleased or better.

What's your plan for victory? If it's conquest/domination, you should beeline rifling to enable your UU. Use the next GS to bulb education, then go banking> PP > RP> gunpowder> rifling.

 

[tinstaafl]

To be fair, the unimproved pig was destroyed in a volcano eruption 1 turn ago.

As far as london goes: Since your other cities are improved somewhat okish, it almost seems like leaving london unimproved was a deliberate plan. This happens somewhat regularly: A player thinks that he should keep all those forests because he likes lumber mills. Is that why you did it? If so, it is not a good idea. The reason being that these tiles could have been contributing much more for a while now already. Something you may have to learn is that earlier higher yields are worth more, much more, than keeping forests around because you want lumber mills in the renaissance. The commerce cottages could have produced, especially in the capital, would see you even farther ahead of the AI in terms of tech than you are now. You would then be in a position now to take out Ragnar with unit classes that he couldn't possibly stand up too.

As for the future of this game: I would wait a little to take ragnar out. For the threat of him attacking you, 3 crossbowmen in york will do. Tech to cannons, then build 8-10 muskets and 8-10 cannons, probably enough. be sure to get engineering from Qin shi huang before you tech chemistry. While you wait, settle the jungle southwest, and take that barb city in the area. You settled your cities unusually far apart btw. That is some part of your higher maintenance cost and reason you had to stop expansion (but the unimproved capital is the more important error). on the plus side, you now have a lot of land and can backfill in cities. for example the pigs/wheat east of your capital (that should probably have been your 2nd city the position of york looks more like a third city). Don't be afraid of some overlap, even when first expanding - in fact, with certain specializing strategies (search forums for bureau capital and GP farms, but you can probably do fine without for now) overlap can be a good thing!
When backfilling, actually don't be afraid of overlap at all. Come biology, even cities that have only 6 plains are somewhat worthwhile (if you find time to find a settler between more important jobs).

You might tech optics before teching to cannons, and check if you are ahead or if there is a strong AI on the other continent.

Edit: Oh, yes. redcoats. I kinda prefer cannons/muskets. Anyways, you could also do redcoats. If you do, you can build lumbermills in london, since they are close now. I would probably still prefer cottaging london though, even now.

Edit. The Road Networks that you built around your cities look decidedly civ2ish to me. Roading every tile when you still have hilsl to improve, jungle to chop, cottages to build, and so on, does nothing in civ4.