Noble crushing!

[FarbroBarbro]

Hello,

I have recently played a Noble game as Huayna Capac. I was the undisputed game leader until somewhere in the 1700's, when two of my neighbours decide to attack me. Hey, those Knights look like they need some perforating by my Riflemen, was my thought.

The attackers were Sitting Bull, and the korean guy, Wank On, I hate him. I stationed my stacks of cannons and riflemen on my borders and in the cities as the enemies roll in stacks of about 30 units, non stop. I crush the initial invasion, however, they won't stop!

Wave after wave of huge stacks of Knights and Trebuchets come in, until they have annihilated me. Game Over!

Why did Firaxis think that giving the AI unlimited amounts of units was fair? Okey, I understand if this was the case in Deity or something else, but Noble?!?!? Have you also experienced this?

 

[Iranon]

Did you play with Aggressive AI on by any chance? Otherwise, my experience has been that the AI is better at research than production, so that might have been a bit of an oddity.

Generally speaking, the AI plays mostly fair (no hidden advantages) and on Noble there are no significant handicaps on either side.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

you know what it sounds like. it sounds like the 2 ai's had early war in game, then peace. during peace they continued building defense unit and offense units, but didn't get into any wars. then one signed a peace treaty (or even more likely was a vassal of the other from previous war) and they both hit you with there reserves. i have seen ai civs stack 30 units PER CITY during peace!!!!

best way to beat this: either keep up your war on them (non stop) or make sure they are fighting each other (needs lots of diplomatic clout tho)

 

[Jerrymander]

You obviously don't know how to handle the AI if they beat you at Noble with obsolete units.

Build more units.

 

[digitCruncher]

Don't knock him. The axtecs SOMEHOW spammed 3~4 units a turn, over 10 cities, all taking 10 turns to complete each unit. That added up, and meant that I killed nearly 200 units in 1 single war. It was pathetic... but REALLY slowed me down.

Defending against such large stacks is relatively easy, if you know how. The problem is that you can't over-come them, and they weaken you as well, so you fall behind

 

[FarbroBarbro]

You obviously don't know how to handle the AI if they beat you at Noble with obsolete units.

Build more units.

I know, trust me. It is just the grotesque quantities of troops... Well, I guess I'll have to cut back on wonder building and other . .. .. .. .. . culture work.

Thanks for the replies everybody!

 

[MyOlde]

I sympathise with FarbroBarbro. I've tried Noble a few times now and just don't get it. I quickly fall behind and can't figure out how to catch up. Even maintaining up to date military doesn't get the job done. I'd love to hear a general beginning strategy for Noble.

 

[nstutt]

I sympathise with FarbroBarbro. I've tried Noble a few times now and just don't get it. I quickly fall behind and can't figure out how to catch up. Even maintaining up to date military doesn't get the job done. I'd love to hear a general beginning strategy for Noble.

I am not at all certain that the AI doesnt cheat - but the main thing I hate about the way Civ has gone now is that it is just far far too war centred. In the original game you had loads of interesting things to do, little windows that popped up, alright there were wars etc but it wasnt the main focus of the game. In Civ 4 you HAVE TO create a mass of soldier units etc just to stay alive. Its just not fun.

This constant dribble of masses of fighting units has been a problem in loads of games Age of Empires being a particular worthy example, also Cossacks. And now CIV4 suffers from it.

Its definitely in my mind been caused by developers designing to the needs of the minor fraternity out there who love a massive challenge in every game they play and know exaclty how to exploit the AI and are experts on every calculation done in the game. It is this type of gamer that is ruining these games for everyone else who just wants a reasonable challenge but essentially wants to WIN! There is no fun in losing games time and time again. Once developers start reasing this we m,ight actually get some interesting games that are fun to play for 'the average gamer'.

Personally I enjoy playing on the easier difficulty levels but I dont like the idea that I am getting bonuses over the AI players. There must be other fairer ways of designing games so that they are more pleasant to play without resorting to just raising or reducing bonuses. Its a sign of the times that developers are resorting to cheating to make games scalable

Nats

 

[AluminumKnight]

The AI doesn't recieve any bonuses in Noble, whether you think it does or not.

Although Civ4 isn't exactly historically accurate, it's supposed to simulate civilizations. If you sit there and spam wonders and culture buildings and neglect military, you WILL get attacked and conquered, just like in the real world. Don't whine that you have to build military to survive. You can still win without fighting an offensive war, you just have to have enough troops.

Keep an eye on your neighbors border cities, power graph, and trade options, and you will know when they're gearing up to attack you. What kind of nation in the real world would respond to a troop buildup on their borders by building another Cathedral? The situation in the OP could have been avoided by looking at this. Clearly, Wang and Sitting Bull would have had larger power graphs if they were able to send endless waves of Knights and Trebs at him. You could try to pit them against someone else, or trade them resources to stall them while you train/draft riflemen, who if you have a decent amount, should be able to hold off any number of Knights. If you can, tech to Cavalry, or use Cuirassiers, to flank those Trebs so they don't do anything. Plus, these mounted units should slaughter any defensive units brought along.

 

[bddp]

I know, trust me. It is just the grotesque quantities of troops... Well, I guess I'll have to cut back on wonder building and other . .. .. .. .. . culture work.

Thanks for the replies everybody!

Unfortunately, that's a hump we all must get over. It's not necessary to make a bigger army, just a smart one. Build forts on your borders and park some defensive units in them. Build siege weapons to counter SoDs.

It's tempting to go all out wonder building, but it's important to keep your eye on the Power graph. I find if I can keep myself close to the top of it, then I'm doing pretty okay when the AI decides to DoW.

 

[eewallace]

The first thing I learned after switching from warlord level to noble was to stop the wonderspamming and prioritize my military. And the second thing I learned was to either make sure I shared a religion with any loony AIs at my borders, or wiped them out early in the game.

 

[occam]

The AI doesn't recieve (sic) any bonuses in Noble, whether you think it does or not.

Such a resounding tone of authority! But quite wrong....

At ALL levels the AI receives some bonuses over the human player... the relevant ones to this situation:
1. Lower upgrade costs (AI pays 30% vs human on noble)
2. Lower war weariness penalties (AI feels 70% vs human)
3. Better diplomatic relations with other AIs (non-quantifiable)
4. Lower supply costs (AI pays 35% vs human)

The lower upgrade costs mean that instead of a stack of warriors, horse archers, and a couple swordpersons, the OP must face pure maces & knights. The lower war weariness penalties mean that the AIs can lose SoD after SoD and still function. The better diplomatic relations with other AIs mean that the AIs are too peaceful with one another so those stacks accumulate. Lower supply costs mean that many SoDs are sustainable by the AI, and saves gold for (cheaply) upgrading them.

It is astonishing how much just one change - giving the AI full upgrade costs - changes the game. Try it at home!

 

[occam]

FarbroBarbro,

Are you using the medic line of promotions, btw? Very important when you have a smaller but more advanced army.

 

[Roxlimn]

I must admit that I've never had the rather unusual experience of being swamped under by AI troops on Noble. If anything, I find AI armies on Noble fairly pathetic.

 

[Kesshi]

I must admit that I've never had the rather unusual experience of being swamped under by AI troops on Noble. If anything, I find AI armies on Noble fairly pathetic.

Roxlimn,

I've lost an entire stack of units to a backwards Civ on a Warlord game once. I'm now an Emperor + player but about 6 months ago when I was first learning the game a friend of mine asked me to play the same game as her. She sent me the 4000BC save, and it was on the Warlord difficulty. I was a Noble player at the time, but I didn't know how to change the difficulty so I just played as Warlord. By the end of the game I had a huge empire and had secured the game with a spaceship win that was coming very shortly. Knowing this, I decided "what the heck" and declared war on someone who had been picking on an ally of mine. I had two super stacks of doom. Both of them had over 80 modern units, most of them with 5 experience or more and I'm trudging through the enemy territory taking down cities with minimal losses (razing them all) and what do I see the computer do? Cannon spam one of the stacks! I chuckled as he attacked my units with the first 10 cannons. By around 20 I was only smirking. Around 30 I was getting worried. When all was said and done, I think the computer hit me with around 50 or 60 cannons, and the CPU had lost most of them. But then he started with the real units. My tanks were dying! I lost a lot of tanks and most every other unit in that stack. This was on Warlord!

Granted I've improved greatly since then, but the computer still suicides into my units with 200, 300, 500, 1000 year out of date siege units. Sometimes it even manages to kill a few of my units, too!

 

[FarbroBarbro]

FarbroBarbro,

Are you using the medic line of promotions, btw? Very important when you have a smaller but more advanced army.

Hmm, generally not. I usually promote ONE of my units in the stack the medic way. Is it worth it to entirely focus on medic promotions?

 

[Jerrymander]

I know, trust me. It is just the grotesque quantities of troops... Well, I guess I'll have to cut back on wonder building and other . .. .. .. .. . culture work.

Thanks for the replies everybody!

Yeah, you end up doing that on every level you go up.
Eventually you'll spend 90% of your time building units.

 

[Roxlimn]

Kesshi:

I have to say that I have had that experience with massive AI stacks also, except that the AI has never had a chance to Cannon spam me, since I've always made it a point to have good intelligence. Goes back to my Protoss-playing days. Observers are the ultimate secret weapon!

It gets tiring having to wipe out 200 unit stacks, but with Blitz units, it's much easier. If you want it real easy, just wage defensive war. Lure them in to a 100% (or high value) your culture tile, then eliminate the siege weapons with mounted flankers.

Really, on a normal size map, 30 unit stacks can be defended against indefinitely. It's even profitable for you since you'll usually use less units than the enemy invading Civ, and you'll be able to rack up XP for units and GGs. I think it's the culture, too. I've a bad habit of wanting lots of cultural pressure radiating outwards from my border cities. I didn't know that it helped reduce my WW until later on.

 

[occam]

Hmm, generally not. I usually promote ONE of my units in the stack the medic way. Is it worth it to entirely focus on medic promotions?

No, a scattered few medics is the right approach, sounds good.

Another idea: when the war is declared, do you change civics to wartime ones that let you respond faster/better? If you have a tech advantage, drafting and/or whipping can help quickly solve a numerical disparity. It is probably ok (on noble) to build way too many wonders as long as you then take the wars very seriously as they arise.

 

[Meester_henk]

In Civ 4 you HAVE TO create a mass of soldier units etc just to stay alive. Its just not fun.

I agree, but island and small continent maps are different. I built only 1 -2 units per city. In the end I had same warriors defending cities and I never had a war.

It takes much more effort from AI to make amphibious landing, so AI is not very eager to even start wars in water maps.

In fact these maps are usually almost too easy in noble.