Playing again after long timeout - trouble beating Noble

mtu

Warlord
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Heyas! It's been a long time since I seriously played Civ IV (the forums just told me I last logged in FOUR YEARS ago :eek:), but now I'm feeling like it again.

I'm more or less at the same point I was at those couple of years ago: I have no problem winning at Warlord, but I can't seem to win at Noble. I've read up on some Noble strategy, and I've learned a few things that I apparently did wrong before (prioritize Food, use Slavery intensely, don't hesitate to expand quickly, attack close rivals early). Playing these strategies, I'm able to get a strong expansion and an adequate defense going, but I can't seem to win the first war, because I don't have enough strong units.

I've attached a game where this is the case, the save is from the turn before I attack Genghis Khan, only to find out there are not enough Axemen in my stacks and suffering defeat. Maybe you could take a look at my game and give me an overview of what I can still do better. I appreciate it! :goodjob:
 

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  • Michael BC-0925.CivBeyondSwordSave
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A city on a hill with 50% culture defense is a tough nut to crack pre-catapults.

I would just go for those other two cities he has. Break off one axe and one spear to go pillage that iron he has near the capital, and cut the rode to the city that has the horse near it. Meanwhile send your main force to conquer the bronze city. Then send it to conquer the horse city. Make peace and wait til catapults to conquer the capital; he will be too weak to be a threat to you after being reduced to one city.
 
Alright, comments regarding your save:

a. Some of your cities are working unimproved tiles; I rerouted some of the workers to improve them.
b. Not enough workers; you have 3 workers to four cities. The general ratio is 1-2 workers for every city. In your case, you'd want to add 3 or more then improve your tiles like crazy.
c. Your attack stacks are separated; 5 units per city is NOT going to cut it. I suggest add several more axes/chariots (I think you're beelining to HBR for HAs, if so, you may want to wait a bit) and combine them all in a single SoD and drive it into the heart of Genghis's empire :hammer:
d. Techpath; self-researching IW is usually not recommended, and, in this case, I believe you don't really need it yet. You have copper and horses for an axe/chariot rush which you should have easily pulled off. Of course, being Egypt, WChariot>axemen in most (if not all) aspects ;)
e. You have ivory; maybe researching construction for the Ele-pult may be a reasonable path? I'm not saying you shouldn't bash Genghis (in fact, I would kill him too), but you CAN use it to bump off more AI easily :D
f. You can fit in a decent production city 2N1E of Thebes; it has 2 food sources (clams and fish) plus four hills for production. You can also settle more land to the south and southeast of your empire; I'd recommend placing a city close to the ivory before an AI decides to claim it for himself and steal it culturally :)

Well, that's all I've managed to check, gl :goodjob:

(Didn't really change much on the save; just the thing regarding workers and merging both stacks of units)
 

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  • Michael BC-0925.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Welcome back. :)

I took a quick look at the save and there are indeed a few things needing to be addressed.

Firstly, the timing of the chariot rush....925 BC is getting very late. If using chariots, try and aim to put something together by turn 60 -70. You can certainly get away with going later on noble - but the earlier the better.

Another thing that sticks out is that you decided to build a few cities in addition to putting the chariot rush together. In other words, you seem to have tried to “have your cake and eat it too.” This takes me to another point that’s key to the early rush: focus. If you’re rushing, your main goal needs to be simply: build a large enough army as quickly as possible.

To that end, if you have the save to hand, I’d suggest starting over – but this time (assuming you want to rush) proceed by building only the second city you need to access chariots – and then building nothing but (i) a barracks if you want one (ii) chariots and (iii) another worker or two. Whilst having those extra cities expands the size of your empire, all those hammers invested in settlers could instead be invested in chariots to help build you a bigger army.

Points (i) and (ii) of course seem obvious – but another word about point (iii). The extra worker(s) is (are) key because they provide you with one of two ways that you can use to boost production. By having one worker dedicated to chopping that forest, you can gain 20:hammers: into a chariot (pre-maths). Chop enough forests and you’ll soon have a sizeable army of chariots at your disposal. Other things you can do with an extra worker include (i) mining hills to add extra production to your cities and (ii) roading to the target to speed up access.

One other thing you might want to try meanwhile is whipping a chariot or two as another way of adding to your army. If you’re prepared to stack a little whip weariness, you can soon get a good size early game army (eg. around a dozen chariots) together.

If you’re interested, perhaps take a look at a shadow game start I put together in post #45 of this thread (at monarch):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=11205096#post11205096

which uses all of the above (whilst playing as Sitting Bull) to put together a chariot rush of Montezuma on turn 61.

Hope some of this helps. :)
 
Too little forces, and too late. Focus your forces in one stack. Chop chop chop so you could have gotten more units out faster. , all those forests should have been gone by now.

Also, you can open borders and scout out his land before attacking. Don't rush in blind.

Honestly, I don't really see a need to attack Genghis at this point.
 
A few things to note:

-You have a ridiculous number of unchopped forests around Thebes and not nearly enough city-capturing forces. Too few axes--none of whom seem to have built in a city with a Barracks--and probably too many spears. Karakorum is on a hill, with a wall, with an Aggressive leader. You outnumber Genghis on the power charts, but your force is disproportionately defensive. Get a Barracks in Thebes if you don't have one and start chopping out an army. That brings me to the next point...
-Build more workers! You have three with five cities and a massive amount of unimproved tiles (no cottages on those floodplains?). Build/chop at least four more workers, and in turn use those to chop out a decent army.
-Teching IW when you already have two strategic resources (Copper and Horses) available and no jungle in sight is a mistake. You've got Maths already; knock off Masonry and head over to Construction. It's way too late for a war of conquest with the forces you're fielding and no siege.

I was able to take Karakorum with the units on the border in your save, but I got some very lucky rolls, and you're going to have a heck of a time dislodging Khan altogether with them. Khan is prone to building ridiculous stacks, and on my second DoW (I couldn't take Beshbalik with what you had), I don't think I'm going to be able to take him out either.

Khan is going to be backward on this map, that much is clear--he's boxed in by you and Charlie. He can wait for siege. He's not going anywhere.
 
Thanks, everyone! I'm glad to see this is still a friendly place with lots of helpful people, even though I suck so hard :lol:

I'll take your tips into consideration and either try to set the game straight or re-play from an earlier save. Oz-Man, I'll also have a look at the Noble tutorial you link to in your signature, that looks interesting! :thumbsup:
 
I'm more or less at the same point I was at those couple of years ago: I have no problem winning at Warlord, but I can't seem to win at Noble.

The lucky thing about struggling at Noble is that you can have a lot of people offer you different advice to get better.

I'm going to direct your attention to a few things.

1) Demographics screen (F9) -- you're not doing too badly here -- reading the categories that matter, you were at 4/2/1/1/1/2 -- a little bit worse than I would expect in GNP, but generally doing fairly well. Basically you've traded away GNP to get on war footing. That's mostly a reflection of the fact that you are struggling to identify what matters.

2) Your prioritization of tile improvements is a bit off -- I'm looking at unimproved floodplains when you also have farmed grassland tiles, workers digging plains hill mines when there are unpastured cows about, etc.

3) You don't seem to be teching with a purpose.

a) Looking at wet corn and lots of trees in the capital, you started out by researching Animal Husbandry. It's not wrong - horses are really important to Egypt in the early game, and if you are planning a early strike on a neighbor, better to know sooner if it is going to be possible. I think mining first is the more natural play.

b) Mining + Bronzeworking that's natural and strong, and the game rewards you with an awesomely placed copper tile. If you are planning a defensive game (aka builder game), that's all you need to defend your civ in the ancient/classical era. If you are planning early war; jump on it now: chop a worker, chop many axes, go beat heads. Or go grab the chariots (which travel more quickly) and bust heads that way.

c) Writing; this is where it starts coming unglued, I think. You research writing because you want Libraries for the faster research rates, or because you want open borders to start scouting targets. BUT - you had discovered Writing in 2480 (T38), it's now T78, and you have only one library, and no visibility into your target. If you aren't going to be using writing for 30 turns, you should probably research Pottery first for the tech bonus, and to plant some cottages.

d) Fishing; not bad - you want it for horse town, and also the city to the north that you haven't founded; plus it's a pottery per-requisite.

e) Hunting; huh? You didn't get this for the Ivory, because you haven't camped it yet. You didn't need the per-requisite for AH, because you already discovered that tech. The deer? but you already have a flood plain and cows to improve there. I suspect you've run out of ideas here -- perhaps you are thinking about your invastion, and just blindly following the tech advisor?

f) Pottery: fine -- pottery is an awesome tech, and leads to metal casting, with shiny golden forges for extra happy.

g) Archery: WTF? You have axes, spears, and war buggies at this point. Do you really need archers too?

h) Maths - an awesome tech to have when you have not enough units and too many trees. It's about four techs late, though, isn't it?

i) And now Iron Working? Because axes, spears, war buggies, and archers aren't enough? What are you thinking you are up against here?

but I can't seem to win the first war, because I don't have enough strong units.

LG hit this one square - you're having trouble winning the first war because you are late, and your stacks are small. You had everything to train your army on T28; 50 turns later your attack looks under staffed.

Rushing an enemy capital in the ancient era is very effective way of establishing a winning position. Moseying an enemy capital doesn't work nearly as well.
 
I'll take your tips into consideration and either try to set the game straight or re-play from an earlier save. Oz-Man, I'll also have a look at the Noble tutorial you link to in your signature, that looks interesting! :thumbsup:

I'd check VoU's stuff beforehand; it's much more helpful (I'm mostly just screwing around; he knows his stuff).

The Shaka game, though, is the one where I learned the value of chopping early and often. That said, it's sort of an exceptional game on the whole (lots of easily unsettled land, a somewhat lucky early rush against Willem [but the date is worth noting on it], and then lots of peaceful settling leading to a huge endgame series of wars). Read my posts if you want for the background, but everyone else's posts in the thread are much more informative than mine. I'm still trying to work out the balance in my series between narrative and actually trying to not suck, and I'm only now starting to find it.
 
Some people asked for the 4000BC save, so here it is attached!

Thanks for all your tips, I'm going to go through some of VoiceOfUnreason's, because they do touch some of my weak points.

2) Your prioritization of tile improvements is a bit off -- I'm looking at unimproved floodplains when you also have farmed grassland tiles, workers digging plains hill mines when there are unpastured cows about, etc.

With the farms I was going for food over commerce. I take it this was not a good choice; I guess the floodplains are the more obvious choice for improving first.

3) You don't seem to be teching with a purpose.

[...]

e) Hunting; huh? You didn't get this for the Ivory, because you haven't camped it yet. You didn't need the per-requisite for AH, because you already discovered that tech. The deer? but you already have a flood plain and cows to improve there. I suspect you've run out of ideas here -- perhaps you are thinking about your invastion, and just blindly following the tech advisor?

It's not as bad as blindly following the tech adviser, but what you say is mostly true. Many times when I have researched a tech I wanted, I don't have a good idea what to research next and I think "Meh, this and that might be neat".

Am I correct in assuming that "What will get me the next big tactical advantage?" is the correct thing to be thinking about?

LG hit this one square - you're having trouble winning the first war because you are late, and your stacks are small. You had everything to train your army on T28; 50 turns later your attack looks under staffed.

Rushing an enemy capital in the ancient era is very effective way of establishing a winning position. Moseying an enemy capital doesn't work nearly as well.

Huh, and here I was thinking I was being quick in my buildup while still expanding adequately. So I guess more early chopping should have happened so I could have rushed earlier. Right?
 

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  • AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
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With the farms I was going for food over commerce. I take it this was not a good choice; I guess the floodplains are the more obvious choice for improving first.

You are allowed to farm the floodplains....

It's not as bad as blindly following the tech adviser, but what you say is mostly true. Many times when I have researched a tech I wanted, I don't have a good idea what to research next and I think "Meh, this and that might be neat".

Am I correct in assuming that "What will get me the next big tactical advantage?" is the correct thing to be thinking about?

That would be an improvement. Better still would be to think about a plan - what's the next big strategic idea, and how do I support it?

Having a sound plan, and a good understanding to the strategy you are pursuing, is a big help when you are forced to choose between two good tactical advantages.

Huh, and here I was thinking I was being quick in my buildup while still expanding adequately. So I guess more early chopping should have happened so I could have rushed earlier. Right?

More, I think that you should be focusing on one idea at a time, and turn the dials up to eleven, and see what happens.

Once you get a feel for how things go when you are running flat out, you can start to judge how much you can back off.

For example: 8 axes can beat three archers about 95% of the time.

So take this start, and try to figure out the earliest point you can possibly invade with 8 axes.

Some things to consider here
1) A settler costs about the same as three axes
2) New cities can train axes every 5-6 turns, but there's some upfront cost to pay, such that the first axe comes off the line a bit later than that.
 
With the farms I was going for food over commerce. I take it this was not a good choice; I guess the floodplains are the more obvious choice for improving first.
Theres no problem with focusing on food rather than cottaging, its a pretty good habit to get into in my opinion. However, you still need to priioritise tile impriovments on merit of strength, a floodplains is stronger than a grassland tile so you should improve that first whether it be with a farm or any improvement. Of course resource tiles due to their high improved strength (cows) have higher priority again!
Huh, and here I was thinking I was being quick in my buildup while still expanding adequately. So I guess more early chopping should have happened so I could have rushed earlier. Right?
Focusing on an objective is important, if you want to rush then build enough troops early enough, if you want to expand then expand and don't build too many troops and so on.
 
Ghp is right - you definitely don't have to rush - simple aggressive expansion with CRE can easily get 6-8 good cities peacefully.

However, rushing is fine & easy here too, but don't forget to think about who you're playing with...I lazily played a shadow to give you something to compare to - leveraging Hatty's main strength.

Spoiler :

Hatty & her war chariots make for a much easier approach than axes...

AH was my first tech, and we had horses nearby, so worker/warriors to size 4, then settler and worker to claim horses - they make for a fast & powerful rush. I took this screenshot at the end, but still, note the lack of trees around my capital...



Those trees became war chariots, which led to free cities - check out the speed compared to your "rush":



While killing Charlie, I teched up to HBR & archery, so Genghis will be killed with the leftover chariots and a few HAs. On noble, if you strike fast enough, you're not even facing that many archers, so I think I lost two chariots against Charlie. That meant the remaining 12 could go take Genghis out - here goes his capital:



A couple archers on a hill, so I did lose 4 chariots, but still worth it. From this point, a winning position is secured - finish killing genghis, recover the economy, and win with 15+ cities...or just keep building HAs everywhere, turn tech down to 0% after alphabet, and kill everybody with HAs.

There wasn't much strategy to my builds, as you can see - it was simply recognizing Hatty's strengths and playing to them - no need to build axes when you can build WCs.



Note the difference between our saves - mine is 850 BC vs. your 925 BC. Here are your builds:



Key differences:

1. I hit with 10 chariots 15 turns before your attack with about 5 axes - that's from chopping and working improved tiles.
2. No archers in my save - no need to build them on this difficulty, just leave behind an axe or a chariot for defense.
3. You have too many settlers - if you're doing an axe rush or chariot rush, you want two cities max. My rush was with 2 cities, and my second settler was only built after I killed Charlie. Since you were doing an axe rush, you could have just settled Thebes - it has copper in the BFC.
4. Improved tiles - I have a lot more of them - workers need to improve tiles quickly to facilitate growth and production.

I'd suggest retrying your game from the start. Just settle Thebes, build a worker, once you're size 4 and have the copper hooked up, build a second worker and chop out an army. I bet you can have 10 axes by turn 65 or so, and you're guaranteed to kill at least 1, maybe 2 AI with that force. Remember speed is the key to a successful rush...trees mean speed because you can chop/whip an army.




Save is attached, and i'm sure it's filled with mistakes, since I played without thinking much, but it still illustrates that just focusing on speed is enough for a successful noble rush.
 

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  • Michael BC-0850.CivBeyondSwordSave
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Thank you for your plays, mich and Ghp!

By the way, what is this mod/addon that you all use for a hell of a lot of info on the screen?

[I must sound like such a newbie :lol:]
 
Well, I wasn't planning on killing anyone, but a silly event caused a faux pas and well...

Spoiler :

Mining ---> AH---> BW, great capital, and gold site to the east too. Since we had so many chops and hills I figure I can get 3 cities before doing anything, and Khan doesn't have that much. He did manage to whip an axe instead of a spear... poor guy.




A barb city had popped up and I tried to take it with a war chariot... dies. >.> Hannibal comes to raze that city; could have used that plunder gold.

Anyhow, Khan run away and hid another city so that was annoying. In the meantime I got currency to pay for my maintenance and build wealth. Chopped out a library for scientists, and should build more workers-- 6 cities, with 1 easy to grab site to the south and 2 guaranteed backfills to the North. HRE has tons of Jungle and only 3 cities... he won't be going far any time soon. As long as I grab the site to the south, I can decide to never make settlers again and win off this.

And Khan's capital has marble. Aesthetics and literature would be my next tech of choice.


Also, the mod they use is BUG mod, an interface improvement. http://civ4bug.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately I'm on Windows 7 (Gold Version + BTS seems to have screwed it up), and couldn't install it in custom assets, only as a mod, meaning I can use BUG but not open up regular saves with it
 

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  • Michael BC-0875.CivBeyondSwordSave
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