Please help and old dude

[OldDude]

Hey Civ4 Fanatics,

I've been playing this game for a long time. For some odd reason I never get burned out on it. Anyway, I've always played it on Warlord and can beat the game pretty handily. I usually play continents and usually go for the domination victory condition.

So now I'm trying Noble. I know that's too easy for most of you so please bear with me. My main issue at this level (which I don't have on Warlord), is running into unhappiness quickly and running out of money quickly even though I'm building tons of cottages, even with just 4 cities, which in turn slows down research, which in turn makes it impossible to even be competitive. It's frustrating.

I know this is pretty general, but what would any of you great players suggest? Should I do a shadow game? Should I go back to Warlord? I've read this board a lot and it just seems like all of the suggestions I've read for some reason I can't seem to implement. I'd like to think I'm not an idiot (lol) but I just can't seem to figure out how the computer opponents can keep expanding like they do and keep their economy running and their people happy.

Anyway, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance for any.

Cheers.

 

[Fish Man]

No money - build wealth

Unhappiness - whip

 

[sampsa]

Have you watched any of Lain's Youtube-games? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiPHqnZ3mwIqtraltox6jg If you struggle on Noble there are probably quite a lot of things you are not doing in the optimal way.

 

[lymond]

Hey Old Dude, post a shadow game - normal settings/speed. Be prepared to basically relearned the game. Tabula Rasa.

 

[Major Tom]

You mention 4 cities and lot of cottages. When I have settled my 4th city I may not have one cottage yet. Improve food first and use the whip. Aim for at least 6 cities by 1 AD. 50% slider with 6 cities better than 100% with 3. Commerce from trade routes is often a key early. And build research or wealth. One huge problem playing those levels is that there are no techs for trade!

 

[Gumbolt]

6 cities by 1ad seems limited to me.

You have a decent advantage over ai on noble. 4 cities by 2000bc is my usual aim.

Remember on Noble it will take the Ai to 2000bc just to build a second city. By which time if you went worker as first build you could have 4 cities built. This also assumes you are not leaving 4-5 tile gaps between cities. Overlaps often work better.

An HA rush concluded around 600bc could leave you with 6-7 cities.

With a mixture of cottages in your capital and good use of wealth/research even on immortal you should be able to develop a healthy tech lead. Factor in bulbing with Great Scientists and you can easily bulb edu/lib in 1-2 turns.

If your struggling on Noble it will be more to do with your early game play and not focusing on expansion. Don't worry if your science slidercan't be maintained at 100%. That is usual.. Just keep running 100% science or tax as this is most efficient. Sometimes my tax rate will be 100% for a while if I rex hard. I will then use scientists, cottages to recover the economy. As alphabet comes in you can then run research and you quickly takeover the AI in science.

Land= power in civ 4. Focusing on food resources before 1500. Then gradually adding cottages there after.

 

[OldDude]

No money - build wealth

Unhappiness - whip

OK, good suggestions. One question though. If you're building wealth just to keep an economy running, how can you keep up militarily? Another thing I forgot to mention in my original post was that I always get attacked fairly early and never have enough military to fend them off.

Thanks.

 

[OldDude]

Have you watched any of Lain's Youtube-games? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiPHqnZ3mwIqtraltox6jg If you struggle on Noble there are probably quite a lot of things you are not doing in the optimal way.

No I haven't. I will definitely do that.

Thanks.

 

[OldDude]

Hey Old Dude, post a shadow game - normal settings/speed. Be prepared to basically relearned the game. Tabula Rasa.

Shadow game posted. Thanks.

 

[Gumbolt]

OK, good suggestions. One question though. If you're building wealth just to keep an economy running, how can you keep up militarily? Another thing I forgot to mention in my original post was that I always get attacked fairly early and never have enough military to fend them off.

Thanks.

I am often running wealth to enable me to run science slider at 100% longer. This enables me to out tech the AI. Also when you are developing cottages they grow over time giving you more commerce. Remember the city screen must be working the cottage for it to grow. On Noble I doubt you would need massive stacks. On immortal I can have 30-60+ units roaming map pending on stage of game.

 

[lymond]

Just pointing out that thing like "building wealth" is not remotely the issue here, or worth discussing at this point. OD indicated he had 4 cities on Noble level at who knows what point in the game. The problems are very basic at this point.

 

[Fippy]

There are some very basics you can train in all games while playing,
which are not connected to some more advanced tips offered so far.

Improving in this game means, above everything, filtering out bad suggestions (advisors, governors, UI stuff) and always making your own plans
Some of those are..

* Ignore tech & city build suggestions (recommended military: barracks, Archery, and so on), they are completely random by the UI.
If you are not planning war, no barracks needed. If you are not getting attacked by something evil, no Archery & Archers needed etc.

* Keep an eye on worked tiles, governors will do incredibly silly things like removing 6 food tiles if your city might get unhappy soon.
You always want to work super food as general rule, and should not connect that to happy status.

* Ignore your tech slider %. One of the main traps imo, it's better not teching for many turns and expanding nicely, setting up valuable cities, than thinking "okay i always want at least 50% science". Playing with 0% and 100% only helps for getting used to that, and will show you why potential matters much more.

* Ignore unhappy citizens. Sure, fine tuning helps once gameplay advances, but fear of unhappy cities is much worse.
You can whip them into something nice & expensive with slavery, they do have value (30h for each pop).
(yup it's also the reason why good food should never be dropped)

* AIs are doing random stuff, they might build many units but have them all sitting around doing nothing.
Ignore the urge for "keeping up in military", be good with scouting instead and only whip units once you spot real danger like a stack advancing towards you.
Units are expensive, especially in hammers early, and could be useful buildings, workers or settlers instead.

 

[lymond]

Added to My's wonderful suggestions above, you can turn off those Sid's tips (or Sid's bad advice ) in the options

 

[gaash2]

Probably you have some significant major themes missing from your game if Noble is a struggle. I don't do probably 90% of the micro optimizations other players do like waiting 5 turns to choose tech, moving settler 1 square and then road for 1 turn etc. (not because they are bad, but because I like to play fast relaxing games) and I still beat Immortal pretty much all the time.

Key "main concepts" that have helped me:

Build more cities earlier, especially the first 4-6.
Watch diplo/the red fist -- if I lose a game it's almost always because I didn't pay attention to diplo and got attacked when I wasn't ready
Whip a lot, especially your army, and especially if it's a late (Cuirs or cannon) attack.
Build less buildings
Commit to wars -- when going to war, commit basically all cities to the war effort, whipping, etc.

Food is probably the more optimal focus early but cottages aren't bad .. I usually build cottages way earlier than most recommend (and beeline pottery often) and that is most definitely not your issue on Noble.