I'm relatively new to Civilization 4, I've had it a few weeks. I'm even newer to the forums, so I apologize if this is a newbie question. I've been having an unexpected amount of difficulty making it through the game on Noble, and I have a pretty strong feeling that it's because I'm not the best at specializing cities just yet. One question that has come to mind is the population of cities. Should I make them as high as possible, or should I try and cut off growth at a certain number to make more room for specialists? Any help would be great on this.
Population?
- Thread starter Supapupa
- Start date
Slobadog
King
I recommend growing your city very fast to size 8 or ten and then gradually hiring new specialists afterwards. Never hire too many specialists all at once. Ideally your city should still be allowed to grow even if slowly. If your city is allowed to grow then you will have many more specialists by the late game then you would have had if you simply filled up your city with a bunch early on. Sometimes it might be useful to ignore this advice however. It depends on when you need the benifits of specialists.
If your city is allowed to continually grow you can also have more non specialists to balance out your specialists.
Ideally it would also be best to allow a specialist city enough non specialists so that the city can still do a decent job gathering hammers and gold from the tiles. This way the city can still produce things it needs including buildings that will help you hire more specialists. Working tiles for hammers and gold however would be less important if you were hiring specialists who generate such things themselves.
If your city is allowed to continually grow you can also have more non specialists to balance out your specialists.
Ideally it would also be best to allow a specialist city enough non specialists so that the city can still do a decent job gathering hammers and gold from the tiles. This way the city can still produce things it needs including buildings that will help you hire more specialists. Working tiles for hammers and gold however would be less important if you were hiring specialists who generate such things themselves.
Janus0
Zombie
The short answer is: "What's your hapiness cap?"
Grow until you can't grow any more. The more tiles or specialists you're working, the more power you have at your disposal. If you need to build something, let it grow another pop or two and whip off the unhappiness for whatever you happen to need at the moment..
If your citizens are unhappy, stop growth or whip. If they are happy, keep growing.
Grow until you can't grow any more. The more tiles or specialists you're working, the more power you have at your disposal. If you need to build something, let it grow another pop or two and whip off the unhappiness for whatever you happen to need at the moment..
If your citizens are unhappy, stop growth or whip. If they are happy, keep growing.
I think the only good reason to grow past happiness cap is if you plan to whip them away soon, or you are about to complete a happy building or hook up a luxury resource. If you are having trouble on noble, try this:
Early techs, get needed worker techs for the resource tiles you can improve, and get bronze working for whipping, chopping, and bronze (axemen). Then go straight to alphabet. Once you have alphabet, you can typically trade for most of the techs you skipped.
Chop wood to get your settlers out quicker, and to help build early buildings like granaries and libraries.
Find bronze and plant a city beside it. If you are close to another civ, you will want axes to go to war with them. If you aren't close to another civ, you will need axes for barbs.
Plant cities by rivers if possible, and make a lot of cottages and work them. One or two good food tiles plus a lot of cottages = lots of commerce, plus decent production from the whip.
One solid simple way to play on noble is to have 2 cities focus on production, and 2 cities focus on commerce through cottages. Do just this well while making sure you have enough military, and you should have a commanding lead over the AI by the time you have Code of Laws and can then think of expanding a little further.
Early techs, get needed worker techs for the resource tiles you can improve, and get bronze working for whipping, chopping, and bronze (axemen). Then go straight to alphabet. Once you have alphabet, you can typically trade for most of the techs you skipped.
Chop wood to get your settlers out quicker, and to help build early buildings like granaries and libraries.
Find bronze and plant a city beside it. If you are close to another civ, you will want axes to go to war with them. If you aren't close to another civ, you will need axes for barbs.
Plant cities by rivers if possible, and make a lot of cottages and work them. One or two good food tiles plus a lot of cottages = lots of commerce, plus decent production from the whip.
One solid simple way to play on noble is to have 2 cities focus on production, and 2 cities focus on commerce through cottages. Do just this well while making sure you have enough military, and you should have a commanding lead over the AI by the time you have Code of Laws and can then think of expanding a little further.
Hold The Onion
Chieftain
remember that the AI doesnt tech as fast on Noble. A lot of these threads discuss a lot of tech trade. I find that on Noble I self research most techs myself because the AI has little or nothing to trade back to you. However, once you get solid at getting science cities rolling you'll find that you can get way ahead- a good indicator that you're about ready to move up.
solid tips in this thread that will help. I learned a lot in the begining by reading the War Academy lessons.
solid tips in this thread that will help. I learned a lot in the begining by reading the War Academy lessons.
Even though the AI techs slow on Noble, you can still use trading to your advantage ... Beeline through the tech line to the techs that really get your science going, and eventually you can fill in other techs. Go for Alphabet then Liberalism, then Democracy. Depending on the game, you might want to grab calendar yourself if the AI takes too long to get it. Obviously you don't have to go this route. It's just an option that allows taking advantage of tech trading. PLus, by having lots of very expensive techs the AI doesn't, you can get cash (if they have it), and make friends and start wars through bribery.
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