Time to move away from Civ.

[Tony.Uk]

Been playing for 18 months and just about can win on warlord, and never on noble, despite trying varying tactics with org, creative, phil, exp type leaders.
After a while it no longer is fun to play - and everynight I play often wondering why I bother with no positive result. I often wonder whether the AI cheats. For example the other day I saw saw an english knight land in Denmark with a settler. I wanted to grab a spot with my settler 2 squares away. he was over 4 squares away. Ended my turn and he mysteriously disappeared and reappeared where I wanted to settle - with a city. Thats very odd particularly as I had workers nearby and 'watch AI moves' setting. Why invisible move? I had around 6 units in that area so he should have been visible. There was one forest he had to traverse also - weird.

Dont know whether to uninstall or not but I will now be playing Medieval II Total War Gold which I bought about 3 months ago and hardly played.

 

[Refar]

Sorry to hear you are frustrated.

The AI does have some handicaps, but it does not cheat in the way you describe. You must have missed somethin - maybe another settler.

Medieval is a very cool game as well, so have fun and more luck there

 

[Gumbolt]

What I would say is there are people that play Deity level and win games. On Diety the Ai start with 2 settlers and has other bonuses at start such as free techs and other stuff.

Its more than possible to win on warlord or even up to Emperor on normal maps. Its just a case of using lots of cottages,slavery and a awful lot of workers/ settlers at the start and expanding like crazy.

The Ai is very efficient at some things and terrible at others. The Ai know how to expand like crazy and build a large military. Yet you steal a worker from them early on with a warrior on monarchy level or below and they will be set back many turns.

You rush 6-7 axemen at a Ai capital or smaller city and often it will crumble if you attack before the Ai set up 3-5 cities. On warlord if the Ai dont start with an archer a rush of 5-6 warriors can capture an AI capital cheaply.

Thing with civ4 is that you have to use specialist economies or use cottages to grow your economy. Once you do this it unleashes the game and the opportunities it offers.

Perhaps the AI at times seem like they cheat but the human mind has several more advantages. Its part of the on this going war between us game player and developers. Developers are always trying to create new games that challenge us. If you give up on Warlord you are letting the developers win.

If you need help on a game play till about 1000bc and post a game so people can help you. If you dont fancy that have a look at the game run throughs on the forum. This forum has so much knowledge it amazes me at times.

Thats being said buying a game and never playing it is a terrible waste too. Medieval total war is meant to be good. If only I wasnt so addicted to civ 4

 

[Tony.Uk]

Some of the gameplay is questionable and it takes a long time to play and I would say to play at higher levels must mean a lot more time and maths. I probably do not use enough workers - one per city usually and try to avoid unhappy citizens. Where I can I put specialists in different cities, but not the same type. If I lost 50% of the time on Noble I would be happy, but 100% is downright painful. Everynight 3 hours at a time, and the wife says I sleep too late. I do read the strategy articles in this forum, obviously I cant read properly as it has not improved my game. somewhere something has not clicked and the penny has not dropped.

One thing though - how do I post a saved game - this might be useful.

 

[Refar]

You can attach files to your posts here - you need to click "Go Advanced" rather than using "Quick Reply". in the Advanced post interface, there is a button to "Manage Attachments". It will let you upload a file.
You can put screenshots this way too - or use a free image hoster like ImageShack.

 

[Kawalimus]

On lower difficulties you have a ton of options. You don't have to play any specific kind of leader then, anyone can be successful.

One thing I found to help me is being more aggressive. Don't let the AI dictate the flow of the game, take charge. You don't like where he settled? Declare war on him. Give someone techs and/or money and bribe him into a war against your rival. Pissed you got beat to that wonder? Go take it from em. There is a major aggressor's advantage in this game. Chances are if you're on the defense, you're getting your ass whooped. If you're on offense, you're in great shape.

Boudica is a good leader if you want to exploit traits, she has aggressive and charismatic which is a very strong combo for building and war.

 

[Tony.Uk]

Ok, one more try - this time with Boudica and be more agressive. Then I will post saved file to a point where I think I cannot win.

 

[vra379971]

This should be a challenge....

 

[ChinaBlue]

Ok, one more try - this time with Boudica and be more agressive. Then I will post saved file to a point where I think I cannot win.

Install the mod linked in my sig. Good chance it'll give you a much better grip on what's going on and needs to be done.

 

[18D]

Hey Tony,

I'm not sure if you have tried it or not but you can go into world builder and make some modifications while you are playing and trying out new tactics and strategies. For example, if you are tinkering with new ideas and suddenly a monster stack of enemy units shows up and declares war on you, go into world builder and delete them (or move them back 10 spaces or so if you can prepare a defense in time). You can also give youself and extra worker or something in the early game to give yourself a boost.

I did this when I first started playing (and at times as I moved up difficulty levels) and it really helps. Once you figure out how to win on a new level, you can stay out of the world builder, play some fun games, and win a few (at least more than 0% ).

Be warned that this is a hot topic with some overzealous forum members and you (or me, for writing this) might get a "nastygram" detailing how this is cheating, violates the spirit of the game, and offends their ancestors 8 generations removed (it's amazing how worked up some people have become)- but it's your game. Use the game tools to your advantage in order to help learn new and more successful strategies.

With that said, MTWII is a fun game. Shogun was my first real experience as a game addict (Although Lords of the Realms and the Panzer General series were close) and MTW is definitely fun.

Hate to see you give up on Civ though, it just takes a lot of time and practice to move up the levels. Good luck!

 

[Eclipse-X010]

If you become frustrated with civ drop for a month and then come back, thats what I like about civ, you can play, get bored play something else, then come back and the game is interesting again. If you have issues with the difficulty try a smaller map size. (Recently won a dom victory playing as Rome in 15?? A.D. on a tiny map. There were only 3 civs and I warrior rushed one of them in 3??? B.C. Then continued to expand until even the Ferengi would be proud (expand or die) so the remaining civ (Carthage) didn't stand much of a chance.

 

[Hoticehunter]

If you're gonna go, at least you'll be leaving for a good game. Although I still prefer the simplicity of Shogun to Medieval for the most part (Heck, sometimes I prefer Civ II over IV)

But if you get some help on the forums here, you should be able to move up in difficulty. I know I've only moved up because of all the information here.

And the "use the worldbuilder" tip is definitely a double-edged sword. Sure it can "correct" mistakes for you, but don't use it so much that it becomes a crutch. It can become very addicting. In small doses it can make the game much more enjoyable. Use it too much and it can ruin the game.

 

[zenspiderz]

Try multiplayer!! See pitboss thread on this forum. http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=258

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's usually hard to pinpoint the cause of lack of improvement.

You don't need math for high levels. Also, unless you're talking like playing immortal or deity games don't have to take *that* long - my emperor epic games last about 3 hours usually.

If you're really struggling and want to improve post live games on the strategy + tips forum and listen to advice. It's not an easy game but the AI gets no special bonuses on noble, and it plays very sub-optimally so you should be able to walk all over it after some tips/practice...if it's still fun for you to play that is.

 

[CoZe]

Well, actually I'm planning to move away for some time too, but for different reasons. I can win on Monarch or Emperor, but the game is not fun at all cause I have to apply some well known 'recipes' and most of the time I can imagine AI's behaviour. Also most of the time the game is decided about 1000 AD, either I won or somebody else. Or I have to engulf in a war with a tyrant stronger than me, I have a chance to win but it will take too long and tedious so I just quit.

It would be more fun for me if the AI didn't actually just play to win but to make it's citizens happy, and be a good leader.

 

[Scoottr]

I tried a game where I made random personalities, aggressive barbarians, and aggresive AI.

Wow, what a change! Been pretty fun too.

 

[Gumbolt]

Ok, one more try - this time with Boudica and be more agressive. Then I will post saved file to a point where I think I cannot win.

I think you need to post before you have lost the game. Lots of workers can be good. You dont need to know maths to play this game. Just use common sense.

Build 4 or so cities by 2000bc. Use 5-6 workers to develop the land building lots of cottages and making sure your cities use them. Then expand your city network to 7-8 cities. if science rates falls to 20-40% dont panic. As you develop cities this recovers.

Mean while you can be building lots of military units. An early war for me could be 2000bc or just after pending how soon i hook up copper.

I think if your losing games on noble your not building enough cities, military or just too slow on building up your cities.

All I would say is dont upset or ignore the mrs or she may make an attack for the front door and you wont be able to defend this unless your pc is by the doorway. hehe

 

[Civsassin]

It can be very difficult to move up from one level to the next. I just won my first few games on Monarch, but only after losing for months. I began trying different strategies, but I only proceeded with the game as long as the strategy was working. If it didn't, I would retry. I finally touched on some successful strategies that allowed me to be competitive throughout the game.

Also, as you proceed into the higher levels, you should better understand which techs, resources, wonders, etc. provide what benefits, so you can streamline your strategy.

You cannot have a one size fits all strategy at higher levels. The benefits your particular civilization (tech, UU, UB) and leader traights provide combined with your starting location and your known opponents should drive your strategy.

Several people mentioned, and I firmly agree that early expansion is critical. The three keys to game success IMO are:

Expansion
Gold
Research

If you can afford to continually expand and maintain a tech lead, you are in a great position to be successful. Expansion must come at the expense of your rivals if your borders are close early.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Been playing for 18 months and just about can win on warlord, and never on noble, despite trying varying tactics with org, creative, phil, exp type leaders.
After a while it no longer is fun to play - and everynight I play often wondering why I bother with no positive result. I often wonder whether the AI cheats. For example the other day I saw saw an english knight land in Denmark with a settler. I wanted to grab a spot with my settler 2 squares away. he was over 4 squares away. Ended my turn and he mysteriously disappeared and reappeared where I wanted to settle - with a city. Thats very odd particularly as I had workers nearby and 'watch AI moves' setting. Why invisible move? I had around 6 units in that area so he should have been visible. There was one forest he had to traverse also - weird.

Dont know whether to uninstall or not but I will now be playing Medieval II Total War Gold which I bought about 3 months ago and hardly played.

I agree that is quirky, but don't give up. Maybe you should uninstall Civ sometime,do some house keeping- scan the disk, clean-up, defrag, scan with a different anti-virus tool, update your drivers and what not...play another game for a couple of weeks to mentally refresh yourself and then re-install civ and patch. I've removed some game glitches that way.

Somewhere along the way ( CIV III? CIV IV vanilla? ) I came to believe that using the go to commands with a settler was like challenging the A.I. to a race because they always seemed to ambush me or beat me to the finish line as I came in sight of it. Now I move my settlers manually, or go to someplace short of my destination and move the rest of the way manually.

I'm probably as crazy as the people who don't believe the combat odds,after all, a great city site is a great city site, but it makes me feel better .


By all means, if you get into a jam, post a save. You're probably better than you think. You might be one or two simple changes away from winning at noble, or taking it to the next level.

 

[IronCrown]

You don't need math for high levels. Also, unless you're talking like playing immortal or deity games don't have to take *that* long - my emperor epic games last about 3 hours usually.

3 hour epic game? How do you do that? My quickest (won) game was about 4 hours, a cultural win with no wars at normal speed. I can't imagine doing epic in 3 hours. Did you confirm by the game log or is it just your estimate?

For me, epic games last 10-18 hours... that's why I usually play normal Admittedly I'm a relaxed player, but I'm not that slow.