Top X reasons you can't beat Noble.

That's all you're getting for now, WFYABTA.
 
How about "You confuse :gold: (gold) with :commerce: (commerce). Or, more specifically, "You don't understand the mechanics of :commerce:, :gold:, and :science:".
 
GKrause reminded me of another one:

- you forget to ask your friends to spare some gold for a friend. a great time to do that is after a wonder is finished. cha-ching!

- maybe add "forgot to extort money and techs from your enemies" to the list, but i don't do such things so i wouldn't know :mischief:

- you forget that if you're the only living leader an AI knows, he won't trade techs with you. so sometimes it's best to just pound civB into one teensy city rather than eliminate him, so that civA will trade with you. civA doesn't need to like civB, but the fact that he knows civB's still alive makes trades a possibility.
 
For me:
1. Your settler gets killed by an animal.
2. Your expansion gets killed by barbarians.
3. Copper isn't hooked up yet, your main is razed by barbarians.
Definitely the biggest reasons why I lose.

But in general, biggest not mentioned is keeping track of tech progress and trading properly. If you're always broker techs, other civs get at most 2 teches per one they research, whereas you get # of civs worth.

Next would be not having a large capital early, 15ish with CE.

Not running scientists early in some city.
 
The one which kills me, and will kill me at all difficulties, is turn-rushing.

You guys may well have your own phrase or acronym for this, but it's the habit of neglecting the overall picture because you're excited about a wonder or tech you'll be getting ten turns from now. So you're waiting on construction for Cat fun, and it's "thanks for the new building, Mr. City, now build me the default recommended military unit", then "yeah, thanks for building that farm, Mr. Worker, now go and... oh, actually, I don't care, build a pointless road over there, come back when I have Civil Service and we'll talk".

Sloppiness, basically.
 
^^^Yeah i know what you mean, i used to do that a lot.

One way of avoiding losing at noble. RTFC - Read the civiliopedia
 
I don't get it. On turn 1 you have nothing but your capital to prioritize....

It's development of the capital that should be prioritized, you could for example start building a settler, or making scouts to explore your territory or tech agriculture before animal husbandry when you have three cows in your BFC.

I'd like to add a reason - You try to use strategies from previous Civ games without considering the changes in Civ 4.
 
In that case, #1 is way off. In the vast majority of cases a Settler, Worker, or military unit will be more appropriate than infrastructure in the capital, at least until your 2nd city is founded.
 
InFlux5, making a Worker is a way of developing your capital. he can improve the land around your capital. reading #1 the right way leads directly to fixing #2. in cases where that's the best approach, of course, usual disclaimers here yada yada.
 
Remonds me of another: "Your build a worker on turn 1 yet have nothing for them to do and do not research a worker tech from turn 1."

Example: You start on the coast with seafood present, have fishing and hunting as your free techs, yet you start researching archery while your first build is a worker?????
 
Developing the capital does not mean buildings. In fact most of the time, it is a mistake to build any building in the capital before it is at the happy cap and has built a settler and a couple workers. It means getting tiles improved and growing. The best route is not the same for each game. Usually this means building a worker or work boat first, and making sure to have the techs to develop your best tiles. I've seen people grow the capital to size 5 while building warriors and scouts, or even a barracks, then starting on a settler before having any tiles improved. That's neglecting the development of the capital.
 
I am a Noble struggler, I can beat it every time.. just crush one opponent early, then turtle up and head for space. But even that gets crushed by boneheaded diplomatic moves. My tip would be...

If you don't pay attention to what the AIs are doing.

So many times I get into my own little world and don't realize that Alexander is demanding stuff from me even though he is my 'friend' or that when I am fighting someone, he might like to get in on the action. Instead I just see that I am at peace with so-and-so and forget all about them.

That and general sloppiness because I want that victory rush RIGHT NOW!!!
 
My biggest mistake....too many bong rips resulting in totally screwing diplomacy and getting triple-teamed by AI.

Seriously though, I think someone mentioned asking for things from the AI when they are pleased and above. This can get you crucial gold to continue running that -56 gold per turn economy or even older techs sometimes - and at no diplomatic cost.
 
How about:
1. The cities' BFCs cannot overlap, there can be tiles between BFCs, but no overlap EVER !!!
2. Because of 1, raze any captured cities with overlapping BFCs no matter how good the resources around them. Then send a settler to place the new city correctly.. :)
 
Overlapping FC is not always a mistake, and sometimes even 4 or more overlapped tiles is ideal. I rarely have a game without at least a tile of overlap somewhere.

Overlapping to the extent that the AI does it is of course horrible.

Two common cases of overlap ... 1 is to settle a help city near a commerce city for the sole purpose of working cottages so that they are towns by the time the commerce city is big enough to work them. I don't do this very often at all, but it is occassionally a very strong move.

Second, and one I use extensively, is to settle a city early, usually to grab a resource, that would normally be a bad city, but can borrow some food from a city that has more food than it can use early in the game. I usually do this to get another decent production city early in the game. Usually, at the very least, such a city will always be able to pay for itself, with nothing more than trade routes and running wealth.
 
If you can do this the game is won.

Well that depends how early you do it, what their land is like, how many resources you need to commit.

I have played a few games where I tried to hard in crushing that first opponent and never recovered. So care needs to be taken here.
 
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