Why do I always fall apart in the 18th century :(

[FizFashizzle]

still looking for my first win as Noble.

I asked this in the general section and someone suggested I make a thread here. I have a horrible problem of falling apart as soon as I hit post-Liberalism.

my general strategy for research (which I suspect is the culprit) goes like this

get to currency (all the standards are researched, try to play for oracle and at least stonehenge in the process)

aesthetics (for the parthenon-library-epic)

get to optics (circumnavigate the globe)

liberalism (free technology, usually astrology)

oh look saladin has conquered the world in the 17th century

with this game in particular I went from astrology to basically combustion while saladin took over his entire continent. then while I was desperately trying to build ICMBs and destroy Mecca he invaded me with modern armor and game over.

Unfortunately, this is a recurring theme for me. Every single game I play I lead until after Liberalism, then someone goes nuts and takes me over.

Halp



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also I attached the save file.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[Patronus Potter]

I play on Noble and it's pretty rare for an AI to become so powerful by that date. Your own research could be better, you have enough land to easily win peacefully or otherwise. If you notice an AI going on the rampage like that I would try to use diplomacy if fighting them yourself is not an option (bribe out of war, give techs to his enemies, etc)

 

[FizFashizzle]

At this point I'm pretty sure he was completing UN, Hollywood, Eiffel Tower, and everything in between.

He was going to win every peaceful avenue.

 

[lymond]

Ok Fiz, A LOT of issues with this game. Much of your issues, as with most newer players, are often found much earlier in the game. Here's a few issues:

1) Way to few workers and working unimproved tiles. You have 7 workers and apprx 20 cities. You should have closer in the range of about 30 workers.

2) No Oxford. One of the big reasons you fall behind. Mass whip 6 unis pronto and build Ox fast in your best science city... a good bureau cap is often good for this.

3) Strange infra builds. Granary is the most important building in the game and should be one of the first or the first building in new cities. Infra builds seem random and not though out well. Some buildings are just not needed in certain city types.

4) You seem to denote cities with special names for their purpose, but I don't really see city specialization here.

5) Way too much wonder whoring.

6) Why build Hermitage? Are you going for culture.

7) London is a very nice GP farm. I would have moved the cap to a better Bureau site. Maoi doesn't really marry well with a National Epic GP farm

8) Basically your cites - even the ones in close proximity to London seem VERY underdeveloped

9) Besides Free Speech...your civics aren't bad for Lizzie to take advantage of Philo, but this probably came way to late in the game. Pacifism would be useful in this setup. Free Speech not so much unless you are going for culture or have a ton of cottages.

Try posting earlier games. There might be issue with your tech paths too.

 

[Ghpstage]

There are a number of things that are causing your empires economy to be very, very weak for this point in the game.

The primary cause of this economic weakness iss the lack of Workers, you have less than 1/3rd of the number you should have had over 1000 years ago! The effect is that many tiles are unimproved, including Iron and Clam resources that is being worked and an unimproved wheat that could give up to 2....
Why oh why is your GP farm capital working 2 unimproved Plains forest tiles?

Second is what your cities have been building. Granaries are the most important building in the game, yet only 1 in 4 of your cities has one resulting in a very low population contributing to your massive problem.
Speaking of :yuck it can easily be solved by Granaries, Aquaducts, having enough Workers to cut the forests down
Libraries are also very important economic buildings and you have only 5 also if your city is going to work any water tiles then a Lighthouse is very important!
Oxford is a key national wonder, it should be built at as close to 1000AD as possible and you can't build it with only 5 Universities.

Walls on the other hand are absolutely not worth building on Noble as the AI cannot throw anything at you to justify them. For some reason you have as many Walls as you do Granaries.
Uncontrolled wonderspam is not a good move, for example theres no point building the Spiral Minaret if your going to use Free Religion and the Chichen Itza is almost always worthless.


If you can solve the severe worker defecit, and try to put a little bit of thought into building priorities you will easily breeze through at noble.

 

[FizFashizzle]

i suck

 

[lymond]

i suck

Ha...we all sucked when we started out. Part of the fun with CIV for me was learning how to play better and seeing the results.

Run a shadow/learner game from the start - posting/reporting in short intervals. You will not only learn to destroy on Noble but will be winning at higher levels very soon.

 

[FizFashizzle]

Which forum for that?

 

[lymond]

Right here - S&T is the place to learn

 

[Amao]

Don't use world builder, at least not to use it for more resources. It prevents you from winning the game by your own abilities.

 

[FizFashizzle]

Don't use world builder, at least not to use it for more resources. It prevents you from winning the game by your own abilities.

So does playing on noble.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Try this next game. Before you make the settler to settle the next city, make a worker and have him start making a road to your city site. Try to make this a rule in your gameplay.

You can whip the settler, you don't have to have the road completed, just gets a worker out to that city within a few turn of the city being founded, it's connected to your trade network. Easier to get troops there etc.

When you found the city, make the granary the first building you build (unless coastal with fish, make a workboat then granary).

If the city has lots of forests or jungle, make a second worker once you hit like pop. 3, two workers in a city that needs a fair amount of chopping will come close to keeping up tile improvements with population increases.

If you whip something in a city and suddenly you have 6-7 improved tiles with only 3 population, run the worker(s) to a nearby city that needs a couple more tiles improved.

When building cottages, make sure that tile gets worked ASAP. It may not be as good as another tile early, but time makes it a powerhouse tile.

In addition to aqueducts, grocers will add health if you have improved certain calendar resources (bananas/sugar/spices/wine).

 

[lymond]

where did worldbuilder come into the discussion? lost on that one

Aox has good points, but I would avoid whipping the first settler unless your are really tight for land.
Roading to your new cities is good idea to open the trade route and speed movement. Getting out a second worker in the cap right before or after the first settler is huge. You can chop it.

Try not to whip in the cap until you get the granary there. However, granary early in cap is not as high of a priority. Just let it grow to its happy cap - which is highest - and it should be pretty productive for you. Cap should be getting out workers and settlers and then library (run 2 scientists).

The exception to granary first in new "early" cities is the need for monuments for border pops (non-Creative) or workboats, if coastals and seafood is workable immediately. Food first always!

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

I wasn't saying you had to whip the settler, first or later ones, just that you could. Not to worry about whether the road is completely built, heck you may not even have the wheel yet if this is your first settler, just to make it a habit as much as possible of building a worker before the next settler and having that worker make his way to your next city site.

There are always times when exceptions happen, but for me using that 'guidance' has helped me immensely avoid being worker short.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

get to currency (all the standards are researched, try to play for oracle and at least stonehenge in the process)

aesthetics (for the parthenon-library-epic)

get to optics (circumnavigate the globe)

liberalism (free technology, usually astrology)

Shiny!


This is supposed to be a strategy game. In other words, instead of merely playing a bunch of moves and expecting a win to happen, you are supposed to make the win happen by making moves that build upon each other.

In other words, you are lacking a plan.

Truth be told, on Noble it doesn't need to be the best plan. It's not even clear that it has to be a good plan (depending on how sound your fundamentals are). But it needs to be coherent enough that you will sometimes say no to chasing a shiny thing because the shiny thing doesn't advance the plan.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Dude, it's noble.

 

[Derakon]

Agreed with VoiceOfUnreason, whose nickname is unusually inappropriate tonight.

I may try to circumnavigate the globe, but generally by the time I'm ready to start an Astronomy push, I'll know how influential ocean transport will be. For example, if I'm on a continent with 4 of 7 civs and I plan to take them over, then astronomy won't necessary be a huge help in the short term compared to other things I could be doing (viz. taking out another local civ by beelining military techs). Of course, if I'm suffering tradewise then I might want to make contact with those other civs ASAP. The extra movement point is nice -- but it's not critical.

I also often end up letting the AI research the aesthetics branch for me. But sometimes I go for it! It depends in large part on if I have a really good GP farm site or not. The better the site, the more heavily Great People will play into my strategy, and the better returns I'll get from National Epic / Parthenon. The rest of the branch is not so useful given I don't usually go for a cultural win (though I suppose I could save the Great Artist from Music to bulb towards communism).

Remember to trade techs, by the way. Generally speaking once I get Alphabet I end up doing a bunch of backfill tech trades for all the techs I didn't bother with up to that point -- things like Sailing, Masonry, Meditation, Mysticism...every time you trade a tech, you save yourself a few turns of research. The returns on that are huge, and are one of the big reasons to get some AIs to Friendly. Remember, it doesn't matter if you make an AI more powerful if you aren't going to fight them and they aren't going to compete for victory. I wouldn't give Steel to the guy whose cities I'm eying as I sharpen bayonets, but I'd give Education to the AI stranded alone on another continent.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I don't think you suck, at all.

Your game has some holes in it, but you are 2nd in score and have a huge amount of your continent, including a vassal. You are trying to specialize your cities, though I'm not sure you are doing a great job of it. And you have done a pretty job of leveraging Liz's philosophical trait

Sucking would be letting everyone roll over you early. That happens a lot when you are new to a level

I think the big thing is not enough workers. A lot of your problems would not have arisen if you had 2-3 times as many workers.

The other bit is not specializing your cities. A research city should have with towns (for commerce) or farms (for more specialists) With Liz, I'd definitely do cottage spam.

Generally, building stock exchanges in marginal cities is a bad return - those northern cities, I would have given libs and unis to. I also would have spread my religions more - you are getting 16 gold from 2 shrines.

 

[z0wb13]

just from looking at the one small screenshot, i don't see any cottages. it looks like a bunch of and and worldbuilt resources. and a bunch of your farms are un-irrigated because all of that jungle is still there. always chop down jungle, don't even save it for the national park.

try a game, and instead of thinking "wonder-spam," think "cottage-spam." also, it's weird that of the 4 cities i see on the screen, they are size 21, 14, 4 and 8.

 

[Fleme]

My tip would be not to worldbuilder starts like that for yourself (5 seafood, 4 land based food, gold, coal or iron, uranium... Even the best starts the game gives you will feature 5 resources tops, seldom more if seafood is to be taken into account but never more than 5 on land) because they won't enable you to face the actual challenges the game has to offer and as such will lead you to a false sense of winning which obviously won't last all the way unless you know how to play. In short, adversity early will improve your game later on.