Why Do I Suck So Bad at This Game?

[txdave37]

It's time to ask for help. Surely there is an explanation why I have never once won on Noble, yep, not freaking once won a game after dozens of attempts. Every freaking game I lose, and I ALWAYS end up with the skills of Dan Quayle.

It seems like anything I try, the AI counters it perfectly. I tend to quickly get boxed in by the AI borders, and rarely have room for more than 10 cities. My last game, I tried expanding out as far as I could and then building cities thinking I could establish my borders far out that way. Everything was going good till 100 BC when two AI players declared war on me.

If I focus on building army units early on, I fall dead last on technology and culture. If I focus on building wonders, they declare war on me, and sending endless amounts of troops at me. The game just seems freaking impossible!!!

I did have one game where I managed to build a lot of early wonders, and they didn't attack me. I tried a strat of build a wonder, build an improvement, build units then repeat in my main city. It worked great until abount 1500 AD when the other player's culture numbers suddenly jumped past mine, and they raced quickly head of me technology wise. It was hopeless at that point. No way I could beat them with military, and they had already made all the wonders by the time I got caught up.

WHY??? I set my science scale to 100% and they still get techs faster than me. I tried building libraries, universities in all cities and I still fall behind. Nothing works. Oh and forget about military conquest. I can throw 50 advanced units at a city and they all die even with experience points. It often takes me the 700 years to build up that kind of army. I also noticed that my city will never grow past 18. IT gets to 18, and then stops, and even starts shrinking. Doesn't matter what improvements I put there or if I work every adjacent tile.


Is the problem that I'm not building enough cities?? As you can see, I'm extremely frustrated with this game.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Welcome to the forums!

It'd be a good idea to post a save of the game and then 50-100 turns later so the good people here can see what you are doing.

Are you tech trading? If you aren't, that's one way the AI can get ahead of you.

10 cities at mid-game would be OK, but you might want to capture more. Are you using siege when you go to war? - approximately 40% of your stack should be siege for knocking down defenses and collateral damage.

For wonders and research, you need to specialize cities. Have one or, if needed, two production cities that only have production buildings, enough to keep them happy and healthy, and just build units. For happiness and health, the best way is to trade resources.

There isn't much information in your post to go on.

 

[Tristan_C]

Would love to see a savegame. Doesn't matter if it's 4000 BC or advanced. If you post one, someone will be able to see the path.

A few general comments based on your complaints. Wonders are a big opportunity cost, so you need to choose with great care. You can win without building any, in fact, and sometimes the failgold you get from attempting one is better than the actual wonder.

Cities geometrically increase maintenance. What's a good number to have? Many players like ~6 by 1AD, but the map clues you in more than a rule of thumb. Also, run at least 1.5 workers per city under your control. More if there's jungle (jungle is alright though- there's grassland beneath it). Don't work unimproved tiles. Favor green land over brown.

On military, the key to taking cities is siege. Sacrifice a couple of catapults, and your other units will survive their battles. Any war before siege (construction) is considered to be a "rush," but all this means is a big stack of units built long before an enemy can muster equivalent force.

edit

Are you tech trading? If you aren't, that's one way the AI can get ahead of you.

Yeah, possibly. But below monarch, trades are advantageous to the AI, which has penalties.

 

[icemanfan]

If you're losing consistently on Noble, I would suggest playing at an easier difficulty level until you master the art of city management. There's really nothing wrong with a city that doesn't grow past size 18, provided it serves some purpose, whether that be industry or science or both.

You actually might be building too many cities early in the game. You really don't need more than 6 until you can support them economically. With cities, quality is more important than quantity. You want to make sure that each city you found has access to resources, most importantly food resources, but make sure that the city will be able to produce things at a reasonable rate once it grows in size, and use cottages to improve commerce output. Staying ahead in the tech race will allow you to defend your cities properly. Also, you don't really need to build that many wonders. Some of them really aren't worth the effort unless you can build them quickly.

If you're automating your workers, don't. The automated workers tend to build too many farms and too few cottages, among other things. Ideally, grassland and floodplains tiles should be cottaged. Make sure that your early research focuses on getting access to key resources; cities built near lots of resources are more prosperous and contribute more to your empire as a whole.

If you're not the type of player who likes warmongering and would rather win peacefully, I would recommend playing with a Financial leader and going for a Space Race Victory. Washington is my favorite leader for this, but any Financial leader should be good. If you place your early cities correctly, you probably won't need to build too many more. For this type of strategy, it is actually beneficial to play with a lot of rival civilizations. You will get a lot of commerce from foreign trade, assuming you go with the Free Market civic. Also, your rivals won't have too many more cities than you, if any at all. Just make sure to keep up with your opponents militarily and garrison your cities in case someone decides to declare war. I have won on Noble using this strategy with as few as 6 cities total.

Take advantage of tech trades; know what the key technologies are. Go for Printing Press early to take advantage of the extra commerce from cottages. Research technologies that give you science buildings, such as Education, Astronomy, and Computers. You can go straight from Electricity to Computers by way of Electricity -> Radio -> Computers and give yourself a significant tech edge with Laboratories in all of your cities, and you can also build Broadway and Rock N Roll.

Be the first person to research Rocketry and complete the Apollo Program. Make sure to get Aluminum before this (Industrialism reveals Aluminum). Artillery is a prerequisite, so get this as soon as possible. Beeline for Robotics in the late game so you can defend your cities with Mechanized Infantry and build the Space Elevator.

 

[Pangaea]

Here is a guide you may want to have a look at. It's big, but not huge, and you learn a lot of the basics. It will help you out a lot, I'm sure.

I think the two most important lessons I've learnt is
1) Expand early, either by conquest or settling
2) Don't disregard your military

Naturally you need the latter to expand by conquest, but even if you don't you need a strong-ish military to deter attacks, or to fight them off if they declare on you.

Pulling this off is of course the trick, and I'm only learning myself (haven't played a proper game on Noble yet). An early rush can be very successful, and should perhaps be part of your strategy - at least if you're fairly close to neighbours from the start and/or are somewhat boxed in by them.

I strongly suggest you start a so-called shadow game though. Post a picture and save from your start in 4000BC, and let others comment. Then play on for 20, 50 or 100 turns and take more comments after posting a new set of screenshots and a save. You'll learn a lot. Good luck

 

[txdave37]

Would love to see a savegame. Doesn't matter if it's 4000 BC or advanced. If you post one, someone will be able to see the path.

A few general comments based on your complaints. Wonders are a big opportunity cost, so you need to choose with great care. You can win without building any, in fact, and sometimes the failgold you get from attempting one is better than the actual wonder.

Cities geometrically increase maintenance. What's a good number to have? Many players like ~6 by 1AD, but the map clues you in more than a rule of thumb. Also, run at least 1.5 workers per city under your control. More if there's jungle (jungle is alright though- there's grassland beneath it). Don't work unimproved tiles. Favor green land over brown.

On military, the key to taking cities is siege. Sacrifice a couple of catapults, and your other units will survive their battles. Any war before siege (construction) is considered to be a "rush," but all this means is a big stack of units built long before an enemy can muster equivalent force.

edit
Yeah, possibly. But below monarch, trades are advantageous to the AI, which has penalties.

Thanks for the replies. I'll see if I can post a save file tonight. Really would like to know what I am doing wrong. I do use seige weapons and bring down their defensives to zero first , but unless I have a huge advantage like musketmen vs archers, I rarely win the city.

Another frustration is when I declare war late in the game, they are usually aligned with 3 other players so they immediately declare war on me. I can't fight that many at once. Just don't see how you guys overcome that.

In the event that I do win a city, is it better to keep it or destroy the city? I notice when I keep it, the city is very rebellious and doesn't grow and constantly wants to rejoin the other civs. Argh.

 

[Derakon]

Try these things out on your next game:

* Only build farms on crop tiles (corn, wheat, etc.). Only build pastures on animal tiles. Only build cottages on every grassland and floodplains you see. Only build mines on hills.
* Don't build a library in a city unless its output is at least 10.
* Don't build a market, bank, or grocer in a city unless its output is at least 8.
* Don't build wonders except for the Great Library, Taj Mahal, Kremlin, Apollo Program, and Manhattan Project.

Any time you have a city that has nothing to build according to these rules, have it build a military unit instead. Alternate between building one of your best siege unit (catapults => trebuchets => cannons => artillery) and one of a standard military unit (chariot/axeman => maceman => rifleman => infantry). Give siege units the City Raider and Accuracy promotions (ignore Barrage). Once you have at least 15 units, muster them on the border of your nearest neighbor and declare war on them. Move your stack up to a city. Hit the Bombard button until the defenses are at 0%. Wait to the end of the turn so your siege can move again. Have your siege attack the city normally. Some of them will likely die (at least until you get cannons); this is normal. They're weakening all of the defenders in the process. Once the siege has all attacked, send your normal units in.

Once your siege is too weak to keep going, extort peace from your neighbor. Start the cycle over again.

These rules aren't ideal for every situation, but they should be adequate to get you through Noble. The important things to realize are:

* Research comes from commerce, which largely comes from cottages. Therefore, more cottages rarely hurts.
* Wonders are a distraction. You don't need them. You're often better off letting the AI build the wonder and then taking the city it's in by force.
* War depends heavily on a) siege, and b) overwhelming force.

 

[icemanfan]

Thanks for the replies. I'll see if I can post a save file tonight. Really would like to know what I am doing wrong. I do use seige weapons and bring down their defensives to zero first , but unless I have a huge advantage like musketmen vs archers, I rarely win the city.

Another frustration is when I declare war late in the game, they are usually aligned with 3 other players so they immediately declare war on me. I can't fight that many at once. Just don't see how you guys overcome that.

In the event that I do win a city, is it better to keep it or destroy the city? I notice when I keep it, the city is very rebellious and doesn't grow and constantly wants to rejoin the other civs. Argh.

It's actually easier to declare war early in the game and eliminate potential rivals before they build up alliances. If you capture a city, keep it if it's in a good location and raze it if it's not. You can always build a better one nearby if you need to. Don't go to war unless you can afford expansion.

 

[ManiaMuse]

Try a game where you build no wonders at all. Don't put a single hammer into any wonder at all. Wonder whoring is a common new player mistake - yes some of the wonders have decent effects but many of them aren't really worth the hammer investment when you compare it to what else you could have built. Besides, wonders can be conquered from your enemies.

For example, take the pyramids. It is powerful if you are planning on running lots of specialists under representation. However it costs (without the industrious trait or stone) 500 hammers. In the early game that is a huge amount of production that could have been spent on other things.

For 500 hammers you could have instead built:
-5 settlers (i.e. 5 more cities built much sooner - faster expansion is often the best strategy)
OR
-8 workers (for improving your resources and building improvents to improve your commerce (cottages) and production (mines and chopping forests) New players often don't build enough workers.)
OR
-A monument and granary for 5.5 cities (which snowballs into faster growth and expansion)
OR
-A stack of 14 axes to conquer your nearest rival (on noble 14 axes will do serious damage to your foes if you build them quick enough)

It also sounds like you might have some problems with:
-Building enough workers and improving the land (building cottages on all grass riversides and floodplains is a good strategy for a new player)

-Understanding how the science/gold slider works (it is not necessary at all to be running 100% science if you have lots of cities producing good amounts of commerce)

-Setting yourself a beeline to a specific tech to either gain an military advantage, or to trade arond with the AIs and effectively multiply your beaker production.

-Diplomacy, if everyone hates you and you haven't attacked anyone then you've probably adopted a heathen religion or refused lots of demands. Diplomacy is pretty crucial to Civ 4 so learn how to use and manipulate it

-Using military units effectively. There's not much point in building units if all they are going to do is sit at home and costing you maintenance for the privelege. A good idea is, when you decide you want to kill someone, have every single city building military units. Only after you have cooked up a big enough stack to crush the enemy should you go back to building buildings in your cities.

-City specialization?
-civics?

Basically Civ 4 is all about having clear goals and specializing things. There are plenty of good guides out there, Sisiutil's guide for beginners is recommended by quite a lot of people here. Posting a save would help as well though.

 

[Paw]

Try a game where you build no wonders at all. Don't put a single hammer into any wonder at all.

I understand why people often suggest to new players not to build wonders, which I can understand and agree with, but not investing a single hammer into them, I can't honestly recommend.

Nearly every game in the early, early to mid game I rely on wonder-fail goal to keep my deficit research going while I'm REXing/conquering.

 

[insaneweasel]

Yeah, possibly. But below monarch, trades are advantageous to the AI, which has penalties.

I thought that the penalties for AI stopped at noble?

 

[insaneweasel]

I got the game back in July, and it's a steep learning curve. I can now win on prince, and I think I'll take it up a level soon.

It seems like anything I try, the AI counters it perfectly. I tend to quickly get boxed in by the AI borders, and rarely have room for more than 10 cities. My last game, I tried expanding out as far as I could and then building cities thinking I could establish my borders far out that way. Everything was going good till 100 BC when two AI players declared war on me.

It sometimes is good to rush an opponent; if they're close, it means you get a lot more room and one less rival. That should help with expansion. Second, the AI stinks at attacking. The only thing that keeps them from failing is the high cost of conquering their lands. In order to not die to AI, just keep tech parity, and have one or two cities that produce nothing but units. If an AI stack comes into your territory, mash it up with catapults, then kill them.

If I focus on building army units early on, I fall dead last on technology and culture. If I focus on building wonders, they declare war on me, and sending endless amounts of troops at me. The game just seems freaking impossible!!!

One word: cottages.
At noble, you can get away with spamming them. Usually, just build them anywhere there's grassland around a city you aren't using for specialists (plains should be farmed).

They allow your research to stay up there, as they grow with your empire. Just don't let them get pillaged.

Wonders aren't something you should "concentrate on." Build them only if they help your strategy.

WHY??? I set my science scale to 100% and they still get techs faster than me. I tried building libraries, universities in all cities and I still fall behind. Nothing works. Oh and forget about military conquest. I can throw 50 advanced units at a city and they all die even with experience points. It often takes me the 700 years to build up that kind of army. I also noticed that my city will never grow past 18. IT gets to 18, and then stops, and even starts shrinking. Doesn't matter what improvements I put there or if I work every adjacent tile.

One strat that I found to help me push my game up was the specialist economy.
(there's a guide if you google it). At noble, you can get pyramids, go representation, and run a ton of specialists. It really helped me, and it causes your tech rate to shoot up. I once got paper in 3 turns with that strategy

 

[Derakon]

I understand why people often suggest to new players not to build wonders, which I can understand and agree with, but not investing a single hammer into them, I can't honestly recommend.

Nearly every game in the early, early to mid game I rely on wonder-fail goal to keep my deficit research going while I'm REXing/conquering.

This is only helpful if you're getting a production booster on the wonder in question (e.g. stone for the Pyramids) or if you're Industrious. Otherwise you get 1 for each you invest, which is the same returns as building wealth directly, except the payoff can be delayed for quite some time while you wait for an AI to build the wonder. Granted, you have to tech Currency to be able to build wealth at all. It's generally high on my to-do list for that reason.

Anyway, at Noble you don't need to REX so heavily that you tank your economy, especially since maintenance costs are lowered.

 

[G-Max]

musketmen vs archers

Why in the nine circles of Hell are you using Musketmen to attack cities? They're for defense! At this point in the game, Macemen should be your primary city assault unit.

Are you promoting your units appropriately, i.e., giving your Archers, Crossbows, Musketmen, etc. City Garrison I-III before anything else, and your axe/sword/macemen City Raider I-III before anything else? Are you building Barracks in every city that will be producing military units?

 

[Derakon]

Musketmen, being gunpowder units, have no counter before them. They are also strength-9 against every unit they face. Macemen are strength-8 against the by-far-most-common garrison unit, the longbowman. Now granted, musketmen can't take city raider, while macemen can, but that doesn't mean that macemen are automatically better than musketmen on offense.

 

[G-Max]

musketmen can't take city raider, while macemen can, but that doesn't mean that macemen are automatically better than musketmen on offense.

Actually, that's exactly what it means, unless your opponent is defending with Crossbowmen - and even then, Muskets only have an advantage over Maces when they have Cover and Maces don't. I almost always end up with at least a few Praetorian-turned-Maces with CR I-III, Combat I, and Cover, and even Crossbows with CG I-III won't stop them. Musketmen at this time won't have anywhere near enough promotions to pose an equivalent threat.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I almost always end up with at least a few Praetorian-turned-Maces with CR I-III, Combat I, and Cover, and even Crossbows with CG I-III won't stop them. Musketmen at this time won't have anywhere near enough promotions to pose an equivalent threat.

Uh huh. Talk about a specific case...

Anyway, it is indeed true that Muskets can ignore walls/castles and when you couple that with their lack of a counter you get a decent generic unit that can be pressed into most any role. After the siege engines roll through, who cares about city raider?

 

[G-Max]

After the siege engines roll through, who cares that Muskets can ignore walls/castles?

Fixed

 

[TheWilltoAct]

We both know that siege is the real mccoy, and after that any unit with a high strength will be adequate for mop up.

But yes, taking advantage of the ability to negate walls is admittedly difficult.
I'm grasping at straws, but perhaps it could be put to use with a musketman unique unit. Siege is slow, defensively weak, and unable to take an emptied city. You could sloppily invade a wider area faster with your musket.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I understand why people often suggest to new players not to build wonders, which I can understand and agree with, but not investing a single hammer into them, I can't honestly recommend.

Nearly every game in the early, early to mid game I rely on wonder-fail goal to keep my deficit research going while I'm REXing/conquering.

I don`t think he is suggesting that never investing a hammer into wonders is always optimal play . I think it is more a case of the OP may benefit by trying to play a game or 2 under these conditions and thus learn the value of land , workers , military etc as a good foundation for improving .

once the OP improves then building the right wonders at the right time or playing around with failure gold will come into play