Any tips for playing on Noble?

[speerross]

Just about to start my first game on noble (completed Chieftan and Warlord) and wondered if anyone had any general tips?

I think micro-managing my cities could improve my game. Does changing the Culture/Beakers percentages from city to city and assigning specialists personally help the overall game or is it too hard to get right?

Also I get a lot of unhappiness from overcrowding. I've been able to offset this through the use of buildings and it hasn't been a major problem unless combined with other types of unhappiness (war weariness and lack of emancipation to name 2) but is there any way to directly reduce this unhappiness thorugh overcrowding? Does it go down every time the city grows but surely since the growth represents more population it doesnt?

[Artuero]

You can't change the beakers/culture percentages from city to city, it is an empire-wide tool. You can use specialists to somewhat micromanage the output in a city.

No way to directly reduce the unhappiness through overcrowding except to have fewer people. Slavery, and pop rushing, is very useful in these situations. Micromanaging the cities to stop growth before they hit the unhappiness (or pollution) cap is a good idea.

I like the Noble level in that you can play around with the game more rather than using every last advantage to achieve victory. If for whatever reason you want to build every improvement in a city you can do that.

Best tip is probably that early expansion is key, and that often the best way to conduct the early expansion is through military means. Destroy your neighbor early and you can get a primo city that will be nearly as important as your capital down the road.

[okblacke]

I moved to Noble; it didn't require a huge shift in gameplay, except you have to be somewhat more diligent in keeping up your military and you can't get all of the wonders. (Well, I can't get all the wonders, some folks can.)

You have to use more of the tools you have available, as well. If you have happiness problems, slavery and hereditary rule are useful.

I have not had to do any micromanaging yet, really, though I do manage my workers and try to improve tiles more intelligently than the auto-improvements. Putting up a cottage rather than a farm can slow your pop growth while giving you needed cash, for example.

I do have to have a larger plan, though, I find. On the lower difficulties, you can kind of just play without a plan. You have to commit much earlier to a cultural victory (in particular) on Noble. You have to commit somewhat earlier to get a diplomatic victory. You can still generally pull a spaceship victory off at the last second, though.

In general, if you do stuff that's "uncomfortable"--not suited to whatever your "natural" style of play may be--you'll find that you learn a lot and beat Noble pretty easily. I've won all but one or two of my Noble games, while experimenting with the strategies found here.

The AI is as close to even on Noble than anything, and it's not a real big threat unless it has lots of bonii, or unless you get real loose.