Need Help: No Luck at all on Noble Difficulty Level...........

[gilfan]

always chop wood on hills to rush things... you can replace that +1 wood with a +2 mine.

[MrPhil]

Originally posted by gilfan
always chop wood on hills to rush things... you can replace that +1 wood with a +2 mine.

So a mine on a hill is useful even though there may not be any gold, uranium, silver, iron, etc. in it?

I assumed that if there was nothing working there, then the mine was of no use.....yikes

[Solver]

Oh no, mining hills is more than useful. Once mines get an extra productivity bonus especially.

You don't want any of the tiles your cities work to be unimproved. There are higher priority and lower priority improvements, but in the end, every worked tile should be improved with something if possible.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MrPhil
So a mine on a hill is useful even though there may not be any gold, uranium, silver, iron, etc. in it?

I assumed that if there was nothing working there, then the mine was of no use.....yikes

A mine adds 2 hammers. A mine on a plains hill with a railroad is 5 hammers. Good deal.

[MrPhil]

Originally posted by jonta
Just something simple, that you might not know

When you are building your first 2 or 3 settlers
chop wood near your town, to cut down the
"no grow" period, that is very important, if you do
that, you will get ahead of your opponents from the
beginning, making it a lot easy'r to win, no matter
if You want to make War, or win a peaceful game.

Hope this was a help.

Its not cheating - its a part of the game, to use your
"wood" in the optimal way. Anyway, do not "over do" it, you will need some of the wood later.

jonta, thanks man, I actually did use this. I may have been in trouble if I had not. I had to decline open border agreements a lot of times before I was ready to let in "visitors". I was worried about someone like Saladin or Monty or Isabella being pissed and invading me early. But all is well.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
The Archer's city defense bonus is 25%, not 50%.

Sorry but you're wrong there, read your manual. It's 50% City, 25% Hills bonus.

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrPhil
My tech %is only at 70 but, i hope to improve that I begin to conquer more civs and get the banks, markets and courthouses built.

That's almost the most you want to do anyway. I discovered that if I go above 80%, then my Markets, Banks etc. are pretty much useless. Most cities just aren't producing enough commerce to justify having them in place after that.

[Solver]

Right you are. I do sometimes get confused as to which numers are the final ones. My memory is right, though, as in Archers without city defenses typically being at around 6 Str. 50% city, 25% fortification, and the occasional another bonus thrown in. Still means that Axemen with Cover and Swordsmen are good vs. those.

[Willem]

Originally posted by gilfan
always chop wood on hills to rush things... you can replace that +1 wood with a +2 mine.

I disagree with that. If you leave it until you can build a Lumbermill, you'll get exactly the same yield from it, plus you get a health benefit for the Forest.

[Solver]

Not the same yield. Lumbermills are +1, Mines become +2 at some point.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
Still means that Axemen with Cover and Swordsmen are good vs. those.

Yes but just barely. A bad roll of the RNG and you could easily lose a few units. Like I said, at least the Catapult has a chance of withdrawing from the battle if it doesn't actually win. And it costs the same number of shields that a Swordsman does.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
Not the same yield. Lumbermills are +1, Mines become +2 at some point.

Yes with Railroad, but Lumbermills also get the railroad bonus. I noticed in one game after my auto Worker had done his thing that a Hill with a Lumbermill was exactly the same as a mined Hill.

[CreepyD]

they defo give +1 for all squares with 2 or more.
so a square originally making 5 will make 6.

[gilfan]

Originally posted by Willem


I disagree with that. If you leave it until you can build a Lumbermill, you'll get exactly the same yield from it, plus you get a health benefit for the Forest.

Mines are +2, wood is +1 until replacable parts. That's a LOOOONG time to wait while you're missing out on that extra hammer.

[gilfan]

Originally posted by Stickyman


Gilfan,

Doesn't the +1 bonus apply throughout the game for financial civs? It seems to me that you are saying that you loase the bonus onces cottages become hamlets.

Anybody know for sure?

Yes, it applies the whole game, I was just saying that like everything else, what you do in the first couple hundred turns has enormous impact, and getting a big commerce bonus early can be a huge advantage.


Financial civs get +1c on any tile that has 2c or more. Cottages start as +1c, so on their own, you'd have to wait 10 turns til they grew up into a hamlet and got 2c, at which point you'd get the +1 from financial. Tiles adjacent to rivers get +1c, so cottages on rivers start with 2c immediately, and the financial bonus kicks in immediately.

Fishing/Lighthouse is a good way to get an early commerce lead with financial civs, too. Start your city on a coast, build a lighthouse, and all those coast tiles become 2f 3c.

The english are great for this... both leaders are financial (one Phil, one Exp), they start with fishing, and their special unit is pretty good and comes around in the middle of the game.