Warlord to Noble transition: glass ceiling

[Harfang]

I've been playing Civilization since Civ2 and have always done well up to intermediate levels and maybe a bit beyond. Civ4 Noble is my Waterloo.

Warlord: it's so easy it's no fun.
Noble: at best I'll hold my own but I just can't excel relative to my rivals. I've gone through the threads here, which helped me improve, but I still have the feeling I'm butting against a glass ceiling. I have only a handful of Noble victories so far, almost always when I got a fantastic starting position and/or when I somehow managed to overrun a weak neighbour.

If I start with mysticism, I'll found a religion, otherwise I go for a mix of resource-revealing and worker techs; then it's Construction and Code of Laws. I try to locate my second city in a place where it can pump out military units at a steady rate. I started chopping settlers to occupy territory faster. What happens?

(I) I take the lead, but fall behind troop-wise. You can guess what follows.
(II) I take the lead, have enough troops to defend myself, but support costs strangle my economy.
(III) I'm in good position, but hemmed in. And I can't produce enough troops or strong enough troops to conquer my neighbours.

Every time I take a look at my rivals, it seems they have nothing better than mass produce troops and spend their money supporting them.

Tips?

[Ming]

Welcome back to Apolyton Harfang.

The trick to BTS is balancing growth, military and economy. And key to that is the economy. You don't mention how fast you expand, or what your economic plan is. You say support cost strangle your economy, but is it due to too many cities early on, too many troops, or the fact that you haven't paid attention to your building your economy early enough. Some more info would make it easier for people to provide help.

The biggest problem most starters have is not starting/planning on what type of economy you are going to use in any given game. Will it be cottages, sea based, religion/shrine based, Specialists... It's important to determine early what type of economy best suits the game you are playing. Than it's important to work on it from the very beginning.

Again... more info would help

[Harfang]

That was a quick reply!

Lately I've been trying standard map size, continents, no tech brokering. But I still go for random civ, meaning my economic approach is variable. I'm more the cottage 'em and forget 'em type. If I can nab and early religion, so much the better, but I don't bother unless I start with mysticism.

I've been going with an average of one worker per city up to maybe six. That's where my glass ceiling makes itself felt. After a while I can terraform faster than my cities grow to exploit the improvements. I'm still learning to chop and getting better at it. Whipping on the other hand is just not my thing, both because I don't like the concept and I can't be bothered to do it in a smart, efficient way.

As for the empire size, I've learned the hard way not to overexpand. I can reach maybe five or six cities without strangling myself. I try to put city #3 near floodplains or other high-income zone and earmark it for research.

[Theben]

At Monarch level- barring high commerce tiles- I find my city max to be about 4 until I get CoL &/or Currency. I'll aim for Pyramids if I have a high production city &/or stone and run a specialist city or two, and put 1-2 cottages per city early to assist later in the game. As the game progresses I'll keep a close eye on my neighbors to ascertain whether or not they are looking to test my mettle. I find 2-3 archers per border city, walls, and a small but mobile defence force is enough to keep the AI from causing any serious damage, if not stopping them from attacking.

[Krill]

You shouldn't ever be using walls. If you are using them, then you've not built your army correctly, or settled cities in teh right parts of the map.

[bobbo008]

this may be controversial for some, but I recommend giving yourself some sort of bonus via WorldBuilder to get yourself started. This can be an extra scout or even an extra settler.

[Harfang]

I've started a couple of Noble games and limited myself to four cities initially. I have not reached the "glass ceiling" part yet, but it seems encouraging. I must say that I got lucky on my starting locations and randoms civs: Julius Caesar and Gilgamesh.

In the first one I played nice with Saladin before capturing two cities before having him surrender all his techs to me. In the second I tried the GP farm in one of my cities and it did give me an edge.

TBC

[Ming]

It sounds like you are starting to get the hang of it

[Theben]

You shouldn't ever be using walls. If you are using them, then you've not built your army correctly, or settled cities in teh right parts of the map.

Walls aren't needed for interior cities, and I've been playing PRO civs for awhile (Native, Sumerian, Korean and Chinese) so I should probably add that my wall costs have been halved. They also increase your power relative to the AI so it helps delay them attacking you.

[Ming]

I never get around to building walls... Given that I would prefer to attack out when an army is next to one of my cities instead of letting them attack me, I would prefer to have additional units instead of city walls

[Willem]

I've been going with an average of one worker per city up to maybe six.

That's not enough. You should have at least 1 Worker per city, preferably 1.5, if you hope to keep up.

I can reach maybe five or six cities without strangling myself.

That's OK to start out with but you want alot more than that in the long run. You need at least 8 cities just to build the important National Wonders like Forbidden Palace, Oxford Uninversity, Wall Street etc.

[Krill]

Walls aren't needed for interior cities, and I've been playing PRO civs for awhile (Native, Sumerian, Korean and Chinese) so I should probably add that my wall costs have been halved. They also increase your power relative to the AI so it helps delay them attacking you.

walls = 25 hammers for protective, 2k soldiers
Archer = 25 hammers, 3k soldiers (and CD1/Drill 1 at that).

It's even stupider to build walls without being PRO, you get 3x the soldiers points, happinness from hed rule and can use them to defend improvements from barbs

If you are relying on the defensive bonus, then you are playing badly. Collateral the AI with your siege then kill it; if you are defending the AI will bomb down your cirty, collateral and then you lose more hammers compared to wiping out the AI stack on attack.

[Blaupanzer]

Back to the OP, economy is key, as Ming noted. The problem for everyone is affording the next expansion/city before the AI snatches it out from under you. Any decent player can identify the sites that will let him produce a more than adequate army early. However, conquering or settling the cities that eventually will pay for everything actually run expenses to the point that I fall behind in science.

OTOH, if I don't take the risk of attacking before mathematics, the tech imbalance will leave me behind as far as invading is concerned. But the cultural/fortification defenses of the AI say my troops will die without cats (and preferably elephants). What is it that aids in this early conquering advocated by the best players here? Unless a neighbor is close, by the time I can reach their capitol, the defenses reduce my attack odds dramatically. This is on Prince playing standard map at epic speed.

[Ming]

Well in MP, most players b-line to construction... and there is a good reason for it

However, you can still do early rushes. The trick is to have more units than defenders, and plan on losing some troops. I don't mind losing 4 or 5 axman (or other units) to take a city. Now, don't target early protective civs that have archers on hills

Early in the game, the AI is trying to expand, and as long as they have space, they will concentrate on doing so, and not build all that many units in each city. Once space starts running out, then they start thinking war.

Just look for good opportunities and try to take cities that will do something... like great location, critical resource, early wonder, holy city... a target that expands your border but won't be totally isolated.

[rah]

Quantity and surprise. IF there is still a land grab going and a civ isn't preparing for war, it will only have an archer or two defending it's cap. 8 chariots is usually enough to take that out IF you can get on top of his city in one turn. If you delay, they'll whip a few more defenders and you won't have a chance. If you have an early mobile UU, (war chariot or Immortal) this will make it easier. If you go in from the diagonal you can attack the same turn or on the second turn depending how fast you get there.

Once the AI starts building it's army, needless to say, this won't work. But don't underestimate the value of choking. If you have your unit in there capital BFC the AI stops expanding. Doing this to a couple of neighbors can be quit effective. Steal a worker. If it's early the AI won't retaliate too much. But yeah you'd better be ready later for the payback. But if you've choked them properly, they shouldn't be much of a threat.

Of course this is conditional. Some times it makes sense, and others it doesn't.

I guess i should type faster.