Okay, so we're all kind of Civ 4 idiots right now (unless your name is Sulla or Sirian and you've been testing it for six months), so I thought I would focus on tips and strategies for the Ancient Era. On the higher difficulty levels (at least in my experience), you may not be winning once you get out of it, but a strong Ancient Era obviously puts you in a much better position to make a charge later in the game.

1) One of the biggest jumps between Civ 3 and Civ 4 is the number of improvements that you can make to your land. So much for just roads, railroads, irrigation, and mining...

The improvements that you can make with Ancient Era technologies are camps, cottages, farms, fishing boats, mines, pastures, and quarries. All of these are unlocked by Ancient Era technologies, and it is going to depend on the kind of land and resources you have as to which of these techs you should care about.

If you have deer or ivory, you're going to want to make Hunting a priority so you can build a camp. Furs are also best used with camps, but only commercially, which is not as important as food or production when you are a young civilization. Hunting is pretty unimportant if you don't have one of these three resources, however.

Cottages are unlocked by Pottery, and are the AI's favorite construction when it doesn't know what to do with a tile. Early on, unless you are a financial leader, there are probably more important things for you to pursue; however, if you are financial, you should definitely make a beeline, because the more cottages you build early, the larger the pile of money you will be sitting on in the Medieval and Industrial Eras.

Farms are a godsend if you are by fresh water. They come with Agriculture, and are the best use of tiles by fresh water even if they do not have corn, rice, or wheat. You will get exactly the kind of growth you are hoping for if you get workers out to build farms on lands by fresh water, especially if it is grassland. The proximity to fresh water is important, because farms can't be built elsewhere until the Civil Service Tech (an early medieval tech), so if there is no fresh water in sight, take your time getting to Agriculture.

Fishing boats are what you do with clams, crabs, or fish, and it makes a huge difference in your food production. If any of these resources are in the range of one of your cities, get to the Fishing tech as soon as possible. You have to build a fishing boat in a coastal city before you can maximize use of these resources, so plan ahead.

Mines add +2 production to hills, which is awesome. This is also the way to exploit copper (visible through Bronze Working), iron (visible through Iron Working), Gems, Gold, and Silver. If you have any of the latter three resource luxuries, or copious amounts of hills, you should make sure to get Mining soon. You should make sure you get mining soon anyway though, because mining is the tech that enables you to get Bronze Working and Iron Working. It's a bit of a roll of the dice (after all, nothing says you'll have copper or iron in your lands), but if you do have them, you'll want to get to them and hook them up as soon as possible, because copper and iron is the sole means of obtaining a dominant Ancient Era army. Knowing whether you have copper or iron in your territory is going to make a huge impact on your strategy. Playing multiplayer makes this tech doubly important.

Pastures are what you build when you have horses, cows, pigs, or sheep. A pasture on all of these resources except horses will boost your food considerably. If you have horses, you need to get the Animal Husbandry tech, and then go for the Horseback Riding tech, to make best use of your resource (Animal Husbandry enables pastures, and Horseback Riding enables the Horse Archer as long as your city is connected by road to the horses). If you have cows, pigs, or sheep in your city range--well, the food bonus is still a big deal, so get to Animal Husbandry and get a worker out to that tile as soon as you can.

Having a quarry is also a big deal if you are playing single player and have stone or marble within your range. Stone and marble cut in HALF the hammers necessarily to make several early wonders, so getting to Masonry (which requires Mining OR Mysticism) is essential. If you are a philosophical or creative leader and you have either of these resources, this should be your first priority--because you want to get your hands on as many wonders as you can.

2) Getting an early worker out is key if you find yourself in a resource rich or near fresh water starting point. Workers cost more than they do in Civ 3, but your civilization will not be anywhere near its capacity until you make one, so this is undoubtedly an early priority. If you got screwed by the map, don't worry about rushing it, even if the game recommends that you do--if you got screwed, you got screwed. The best thing to do is to react according to your leader traits: if you are aggressive, build military units and try to find copper or iron; if you are philosophical or spiritual, build cultural improvements; if you are industrious, build any improvement. Don't waste your time with workers until you can actually do something with them.

3) The Mining>Bronze Working>Iron Working tech line is important in single player, and downright mandatory in multiplayer. As mentioned earlier, this will enable you to find copper and iron, which will have a huge impact on your strategy. Most of the early military units (swordsman, spearman, axeman) require these resources, so if you don't have them, you better start building a whole lot of archers fast. Having horses (and the horse archer unlocked by Horseback Riding) helps, but if you find yourself bordering an aggressive Civ with these resources (or worse, Greece or Rome with their unique ancient units), you better kiss some major butt, or they're going to crush you.

4) There are three ancient era religions, that are founded by the first to three ancient technologies: Buddhism (meditation), Hinduism (polytheism), and Judaism (monotheism).

If you start with mysticism (the first level tech that enables all three of those religious techs), you'll probably want to go straight for founding a religion. Polytheism is the precursor to Monotheism, so going for Hinduism is the safest bet (if you miss it, you're still in good shape to get to Judaism). Buddhism is a hit-or-miss tactic: if you get it, you will be the first in the world to found a religion; if you don't, you're not in any better position to found another one. The choice is yours, but so far I've had great success going after Hinduism or Judaism.

If you don't have mysticism, it may not be worth it to go straight after religion. After all, there are still four religions to be founded in the Classical and Medieval Eras. I've found that if I don't start with mysticism, it's a good idea to shoot for alphabet (an early Classical tech). This enables technology trading which will put you in a better position to acquire those religious techs (which you may have ignored) that are precursors to the later four religions. And even if you don't found one of the seven, it's still not the end of the world as long as you've paid attention to your leader strengths and have taken advantage of the time other Civs have spent building religious things to gain over them in other areas (i.e., MILITARY).

5) The wonders seem to be pretty balanced, in the sense that there are no "must-haves" no matter who you are or where you start. But, there are certain situations that make them far more important. If you are industrious, philosophical, or spiritual, wonders are a big part of leveraging your traits to your advantage. If you have stone in addition to either of these traits, it's pretty dumb to not make a push toward Stonehenge (mysticism). If you have marble, it's pretty dumb to not make a push for the Oracle (priesthood). Both of these have benefits that are very good to have early on.

6) Getting a settler out ASAP is not as important as Civ 3, since it can tank your economy if you do it too soon, but it's also good to get your cities going as soon as you can. You will still find yourself in positions where depending upon where your neighbors are, you will want to grab certain pieces of land before they do. Settlers are more expensive, however, so I would recommend considering carefully your proximity to good things to have (resources, etc.) as well as the proximity of your neighbors before you take the time to build one. Getting a good start on your military, improvements, or wonders can be just as important depending upon what kind of traits you have.

7) In short, Ancient Era play seems to be mostly dependent upon your leader traits and your available resources. These factors should impact what you build in your cities as well as your tech choices, which are even more important. If you combine these tips with some of the old Civ 3 tips (micromanagment, adjusting the tech/tax slider every turn, etc.), you should find yourself in a good position emerging into the Classical Era.

This is an EXCELLENT walkthrough. :goodjob:

(...) Cottages are unlocked by Pottery, and are the AI's favorite construction when it doesn't know what to do with a tile. Early on, unless you are a financial leader, there are probably more important things for you to pursue; however, if you are financial, you should definitely make a beeline, because the more cottages you build early, the larger the pile of money you will be sitting on in the Medieval and Industrial Eras.(...)

IMO, the player can learn from the AI here.If you are in doubt what to do with a tile (especially grasslands and floodplains - the ones which can support a citizien on their own), build a cottage.They need a lot of time to improve.The earlier you build them, the better and the more you get out of them.And if you change your mind later, you can still tear them down again without losing much.But if not, you have earned a lot of extra money.


A really good article, could be even a first candidate for the Strategy Articles.At least much better than the first thread which appeared yesterday there...

Here is the $40 question:

At what city size should I put growth on pause to make my first worker?

Extra credit:

First settler?

Have you even read the article? The correct answer is: "It depends!". On your leader, your surroundings, your enemies, resources, game difficulty and whatever. If you want a standard strategy that always works you shouldn't play civilization, imho.

ps: you can send me a private message and I'll give you my bank account number. ;)

I'm going to do some math on this and expand on this good article...see if i can't calculate optimal start timings.

Cottages are unlocked by Pottery, and are the AI's favorite construction when it doesn't know what to do with a tile. Early on, unless you are a financial leader, there are probably more important things for you to pursue;

Well since roads do not generate commerce, cottages take on a new importance. Commerce is the life blood, even more important than production, I feel. With a strong commerce in your empire, you can afford to rush more often, afford easy upgrades, and still fund good research. In late stage, when cottages become towns, and with the right civics, they produce commerce and hammers.

Not to say the other improvements are not important, but cottages in the long term can be vital.

Don

Except you can't rush with money until very late in the game, with Universal Suffrage. I suppose you can try for Pyramids, but if you do that you'll usually take Representation, not Suffrage.

I agree with what you say. I would like to add one thing from my game experiences...build military units have 2-3 min in each city early. I have experienced Waves of barbarian attacks...and they are not pushovers anymore. also I have noticed that they benefit from your research so don't be suprised to see barbarian archers/swordsmen/macemen. I have heard also in these forums about their cities, thats right cities, producing gunpowder units if you don't conquer/raze them in time. Just warning you - I fear barbarians more than any civ - you can make peace with a Civ.

WONDERFUL ARTICLE, I jut got Civ4 a day ago, and this DEFINATLY tells the gospel truth.

Very informative. thanks for the post!

Very good post.Nice reading for us in Sweden without :mad: :mad: this awsome game.Will be taking notes and preparations so that i am prepared on th 4th of Nov when i can get my greedy fingers on it.

The flip side of stronger barbs is that they also build cities. I stumbled upon a barb city on the other side of my continent (two other civs in between) with a mapping chariot and managed to take it - that city ended up #1 on the Top 5 cities list and ended up flipping two cities a rival civ built nearby! :eek:

Such things do place a burden on maintenance costs short term, so be aware.

Here's my question - What should you do if you end up founding two religions - obviously I am playing at a low level just to get the feel but I think it will be possible at higher levels depending upon number of AI opponents. Do you name one your state religion and convert the founding city or do try and build more than one shrine to get revenue from more cities?

Isn't science generated from commerce? Wouldn't that make the cottages important?

I've been way, way behind in the religion race - missing Hinduism and Buddhism both (starting w/o mysticism). But I've still managed to get to Judaism first in the five or six games I've started. Whoever's getting to Hinduism first is stopping there and letting me pass them to get to monotheism first. So Judaism is almost a sure thing for non-mysticism civs.

Isn't science generated from commerce? Wouldn't that make the cottages important?

I didn't say cottages weren't important--I just said there might be better things to do in the Ancient Era. Once I've got my resources hooked up and feel like I've got enough workers to handle my expansion, I'm a huge fan of the cottage spam :D

I'm not terribly sold on the uber-importance of founding early religions. 1) There's still four more to go, 2) CoL is a top-notch Classical tech even without the Confucianism and Philosophy (Taoism) follows straight from it, 3) The Theology>Divine Right track (Christianity>Islam) has been pretty much AI ignored in most of the games I've played, 4) You get a free missionary to send to the pagan capital of your choice for these later four, and 5) Using a founded religion to your advantage takes work, so not having one early on can give you an opportunity to focus on other things.

Not saying religions suck, or that you shouldn't go for an early one if you're Phil or Spir, just that it might not be that big a deal to wait on it. Thoughts?

(Glad people seem to like the Ancient tips. Maybe I'll give Classical a shot in the next couple days.)

In the Sulla walkthrough, the Gandi AI developed two religion (Buddishm & Judiasm) in the Ancient Era. Can someone explain the advantage/benefit of taking that approach?

There are some great pointers in here, thanks! A lot seems to be dependent on leveraging your civs particular traits. I must say I'm a relative newbie when it coes to that. Is there an article on that i can read somewhere?

Also, In my first few games I've been putting most of my workers on Auto, and the others on build road network (to get trade going). This results in a lot of cottages. I haven't spent too much time trying to see if there are better things to be done with the land, but I imagine there are. I'll have to pay closer attention...

In the Sulla walkthrough, the Gandi AI developed two religion (Buddishm & Judiasm) in the Ancient Era. Can someone explain the advantage/benefit of taking that approach?

I think that one advantage is that you deny the other nations the benefits of the Holy City. Playing as the Arabs, I get tons of Great Prophets. I also got six of seven religions, so I used the first six to make the specific wonders to each religion. That's culture out the Wahzoo. Also for each religion in a city, you may build a monastery, which is a lot culture and science. Holy Cities increase dramatically the frequency of Great Prophets. The down side is that I've only seen one Great Person of any of the other types in that game. I could use more academies...

In the Sulla walkthrough, the Gandi AI developed two religion (Buddishm & Judiasm) in the Ancient Era. Can someone explain the advantage/benefit of taking that approach?
1. For each religion that you found, you can build the appropriate shrine (with a Great Prophet) and get +1 gold for every city that observes that religion.

2. Even without the shrine, the map fog is removed for the radius of cities that observe a religion you have founded, allowing you to see what your friends (or enemies) are up to.

3. Every religion you found is one less for the AI to establish and reap the benefits from.

(The rest of the advantages are true for any city that has more than one religion in it, regardless of whether you or the AI founded it, but obviously if you founded more than one, you're gonna spread your founded religions to your cities to get the shrine income, so you will want to be mindful of these advantages)

4. For each religion present in a city you can build a temple (+1 happy face, +1 priest allowed), a monastary (+10% research, expires eventually), and a cathedral or equivalent (+2 happy faces if same denomination as state religion, +50% culture, +2 priests allowed). Multiple religions means multiple bonuses (and since buildings don't have maintenance like in civ3, the only cost is the opportunity cost).

5. I thought I had some more, but I can't remember. But the smell of fried brain is making me hungry... :sleep:

In the Sulla walkthrough, the Gandi AI developed two religion (Buddishm & Judiasm) in the Ancient Era. Can someone explain the advantage/benefit of taking that approach?

Suprisingly, it seems like the more religions the merrier.

At first, you'll only get a happiness bonus for your state religion, but once you learn the Freedom of Religion civic you get a happiness bonus for each and every religion in your cities - the more religions, the bigger the bonus, and the happier your people.

In addition, if you are the founder of more than one religion you can create shines for each religion. So for instance, if you found Hinduism and Buddhism, and spread both to all your cities, say of which you have five, you'll now get ten gold in tribute instead of just the five you'd get for founding/spreading just one religion (assuming you've built a shrine for both).

Furthermore, instead of just building one monastary/temple for your state religion, you can build multiple monastaries/temples, one for each religion - giving you more science, culture, and priest specialists than if you just built a monastary/temple for your state religion.

In fact, the only downside I can think of for having as many religions in your cities as possible, is if you wage a war against one of those religion's founding civlizations you'll end up with more war-weariness than if that religion was not present. Though this last point isn't something I'm sure of, it's just something I've read here on occasion (and am too lazy to confirm it).

One drawback from founding too many religions is that the more religions present in the city, the harder it is to spread another one to that city. I was playing around in a game and kept discovering new religions, quickly had founded 3 religions (hindu, judism, & catholism). Also a neighbor had founded buddism. My capital (and founding city of hinduism) is on one side of my kingdom and the new religions were founded more towards the middle, opposite side (where buddism was founded) so my newer cities on the far edge already had 3 religions in them and my hindu missionaries kept failing to spread my state religion into them.

The theology civic might help here if you can get it up early enough (through the Pyramids). Besides the bonus to XP for troops, it prevents the spread of non-state religions into your cities, so you can safely continue to spread your state religion, even if you found later religions.

The great news is that there's a wide number of strategies. Grow then work, or work then grow, or avoid workers for a while. Get many religions, get one religion, piggyback on another religion, or avoid religion entirely. I've used each of these strategies and succeeded. I've also used each of these strategies and failed.

I've produced a worker before I could even use it, because I didn't have the techs to really have him do anything useful. (Mining or Agriculture...) I've also had this result in huge early growth.

I've avoided producing a worker entirely until I hit alphabet, and grabbed some of those ancient era technologies. I've seen this give me a huge tech lead, and I've seen this choke my economy due to a lack of infrastructure.

Can't say I've been able to monopolize a lot of religion at higher difficulties, but I've made huge cash from having lots of religions. I've also made huge enemies.

I've avoided religion entirely, grabbed other key techs and wonders, made good money, and made no enemies. I've also avoided religion and watched as other civilizations speed ahead due to organized religion (and other religious civics).

I think a good general rule is to look at your civ's starting techs and traits.

- Mining allows you to get to bronze early
- A financial civ will want cottages sooner
- Mysticism gives you a great shot at the oracle
- A philosophical civ will want more food and farms
- Work Boats don't stop growth the way workers do -- so fishing can be a great starting tech, if you're near fish
- The pyramids gives complex civics to an 'organized' leader -- a low maintainance police state in the ancient era!
- An aggressive civ is in good shape for an axe, or sword, or horse rush.

And remember... there's a lot of paths to writing. Figure out your civ's best path, and take advantage of the stops along the way.

If you combine these tips with some of the old Civ 3 tips (micromanagment, adjusting the tech/tax slider every turn, etc.), you should find yourself in a good position emerging into the Classical Era.

Adjusting sliders and micromanagment isn't necessary in Civ4 because all excess food, hammers, science, ... is carried over. Thanks Firaxis!

I like your guide for the beginning of the game, when can we read the sequel?

This is the most genuinely helpful thread I've read over the past several days. Thanks, ndthsmdy!!! :goodjob:

I could use more academies...

Actually I found it better to found one academy and keep adding scientists and super scientists to that city and make it a science powerhouse, rather than make academies everywhere.

With one academy and a few super scientists I can, early on, get one city generating 60-100 beakers, where with multiple academies (and no super scientists) I get a few cities with 10-30 beakers each.

I like your guide for the beginning of the game, when can we read the sequel?

I don't think I could even try to sum it all up the way I did for Ancient. This game gets exponentially more complicated the further you go :crazyeye:

I can, however, throw out a couple random observations about Classical:

1) Compared to Ancient and Medieval, the techs as a whole are not that earth-shattering. Looking carefully at what the techs give you and discarding the not-as-essential ones may allow you to skip a few and get into some of the juicy Medieval techs sooner.

2) Mathematics is a massively important tech, because it is *required* to get to Construction (catapults), Currency (markets), and Calendar (hooking up plantations). It's rare that I haven't grabbed it early.

3) In the games I've played, the AI has usually been more concerned in Ancient with getting their own house in order than bugging me. Entering Classical is usually about the time you get deluged with missionaries, tech trade opportunities, and open border requests. I've used entering Classical as a good opportunity to assess my foreign situation and decide who I want to open borders with, who I want to cultivate as a friend, who (if any) I want to get ready to attack, etc.

4) There is only one military addition in Classical (unless you have Ivory): catapults. They are pretty much essential if you want to attack someone, at least at the higher levels. On the other hand, though, if you spend a long time in Classical, you'll still be sitting on the same swordsmen, axemen, spearmen, archers, and horse archers you built in Ancient. This means a) if you neglected your military in Ancient, you have a good chance of recovering as long as you don't wait too long, and b) if you did build a good military in Ancient, getting to catapults can be a good time to rush if you're next to Gandhi and he's too busy building fast workers or something :) Or you can beeline to the Medieval military techs while accumulating commerce and attack after you upgrade. Bottom line is: Ancient military units will be around for a while, so use this knowledge to your advantage.

5) If Ancient is about nurturing your leader traits and resources, Classical may very well be about acquiring some sort of balance. Now that the AI is paying attention to you, you need to make sure you're not too weak in a way they can exploit (because they will). Also, going too hard in a certain area of the game gets more and more likely to get you into trouble. If you're Expansive and think to yourself, "Wow, I have these sweet big cities--I'm going to build even more!" you're probably going to tank your economy (and your tech pace by extension). Same with being Aggressive and building too much military. Founding a religion and trying to nurture that can really screw you if you take that too far too. This game seems to be designed so that you will really be punished if you try to leverage your strengths at the expense of other areas. When you expand anything (your territory, your religion, your military--even your culture), you have to ask yourself, "What is this going to do to the other aspects of the game?" Your strengths should still be your strengths, but enhancing your strengths *will* make your weaknesses even weaker. So you need to think about that the next time you go for your fourth wonder in a row or build your third missionary before 2000 BC.

Let me try my hand at Ancient Era Tech Breakdown:
Resource Techs:
Animal Husbandry
If you have horses, go Husbandry - Wheel and start finding people to invade. Nothing stands up to Horses + Archery until Iron comes around, and if you're fast enough, you might catch someone without copper. Otherwise, hold off until it's important to get extra health.
Agriculture - Important
Very, very important for growth when you have fresh water. +1 food per square is huge early game.
Pottery
Cottages are good, Granaries are good. Not
Mining - Important
If you have stone, gold, iron, or copper, get it.
The Wheel - Important
Roads are always important. Connecting your resources to your cities is needed. Unless you have no resources (which means you lose anyway) this is probably one of your first 5 or so techs.
Fishing -
Get it if you can fish, otherwise don't get it. Not having to pay food for work boats is a nice deal. Also good for the fasttech.
Masonry -
Double quickness of Oracle, Stonehenge, and Walls. Huge with Marble and Stone. Otherwise, hold off.

Resource/Killing:
Hunting
Scout + Spearman + Camp. Spearmen + Archers = defense. Without Hunting, you're pretty soft. Needed for Archery.
Archery
Archers are good. First Strike is nice, and if someone declares war on you, you need these to survive until Iron/Horses kicks in.
Bronze Working - Important
Fighting a early game war without copper, iron or horses is not fun at all. Probably the most crucial resource early game.
New Idea: Forest Chop. Very, very nice with forest + mining civ. Can really help for the first 20 or so turns, allowing one to get 2 city (and worker) quicker than almost anyone else.
Iron Working - Fighting a Medieval war without Iron is probably the dumbest thing you can do. Still, with copper and horses, one can hold off.
Horseback Riding - Horseback riding can be lethal as Horse Archers are fast and tough for a quick early strike.

Religion Techs:
Mysticism - Important
Obelisks are pretty much the only way to expand your borders early.
Meditation
Founds Buddhism. If you want to go the religion route, you want to get others to convert. Important early.
Priesthood
Oracle is very good if you have Marble and/or Wonder Traits. The early tech can really help if you go for something that has a lot of turns to research.
Polytheism
Founds Hinduism
Monotheism
Founds Judaism, Organized Religion is a step up from what you already have.

I'm way too tired to do more, I'll try to expand it later.

Don't be afraid to go balls to the wall to get the tech for your UU--especially if you want to go to war. The Mongols are four steps from Keshiks, and if they have Horses available, then they can practically storm an unprepared neighbour. The Horse archers will put them on their heels until you get your Axemen ready to take down their Spearmen--assuming that your Keshiks didn't cut their resourse supplies to ribbons...

LastChance, what's so great about the game is that you're both right and wrong. I see where you're coming from, but if you play in other ways the other techs become more valuable. I think you're right about the ones that you do value, but you're wrong about the ones that you don't value.

Pottery lets you build cottages -- which provide huge cash by the end of the game.

Priesthood lets you build the oracle, and opens up the path to writing. If you take the religious path, priesthood is a must. The oracle has some HUGE strategies. The closest thing that Civ 4 has to an exploit.

You simply can't avoid hunting, unless you're lucky, or you hooked up copper early. Hunting puts you on the path to archery, and the ability to build scouts can be huge if you can pop some "free technology" goodie huts.

Mining is important just to get to bronzeworking. But still, the ability to mine a hill is something valuable even without resources. Boost your productivity early.

Animal husbandry opens up both writing and horseback writing. I've mopped up the game by making this the second tech I research.

Fishing is the fastest path to pottery, writing, and the alphabet. This can get you off to a GREAT start.

I've had success with every single path. The key is knowing what you have (traits, starting location, resources), and figure out the best place to go from there (religion, cottages, great people, conquest)...

I think you're right. Fishing near water really gave me a big boost last game, and Oracle is very, very good.

You're right about hunting. Archers are needed early game for defense when enemies come at you.

Cottages are very good. Not as important as farms, IMHO, but definitely important enough.

Husbandry is only useful with horses. But, if you have horses, you can really run over one or two civs.

I agree with Mining, but I don't find mining hills to be useful enough compared to farms or cottages or roads, but I agree in that Bronze Working is tech.

The key is that you can grab one or two resource techs and speed off to alphabet, and trade for the rest. The only question is which one or two you'll grab.

That should depend on what techs you start out with, your traits, and what resources are nearby.

Actually, I find that the AI has no intention to deal anything worthwile...

The theology civic might help here if you can get it up early enough (through the Pyramids).

You can only get Government Civics from the Pyramids. Everything else has to be researched separately. So, in order to get Theocracy early on, you'd have to beeline for Theology.

Marc

Besides, that also gives you a good chance at founding Christianity. That's been nasty when I play with the Mongols...

I've only seen one Great Person of any of the other types in that game. I could use more academies...
Try caste system :crazyeye:

Another key in the Ancient Era is to begin to nurture relationships with other civs. If you can get a couple of friends early on and build those relationships, it translates to a lot later in the game. If you can spread your religion to a couple, then use them and give them a few gifts early on and they'll be with you for the rest of the game.

Also, if you make them stronger, you can use them as allies to attack the people you've chosen as your enemies.

Try caste system :crazyeye:

I did, and it still kept kicking out Great Prophets...

I did eventually get wonders that contibuted points towards other leaders, but I still get more Great Prophets than I need...

Here is the $40 question:

At what city size should I put growth on pause to make my first worker?

Extra credit:

First settler?

to both question. i say it depends on how many flood plains or similar square that could give 3+ food or 3+ production. if you got none, i'd say starting at population 1 and wait 25turns. that's the earliest you can crack out a settler or worker.

in other cases, if you actually gain production speed having more population, i say build some defense first. probably you'd want a defending unit right away for noble+. haven't been there yet.

for your first city, build settler asap. so your second city can keep working on settler when your first city build a worker (or vice versa)

i love to see the number of cities exponentially growing. :D

in other cases, if you actually gain production speed having more population, i say build some defense first. probably you'd want a defending unit right away for noble+. haven't been there yet.
Not necessary on Prince. I usually build a scout first, if I've got hunting. Otherwise I get hunting first and then build a scout. While waiting for hunting to be discovered, I start on barracks, then postpone that for the scout when I get hunting.

Early scouts pay off big. Besides finding more goodie huts, you also find where the resources are and where the other civs are faster than with just the one warrior. After you're done exploring, you can use the scouts as lookouts for barbarians and keep the fog of war back so barbarians don't spawn close to your cities.

I usually build the worker after the capitol reaches size 3 (depending on the city's surrounding terrain). By that time, I've got at least two scouts out, and a barracks mostly built (barracks sometimes gets delayed for the worker). My first settler goes out escorted by a scout, or at least with the scout on overwatch from a hilltop to make sure the way is clear. Since both have 2 movement points, they can evade the wild animals, and if the scout has a couple of upgrades by then, it'll beat any animals you encounter. Animals won't bother cities.

Depending on how things are going, my second settler might also go out with a scout instead of an archer. In any case, I build several archers after the third city is founded...the Barbarians start showing up about then. Since I already have a barracks, the garrison archers go out with City Defense I, and the ones destined for picket duty on the boarders go out with Hills Defense I.

My first two or three cities go to either secure prime real estate, exploit vital resources, or block off other civs from your interior with their cultural boarders. If you're the Mongols and some other civ gets to the horses first...well, it's time to try out those Mongol axemen instead!

If I encounter a Barbarian City, I station 2 archers between it and my cities on the most defensible terrain, preferably right next to the city. That keeps them occupied until I can get some axemen or something to take the city.

I found out that founding more than one religion is not a good thing at all. first of all, you have to choose one to spread and concentrate (while others will spread naturaly anyway, which will make your job difficult in the long run). second and more importantly, you decrease the number of religions the AI founds, which makes them have a single religion (if you can't be succesful to concentrate on spreading one of your own) and have good relations with each other. lots of tech trades behind you, and they hate you because you don't have their religion. the more religions you let them found, the more animosity they'll have against each other.