Don't hold back, I am tired of being rated as Dan Quale!! If there is anything that you can see I am doing wrong or can do better let me know.

I knew I would be uploading this file, so I tried to play smart. I want to establish my Diplomacy Triangle with Cyrus and Hatty. I am trying to spread my religeon far and wide.

Also, if the file is not attached tell me what I did wrong.

well for starters, you need to completely improve the area around your cities to get the most out of that terrain (which is largely why my cities grow so quickly), put all of the cottages and farms down and mines. your capitol city has three hills right next to it and you could greatly improve your production there if they had mines on them! theres also hills near your other cities that are not bieng taken advantage of!

the more production you can get out of your cities, the more you can build, etc. The very first thing I see is that you aren't getting the most out of your cities. I'm going to get a screenshot of one of my games to show you just what I'm talking about. You are also doing ok in getting the resources, but at least try to get all of them.

also, you need more than just obelisks in your cities! the fact that you aren't improving your cities tiles properly and completely is the root of your problem here.

edit: here are two screenshots of how the tiles around your cities should look like generally, never mind the fact that its in late game, the screenshots show how much improvement you SHOULD have. your capitol city's tiles should be fully improved by 50 AD in the game.

Wow, all tiles around the capitol by 50 AD, sounds like I need to get more workers early.

Besides the obelesk, what are some good first things to build? Usually I build one barracks to get promotions and try to concentrate on using that city for mostly units.

Anyone else.

Now that I am off the beginner's board, I am learning a lot more.

Granary, lighthouse, library, temple, monastery.

Granary and lighthouse for growth
library for specialists and research
Temple for priests
Monasteries for research and culture

Try and found a religion or build stonehenge. This means you don't need obelisks. I hardly ever build them. The religion is great. 1 culture point in every city and can build the religious buildings.

Yeah I've rarely ever built an obelisk. Stonehenge is great.

Theatre gives you lots of culture, and is dirt cheap. Depending how large your civ is, how many cities you have, I'd say all the financial buildings will lead you to great things. Money is power. If you have a courthouse, marketplace, grocer and bank, you're rolling in it.

And yeah, definitely try to found a religion.

Have you tried playing a larger game?

I wouldn't necessarily agree with having all tiles sorted as early as possible. If your city isn't big enough to work all of them, then it's not necessary. I'd probably make sure you improve all the best ones first, for fast early growth, then as the city growth slows down, just improve the tiles as you need, starting with the next best tiles.

still, having those mines down would help greatly with production. The only mines I saw for his cities were on resources.

as for developing the land, you don't have to cover the territory with roads like I did since the screenshots were in the late game, around the 19th and 20th centuries because you should be busy improving your cities and building roads to resources at that point in the game. I covered the land in roads later on or when my workers had nothing else to do.

and I always go for Stonehenge ASAP as well :)

watched the replay of what you did, it seemed you expanded to with city placement in the wrong direction you let cyrus block you in and settled at the back when there was space at the front. also you have not attacked cyrus which should have been done eliminating him will cause you alot less hassle in the futre. it might not be to late though since you have iron.

The thing that leapt out at me was far too much road building.A road is only needed to if you need the health/luxury benfit from a resource.If you don't need it don't build it of course later you will want it but build the road then not straight away.Are you aware that resources flow down rivers?So if you build a road to a river it links the resource to any city at the end of the river or build a short road at the other end of the river.

My gameplay improved no end when I played hotseat team game with my mate as we discussed things.At first we were saying things like like "I have cows we must research animal husbandary" but we soon learnt to see the bigger picture and not to keep chasing our tails and grabbing techs that we could do without.

Another thing I learnt from our hotseat games is not to fear the whip with slavery my friend whipped alot more than I did and got off to better starts always.He still whips more than I do and still starts better than I do I guess some retards never learn :blush:

Wow, all tiles around the capitol by 50 AD, sounds like I need to get more workers early.

Besides the obelesk, what are some good first things to build? Usually I build one barracks to get promotions and try to concentrate on using that city for mostly units.

Anyone else.

Now that I am off the beginner's board, I am learning a lot more.

You may build enough workers but set them to the wrong tasks less roads more farms,mines and cottages.

Thanks for all the help, I will continue with your advise and maybe post the
result.

If anyone else has tips that are not mentioned I will still check back.:D