I've read many comments how an early war is necessary to gain land. As soon as I get axeman or swordsman I declare war on nearest civ. But this has done me more problems than benefits. War slows me in tech race big time although i get a lot of land. Even if i defeat that civ, other civs advance in tech and there is no way I can catch up with them. This happens to me all the time, I'm one of the civs with largest land area but my economy suffers great deal and all of my cities grow really, really slow, much slower then AI. I try to build farms, cottages wherever I can although I try not chop forests to make farms (is this a mistake?).
If I don't expand quickly I will loose strategic resources (iron,copper, horses) but If I do, it will stifle my economy and I'll drop back in tech race.

So, if you have advice...

Well its because Axe rush isnt godly as some people try to make it sound, unless you play on lowest difficulty.

Expand yourself and build up at least 6 good cities, sort your economy first, then when you can fuel and maintain a larger army, build one for war. If your worried about neighbour, found a religion and spread it to them to keep them peacefull while you prepare.

Also dont think you need to destroy the other civ fully in 1 war, declare peace if you need to :p

An Axe rush IS as godly as we make it sound.
By the time you have 6 cities the AI is allready rampaging through your lands on higher difficulties.

So you axe rush your nearest neighbour

If your lucky, you may even wipe them out, if not you weaken them.

But in that time you could have expanded, set up more cities, built improvements and wonders. Which would have given you the ability to pump out loads more units.
Instead your stuck with a tiny empire, but now you can expand into where your neighbour was. Just have to hope some other civ who expanded and developed doesnt find you :lol:

Axe rush would be godly if your on a continent with 1 other civ though, but a bit boring.

Depending on who your neighbor is it may be good to kill off or mame a threat early . This might gain you earlier access to a good city site ( Their Starting Spot ) . Or perhaps Metal or Food all good factors for an early war ?

I favor early war , expanding into other civs starting spots and branching out from there ... :king:

Simple really, who is your neighbour, and how near are they.

If you're holed up on some small island with any expansive or aggressive Civ, then it makes sense to build up a force, take their cities and away you go.

However, if there is miles between you and any neighbours, and there is plenty of available land for you to expand into, then don't bother.

Also, try to capture some settlers/workers on the turn you declare war, and don't be afraid to raze a few cities if badly located, otherwise your economy will stall.

The biggest trick to expansion is getting to the special resources before the other civs and planting a good city "Line" between them all.

Take for instance your on the basic levels up to say Noble and standard everything. The AI acts or "behaves" a certain way in those levels so you would want to build something like this. Warrior-Worker-Worker-Settler-Warrior-Warrior-Settler-Worker-Worker then by this time you have other cities with which to build more settler/warrior combinations.

Placement is also of upmost importance: place 2nd city close enough to build good road system in say 3-4 tiles to 1st city (but keep in mind those resources) and place inbetween the resources as many as possible within the above tiles "reach". Then build 3rd city to Block off the other civs advancement somewhat but keeping in mind the resources and distance of up to 5-6 tiles placement. (If you place your cities too far apart you'll have a harder time protecting them effectively due to distancees between cities, bringing units from a city that is only 3-4 or 5-6 spaces away is costly enough but manageable).

This of course is not taking into account things like wonders such as the GW which blocks off potential invasions of Barb during the rest of the game. So if you are a builder then you'll want to incorporate those wonders (and only those wonders) which are most important to your civs growth at first, including expansion of culture. I am a builder by heart so up to about Prince I can build most wonders I want if I start with a good builder civ like Roosevelt. Above that level though forget building more than one in 5-8 wonders as it will cost you in units you "NEED" like protective units and attacking units.

Remember though; even as a builder the wonders should take second place to bulding units for advanced growth/attacking/defence or things like spies for stealing techs/counter espionage(the only 2 things I bother with) or culture spreaders like Preists/Missionaries. If you have an early religion then spread it to other civs first and allow them to become happier with you by default, then put them into your own cities for buildings production which helps with many aspect such as gold/tech/culture.

I'll try to put up a map on one of the lower levels for you showing the expansion and placement of what IMHO should be a great start for a builder civ to show what I'm talking about.:)

Edit: I feel that early war is also neccesary to acomplish what your map lays out for you. Just going to war to expand is totally not necessary if you expand correctly first up.

Here's the saves and such. Level: Noble, standard everything, using Roosevelt for building.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/125357/Opening_startup_not_bad.jpg
Startup position not too bad for noble.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/125357/Notice_how_close_the_neighbors_are.jpg
Neighbor up close and presonal like.:lol:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/125357/My_6_cities_as_I_chose_them.jpg

The setup at present with 6 well placed cities.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/125357/God_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/125357/God_BC-0200.CivBeyondSwordSave

and here's the savegame for the start and now. You can see how they are just the right distance and getting good resources also, but wait don't let this fool you into thinking you should stop there! If you economy can handle it just develop the barb city you are poised to take to the NW and get prepaired for war now.
Hope this helps you with how it's done on lower levels with this level of play.

So you axe rush your nearest neighbour

If your lucky, you may even wipe them out, if not you weaken them.

But in that time you could have expanded, set up more cities, built improvements and wonders. Which would have given you the ability to pump out loads more units.
Instead your stuck with a tiny empire, but now you can expand into where your neighbour was. Just have to hope some other civ who expanded and developed doesnt find you :lol:

Axe rush would be godly if your on a continent with 1 other civ though, but a bit boring.

Nope simply not true, an early 6 axe rush will generally wipe out your nearest neighbour very easily, you keep their cities so you don't have to build your own, plus one will be a second capital in a prime location.

You will probably be behind in tech to start with but you'll have more land, more cities and with a bit of cottage spamming you'll be level if not ahead in tech fairly soon.

Works on Prince.. what doesn't is sitting and waiting for the AI to come and batter you to death.

Of course if you have two near neighbours and don't take too few casualties nailing the first civ you can always rinse and repeat. The proviso is of course do it right, if it goes wrong you are absolutely buggered.

Also at higher levels you dont generally want to build wonders and your early war should be all over by about 1000BC.

As I said works up to and including Prince, plus your early war is a prerequisite for a number of wins like cultuire and diplo I tend to find because it gives you such a large early advantage.

The early axe rush is indeed very powerful, but make sure to get Code of Laws and build courthouses as soon as possible to help with the maintenance cost.

but with the axe rush it is situational still. I was on an island with saladin, and for some reason he wasn't expanding at all ( i did find out later that an early war by him had eliminated the other civ on the map I hadn't known about because my scouts were killed by bears), and there was a ton of room, so I had a couple cities building an army and the others making settlers. Luckily I was shaka and got the barracks deal he has for maintenance. Seemed anti shaka to be a peaace mongering builder, so I dismantled the holy hindu empire of the Arabs.

Another problem with conquering early as said by king of town is that your empire will more than likely stagnate for a long while.

First you will have lost ground by :

Concentrating on building soldiers.
Concentrating on the techs needed for the soldiers.
Losing happiness conquering the enemy.

Also when you capture the new cities you have a loss of money and unhappiness in those cities to deal with.

Early on it will cripple your research and mean that you lag even further behind good AI.

If you play a fractal map like me there will always be ai further away (maybe even on a new continent) that has outstripped you by a long long way.

Of course if you are only conquering one or two cities its not so much of a problem, so the trick is to either attack small civs or give up once you have a lot of war weariness/enough cities.

Its a tough balance on higher levels! You may get away with being able to conquer a few more on lower levels because i think you get a happiness bonus.

Good luck anyway, and enjoy the struggle, thats part of the fun. When you roll over the enemy all the time then the fun is gone!

As I said works up to and including Prince, plus your early war is a prerequisite for a number of wins like cultuire and diplo I tend to find because it gives you such a large early advantage.

Ehm, no. There is no such prerequisite. It may helps in some situations, but prerequisite? Heh, no.