Allrighty then! :)
I've won quite a lot noble games for now and i came to noble-bored status. Wanted to try prince level and i find it very hard compared to noble. read some people here had same problems.
Now, like im learning to play new game.

Maybe u guys can help me out on starting out this game. here is screenshot of the island:

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/2300/isolationro0.jpg

EDIT: here are 4 pics under spoiler that are showing my situation more in detail:

SE island part:
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/8240/seislandie7.jpg
SW island part:
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/126/swislandjs4.jpg
NE island part:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/81/neislandbx3.jpg
NW island part:
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1907/nwislandjy6.jpg

im playing with ragnar, fractal map, standard size, epic speed, warlord expansion.

My questions are:
1. where would u place your cities and how would u specialize them?
2. what to research in this kind of situation?
3. what to build? mostly buildings/wonders or mostly military?

i've allways been rushing for BW and IW, than rushing for stonehenge for expanding borders and than oracle for free metal casting. thate
seemed like a nice plan :D

overall, what would u guys do in this situatian?

I'd start with Sisutils guide for beginners.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

Then I would read up on various strats in the war academy

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

Find a strat that sounds like fun to you and play test it. Note that on noble and below you can pretty much set everything on automatic and still win. But the higher the difficulty the more important it is to micromanage everything in the beginning of the game.

Also starting strats are extremely important at higher difficulties. If you don't have a good one you will fall way behind and lose. For me I just looked at a few different starting strats and practiced starts over and over before I could really go up in difficulty. So don't be afraid just to start a bunch of games to practice the first 50-200 turns or so.

I'm playing Emperor level now and once I get that down, I'll be into immortal and beyond.

thanks for replying xurr, but i accidentally hit enter before finishing my post completely.

Note that on noble and below you can pretty much set everything on automatic and still win

yea, figured that up, but i dont like automating and leave my cities to computers crappy decisions :D

my strategies on noble was going for conquest, domination (on small/standard maps) or diplomatic (on larger maps). i got sick of time and space race.
im mostly favoring warring and other civ extermination (which on prince i find hardly to do)

It also helps if you turn on the grid when taking screen caps. That way its easier for people to draw city placement for you.

hm, grid is on. it isnt just so visible here, i couldn't take better screen shot that shows the whole island.

EDIT: ok ive put more 'zoomed in' shots under spoiler.

I would place a city in the southwest corner next to the river in the square above where the scout is standing adjacent to the cows and spice. that would be a good commerce city. Make it a coastal city so you can build ships and a lighthouse.

the others, since you have no competition for territory, set them up for minimum overlap and to hit all your resources.

I was definitely in the same boat when i started playing prince..
in any case, that land does NOT look so great to me... lots of desert and tundra, a few food resources but no way to really take advantage of those gold mines you have (the cities would be really food poor, or else, 1-tile off the coast, which is less than optimal obviously.)
I'd tech towards astronomy asap (self explanatory) unless it turns out you can hit some other land with galleys. settling the copper is not a priority, given your isolation. I'd probably use archers to fend off whatever barbs show up and to fog bust.
My instinct tells me there might be some seafood south of the gold in the southeast, check that out because if there is it might be a good spot for a commerce city.
good luck with this one. isolated starts are never too easy, especially when the land is no good.

Personally, this is a game and that map does not look fun to me...even if I want to challenge myself. Very food poor and over half of the land tiles are unusable.

Also, why didn't you scout the coastal tiles more?

Overall, however, I would say you can get a lot of commerce and hammers with judicious use of farms, but don't expect super-high populations. Share bonus food resource tiles between cities when possible and build lots of cottages on grassland, windmills on hills (beeline that tech, forgot which one....), and farm plains (civil service is important).

With an isolated start, I generally try to do the following:

-prioritize coastal cities (They will get the best intercontinental trade routes)
-Look to build the Great lighthouse at all costs
-Research to optics
-Focus on generating great scientists (Great library + caste system??)
-Use scientists to lightbulb astronomy

The astronomy lightbulb is described in post 474 here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252788&page=24

If you manage all that you will have very early contact, a monopoly on all the best trade routes and can coast to victory :). Try not to obsolete the Great Lighthouse though!

GS

This is a really problematic start..... not much of food and no clear site for a prod city ( this time I agree that hitting Astro early + Great lighthouse will be advisable )

For that you'll need a coastal strong prod city... for that I suggest you try 5E of capitol ( in the right bank on river's mouth ,2 N of cows ) and get Sailing + masonry fast to build the TGL there ( and fast ... AI in BtS loves it ). The rest of the cities is somewhat problematic ( RNG was tricky and putted the food exactly in the wrong places.... )

Look the most recent Sisiutil ALC. It will help you a lot.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6201146

how the heck could you settle on the marble, you only gaind a hammer, lost fresh water, two workable squares ,cow and later a levee. man, this is not good!

I would place a city in the southwest corner next to the river in the square above where the scout is standing adjacent to the cows and spice. that would be a good commerce city. Make it a coastal city so you can build ships and a lighthouse.

the others, since you have no competition for territory, set them up for minimum overlap and to hit all your resources.


Drop it right on the spices and you can get the flood plain and the gold in your BFC and still be a coastal city.

i don't see any perspective future for ragnar on this map :) but ill try it out today just to see if something good can out of this.

@Polobo: scouting coast will be the first thing ill do.

thinkin to land 2nd city E to get cows and hills and make it a production one. and a third one on western spices or on a better place with seafood.

will try astronomy lightbulb... blah blah. thanks for suggestions. when i saw that island i really didnt know what to do, now i have something on my mind ;)