So I moved up from Emperor and Civ is very challenging again. Many of my games stagnate and go badly fairly quickly for one reason or another. :sad: Today I had another one go south, despite a pretty nice start and a great leader; it is pretty frustrating...

Then I realized I could have the brilliant Civ players on this forum help save me! :D See if you can salvage my game and pull off a nice victory while I watch and see how you did it. Maybe it can be a challenge for you guys. See attachments.

Game details here:
So things started off well, with a nice capital spot, but then I got cut off and cornered with only four cities. Things seem pretty dire but at least I'm beating the Ai's in tech, even with my low beaker count. It is already 715ad though, so I feel waaaay behind.

I kind of failed at diplomacy and no one likes me :mischief: (I just wanted to trade with Mansa Musa the tech bot!), and I'm pretty sure Hannibal is gonna come kick my rear soon. Just popped Military tradition with lib at least, since I figured maybe I could use currasiers and spies to break out through Hannibal. Oh, and the Taj Mahal should be done (hopefully) in a couple turns. Persepolis has the Great Library and NE. My production isn't great though, so getting an army fast enough may be difficult. There is lots of hate between MM and everyone but me, so maybe you can bribe some wars or something.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=217075&stc=1&d=1244489537

I have no idea what's going on on the other continent.

Or, if you just want to start from the beginning, the starting save is there too.

You are the persians, abuse your UU BADLY :)

A few suggestions after looking at your save.

1. Better to adopt Chris, run OR and get some infrastructure up.
2. There are at least 2 or 3 good city spots available (Fish, Clam, Wheat/whale), why don't settle them early?
3. Trade away your horse to Han for resources and gold.
4. Your production is kind of low, but your tech is good. So one way is to tech to Steel, build trebs and upgrade them to cannons and take down Hannibal, you'll stand in a good position to a win.
5. You can delete all of those useless warriors to save you some unit fee. Han is not in WHEOOHRN mode, so adopt Chris will reduce the chance of being DOWed.

You are the persians, abuse your UU BADLY :)

I agree with this upon seeing the stellar capital you have. I don't know who's closer (MM or Han) because I didn't check the save, but the first target should be Hannibal (from an immortal rush). The gold will allow you to afford a few extra immortals and also makes economy rebounding easier after a rush.

It's too bad you didn't kill Hannibal, you have immortals and are playing on epic/immortal and Hannibal is very close.
It would eliminate a dangerous neighbour and give you more land. Even had you then been isolated with MM you could trade techs all day long no problems.

:eek: OMG get more cities!!! :eek: You have four cities and there are spots for four more good cities in your culture borders: at the clams, at the wheat + whale, at the fish, and at the rice in the jungle. A food resource by itself is enough reason to build a city. These cities won't have a lot of tiles to work, but at least they will grow quickly and you can use them for whipping, specialists, or drafting. You could even squeeze in two more mediocre cites at the whale and smack in the middle of your original cites in the hills and forest. You wouldn't settle these cities during your initial expansion, but after you have the classical era economy techs they'd be a good idea.

The alternative would have been to chariot-rush Hannibal. That's what I thought before I realized that you're Persia and you have immortals. An immortal rush is even better. That would have gotten you space for enough cities without having to settle so densely. Or you could have settled those islands before Hannibal, although you would have needed a coastal city for that. Some way, somehow, you need more than four cities. :D

Actually, a low number of cities can work with a wonder economy and settled superspecialists sort of thing, and you do have stone and marble. That might have been possible even though it's not a very good fit for Darius.

Despite all that, things don't look too bad. If you can get enough cuirassiers (build horse archers to upgrade and whip some more), and espionage and spies, you could still fight a winning war.

Welcome to the boards CarboDiem! :beer:

Welcome to the boards CarboDiem!

Thanks! I think I'm going to try going from where I am, but if it doesn't work out I'll restart and try an immortal rush. We'll see how that works; I normally play pretty cautiously in the beginning, but knowing that Hannibal doesn't have early copper should make it pretty easy I suppose.

Everyone's advice is appreciated. :)