Save attached. If you're surprised at all the resources it's full of resources map script. I just find the games more fun with lots of resources. I'm Shaka, prince, terra world, marathon speed, standard size with 10 civs but I already killed off the chinese as you can see. Brennus and monty dow'd me together, which was amazing to me cus monty had just asked me to go to war against hamurabi with him three turns ago and I did, and monty and brennus are different religions, I share one with monty. I took a city of brennus, then made peace. Anyway, my ecnomy sucks, I can't figure out why. I have enough cottages, don't have col yet. I have tons of production but am not sure how to save my economy with it. I usually never have issues with my ecnomy, it might tank a little, maybe to 40-50% research but that's usually the time I get col and build a ton of courthouses to get it back, plus my cities start growing and working more cottages. I think part of the issue might be trade becuase monty has blocked from everyone else and brennus is still mad about that war. I would just build a ton of units and go kick montys butt but I don't think I can afford it and right now I'm holding him fine at a town on a hill with walls- he doesn't have cats yet. Maybe I should push before he gets cats? I would love to get construction myself and blast him with elephants which I have thanks to the conquered chinese, but I've been researching col. Also I was very lucky and got the cover promo event for all melee units, which does make it easier to capture cities once I get through monty's stack.

I'd recommend to switch to Buddhism and try to get better relations
with Brennus to get open borders with him and the other Buddhists.
You have open borders with Asoka and Hammurabi but no foreign trade comes in.
The Buddhist leaders will give you way more relation points then Montezuma.

If you like playing with so many resources. Your game flow will work against you, since cities develop quickly you'll probably want to stick to much fewer cities and get code of law asap.

Also cottages should be on every single tile (just joking but needs more)

Shaka ? Build Barrack eveywhere first, that's 20% discount maintancce already
Have you got Writting ? Chop Lib fast , hire some scientist
Ton of production ? You should tech Currency instead of Col . +1 trade road is a lot (make sure all your cities on trade network) Plus you can build Wealth on 1 of your production city, which usually more than enough on Prince
40% research is great , attually
and last thing , COTTAGEE them all !!! never enough, never too late haha

Your economy is fine, just go down to 10% and build money for a few turns than jack your slider up and get CoL in 1 turn. You will do fine in the wars, Monty sends almost nothing and Purple dude doesn't even attack you and you can bribe for peace.

Your economy is fine, just go down to 10% and build money for a few turns than jack your slider up and get CoL in 1 turn. You will do fine in the wars, Monty sends almost nothing and Purple dude doesn't even attack you and you can bribe for peace.
Are you serious?
His economy is a disaster compared to the techs the AIs already have.
He has 2 neighbours, one is annoyed (Brennus) and the other (Montezuma) you can't trust when pleased.
Monty is 1 tech away from Feudalism and Horseback Riding for war elephants.
The Buddists will simply walk away in tech and the OP has nothing to trade with Monty.

i didnt check the save but outtech by Monty on Prince ? haha

@ Civver

You have nothing to worry about at all. Sure, you could have done things better and can still do things better but your game position is not hopeless. Also, your economy is not in shambles or in ruins. Elite players would be crushing this level but who cares! Once again, your position in this game is actually quite strong by simply changing a few things.

I took your save and made some simple tile changes, build changes, and changed your next tech research to Currency, not COL. I then made some trades, more tile changes, and voila, you're back on track and have some great potential with all the land you have.

Here are some screen shots followed by 2 saves, the 1st of which I changed the tiles you were working and changed some buildings. The 2nd shows how your Empire looks after Currency, re switching tiles, and trade.

Don't freak out about what the workers are doing ;) because I'm lazy and just put them on automate. Also, feel free to change the tiles around to whatever you think is best - they don't all have to be building wealth if you don't want.

I would also suggest switching to Buddhism to please everyone else in the world. Who cares if you piss of Monty - just put walls up in the city closet to him with some good fortified troops and you'll easily stomp any units he decides to waste on you. After all, your UU is an IMPI/SPEARMEN which will do just fine vs. horse archer/elephant who are much more expensive and would be owned attacking you in a city/culture/fortified. If your paranoid about Monty then think about switching to no religion.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s305/cseanny/help%20new%20guy/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

In the future I would suggest getting Alpha to build research and Currency to build wealth (+1 trade route per city) before CoL because it makes a big difference. Also, you don't need so much infrastructure and already have Aqueducts!? Keep it light!

Every city should have an Ikhanda asap for maintenance but after that, keep it simple - granaries, libraries (in appropriate cities) and lighthouses.

Well I stumbled forward right after posting, but your advice was right on. I realized, hey I have a ton of food run specialists duh! and starting running scientists everywhere, got col fast. Then I sold it to asoka for 700g. Monty finally made peace with me after smashing about 30 jaguars against nogama/hills city. I didn't lose a single troop. Then I teched construction and currency and actually saw my gdp hit 2nd in the game.

So I took a bunch of elephants and catapults and took four cities off brennus. I lost a few units because he just gotten fuedalism, but he only had a couple longbows in his cities. Montys culture was way too high, one captured city revolted to him, and another was going to face the same fate so I made peace with brennus for 300g and liberated the city to him.

Now I'm stuck again! I figured I would beeline to guilds and take monty down with knights, but I can see that monty is already researching guilds himself and has engineering! I can bide my time, try to outtech him to rifles or cannons but his economy is stronger than mine and he has like a 4 tech lead. I can try to just out muscle him with stacks of elephants and cats, but he has pikes and longbows now and good production and big stacks already. Or I could turtle up and try for a space win or wait til astronomy and conquer elsewhere but I don't trust monty one bit so I know I'll have to spend a lot of resources keeping my army strong and that doesn't appeal to me to just sit and tech when I'm already behind.

here's the latest save

i didnt check the save but outtech by Monty on Prince ? haha

We have the same number of cities, he has about 4 more happy resources than me so his cities are a lot bigger, he has 3 gold mines and the jewish shrine. He also traded for quite a few techs I'm sure, while everyone hated me and wouldn't trade because frickin buddism wouldn't spread to me. I'm a little surprised he's doing so well into the middle ages myself, but this is a very unique map.