Hello everyone. I'm playing the Earth16 map with Warlords and BTS civs only (the one Neal is using right now for his KOTW12 game). Note that I'm using the unmodified map where Asia is practically empty and I thought I wanted to have a nice easy game so I picked Korea which should have tons of room to expand peacefully and selected Monarch as my difficulty level. it was anything but easy...

First of all, I overlooked the kind of idiot Sury can be... AND ... I way underestimated the number of barbs so as a result I started fairly slow in terms of expansion as I had to build a sizable early military with relatively few good production sites. I even lost a city of Guangzhou to Sury in the Classical Era before I got it back later. In addition, being far from other civs, I was unable to stop a superpower from forming. Anyways, I recovered a bit (have 16 cities in 1595AD) and the major power blocks look as follows:

1) Myself (Korea), Sury (Khmer) and Hammy (Babylon) are all Hindu and like each other. Apart from 2 early wars with the Khmer (they started one and then me), we got along very well. Myself and Sury have roughly equal power with Hammy weaker than us.

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0113.jpg

2) Boudica and her power block. Hannibal, Gilgamesh, Joao, Zara, and biggest of all Suleiman are all her vassals and her power is 2X mine and she is annoyed with me. These guys (except Suly who is Jewish and I was hoping would break free) along with the currently unaligned but Boudica-loving Charlemagne, Justinian (who keeps being Charlie's vassal every once in a while), and Ragnar are all Buddhist. Shaka is Buddhist as well but he warred with almost everyone so far and isn't very strong...

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0114.jpg

3) Sitting bull and his vassal Pacal. These guys are pretty backwards, but Bull has the only army even close to Boudica's right now so he must have tons of units. He is also the largest civ in the game. These guys are Confucian, but are Cautious with me and do want to trade mostly.

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0115.jpg

4) Willem who everyone hates. He is Christian and rules Britain and parts of North America. Doesn't deserve a screenshot.

The way things are now, its only a matter of time before I get declared on. Right now, Boudica's block is at war with Sury and time is running out. I just got Rifling (only one except Hannibal who has it and got a sizable force ready to invade Boudica's strongest vassal Sully:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0125.jpg

Here are a few more screens to help with your decision:

Domestic:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0112.jpg

Generally weak production... :(

Military:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0116.jpg

Lots of obsolete units and too little siege...

GNP:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0118.jpg

Doing well here but Boudica has caught up.

Production:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0119.jpg

Not good!! I'm thinking Steam Power is next after Steel. I need to industrialize before others to have a chance.

Crop Yield:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0120.jpg

I'm doing well here. Only Bull is better.

Power:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0121.jpg

I shiver when I think what her Power will look when she gets Rifling.

Tech:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0122.jpg

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff255/dankok8/Civ4ScreenShot0124.jpg

I also have Replacable Parts and Rifling on Boudica.

So what to do? The position is not hopeless, but is not great either. As far as I see my options are:

1) Declare on Sully right now and take Boudica and her allies on with Sury. Maybe Hammurabi who is Friendly to us joins too...

2) Do nothing and just run for Space and hope I don't get taken out by then.

3) Convert to Buddhism (Boudica's religion) and try to make up with her and attack Sury. I donno about this because he will cap rather early so I won't take all of his land + when he is done, I think it's either me or Hammy next. :lol:

4) Something else?

You're not in that bad of a position, actually. If I were you, I would've settled the islands a lot quicker, to get all of the Calender resources down south near Australia and Indonesia. If you would have done that and traded them off for more happiness resources, you would've had a huge tech advantage and a nice population, and you wouldn't have been in such a mess :P

Anyways, get Steel and whip / draft a nice big army, and take on Sury. He has all of India, which is very good land, and if you take him over, it shouldn't be that hard to beeline to Assembly Line / Artillery to take on Boudica. You can take out Sul, but then it'll take a while longer to get to Assembly Line / Artillery as his land isn't very good, and you'll have to worry about the barbarians running around Russia.

In the meantime, try and get Charlemagne and Justin to declare on Boudica. If you can give them Rifling for war against Boudica, do it, as that way it'll make them Boudica's enemy, and will also slow down her progress.

A couple questions though:
1) What civics are you running?
2) What wonders do you have?
3) Do you have a WB / Save you could post?
4) Do you have a picture of the Vic. Conditions so we can see who is potentially going for X victory?

I've found that when starting in asia on the Earthxx maps, the GW helps a ton with all the barbs that come out of the siberian tundra. Also, Sury has a horrible start location - jungle and no food (I've won with him only by moving my starting settler to the S. China coast (a superb location worthy of a capital). I'm surprised that you didn't take him out early (grabbing the horses in Beijing and chariot rushing), or at least block him out of central china (Ankhor Thom is a dynamite production site that you should have blocked immediately after Guangzhou).

Your current situation doesn't look so bad, except for the lack of seige and :hammers:. Trebs>cannons is one of the cheapest/best upgrades in the game. However, your lack of production is a problem. Do you have a HE city? It doesn't look like it (I'd expect it in Beijing, which would have double the :hammers: that are shown). I'd say your best bet for war is to convert to buddhism and backstab Sury and Hammy. SE asia and India have great land once the jungle has been cleared, especially with SP (essential, IMO, for a dom victory on this map). Attacking Sulieman and Boudi will open up a can of worms, especially if Sury caps to her and then turns on you - you'll have a 2-front war with poor production. For tech path, I'd finish steel and then go RR (logistics + MGs + :hammers: ), SM, comm, steam, corp, AL. Levees will only help you in Beijing (maybe some of your siberian cities as well, but they're too small to matter in the short term), so it seems a waste to prioritize them right now.

Switch to nat/slavery (via a GA if possible) and draft a bunch of rifles + whip some cannons for those :mad: faces in your hi-pop cities. Once you have SE asia + India, you can pick your VC. :)