This is where my games usually lose focus. I think my economy, military, and technology are in fairly good shape, but I have too many unhappy cities. I think HC and/or Cathy are about to invade. I'm worried about striking first because I suspect Toku will backstab. But, if I go after Toku first, I may be too vulnerable to an invasion.

I'm already too late for an early domination win. Space race may be reasonable, but I think this isn't possible until late in the game. I'm not pleased with the situation because I feel like I've wasted a really good start.

Original and current saves attached (if not, please tell me how to fix). Game is noble, fractal, epic.

Space race is the obvious route to go at this point - you have a good tech lead. As far as domination goes, you hit the problem that while you have Industrial age tech, a large chunk of your military is composed of Medieval age units. These need either upgrading or replacing.

Happiness problems - Huayna Capac and Wang Kon both have surplus luxuries you can trade for immediately. Some of your cities could use a little work. Babylon for example isn't working any of its high production tiles (and you're seriously short of good production cities). Put those scientists back to work on the mined hills, and you can get the infrastructure in place about four times as fast. A forge for instance, combined with the resource trades would give an extra +4 happiness there, as well as the production, allowing you to restore the scientists after only a few turns.

Akkad desperately needs farms and a lighthouse. Cottages all over the place are useless with the city stuck at size 4, and there's no need for it to be like that with the surrounding terrain. Its got the Moai statues as well, but they're not be leveraged since the city doesn't have enough food. The same is true to a lesser extent for some of your other cities.

I'd also urgently add another city on the oil tile at the southern end of your continent. It may be a very icy location, but you have no oil in your territory, and you'll need it very soon. The AI will grab it soon if you don't. That location also grabs a couple of furs (another happiness resource which you don't have at the moment), and a fish which will make the city easily pay for itself.

Happiness problems - Huayna Capac and Wang Kon both have surplus luxuries you can trade for immediately. Some of your cities could use a little work. Babylon for example isn't working any of its high production tiles (and you're seriously short of good production cities). Put those scientists back to work on the mined hills, and you can get the infrastructure in place about four times as fast. A forge for instance, combined with the resource trades would give an extra +4 happiness there, as well as the production, allowing you to restore the scientists after only a few turns.

Akkad desperately needs farms and a lighthouse. Cottages all over the place are useless with the city stuck at size 4, and there's no need for it to be like that with the surrounding terrain. Its got the Moai statues as well, but they're not be leveraged since the city doesn't have enough food. The same is true to a lesser extent for some of your other cities.

Good tip on trading for happiness. I'm on good terms with Wang Kon, so this should work. Will work on Babylon. I was trying to maximize food, obviously to the detriment of production. Akkad has been a problem for me from the beginning. I put it there to claim horses and marble, but have struggled to establish food. I've also struggled to establish a good production city. This game has given me real problems. I usually have problems in setting one up. On military, I have been hoarding cash for widespread promotion to rifles. Probably should set science to zero for a few turns and just do it.

Thanks again for the tips. I've been on noble for a while and had some pretty solid wins (domination by 1770). But since I have more time to play now, I believe I should be improving faster to move up to Prince. I'm just not sure I'm ready yet.

other things aside trading for resources.
get forges and markets. perhaps switch to slavery if you need to whip. and make sure you have both ironworks and oxford uni built.
you have plenty of army (some of too dated, though), save the fact you dont have enough siege. build a few airships as well.
artillery+cavalry is very good combo and you can easily take the continent w/ close to zero losses on your part. City raider is a better promotion than extra collateral damage (or better dont promote immediately)
few more tips: do not build units w/o barracks, esp. if you run nationhood. free speech w/ so many towns would be way better since i dont see why you'd like to draft. some workshops/lumbermills would be nice too.
ahh and get the extra plantations, you can trade for gold in the worst case.
and w/ so many towns you do need libraries like everywhere. you have fully grown up cottages

...meanwhile i'd research to sushi and go for late culture.

i played a few turns and wiped toku w/ your current army and a few airships... building infrastructure.

other things aside trading for resources.
get forges and markets. perhaps switch to slavery if you need to whip. and make sure you have both ironworks and oxford uni built.
you have plenty of army (some of too dated, though), save the fact you dont have enough siege. build a few airships as well.
artillery+cavalry is very good combo and you can easily take the continent w/ close to zero losses on your part. City raider is a better promotion than extra collateral damage (or better dont promote immediately)
few more tips: do not build units w/o barracks, esp. if you run nationhood. free speech w/ so many towns would be way better since i dont see why you'd like to draft. some workshops/lumbermills would be nice too.
ahh and get the extra plantations, you can trade for gold in the worst case.
and w/ so many towns you do need libraries like everywhere. you have fully grown up cottages

...meanwhile i'd research to sushi and go for late culture.

i played a few turns and wiped toku w/ your current army and a few airships... building infrastructure.


I don't usually put a barracks in every city, even with an agg leader. I'll fix that. I just cashed a bunch of gold to promote units to riflemen, so that looks better. Not enough siege seems to be my Achilles heel. I usually build enough for my first war, become enamored of my new tech (feudalism, say) and fail to reload my siege. Still working to fix that. I've already started on some workshops to boost production.

BTW,do you only run representation when you want to draft units?

New development: I've played another 20 years (now 1792) and HC has DOW'ed Cathy. Surprise here, I was expecting him to invade me. Anyhow, Toku has also DOW'ed on HC, so this is probably a good time to take Toku out.

>>BTW,do you only run representation when you want to draft units?
You may want to switch to US to buy units w/ so many cottages (only w/o anarchy, though): i mean you had unhappiness in the capital and no barracks under nationhood (+2 happiness).
Again build forges: they are all good :)

As for siege. Having one settled general + barracks is 5xp, i'd say theo for 5 xp everywhere and you can get CR2 siege (or cr1+bombard), such siege lasts much longer when you have cr3 you are bound to lose really few units (vs ai)

About HC/Cathy well of course, both were preparing for war I don't truly see a reason to be against ya. The AI is so bad at naval warfare and you were the first in power...

The game was pretty much sealed w/ any victory you might wish for (domination could be too time consuming, though)

Played until 1862. DOW'ed Toku right after my last post and vassalized him in 6 turns. Converted back to slavery and whipped the unhappiness out of almost all my cities. I'm ready to start the Apollo Project, but don't have a city that can do it in less than 100 turns (even with Aluminum). So my next question is: What is a reasonable year to achieve a space race win? The earliest I've done one is about 2030, which hasn't led to a very imposing victory total.

This hasn't been one of my better games. I've set a personal goal to win consistently at Noble by 1900 before I think I'm ready to move up to Prince. Is this realistic?

Thanks loads for all of the tips. This is my first post of a game, and everyone has been really helpful. Will keep plugging away at this for a bit to see where it leads.