My biggest issue when playing this game is the excruciating process of deciding where to settle my cities. I don't have a screenshot, but if someone is interested would you load this save and give your opinion of where my 2nd city should be placed? The Settler has its movement points and was just recently created from the Liberty Policy a couple turns ago.

Additionally, any other general critiscism would be appreciated.

Continents Plus, Small, Standard Speed, Prince

I'd place cities on the red dots in the screenshot below.

Try to build on rivers, hills, or coastlines.
Have at least 1 resource in the first ring around a city.
Pick up all resources in the territory within 3 rings around a city.


http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/7301/cities.jpg

At this stage in the game I would:


Settle the spot directly north of the capital.
Place the capital on "avoid growth" for ~20 turns to avoid unhappiness problems.
Declare war on Venice when the citystate's archer is not in the city. Killing the archer at the onset of war will make conquering the city easier, since only the city will be poking you with arrows. If the archer doesn't leave the city in ~5 turns of surveillance, ambush the other units instead.
Mass-build archers and spearmen in your first two cities during the war.
Capture Venice by turn ~70. This will give:

A third city.
340:c5food: for your second city, probably jumping it up 3-5:c5citizen: population points.
Experience for your military units.
The best part is there's no one else on your continent, so you will get no diplomatic penalties.

Take the capital off avoid growth.
Fill out the continent with cities on the remaining red-marked tiles. There's probably some more good spots in the hidden terrain to the north, too. There's some ivory up there.
Fill out the Liberty tree first, then Honor.
Research naval and Berserker techs.
Attack the nearest neighboring continent, and form a beachhead there to continue conquest.

Declaring war on a citystate does not eject our units from its borders, unlike declaring war on a major civ. This makes ambush tactics ideal when conquering citystates. Also, declare war as soon as possible... the longer you wait to DoW a citystate, the more likely it will pick up protectors and allies.

Talking about red dots - does anyone know any good mods that allow the placement of markers on the map?

I loved being able to mark future city locations on the map with signs in Civ 4!

I used to mark entry points into my areas with signs in Civ IV, when I played on the highlands maps. It was awesome, kind of like playing in a maze!

I would put on raging barbarians and play at the next higher level, total destruction.