My first game was with the Indians on Chieftain, and although it wasn't a complete pushover it was dang near, so I switched to Regent level. I restarted many times, because I could not get my civ going well. Before I quit the games, though, I traded for maps to see what the other civs were doing (one reason I would have liked to have had the cheats). I experimented with various civs (Iriquois, American, Indian, Egyptian) without much luck either way.

Today, however I decided to go with the Greeks, partially based on a thread I saw. I like defense, so their Hoplite is a great addition, and commercial and scientific attributes let me build up my peaceful civ (or so I thought).

Two big things held me back when trying to keep up with the other civs. The first is the thought that my main city is supposed to be 'big'. After watching the other civs I realized that you are going to need to kick settlers out of this city almost as fast as you can, for 2-3 settlers (defense interspersed). Getting big means you have to build temples, and in the time it takes you to do that the other civ has laid down another city.

I also did not realize the importance of _mining_ grassland. It gives you an extra shield, which is all the difference (extra wheat won't help much under Despotism). I was able to build my second city on a bunch of grassland, so I had two nice cities to produce settlers. I had a few city spots above me, and after a bit of exploring (got two techs via goodie huts) I found the romans to the southeast, and germans to the northwest. The Germans were pretty much blocked by my second city (they could build south but that was desert), and so I put my third city by the ocean where I could cut off the romans.

I built up this way for awhile, but the Germans were pretty cramped up off to the side (tundra, etc), so they demanded tribute. I told them to bugger off, and away we went. I restarted from auto-save about 2 turns after that, when I realized that I needed to figure out warfare, heh), but after that it was straight away good. I never ran into any problems in combat; I lost some units, but by and large his archers were chewed up by my hoplites.

I initially didn't have any offensive units, which is a big trouble spot. Without zones of control they can slip by you and hose your infrastructure. I restarted from save to move my units into better locations, and switch a few production locations. I had just gotten iron at one of my border cities, and started to produce a swordsman. The iron ran out halfway through production! Thankfully the unit currently being produced was able to come out.

I was on my heels for awhile, while I tried to ramp up protection. I was able to station hoplites on forest tiles, and shunt the enemy off to my city, attacking ACROSS a river, so they didn't have much luck. My only road out of this border city crossed a river twice, so I had a hell of a time getting reinforcements there, something to keep in mind (until you get engineering you don't get road bonus when crossing a river).

Rush building city walls at the cost of one population point was handy. I don't think I could have afforded to buy them, but I was able to whip my citizens up and get the war going!

The Germans figured my strategy out though, and started going after a different city. This one was harder to stop (esp. since most of my units were at the other border city), and they took sparta. Thankfully I had two swordsmen right there, so I took it right back.

The Germans shipped a settler in and built a colony on my land (poor spot, not even strategic advantage), so I ran up and took it over.

At this point I had defense under control, and I started to get ready for offense. My first attack involved 3 hoplites, 3 catapults, and 2 swordsmen. I took his city fairly easily, and then rush built city walls.

I have more info, but off to work.