Care to give me your candid opinions? Nothing really interesting has happened. For a continents map, there's a lot of islands. Haven't tried for any wonders, except for Zeus which I'm 11 turns from. Don't plan on using it, but.

Trading like a madman to stay even with the AI. However, we've just entered the middle ages which is too unpredictable for me. I can stay even in the ancient era because I know what techs the AI will go for, but the middle ages is typically where I start to lose my grip on the tech race. I tried jumping to republic, but I went from +3 to -20 GPT, so I went back to despotism. Can't jump to monarchy because no one on our continent has it. And I can't disband my military because I share a continent with the Aztecs.

The save and a not-recent picture are included.

remember in republic that units cost 2gpt each to support, so only have 1 or 2 defenders in each city at most, try to get as many cities to size 7 or above if you want to use republic, as that will ease unit support.

I only looked at the screenie, and I saw that one of your main cities are building SoZ. Don't focus on wonders early on. You would be better off building troops/settlers/workers in that 30+ turns time rather than wasting the shields on a wonder.

If you really must go for a unit producing wonder like that, wait for Knights Templar. By that time your empire should be better established (you aren't focusing on settler building any more) and you are not forfeiting valuable land while trying to build wonders early on.

Hope this helps a bit.

looked at the save, a lot of your cities have 2 or more defenders, when i played monarch, i tried to have 2 defenders at most in each city in the ancient age, and when i got over that figure i disbanded the weakest defender as i fortified the newest ones.

don't keep your workers fortified in cities unless you are at war, the faster your cities are developed the more productive you will become.

EDIT: By killing off some of the defending units in the cities away from your borders, i got your income to +9 gpt

(why is heliopolis on wealth?)

Re: save
I am at war. See the barbarian horsemen? He was using my road (where he killed my defender and half of my workers) . One turn away from nabbing my workers, who were planting a forest. I stuck them in that city until I got someone to kill that horse.

Heliopolis is on wealth because my budget used to look worse than that, and I forgot to change back to start on a marketplace prebuild. Thanks for reminding me. :crazyeye: Byblos was on wealth in that picture because she already had a temple and she had nothing better to do until I got my workers up there to irrigate her game.

Ah, that would explain it, sorry i didn't see any barbarian movement from the camps, i just looked at f4 and saw world peace.

Crap, I just remember that SoZ is Religious and Industrious...so in eleven turns, I'm going to have despotism golden age. I'll have to think of something to do before that happens.

Looks great :goodjob: . How are the Mayans treating you? They are
usually pretty tough :eek: . I think you should fill up the North asap
before anyone starts to travel through your land or gets dropped off
up there. I love to get S o Z , especially if you happen to not get any
horses for awhile. Ancient Cavs are solid units on offense and defense
and can really :spank: . Please keep us up to date on the game :D .

Yeah, the Mayans beat me to a good island spot with fish and a cow ( :( ) by one turn. When they started sending a settler pair through my lands I canceled our ROP and told them what they could do with themselves. However, Heliopolis is a chokepoint city, so I don't know how they could've gotten past it..

my $0.02-
Unless you need them for military police, I'd move all your defenders to the choke points at heliopolis and on your border with the maya. Switching to republic means you can't have mps's , so just move 'em out. Try getting some galleys to move settlers around, and stay on good relations w/ the maya. Civs will have to go through them to get to you, and if they like you, they won't ally against you.

Suggestions at this point:

- Get a galley/curragh or two or three out exploring. This should have been done 50+ turns ago.
- Settle the northern tundra and soon. More cities means more unit support, more commerce, Forbidden Palace, etc.
- Wealth is not good. Build a granary. Prebuild for something else. Build a worker to get the lands improved faster. Pretty much anything but wealth can be valuable.
- You really probably need more granaries. Your towns are all awfully small.
- Statue of Zeus is fine either way. If you want it, great. If not, there are other valuable things Thebes could be doing. There's no one way to win!
- Two revolts is a VERY BAD thing. You should have made Republic work. You have plenty of units and would have been helped a lot by disbanding some in Republic. Getting out from under the despotism tile penalty is HUGE and is worth way more than 24 gpt or whatever you think you'd lost.
- All regular units? Build some barracks, man! An extra hp is huge when fighting battles. A couple regular units as MP is fine, but for real units (like the sword in Memphis), there's almost never a good reason to not build the barracks first.
- Never give up hope. Play the game to the very bitter end. Even if you lose, you'll learn so much that you can take with you into the next game that you'll be surprised how much easier it is.

Arathorn

The Mayan managed to get one tundra town. Once I get more defend on my Mayan borders I plan to take that town. The English also got this little one-tile-tundra town which I'll probably have to take for oil or something.

In middle ages now. Everyone has Monarchy and Lit on my continent, English also have feudalism. I met two civs on the other continent, the INca and the Americas. They have lit, monarch, fedualism, and monthotheism. I'm trying to research engineering in the hopes of trading, but England also has feudalism and she won't give it up since it's a goverment tech now. (I hate how the AI thinks goverment techs are so important).

Since I see no way for the AI to bypass my Heliopolis chokepoint, I have ROPs with the Maya, Aztecs, and English. Everyone is polite, but the Aztecs used to be gracious, due to my extensive trading with them. (Got some good deals off of them.)