I'm starting to get a handle on many of the problems that have screwed up my perma-noble playstyle.
One that has remained, however, is pacing my expansion.
I habitually go either-or with REX or conquest, depending on whether I'm Rome or Holy Rome, my two favourite civs. (I play with free leaders, generally Hannibal or Liz)
I either conquer my way to a 6-8 good city civ by wiping out another civ when we're both at 4-5 each and razing any bad cities
or
Rex my way to precisely 6 well positioned cities, striving to avoid ever going below 60-70 science slider, cottage economy.
The trick is I don't have a good instinct for when more would be better; I don't know when it's time (on a standard map, 5-6 opponents) to start expanding again. Often I feel pretty good about my position but notice one or two civs starting to get higher scores, and then all of a sudden we do map exchanges and I see some relatively balanced civilization of 12 big cities or something.
I know with persistence and a the confidence that comes from being stuck on noble that I can probably bushwack the big advanced empire with an aggressive military strategy, but it sort of spooks me that I'm failing to keep pace with them in a non-psychoctically-violent way. I strongly suspect it's my own mania to avoid over-rexing that leaves me with a (usually bordered-in) 6 city empire for too long.
I know this is a too-many-variables question - map size, identity of neighbors, the playstyle I want - but for a standard map with 5-6 opponents and a non-pacifist, non-warmonger middling playstyle, when is it time to get beyond the initial six city REX limit? As soon as you can start running >80-90 science again? When ought that be?
One that has remained, however, is pacing my expansion.
I habitually go either-or with REX or conquest, depending on whether I'm Rome or Holy Rome, my two favourite civs. (I play with free leaders, generally Hannibal or Liz)
I either conquer my way to a 6-8 good city civ by wiping out another civ when we're both at 4-5 each and razing any bad cities
or
Rex my way to precisely 6 well positioned cities, striving to avoid ever going below 60-70 science slider, cottage economy.
The trick is I don't have a good instinct for when more would be better; I don't know when it's time (on a standard map, 5-6 opponents) to start expanding again. Often I feel pretty good about my position but notice one or two civs starting to get higher scores, and then all of a sudden we do map exchanges and I see some relatively balanced civilization of 12 big cities or something.
I know with persistence and a the confidence that comes from being stuck on noble that I can probably bushwack the big advanced empire with an aggressive military strategy, but it sort of spooks me that I'm failing to keep pace with them in a non-psychoctically-violent way. I strongly suspect it's my own mania to avoid over-rexing that leaves me with a (usually bordered-in) 6 city empire for too long.
I know this is a too-many-variables question - map size, identity of neighbors, the playstyle I want - but for a standard map with 5-6 opponents and a non-pacifist, non-warmonger middling playstyle, when is it time to get beyond the initial six city REX limit? As soon as you can start running >80-90 science again? When ought that be?