You said you warmongered early, maybe that put you far behind.
First game, yes but it did not much distract me from growth, and the screen shot I posted was from my second play where I mostly just turtled.
The size/turn difference is pretty huge so it must've been multiple big mistakes.
That is what I would think too...
With all this prompting, I am remembering one serious setback: After 4th expo, happy crashed and cap dropped down to 1 pop (!). I never ran into that before, and I really did not worry about it too much at the time. It was only an issue for a few turns. Settling one expo on a lux would have prevented the problem!
Like being unhappy for a long time, being to much on production, not having enough workers to get farms going etc. etc.
No, except that one surprise setback , I think I managed the happy pretty well this game. I was only on production focus during WF and IG and the rare wonder. I had six workers, got the farms early, and bee lined Civil Service. All the usual I stuff. I did hard build those workers, so that slowed things, but lots of chops on the map.
Also you stated you opened piety, I don't think that's good.
No, I never opened piety (in either game). I might pay more attention to Piety for my third replay. But only what I can get after finishing out Tradition and before opening Rationalism.
...most of the time it's really inefficent to get one.
Well, I disagree with you there. Early shrine got me gem pantheon which let me found the last religion. I got Pagodas, but only had my religion in one city for most of the game. I picked up Mosques from a neighbor. When I replay this, I think I will make my cap the holy city or build shrines in expos earlier. My earlish faith accumulation was too slow (since I lost my pantheon shortly after founding) and I paid too much for the faith buildings. Still, I had enough to faith purchased a few GS/GE. But taking a few turns to found does not explain the low population of my cities...
A lot of people tend to get distracted by wonders because they seem really nice but in reality are really bad. Usually you should only get wonders that benefit your victory condition (Pisa/Porcelain are like the must get wonders the rest is pretty situational. Porcelain is really easy to get for example).
I think the only early ones I hard built are Machu Picchu and PT. I never seem to have any luck getting Pisa. Later I hard built Neuschwanstein and maybe Kremlin. I burned GEs on Eiffel Tower, Hubble, Great Firewall, SOH, and maybe even CNN Tower (in that order). How does any of that explain low pop in expos?
Also I rarely ever get Amphitheaters or Opera Houses, I just never find the time (or rather gold) to get them.
I think that and Hermitage is why my tourism is anything of note. I put one (filler) SP in Aesthetics to make them more affordable. Gold management I know is an issue for me -- as I never can afford the rush buying people talk about.
