9 civs + 23 city states on standard map

help needed



I've been playing the following set-up:

quick game speed, standard map size continents, strategic balance resources and as the title suggests quite a few AIs.

I've been trying to get a decent game going on Emperor with these settings but I've noticed my cities grow at a pathetic rate (I had jungle start, no wheat, 1 food per tile, deserts and al kinds of bad starts), almost no luxuries, chronic unhappiness in an empire of 4 cities... Tech 5% below average mid-game and an army that couldn't win anything.

My last game I was sandwiched between Spain and Rome + Poland was poking at me because of my poor military. Spain kept trying to convert me from my superior religion and once I tried to do the same to them my missionary couldn't move about because all their territory was covered in musketmen and knights.. Needless to say she wanted to attack and that was the end of the game.

I'm doing something wrong. I went tradition and piety, barely completed both trees starti ng in industrial era. Had only 1 CS ally and was ranking 6th or worse in everything.
I was playing as Greece in an attempt to get easy diplomacy with city-states..

someone ?

A screen shot and a save would be helpful in determining where you seem to have gone wrong.

This is a few turns before the end. Once again this is on quick setting and I definitely messed up big time.

As soon as you saw Spain's army you should have built your own your army, it really is quite pathetic, it is definitely worth neglecting infrastructure to build the army, because if you're conquered you won't need to worry about infrastructure.

Here's a list of things that aren't right:

• You forward settled Spain without backing that up with an army. If you do this expect war regardless of the response you give when they demand you don't settle near them.
• Your bpt is far too low. When going for Radio(which is recommended you use Oxford for that) you want to be in the 500 bracket.
• You haven't explored the map. You always want to meet every civ and CS asap giving you better research rates on techs they know and potential CS allies.
• You opened Piety. Never compete with AI on the religion front as you will almost always loose, except if you play Spain or Ethiopia perhaps.

Science is everything is this game. The quicker you become the bpt leader the better chance of DOF for potential RA(and the AI asking you for stuff). Science is related to growth. If you can get to Plastics around turn 180(standard) then it doesn't matter what the AI thinks of you.

I'd replay the map even though you roughly know the layout. Work on your initial diplomacy and science and hopefully things will be a lot smoother.

If you're 0 for 5 on trade routes, you're gonna have a bad time.



Also what's up with playing as Greece and not going Patronage?