Is this winnable?

Hi, I’ve been lurker here for quite a long time, downloading mods and reading post occasionally. I don’t play civ that much, but every couple of months I start playing it again to get annihilated by AI (well not all the time). Also I don’t know if this really belongs into this part of the forum, because It’s not much of a story, I’m just hoping that anyone can tell me what I did wrong.


So this time I started small island map, four ai’s, prince diff, Warlords with latest patch (I hate beyond the sword), no spaceship, without technology trading and aggressive AI as I hoped for a nice little game with a lot of fighting on all fronts.
I started very good, got great position for three of my cities and even marble. Built couple of wonders, slowly expanded my empire and even got lucky that one great person founded religion for me. Then my only visible neighbour Hannibal got into points lead and I assumed he was building an invasion. I quickly started building Hwachas in my cities, so I was ready for attack and repealed it. I went to offensive, quickly captured his capital city and then Utica (both close to my capital so I decided to keep them). Before making peace with Hannibal I also razed two cities to make room for Utica and make him loose elephants. I made peace and tried to get my research back up. My cities were growing and I thought I was doing all right.
Then, very unexpectedly, one after the other, AIs from west sailed in on their Caravels.
While they weren’t far above me technologically, they soon became more and more ahead of me. I soon knew that my three good cities and four in development were no match for theirs with big technological advantage. So I gave up and was quite angry because one little war (that I not even started), caused me so huge price.

Anyway, up till now I always won games only when I razed all opponents cities and every time when I went capturing them I got into scientific black hole, So I’m hopping that anyone can tell me where I made mistakes after war and if there was a way to get back into game after that little war.

Overexpansion is tough, and can kill you. I haven't looked at the saves because I'm at work.

In the game that I am currently playing, I axe rushed a civ and took his capital and razed another city before ending the war. After getting my science slider back up, I went after him again with the intent of vassalizing him. I took one of his 2 remaining cities and then he became my vassal. Because he was now on my side, I returned one of his cities to him.

I waited a few years before starting another war. During this war, I conquered 4 cities using beserkers and cats. My science slider was down to 20%. I sued for peace, and began cottaging and building buildings. I have now pushed my science slider up to 60% and am ready to start another war using the rest of my beserkers and knights.

Early overexpansion can be overcome. More land = more . It may take a little while to get the science slider back to a reasonable level, but remember: 30% of 100 isn't too much different than 80% of 50. With the land you accumulated, you can catch back up.

Yea, I sometime manage to get back into the game, but normally when I attack I just attack in that way that I destroy most of my opposition. Not even to get someone to be my vassal, but just to get their score down. In this case I was just blown away latter by AI. I only gained two cities while all south AI factions were huge compaired to me. And while I had big problems with that distance from capital and tax on number of cities, they looked like it didn't have any effect on them.

Anyway, I tried again same settings with my old tactics and now it I didn't have much of a problem. I just put everything into science and waited till I saw all AI factions, then with my technology advantage went into offensive against top dogs and razed couple of big cities from each of the leaders.

I didn't even wait till the end since I kinda got borred of that way of winning, so I'm still hopping if anyone knows for a different way.

just read some guides in the strategy forum, it'll answer alot of your questions.

some links i found in there that may be helpful:

1. Balancing Growth and Warfare in Civ IV
2. http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/#empire

Ok, I read them and didn't learn much new. I guess if you want to win in civIV on higher difficulties you always need to play quick wars or big decisive ones any other tactic will get you far behind in science.
I guess I was hoping for some other way of winning but it there is none. Btw, AI cheats a lot on higher diff, right? High reserch bonus and low city unkeep and happiness.

No, I once played on Immortal and managed to get a diplomatic victory!

Here's a link:http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

I hope it helps!