Going for Science, choose a War civ?

Those "wit's end" thread is closed but it's a situation we've all been in at some point.

Well, if you play Vanilla or G&K and like Pangea maps, it seems you either play Domination and do the DoWing, or you pick some other victory and the AI warmongers see your small army and DoW on you!

My own way of dealing with this is to play as China, and turtle up for all it's worth -

1. Put my cities in defensible locations.

That means on a hill, with a river. Preferably with mountains at my back.

2. I chop all the trees one hex from the city so i can shoot enemy units to two hexes out. Even Camps, sorry, i love the extra hammer but i chop those too.

3. Choose the Faith Healers Pantheon.

+30% healing for friendly units adjacent to a city - this means all i need to defend is a ranged unit in the city itself, plus a fortified melee one next to it. Attacks on the melee unit will have the river crossing penalty and can't be from that many angles, it will likely heal faster than you can damage it.

4. If the assault looks dangerous, use one of the spamming Great Generals to make a citadel for the melee unit next to the city to sit in. Now there is zero chance of them killing it. If you have no GG, a worker-constructed fort with a road should suffice given the Faith Healers pantheon.

5. I normally take 2 tradition (the one that gives extra happiness for tall cities) and 2 honour (free GG and double XP for quicker range promotions on the Chu-Ko-Nu)

6. I've also started putting cities closer together, especially when i know i'm surrounded by warmongers.

So, pick a Civ that can stay alive and the Science takes care of itself?

It does mostly. On Prince this always works. I'm having trouble with the transition to King. Sometimes i succeed and sometimes i don't.

By turn 90 I've got two cities, each defended by one melee and one ranged, and i've built the GL and NC. About this time a warmonger or two comes knocking.

Once i've got some nice promotions i can take a few of their cities and chop them down to size a bit, maybe even liberate a CS to improve my standing.

Sometimes though, i end up boxed in in a stalemate, stuck in perma-war and unable to get a peace deal.

TBH, most of the time i get boxed in is not from the early war, it's from taking a peace deal with the warmonger too early , allowing them to forward settle my lands or grow into a great fat runway chewing on peaceful civs.

OTOH, I had a game where i went a little too far and reduced Bismark to two Cities after he friended and back stabbed me twice by turn 150. Catherine the Great was on the other side of him and had lost territory to him, she was on a low score at the start of the Biz campaign, but by the end of it (after she wiped him out) was becoming a monster in her own right.

I've watched a few "Let's Plays" to try and make me a better player, but i'm still missing something.

The worker stealing feels a little exploitative but isn't really viable on King anyway - the City states take too long to build workers - i can't wait that long for mine, and by that state other Civs are protecting them.

One thing they seem to do on the LP is spam units i'd never be able to pay for, and neglect all province improvements other than luxes. I suppose that's the priority on Deity - get as many luxes as you can , sell them for 240 gold use that to pay upkeep on your huge army. I just find it hard to look at all those unimproved hill+river tiles, cows, sheep, stone and wheat. If my city has the pop to work such a tile i begrudge every turn spent doing so to the unimproved version. The Deity players have tiny populations and are often stagnating or in negative happiness.

I did try a Prince game where i didn't build any Wonders and focussed on pumping out workers and settlers and military. Unfortunately, i only made it to 5 cities then ran into a runaway Napoleon. He was the first to Bombers and Artillery however and unfortunately I'd chosen a different pantheon , so i got wiped out.

Perhaps part of the trouble is i'm too nice. I don't start wars with anybody, i wait for them to declare on me, which means i'm always fighting at a disadvantage and miss out on easy opportunities to expand. I don't spy on anyone unless i'm at war with them. The upside is i'm usually at friendly relations with everyone except the one i'm fighting. When that war ends, Monty or whoever usually denounces me and .... tumbleweed. Then i denounce him and basically everyone puts the boot in, usually somebody comes along and saves me the trouble of wiping them out...

I'd suggest ignoring the deity level lets play's. Deity is a whole world of difference from prince and king. I don't have a lot to go on about your play, but I have cold hard speculation and that will do. If you are being attacked that regularly, I'm guessing your military is absolutely tiny and they have good cause to want your territory.

Based on those two reasons, I'm guessing you're focusing a lot on early Wonder construction. This eats a lot of production. The AI likes early wonders too, but every time you beat them to one you do three things: annoy them a little, give them a bunch of gold, and make your territory more ripe for plunder.

I found that a big part of stepping up difficulties is accepting the loss of Wonders I once felt vital.

GoStu said:

If you are being attacked that regularly, I'm guessing your military is absolutely tiny and they have good cause to want your territory.

Based on those two reasons, I'm guessing you're focusing a lot on early Wonder construction. This eats a lot of production. The AI likes early wonders too, but every time you beat them to one you do three things: annoy them a little, give them a bunch of gold, and make your territory more ripe for plunder.

I found that a big part of stepping up difficulties is accepting the loss of Wonders I once felt vital.

Click to expand...

I go for Great Library then National College, after that I turn my attention back to other things. Then nothing till Oxford Uni, I sometimes go for Porcelain Tower and Pisa but culture nations sometimes finish those before i even start construction. Then I'd be quite happy to let everything slide apart from Hubble.

I build the GL and NC without locking in any nonfood tiles (unless i get an entirely grassland start) since i want uninterrupted growth too. Generally my priority is

1) food
2) hammers
3) gold

I guess the Deity strategy is

1) forget wonders and buildings, construct nothing but military units and settlers, till your military is so large you can no longer pay its upkeep. At this point though you should be at war, making them earn their keep

2) use production focus a lot, happiness can go negative from time to time so long as it stays above -10, and don't worry if by turn 100 your capitol only has 4 citizens and your other cities 2 or smaller.

3) steal workers and don't be obsessive about making sure all the worked tiles are improved, so long as the luxes are so you can sell for 240 gold and keep your army from disbanding.

4) The main priority is gold and hammers. Sell everything that moves - luxes, spare resources, open borders, embassies.

I did record a little Let's play yesterday , me doing a Prince game on a small Pangea map. It's a lot harder than it looks! I find it very hard thinking about what to say at the same time as thinking about what to do, when trying to play as fast-paced as possible. So, it wasn't my best game. Also, i drank a 2 litre bottle of pepsi max and was feeling quite talkative at first, unfortunately i realised the mic was muted, had to restart, by then the caffeine was wearing off and i was getting less talkative. And i had a cold, which makes it hard to talk.

Anyway, will try to upload it later, could be a while though, these things are big.

I can't tell if your last post was sarcastic or not. Seemed like it.

Obviously, ignoring growth is an awful idea, even more so on Deity as AI populations soar pretty quickly and you'll fall behind. You do need a larger military on hand to survive Deity since the AI builds more military, but obviously not more than you can support. Your original plan sounds pretty good. That's what I did on my last Deity game + a few more wonders and won. I improved pretty much every useable square early. I'm not sure who you're watching but domination on Deity is probably not a good way to start--I would think it's by far the hardest condition. but on any game not improving squares you are working is silly unless you're purposely trying to nerf growth (aka: wide empire and happiness problems from war). If you are playing it peaceful your plan sounds great. Surviving is the trick. I'm guessing sometimes you just get unlucky with DOW's but most games you can find a few common friends and pick sides so it isn't just you against the AI world. I actually found myself having to go a little atypical and moving off the science path for 30 or so turns so I could get the medieval tech to defend myself. Another science civ didn't so I actually DOWed them with allies to keep the warlike AI's busy with other victims.

I'm sure you've heard it before, but the only solution to surviving in a warlike war is to pick a side and fight. If you wait too long everyone will hate you. Try to find other scapegoats and encourage the AI to target them. Obviously having a good military is the first step to this--but it needn't be too large--just good.

Seeing your game would be helpful. I'll withhold further comment until I can see what exactly you're doing. I will say though that while the great library is good, it's one of the first ones you have to give up on while professing up difficulties.

danaphanous said:

I can't tell if your last post was sarcastic or not. Seemed like it. .

Click to expand...

Not so much sarcastic as "impressionistic". That's what it feels like, watching cites stagnate for what seems like an eternity, tiles go unimproved for what seems like an eternity etc. The best is probably somewhere in the middle but if i aim for that extreme then with the subconscious brake caused by my natural inclinations i'm more likely to end up on a middle path. The thing is, time passes much more slowly at war than at peace (these guys are pretty much at war from day one) so this state of underdevelopment seems to last longer than it actually does. I am guilty of letting the clock run down in peace time, mashing the next turn button as i wait for buildings to complete, whilst my OP promoted Chu-Ko-Nu head towards obsolescence (mind you, they certainly rock when upgraded to Machine Guns with Range, March and Double Cover promotions - they shred anything and are useful siege units still!).

OK, after about 3 hours editing and converting and uploading i have the first 6 videos showing a particularly careless version of my own start strategy, followed by my rather odd city placement.

There's another 5 hours of gameplay to go.

At some point, as you might guess, major powers declare War on me. I'm having a lot of fun at this point but unfortunately i forget to talk and often fail to notice Bandicam reaching the end of 10 minute segments. I might need to re-shoot some of it, and it's going to be one hell of an edit job. I get a little carried away with the War thing and start seeing myself as a champion of the weak and bringer of justice, you're on a science victory path remember!

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hla8s98vps

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vxo_wOXdgE

Part 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APStuYjYgVQ

Part 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky050GRu-G0

Part 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJHuJPuTX0s

Part 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFQjodgSFxs&feature=youtu.be

b7fanatix said:

Perhaps part of the trouble is i'm too nice. I don't start wars with anybody, i wait for them to declare on me, which means i'm always fighting at a disadvantage and miss out on easy opportunities to expand. I don't spy on anyone unless i'm at war with them. The upside is i'm usually at friendly relations with everyone except the one i'm fighting. When that war ends, Monty or whoever usually denounces me and .... tumbleweed. Then i denounce him and basically everyone puts the boot in, usually somebody comes along and saves me the trouble of wiping them out...

Click to expand...

I am that way sometimes too, but the biggest thing I've learned in civ recently is that wars that don't start on your terms turn out worse than wars that do. If you don't control the actions of the AIs, you are at their mercy, and could easily be the victim of a double DoW with bad diplo relations afterwards. There are generally two ways to avoid this in my experience, and they both involve bribing the computers to declare war on others. If you're playing peacefully, you want to make sure that there is another computer that is a scapegoat for everyone to hate. Common denouncements are a much better diplomatic tool than common friendships, as they are much easier to get. If you're being more aggressive, you don't want just one scapegoat, but you want every AI to be at war at all times. Otherwise they will focus on you, but you want to be one of many civs benefiting from the chaos of a world at war. Then, you can still take cities but have common alliances.

Also, focus on diplomacy as a real thing, as if you are isolationist, the computers will silently dislike you. Bribing people to declare war on each other to make you more valuable, sharing a religion with someone else, and denouncing the same civilization will get you far more liked than doing nothing and hoping nobody bothers you. Diplomacy in civ is an active process, and you have to be a little mean to do it well. Denounce Alexander early, and you're more likely to be friends with all the other civs. Then get him to declare war on all the other civs, declare war on him, and get more diplo benefits from taking one of his cities instead of getting hated for that reasons.

Doing a ton of bribing is a bit expensive, but it can pay off substantially in the long run by making wars the ones you choose, as opposed to the ones the computers choose.

OP makes it sound like he's getting declared on all the time even on Prince and King. It's a little odd.

I only play on Prince myself, but I don't see AIs declaring war on me all the time. And I lean more to the wonderspamming end of the spectrum, so my military's usually on the smaller side.

When they do declare war on me, they may have the larger military, but I still destroy it because I have the defensive advantage and the AI sucks at combat.

Really not sure what to say to you. If you really only have two cities and two units per city, then it's no wonder the AI would declare war on you. Um, build more than four units, maybe?

Watching OP's videos, I saw the following:


[Note] OP Playing Gods & Kings, not BNW


- First policy was Honor opener. This did not contribute much to strategy overall.
- Early on, focused production hard to get worker out faster. Beijing stagnates at size 3.
+ Builds Great Library
+ Build and tech order seems rational through first video

Second video:
- Third social policy was Warrior Code (for Great General). Like the first, this contributes little to your strategy overall. The General costs maintenance, but only adds 30% combat strength... to your one unit.
- Faith Healers pantheon: Contributes little to your civ overall. You've got a base 40% strength increase versus Barbarians even before you took Honor - you absolutely DO NOT need the extra 30 HP/turn. I find this pantheon dubious at best.
- Declined Friendship with Germany. So what if he begs for things? They've since fixed the diplomatic penalty for saying no*. (I think this was fixed in G&K).
- Second worker wasn't really necessary; at this point you've really delayed your Granary.


After the second video, I stopped watching. I think I've got enough info to make a reasoned recommendation here.

1) You need to relax about the very early-game defense. The Great General + the Honor opener did little for you, and represent an opportunity cost. Had you put those two policies into Tradition you'd have probably gotten your next Culture buildings free, and got extra Gold/Happiness OR extra Growth in Capital.

2) You need to focus more on growing with more Food, and less on Production. Beijing stagnated at size 3 for quite a while to get extra hammers for that Worker. Had you been growing, your extra citizens will make up the extra hammers just by working almost any tile. Once you had the Worker, you used it to chop forests, and get the Pasture up. If you were re-doing that, I'd suggest getting a Granary faster and improving that Wheat on the rivers. That Granary alone would have netted four extra food (2 base, 2 from Wheat) and would have provided extra growth and the ability to work a Gem tile in range for extra production and Gold (and happiness!)

I'm going to extrapolate a bit: failing to grow likely kept you behind while all your neighbors outpaced or at least kept even with you. Eventually, you were just plain behind them, and they decided to kill you 'cause it'd be easy.

Also, if you were worried about your military, building an extra Warrior or Archer would have contributed more than Faith Healers & the 'free' General. That Pantheon is really only good if you're going to have a good-size army and will rotate units. An Archer or two would still pin down your melee units, and pin them against the City. IF you're involved in serious warfare, a General will spawn on his own early enough; and that's especially true for China.

Thanks for the feedback.

Food/Pop

At turn 17 Beijing had

Plains Wheat 2 F 1 P
Grassland Wheat 3 F
Sheep 1 F 2 P

1 was 1 turn away from 3 pop and i locked down the Sheep and plains wheat for more hammers, meaning 2 turns for 3 pop. I should have waited for 3 pop before locking down, in retrospect, but i was trying to talk and trying to make snap decisions, not deliberating as much as i normally would to keep the game pace up.

Over the next few turns borders expand to inclide

Horses 1 F 2 P

and a whole lot more plains tiles

1 F 1 P

-------
So I had the two pasture tiles and the plains wheat locked down, for
5 hammers and 4 food
I could have had both wheats and 1 pasture instead
6 food 3 hammers
I'd need to reach 4 pop to make as many hammers as i was getting with 3 though!


Turn 31, my worker was out and had finished building a farm on the plains wheat. + 1 Food! Beijing has been stagnating from 17 to 31 , but now starts to grow slowly

Turn 40, I catch a lucky break, +1 pop from ruins , which starts working the grassland wheat - +3 Food !

Turn 43, the pasture on the sheep is finished - another +1 food! worker now starts chopping to speed the arrival of other worker.

Turn 48 I have my second worker out and start building the NC, improving the second pasture, and improving the marble (so that i get a production bonus building wonders AKA NC)

In retrospect i should have built the granary at this point, then maybe the waterwheel (if discovered), before the NC. And I should have improved the grassland wheat before the Marble.

Turn 59 NC finished. Start work on water wheel.

Turn 64 Start building stables. This took longer to build than the WW and adds less production. Could have done Granary here if not before NC.

Turn 69 Beijing reaches pop of 6. Says 13 turns to next citizen.

Turn 73. I finish the granary. Time to reach 7th citizen comes down from 9 to 5 turns!

Turn 79 pop of 7, 10 turns for new citizen

Turn 90 pop of 8 reached. At the same time, we discover Civil service, so ETA for 9th citizen is only 9 turns

Game ends turn 400 with the following pop -

Beijing 30
Shanghai (city in narrow mountain pass) 21
Nanjing (coastal city with 3 fish) 19
Guanzhou (city on the southernmost tundra river) 17

this is standard speed? If so, I see the problem: 30 pop at 400...
That won't cut it.

Means your science is slow all game... hard to have a good military and still do other things if your units are not ahead of the AI in tech...

Granted, on prince and king, if you grow properly, you should be 3-4 eras ahead of AI... and military should become a non-issue.

Monty can send over 20 jaguars if he wishes but it won't mean a thing if I have 4 crossbows...
They can send in 20 cannons and I won't mind if I have artillery.
They can have a hundred planes and I won't even yawn if I have mobile SAMs.
And chances are, they won't DOW
so learn to grow and get science, get a militaristic CS as a friend, and the rest will take care of itself

Faith Healers + Honour

I tend to play on a Pangea and more than half the time i'm wedged between Montezuma and Bizmark, am usually at war with both by turn 90. Then it's Alex or a Runaway Catherine at 200 to end of game.

So i was expecting to fight, but in fact got an isolated start this time, AND superb topography for defense.

Making the video i didn't stop to reconsider. Maybe i should have paused recording and thought more about my position.

The AIs were very close together and ended up fighting amongst themselves instead, leaving me a little bored. I deliberately left my army at 1 melee and 3 chu-ko-nu, hoping to enourage an attack, but it was well into renaissance when that came.

There was a victim Civ that the other 3 beat up on, including mr oh so peaceful heile selassie. Askia and Bismark also fought with each other a lot.

I wanted honour you see, to get the xp bonus and range promote my chu-ko-nu faster. The honour opener isn't bad either, xp for barbs killed, but there were far less of those than my previous 3 games (which were stuck with raging barbs on after i turned the option off).

I basically had 6 social policies while still at only one city.

Then i used gold to buy my three settlers, after founding those cities, i only got one more policy done by the time Rationalism unlocked.

What i chose -

Honour Opener - XP for killing barbs

Tradition Opener - Faster border xpansion - needed this to get the luxes and pasture workable quickly without wasting gold buying tiles

Free Great General

XP Bonus

Legalism - Free Culture building .

Monarchy - Reduced unhappiness from citizens

I had all of these before i started founding my extra cities

What could i have done instead?

Mixed trad and liberty i suppose.

A free worker would have been very nice.
In the end, i only built the two you saw. The third was liberated from a Barb camp, and that was all i needed.
The trouble with liberty, could i have the free worker soon enough to be of use, while still getting the tradition opener in a timely fashion?

Maybe -

Liberty Opener
Citizenship (free worker!)
Trad Opener (border growth, or the worker will soon run out of stuff to work)
Legalism (too late for capitol, i can't wait that long for my monument, but helps a tiny amount for the daughter cities)
Monarchy (the real reason for Legalism - opens monarchy - without which we can't found daughter cities because of low happiness)
Republic
Collective Rule (free settler)

Now as the 7th social policy, the free settler would be arriving well after turn 100, well after i had founded all my cities anyway.

But the tile improvement construction speed buff and the free worker would have been a big help.

OTOH, with Honour, i was able to get range promotion on my Chu-Ko-Nu during my defensive war. Which then got promoted to a machine gun with march and double cover and was destroying industrial cities in 3 turns, and shredding tanks in a single turn. I was very happy with that unit!



Why didn't i accept friendship with Bismark?

1. I realised i was in a good defensive position and didn't really need it
2. I wanted a war to make the vid more interesting
3. I was planning to rush buy settlers and i didn't want him asking for half my gold in tribute

also

4. He was being a warmonger with the other Civs. I friended him, other people would dislike me.

30 is a small capitol?

I thought that's about average? Granted i should ally more maritime CS, but it's not that bad. Most games i'm 1 or 2 in the population tab demographics screen

How noun play isn't far from what I do. My suggestions:
1 I don't worry so much about city defense. Your goal is to kkep your cities until you get cho mu nos and go on the rampage.
2 Take liberty, and go left side to get your second city.
3 Build scout, monument, worker. Buid papermaker asap in first city.
4 Pyramids to get next 2 workers
5 Buy archers, go after barbs for promotions. Two horsemen to capture cities.
6 Make and develop friends as far away from you as possible. Those are your last victims.
7 Keep army just strong so you don't get DOWed. Bribe someone to attack your neighbor if necessary. All archers at front city if you get attacked.
8 Hopefully you are near top in science and 2-3 (only important scores at that point) when you upgrade to ckn and happy hunting.

Three things:
1 As you attack start building trebuchets to transition to artillery.
2 Protectionism is you midgame cure for happiness, then rationalism to keep tech edge in military
3 Forget about a navy. Build your 3 cities inland. Their navies are useless against you, and you don't have to pay for yours.

Sorry for typos - not used to typing on a tablet.

Bulldog Bats said:

Sorry for typos - not used to typing on a tablet.

Click to expand...

You can "edit" your own posts to fix typos (or make other changes) even after they've been posted.

I'd just liek to add Faith Healers is not 30%, it's +30HP. A heck of a boost, but the opportunity cost of other pantheons is there.

...Now I got skeptic. It is +30HP, right?

Doktor Vic Tim said:

I'd just liek to add Faith Healers is not 30%, it's +30HP. A heck of a boost, but the opportunity cost of other pantheons is there.

...Now I got skeptic. It is +30HP, right?

Click to expand...

It is +30HP. It means your units heal a minimum of 50HP/turn when fortified next to your cities. Sort of strong defensively, but I've found it's actually better for early-game rampages, bringing a missionary along to escort your forces. Aggressively slam your units into city walls & damn the HP cost if your missionary (or missionaries) can convert the newly captured city. Your troops recover in two turns or less, ready to kick ass again.

b7fanatix said:

Faith Healers + Honour

I tend to play on a Pangea and more than half the time i'm wedged between Montezuma and Bizmark, am usually at war with both by turn 90. Then it's Alex or a Runaway Catherine at 200 to end of game.

So i was expecting to fight, but in fact got an isolated start this time, AND superb topography for defense.

Making the video i didn't stop to reconsider. Maybe i should have paused recording and thought more about my position.

The AIs were very close together and ended up fighting amongst themselves instead, leaving me a little bored. I deliberately left my army at 1 melee and 3 chu-ko-nu, hoping to enourage an attack, but it was well into renaissance when that came.

There was a victim Civ that the other 3 beat up on, including mr oh so peaceful heile selassie. Askia and Bismark also fought with each other a lot.

I wanted honour you see, to get the xp bonus and range promote my chu-ko-nu faster. The honour opener isn't bad either, xp for barbs killed, but there were far less of those than my previous 3 games (which were stuck with raging barbs on after i turned the option off).

I basically had 6 social policies while still at only one city.

Then i used gold to buy my three settlers, after founding those cities, i only got one more policy done by the time Rationalism unlocked.

What i chose -

Honour Opener - XP for killing barbs

Tradition Opener - Faster border xpansion - needed this to get the luxes and pasture workable quickly without wasting gold buying tiles

Free Great General

XP Bonus

Legalism - Free Culture building .

Monarchy - Reduced unhappiness from citizens

I had all of these before i started founding my extra cities

What could i have done instead?

Mixed trad and liberty i suppose.

A free worker would have been very nice.
In the end, i only built the two you saw. The third was liberated from a Barb camp, and that was all i needed.
The trouble with liberty, could i have the free worker soon enough to be of use, while still getting the tradition opener in a timely fashion?

Maybe -

Liberty Opener
Citizenship (free worker!)
Trad Opener (border growth, or the worker will soon run out of stuff to work)
Legalism (too late for capitol, i can't wait that long for my monument, but helps a tiny amount for the daughter cities)
Monarchy (the real reason for Legalism - opens monarchy - without which we can't found daughter cities because of low happiness)
Republic
Collective Rule (free settler)

Now as the 7th social policy, the free settler would be arriving well after turn 100, well after i had founded all my cities anyway.

But the tile improvement construction speed buff and the free worker would have been a big help.

OTOH, with Honour, i was able to get range promotion on my Chu-Ko-Nu during my defensive war. Which then got promoted to a machine gun with march and double cover and was destroying industrial cities in 3 turns, and shredding tanks in a single turn. I was very happy with that unit!



Why didn't i accept friendship with Bismark?

1. I realised i was in a good defensive position and didn't really need it
2. I wanted a war to make the vid more interesting
3. I was planning to rush buy settlers and i didn't want him asking for half my gold in tribute

also

4. He was being a warmonger with the other Civs. I friended him, other people would dislike me.

Click to expand...

You're very concerned about defense. Frankly, Honor is not a defensive tree. There's a big defensive boost in Tradition (Oligarchy: +50% City Ranged Combat Strength when Garrisoned, Garrisoned troops cost no maintenance) which should see you through while you're defending and will save you money all game.

Honor is only best as a first tree if you plan on going on a very early rampage. Chu-Ko-Nus do not fit my definition of "early" in this case: I'm thinking Horse Archers or Jaguars.

From your description of your play ("I was done founding cities"), I'd recommend Tradition over Liberty for you, although don't take that as a criticism of Liberty as a whole. Both are strong for growth in their own way.

Also, it sounds like your second & third cities went up quite slowly, if you got 6 Social Policies on one city. For a while it's actually faster to get more SP's with more cities - while each increases the cost per policy by a fixed percentage, the Culture output of the additional Monument represents a bigger increase in Culture generation than cost.

A lot depends on luck too ofc, and the terrain in your corner of the world. With grassland you'd grow bigger cities, but might struggle for hammers. I was in plains so had more hammers, got my NC up quick and was then actually running out of stuff to actually build.

Going to try again with Liberty/Trad hybrid. I stopped at 4 cities because all the land was taken by that point. It was a small map, if i wanted more cities i'd have to fight for them... which i eventually did.