As for England...
England is one of the two "power" civs on the map, reguardless of settings ( the other is Rome ).
The question of how many cities to put in Great Britain has popped up on a couple threads in here, and I posted a reply that involves an early 4 cities on "the big island" and 1 on ireland later in the game.
I'm going to defend my reasoning for 4 VERY early cities as England here in a little more detail.
The first point I have to make about this game is that civ18 is not like a randomly generated game of civ. England has 1 wheat, 2 cow, 1 horse, 1 stone, 1 coal, 1 iron, 1 dye, 1 deer, 1 fur, and 1 sheep. This is the largest per tile concentration of resources in the game, and I've not even included "water resources". Even more than China, France, etc.
The second point is that even though Europe as a whole is tightly packed, England has 1 thing that all the others can't take advantage of in the same way...the channel. There is no natural enemy of england that can take advantage early game.
The third point, Rome will rule mainland Europe. If the Rome player has any level of skill at all, he will take all of mainland Europe. If he has any sense, he will attempt to take England as well. Your main job as England is to defeat Rome. Rome's capitol is a production powerhouse. Madrid is a production powerhouse. Paris is strong in production as well. Even with the channel if you allow Rome to outproduce you early, you will lose as England, assuming comparible skill levels.
Now, for practical experience, of the HUNDREDS of multiplayer earth18 games I've played, never once have I seen a successful england player only put two cities on the big island and be a power in the game, for the reasons I've listed above.
A passive England will not win the game. You can pull it off on a noble level game against all AI's, but honestly there's not much challenge to that.
You need to take advantage of Elizabeth's traits ( Philo/Financial ) in these ways.
First, Philo, you will have early libraries in all 4 cities in England...you will normally have two scientists working in all 4. This will lead to early acadamies in each of the first 4...as well as more popping out as you take Paris/Rome, etc...you also might get lucky and get a free "philosophy, or education" tech on your liberalism slingshot.
Second Financial, you will not have many tiles capable of supporting cottages, but you WILL have a lot of water tiles that pound out the coins/beakers, as well as the horse tiles, etc.
Okay now how to defend England and prepare the offensive on the mainland.
London should settle in place...worker first...settler second...the settler should settle 3 due west of london ( I have an alternate strat on this, but this is the most straightforward game. The other involves a pyramid rush that completes in 1960bc, but that's for a later time ). London's next build is ANOTHER settler, and the new city's first build is also a settler. Settler #2 ( city 3 ) is settled one south of the forrested hill with iron. Settler #3 ( city 4 ) is settled one west of the fur in the north. Each of the 3 new cities builds a warrior ( to help with happiness ), you will have sailing at this point and all 4 cities will produce galleys. Naval supperiority will be a focus all game long. You will be hitting iron working about this time. Two of your 4 cities, normally london and your "iron" city" will produce barracks, while the other two will produce your first two axemen...then the builds alternate, so all four cities have barracks and you have a constant stream of axes coming. You will get writing soon after, again, two will produce libraries as two are churning axes. You will NEVER build an archer, and will almost never build swordsmen all game long.
Now for the offensive...Rome will have Europe on it's knees. Your strike is at Paris. You need to claim the iron east of paris so it cannot be utilized...England will be technologically superior to Rome, but it will not have Praes...at this point, catapults are the priority. You need to take Paris and hold it at all cost...then you split the roman empire by heading right at rome. You will now have 5 strong cities pumping out units/improvements. Rome with have Rome, Madrid, and either greece, berlin, or possibly thebes at this point. This is where you win or lose the game...by only having 2 cities in england you would not be able to produce enough to crack the prae/axemen defenses rome is putting up...by having 4 you are able to continuously improve your cities on the islands by building city improving structures in england yet still having 2-3 cities pumpint out units.
I tried to be fairly specific without writing too long of a book here, if you have any other questions, let me know...
Joe
