Hey, I finally finished a game.

[Rathelon]

Started playing day one, but just now completed my first game. Kept starting games and then abandoning them because I felt I could do things better another way.

Got a diplomatic victory with America on a large continents map. Took out Napoleon pretty early, because he was on my continent. Originally wanted to go for a cultural victory, but I wound up building too many cities and that slowed down my social policies until the very end of the game.

Iroquois were all by themselves on a nearby continent with a couple city states, so I took him out and just kept his capital. China and another civ were on the third (and largest) continent, along with Siam, Arabia, and Japan. China and the other civ were eliminated (never met the other one so not sure who it was).

After taking out the Iroquois, I decided I'd either go for science or diplomatic victory. I was well ahead in tech, but through the whole game I only had 10 land units (by this time they were 8 mech infantry and 2 rocket artillery). Even though I know I could have taken the remaining civs out, I sat back and bought off all the city states and won the UN election.

When I bought the allegiance of all the city states, I noticed Almaty over on the large continent was in flames - pillars of smoke rising from all his pillaged land. He was sandwiched between Arabia and Japan and both were attacking him. So I gifted him a Giant Death Robot just for horsehockys and giggles. It killed a couple units, retreated to heal in the city, then came out and killed a couple more, but it finally got overwhelmed by a wave of Japanese riflemen. So I gifted him a destroyer, rocket artillery, and a paratrooper - but they didnt have a chance to arrive before the game ended.

I was surprised that I didnt get rated as Dan Quayle though. I was playing a low difficulty level, and I was in the future era (~2020 AD), but I actually got a rating as Hammurabi (#2 after Ceasar). I was always Dan Quayle in Civ IV because my games always go into the modern/future era on large and huge maps.

 

[Callonia]

You can get #1 on huge maps, just turn off the time victory condition and enable others xD

 

[Rathelon]

Yeah, I always turn off Time victory.

 

[Crow, of Earth]

Ha... that "way" of playing Civ sounds familiar

I've also only won one game so far, just that I went for culture and only had 3 cities, so I took one of the last places.

If you ever find how not to go to that "exit to main menu" option after you've just blundered a settler away cause you weren't paying attention and forgot the guard on alert mode and the settler on "move into the fog, the warrior will catch up with you" mode, let me know.

 

[goodolarchie]

Play however is fun for you, but if you're trying to work up the ranks, you might consider eating some small mistakes, being able compensate and adapt will make you a better player.

Not that this game in ins current state will give you a good challenge (the difficulty scaling was much better in 4), but eventually I surmise they will patch or mod this game to have smarter, more interesting AI. Right now it's like playing chess against somebody with no back row.

 

[Rathelon]

Oh, I wasnt starting over because of mistakes like that. I would just play for a while and learn a bit more about how things work, and decide to start a new game and try to do better. Mostly trying to hone my tile improvements and city focus/specialization.

I do regen maps sometimes though if my starting location is utterly crap. I was playing one game where I started and had not a single resource in view. I had to move my settler 3 turns away and found a good spot to settle.

 

[Rathelon]

Finished another game as Arabia. I'm going down the list and playing each civ, though I got a much lower score with Arabia because I was one higher difficulty level. So far:

America: diplomatic victory (442 turns) = 2370 score (#2 ranking [Hammurabi])
Arabia: cultural victory (508 turns) = 812 score (#15 ranking [dont remember that one])

Playing the Aztec game now. Got Songhai and America on my continent. Songhai already tried to take me out once, and I didnt have much military. But I purchased some jaguars and archers and rushed them to the front, and popped a citadel on the front line and held him off. Got a bigger military now, but both of them have me hemmed in pretty good and are just shuffling units around my borders. Thought they were both going to attack me at one point, but then America declared on Songhai and they had a little skirmish for a while.