Hi LeHam!
Thanks for sharing your game with us! I'm someone who can consistently win on Prince, and just won his first Monarch game recently.
My comments are basically about your first couple of posts - sorry, I didn't have time to think about the rest, and besides the very early turns are extremely important.
A little more on working the Corn early...
There are several advantages to having a bonus food resource. Specifically, it means that your city's rate of growth is faster: a Size 1 city that is working a 2-food tile, will have 2 extra food per turn. I think this means growth in 11 turns or so. But corn tile means that you have 5-food, so instantly your growing 1 population point every 5 turns!!
Prioritizing food has several benefits for your civ:
* It means that future workers and settlers come more quickly. Remember that excess FOOD goes into the production of these units as well. By working the corn, your Settler would have come much more quickly.
* Whipping production with Slavery - a high food rate means that you can recover that population point in as few as 3 or 4 turns.
* If you have a food bonus being worked, you can work OTHER kinds of mega-tiles without having to worry about starvation - i.e., a gold mine (commerce), or a copper mine (production). (This is another reason why your early worker is important.)
* And of course, having more tiles worked means more of EVERYTHING coming to you faster - commerce, production, etc., etc.
You could pay more attention to chopping the forests around your cities. This is crucial to getting ahead in the early game. Chopping forests on hills means NO loss in per-turn production, because you can replace it with a mine right after. Make sure you save forests for worker and settler production (that way you lessen the time when you're cities are not growing) and for Wonders (for obvious reasons).
I usually wait until my city has a lot of bonus food/hammers before I start Settler production, because then Settlers can be made very quickly. For example, if you have a copper resource working and a food tile developed, then those 2 squares alone give you 10 food/hammers per turn towards settler production. When settler production is fast, you waste fewer turns during which your cities are not growing. Then you can do what you really want: Settler Spam!!! Any rapid expansion strategy requires first and foremost having bonus food tiles near your capital.
Don't worry about ignoring a whole wing of the tech tree. In fact, it can sometimes be an advantage. In higher levels, brokering techs is essential to keeping up in the tech race. If you are specializing in one part of the tree, you are likely jumping ahead of the AI in one tech and can get the best outcome: a tech that no one else has. Think about it - if you trade the same valuable tech to 3 neighboring civilizations for one tech each, you're getting 4 techs for the price of one! Sure, each individual trade might be slightly in the AI's advantage, but remember they're not as trade-savvy as you are. And remember - if they don't have Alphabet, then they can't do the same thing! That's why a lot of players like to beeline to Alphabet.
On promoting your warrior to Spearman, I would see this making sense, if a chariot was gunning toward your capital city. I would just make the general point that *everything you do must have a purpose, and ask yourself what exactly you will gain from each action.* If you're thinking carefully enough, you should be tearing your hair out because there are 3 or 4 things you hope you could be doing. (Succeeding at higher levels means being exponentially more careful, and giving up several goals in order to make 1 goal possible, such as beating the AI on a Wonder.) As a result of losing the coin you spent on the Spearman, you hurt your science in the long run. "Deficit research" is done when you set Science to 100% and don't worry about your budget, because you have an excess of coin saved up. So you essentially spent 100+ beakers on your Spearman, which it doesn't seem like you needed because you haven't had a civ with a strong cavalry against you.
Also, early in the game, the military threats against your cities are usually not a pressing problem.
Another general piece of advice is to plan ahead, *taking into account was available to you.* You had corn in your BFC. Also, Pericles' strengths are Creative and Philosophical. Philosophical means you will benefit exponentially from having GP-generating builds, like Wonders, or Temples, etc. You had the stone nearby, so perhaps that should have been an early priority (and therefore also researching Masonry). As Creative, Stonehenge wouldn't be as important as it would be otherwise, because new cities will already have the culture bonus.
Another example: if you generate a map and see 4 bonus food tiles near your capital, think immediately about using that to your advantage (e.g. whipping, and settler spamming). Because you have the Creative trait, you should look for chances to block off your opponents' expansion with some well-placed cities. (And if you didn't have the Creative trait, then perhaps Stonehenge WOULD be a big priority, because it will be put to frequent use!)
(Ramesses wrote a really good article on how to use your Civ traits to think up longer-term strategies:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/synergy.php )
You say that you really want to build Pyramids or The Great Wall. Again, always ask yourself, "Why?" I usually build Pyramids if I have fast-growing cities and not enough luxury resources to accommodate them, cities that are aching to grow but can't because of happy caps. That way, the Pyramids gives me Hereditary Rule or Representation so I can increase my city sizes. Another benefit is the Great Engineer points you can get (remember! you're a Philosophical civ!!), which you can use to build another wonder, then another wonder, which in turn give you more GP points...
The key to choosing among different alternative actions is to have long-term strategies. Ideally, every action is in service to a long-term goal. For example, when you were building the Barracks, had you decided you would conquer Victoria? Did you have favorable circumstances for war, such as accessible Iron, lots of forests to chop, a Militaristic or Charismatic trait, a neighbor that didn't have military traits, etc.? Even if you didn't, did you have at least decent production to carry out the dirty deed?
Generally, gearing everything in one direction - as opposed to trying to do several things at once - pays back exponentially in Civ. If you had decided to conquer, then that would answer other questions for you, such as whether to prioritize Iron Working, or Construction, or to make a city specialize in production, and so on and so forth...
Also, before declaring war, it's important to do some scouting. Determine precisely how many of each unit you would need to secure your victory in the war (experience helps a lot here). Also, if you can see their sole metal resource, pillage it, and fortify a unit that will withstand their counterattack on top of it!! Hmm, maybe that means building scouts, and prioritizing Writing to secure Open Borders...
Also, making invasions quickly is important when your opponents have Slavery, because they can whip archers. This should also come into play in your calculations as well (i.e. how many turns will it take to walk to their city within their cultural borders?).
My main point is that Civ can be wonderfully complex like chess, in which you're making one move in order to prepare for another, to prepare for another...
I love talking Civ strategy - I haven't been on these forums much, and have only really gotten into the game now, 4 years after buying it! Would love to know if these tips are helpful to you and to other people as well.