Well I am near turn 400 in my game.
I am the Babylonians on Prince/Earth/Standard.
I started out by New Orleans with two northern city states and Germany in South America.
Things were fine, I decided to try and expand and I guess this is part of the learning process.
First, Carthage asked me to DoW the Huns who were out in Far East Asia, which I did. The Huns who I never fired a shot at, eventually settled trading me one of their cities.
In the west, I wanted a trading post in England which was unoccupied. The ShoShone though came in and settled. Eventually I DoWed him, took his city in Spain, in England. We made peace. Then Denmark took ShoShone's capital, which I wanted. I DoWed Denmark, took the capital.
I was in a solid second place behind runaway Alexander. He already knocked off the Siam, and finished off the ShoShone. I had DoWed Siam earlier, and they gave me a city near Azerbistan. So I had 4 cities from Central America to Canada "the Homeland" followed by 5 other cities from England, Europe, Central Asia, and Far East.
2 obtained by trade in PT, 3 I immediately annexed.
Suddenly everybody hated me, I could never make any kind of deal. It was a pain in the butt to keep my civ happy. Meantime Alexander was allying all the city states and snuck attacked me. I "cheated" in that I did not save the game after the DoW with Greece, instead hoping with this foresighted to reload the game and "bribe" Alex.
I was at war with Denmark, I settled and he gave me one of his cities. I immediately traded that city to Greece for 1 GPT. I then set up a few, albeit lobsided in his favor, trades with Alexander (did I mention he started in West Africa)?
Didn't work for too long, he went to war with me. I was 1 in literacy and 2 in everything else of 8 starting civs. So my military was not weak, didn't matter. He kept spawning unit after unit, so the war started 1930ish and is going into the 1960s.
He has taken all 3 of my Europe cities and has allied with every city state, even those on my continent, who now hate me.
My prior warmongering caught up to me as Germany/Carthage/Huns (all of whom hate Greece) also DoWed me, I'm not getting assaulted by their military but definitely no trades.
So a few things:
1) I think I learned my lesson....when seeking to expand BETTER to get cities by trade/settle your own and only occupy the capital (puppet first).
2) Be very careful about warmongering, it will kill your happiness and trade.
As far as the rest of the game goes, I'm either going to quit, or just for practice, keep playing. My "homeland" is safe, I've just been booted off Europe. Was going for a science victory but now am bactracked.
So was this a good first long game? Was that really cheating to not save and re-attempt? Would you keep playing, or take the lesson learned, and start new?