[R&F] *Video* First 100 (or so) turns, build order/strats for peaceful victory immortal difficulty

[hungryitalian]

I just completed my first game as Pericles, 250 turns culture victory immortal difficulty, and wanted to hear what people's general strat was for getting ahead early at that difficult level. Feel free to include build orders, I'll list what I have below.

EDIT:
After reading a couple responses i just want to say that this is mainly for a passive build order, as in i'm not intending to go to war with other civ's (unless i'm forced to). I understand this is probably not most "efficient" or viable way to increase your city count compared to if you got a few settlers down and just went looking to go to war with your closest neighbor and nab his first few cities he plucked down. But i am hoping to see if anyone has found similar ways of expanding without fighting as much. Thanks for the responses!

EDIT2:
Just updated a few tips from some of the comments in this thread, I recently won another game using these strats as Catherine Di Medici (culture victory) 255 turns 7 cities and 0 wars.

EDIT3:
Added a video showcasing some of the basic tips and ideas in the guide, hopefully it will add more depth to the thread. There are definitely parts of the guide that video diverges from but hopefully the majority of the concepts and ideas stay true.

NO VOICE AUDIO! use the guides build order if you want to compare where i am in the game vs. the guides

TIPS:
-Try and get about 7-9 cities around 100 turns
-Don't be afraid to settle on luxury resources, besides giving you the amenity (even if you don't know the tech to gather it) certain luxury resources will actually maintain their plot value when you settle on them (others will downgrade like a 5 food sugar tile will turn into a 2 food 1 production tile once you settle it)
-Once the initial scout is built try and send it the opposite direction you sent your initial warrior and start looping your warrior around whichever direction it needs to go to get to back to your capital while trying to clear as much fog of war as possible on the way back.
-Focus on settling near tiles that focus on your leader (Pericles Hill for acro, Catherine/Cleopatra rivers for chato/district prod., Etc.)
-Best spots for settling usually include having one of your tiles be a 2 food 2 production tile or having that 2f/2p tile be a tile purchase away when you initially settle
-I like to keep my pop. count relatively low for the first 5 cities, focusing on production in order to maximize amenities early on, in order to not activate the need for amenities you try and keep your other cities (not capital) to around 2 pop. if possible and only move on to 3 once you have your builder up in the city.
- Unless going for domination victory try to limit military unit production and focus on settler's early on
-Start every new city producing monuments before anything else at least the first 4-5
-Try and keep cities relatively close, 4-5 tiles away, this does a couple of things:
-----Makes it so you can have more cities, because you're not as spread out
-----Makes it so don't have to waste turns for military/civilian units getting from one city to the next early on, especially useful for defending against barb rushes or ai declaring war
-----Allows you to attempt to triangulate (or rectangulate) cities for districts adjacency bonuses
-------*UPDATE* Part of triangulating/rectangulating properly is the placement of your Government plaza, try and surround it completely with districts which means don't place the plaza next to any cities or important tile locations.
-----Even if you don't build a lot of industrial zones, having one that gives its juiciness (you know that one spot that is surrounded by 5 mines lol) to a bunch of cities with the workshop is worth it's production cost. The more cities it affects the more useful just 1 industrial zone is.
-If you have a mouse that has up to mouse button 4 (2 on the side) keybind one to the Settler view, this helps locating city-states/other civs (esp. useful for getting the initial envoy in city states, just locate any red highlighted hexagons that if another city isn't nearby should be any of the other colors)
- *UPDATE* If your game dictates that you will be settling on the low end (7 cities), then don't bother with the Ancestral Hall and go Audience Chamber instead in the Government Plaza.

BUILD ORDER FOR STARTING CITY ( GENERAL):
TURN-refers to the estimated turn # the item/building/policy should be completed by
-Scout TURN 6-8
- Settler (start production on warrior if still at 1 pop. and switch as soon as you hit 2 pop.) TURN 18-20
-Warrior (for extra defense((13 w/slinger compared to 20 w/warrior))while garrisoned compared to slinger early) makes it useful if you're dealing with an early barb rush since they will be taking more damage because of the cities higher defensive rating and by this point you shouldnt have any improvements so let them go ham on your city until they die. I also notice that the ai seem to take the extra defensive rating on your city into account (like having walls) when deciding to start war with you. Also fun fact your capital cant be overtaken by barbarians but any other cities aside from that will be razed when its health drops to 0 and obviously any units inside will disappear. TURN 21-24
-Builder (if techs haven't caught up/no suitable locations to improve switch with Settler) TURN 26-32
-Settler (switch with above if already produced 3rd Settler) TURN 36-42
-Not really a build order but try and trade away your 2nd or duplicate luxury resource (if you can have someone befriended even better) and try and get to 560 gold asap to buy your 4th Settler. While you wait to accumulate the 560g and the 50% Settler production policy card, build a 2nd and/or 3rd slinger
- Try and get a 2nd builder in the 2nd city in order to improve as many luxury resources as possible, besides trading them to invest in the initial 560g, getting as much as 10% bonus yields for "ectsatic" (+3 amenities) is worth nabbing them early while your city pop's are lower.
- Start a 5th Settler around the time you get the 50% Settler production bonus.
-If you happen to get the Settler policy card before you buy the 4th city you can start working on the 5th one early and 1 turn before it finishes switch production to the slingers again. Once you buy the 4th go back and finish the 5th. TURN 45-55
---ARMY REVIEW-->>> 1 scout 2 warriors 2-3 slingers (i like 3 just so when i upgrade to archers i can unlock machinery relatively easy)
-After finishing the 5th settler, finish up any last minute slingers to bring your army count to 2-3 then make a district or wonder depending on playstyle (or builder if you need to clear something), by now you should be generating a decent amount of culture with at least 2 monuments up in the initial cities this means i usually proc the insp. for stateworkforce less than 1/2 the time so i wouldn't worry if you don't trigger that inspiration everytime.
-After this is situational

BUILD ORDER FOR CIVICS
- Order of Laws (+5 combat strength, +1 production) TURN 10-15
-Foreign Trade (if you can't get the inspiration switch to craftsmanship, try and not waste the inspiration) TURN 22-30
-Early Empire (this should be super easy with early settlers). SWITCH POLICY to 50% settler production (if you have 3 cities up, including the capital and dont have enough money to buy the 4th you can just start building the 5th using the policy card and just switch production to slingers when there is 1 turn left and finish off once u pay the 560g). GOVERNMENT TILE, choose magnus, you should try and get to magnus's 2nd perk that lets you not consume a pop when producing settlers, also chopping bonus is always a +. TURN 34-45
-Craftsmanship (if you are lucky enough to have bought your 4th and completed your 5th settler using the 50% production settler card by the end of craftsmanship, switch it to 30% builder. With 5 cities up you should be focused on builders post monuments in your 2nd and 3rd, and eventually 4th and 5th city once those monuments get done) TURN 40-51
-Once you hit State workforce get your 2nd perk on magnus so no more pop. reduction, hopefully by now you have 5 cities in which case switch to builder policy card. TURN 48-58
-Once you get to Political Philosophy (TURN 58-68) obviously it gets situational, however since we need to keep expanding i would suggest slotting the +1 production (which is at least +5 production at this point since you should have 5 cities going on by now and going forward will help all your newfound cities get their monuments going faster) and alternating between the builder and settler policy card until you get your city count to about 7-9 by turn 100


Let me know your thoughts and suggestions!

 

[Melchizedek]

I used to play Emperor and recently moved to Immortal. Getting started on settlers earlier, like you describe, has really improved my game. Even if you have to rush a close neighbor, settling one or two cities first is feasible, and you can get your monuments built in them during the war. The snowball effect from that is huge; most notably, you'll get a government much sooner this way. Another thing that has helped my game has been focusing on Political Philosophy early instead of just researching whatever civic seemed easiest to get an inspiration for. Again, an early government and GP building are worth having to hard build a civic or two. Just when you get to the "situational" point of hungryitalian's build order, you're about ready to pick which of those powerful buildings to chop out. (I will say, though, that the Mysticism civic is useful because of the free envoy if you didn't meet a key CS first, especially if you want to drop Amani in there and become Suzerain.)

Another tip is that if you want to play peacefully, look your neighbors over early and carefully. If it seems obvious that they'll attack you eventually, then you need to get the war done in the Ancient era. First, loyalty pressure is still relatively minor at that point. Second, there are no warmonger penalties to ruin your relations with other AIs. Third, it's best to get it over with while you can still do it with a small army and no siege units. If you're not planning much conquest in general then you need to avoid investing production in that stuff. Paradoxically, the less I want to warmonger during the game as a whole, the more imperative it is to finish that one necessary war quick and clean. 3-4 archers and a couple of warriors can deal with most AIs if you finish it before turn 40.

 

[hungryitalian]

Agree with rushing political philosophy, however i don't agree with how you're going about it because from what i understand you need the initial 4 civic's (not including code of laws), to unlock political philosophy. This includes craftsmanship, foreign trade, state workforce and early empire. If you rush through one side you still have to unlock the other in order to get to political philosophy, therefore it's actually in you're best interest, if you're trying to get to poli. philo. early, to get the inspirations for them if possible and switch over between any of those 4 civics until you get the inspiration. In concert with my general strat of expanding early you should try and get to early empire first if you can for the 50% settle prod. but switching over to craftsmanship/state workforce until you get the inspiration for foreign trade (which honestly is super annoying how that inspiration works, i've had games where literally turn 1 moving my warrior gets it for me and others i have 3 scouts from random goodie huts and the practically an entire continent scoped out and still nothing. Also im pretty sure there is a bug where if you settle near a 2nd continent at the beginning of the game you wont trigger the inspiration and then you're really screwed lol) is best.

Also, with early expanding, loyalty is actually super important depending on how much you are willing to try and block other civs settling locations. From what i can tell loyalty is tied to the pop of the city/# of cities nearby and their pop. On Immortal difficulty with the bonus's of settles, builders and the rate at which they can pump out settlers while keeping high pop. count can really affect and limit locations based on loyalty. The reason that this is exasperated with early settlers is that you are also removing food/pop from your main city which is the your main source of loyalty early on, this is why getting magnus and his 2nd perk that doesn't remove pop when building settlers is pretty crucial. Also, i actually find it hard to use amani for the previous stated reason of needing magnus, once i can spam settlers with the magnus city i can focus on amani.

I'll try add stuff to the original post so people won't have to scroll down through conversations to get the gist of the tips and strats.

 

[Melchizedek]

Yes, I meant getting Pol. Phil. as quickly as possible, which means early monuments, and whatever on-track inspirations are feasible. I haven't found my first two or three expansion cities cramped by loyalty pressure, but that may be a matter of playing on standard and large maps. Usually Early Empire comes too late to help with those, for me, and if I'm waiting for Early Empire it isn't that much longer to wait for chopping Ancestral Hall. In my current game with Rome I've founded 9 cities and captured 3 cities before turn 80 by running EE with AH and Magnus with the citizen-saving promotion in a city with stone and forests.

 

[Civ_Gumby]

I think what he meant is that its worth focusing on civics that will get you to pol phi as opposed to getting mysticism because you have the inspiration.

I would say that a scout first is a must, after that a lot of it is situational. After that my second build could be either a builder, slinger or settler. The builder is useless if I get an irrigation luxury. If I can settle a second city near horses I will get an encampment then a worker and start chopping out horsemen. Usually by the time I have everything teched for this I will already have 3 cities, sometimes just 2. Military tradition (The card that gives a prod bonus to cavalry) is worth getting before political philosophy in this case because you need to get magnus + the bonus production going asap.
edit:

Yes, I meant getting Pol. Phil. as quickly as possible, which means early monuments, and whatever on-track inspirations are feasible. I haven't found my first two or three expansion cities cramped by loyalty pressure, but that may be a matter of playing on standard and large maps. Usually Early Empire comes too late to help with those, for me, and if I'm waiting for Early Empire it isn't that much longer to wait for chopping Ancestral Hall. In my current game with Rome I've founded 9 cities and captured 3 cities before turn 80 by running EE with AH and Magnus with the citizen-saving promotion in a city with stone and forests.

I also find that the settler card comes too late to have a huge impact.

 

[hungryitalian]

I Usually play on standard maps, not really large so i can't speak for that, but i've definitely had issues even with something as early as my 2nd city location being succumbed to loyalty pressure (in part because i am trying, to like we discussed earlier, stop them from taking too many good locations early on) because i have a 2 pop capital, 1 pop newly founded city, and the ai will have just placed a 3rd city down with the other 2 being around 3-4 pop. by around turn 20. the loyalty pressure from those cities is just too much for a new city to handle without buying a monument right off the bat. Even on a good second city a monument will take about 15 turns if you are working 3 production at one pop (including city center) and the +1 production policy card.

Also i totally am not against going to war early if the ai goes to war with me, but i've usually found that if i can get 2nd warrior out relatively early that saves me from the the ai being too aggressive around turn 30 and if i can get the 2-3 slingers they will usually back off until medieval-rennaissance era. I will note that my playstyle is that if the ai doesnt go to war with me i won't go to war with them. I try to keep just the bare minimum amount of military units so the ai dont feel compelled to attack.

 

[hungryitalian]

I think what he meant is that its worth focusing on civics that will get you to pol phi as opposed to getting mysticism because you have the inspiration.

I would say that a scout first is a must, after that a lot of it is situational. After that my second build could be either a builder, slinger or settler. The builder is useless if I get an irrigation luxury. If I can settle a second city near horses I will get an encampment then a worker and start chopping out horsemen. Usually by the time I have everything teched for this I will already have 3 cities, sometimes just 2. Military tradition (The card that gives a prod bonus to cavalry) is worth getting before political philosophy in this case because you need to get magnus + the bonus production going asap.
edit:
I also find that the settler card comes too late to have a huge impact.

I see what he meant now, also you need to be switching out the settler production card with the builder card starting after your 5th city. Your are basically using the settler card for your 5th settler then switching to the builder card, then when you are done with the builders switch back to the settler card etc. as you go through turns 60-100.

Your build with encampment horsemen seems more militaristic and focused on taking cities for yourself rather than building settlers and playing it out peacfully which is fine but i guess i should've specified that that this is more of a passive gameplay style rather than making an effort to take cities on your own.

 

[Esperr]

I play on deity.

Moat of the time tech order is either beeline archery or beeline campus, try to boost archery. Writing pretty much always gets boosted.

Civics are workforce(boosted), the government plaza one, then trade into empire into poly phi.

Bo is ussually slinger, builder, slinger, settler.

Some games ill try to get a third city up before chopping in plaza and ah, ussually your just taking a few citys at that point.

After ah just chop in settlers and fill in. If you captured a few holy sites hopefully you can golden age monumentality to faith buy builders at feud. If not no big deal.

I pretty much always build colloseum, most OP wonder ever. Also after poly phi it can go a few ways. Either to arts and crafts for theatres to pop writers for culture, or recorded history if i have some good adj campus.

If you have a soft neighbor you can archer rush then go for it. If not,try to find horses and horse rush. If your running late then pre build chariots and knight rush. If none of the above then you do the slow burn, pull ahead and then take somebody out with advanced tech.

10 to 15 citys by 100 is pretty key. More for fast science victory.

Settle on lux and sell, you dont need the first few right away. If you have 2 that you can ditch then delay firat settler if you can and buy your first one instead.

I never bother with religion, but captured holy sites are good for monumentality.

Magnus is broken. Whats an IZ?

Edit:also if you find twoish blue city states early reroll you dirty cheater.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Turn 100?

Things that mentioned turn 100 is never "opening", at least for me. At turn 100 players are about to win and doing endgame things. Even for a space victory(which lasts the longest time) the time have already passed more than 60~70%.

I rarely have less than 15 city count at that time, usually 20~25. With some good maps and civs that can be more than 30.

 

[hungryitalian]

Turn 100?

Things that mentioned turn 100 is never "opening", at least for me. At turn 100 players are about to win and doing endgame things. Even for a space victory(which lasts the longest time) the time have already passed more than 60~70%.

I rarely have less than 15 city count at that time, usually 20~25. With some good maps and civs that can be more than 30.

That's great but you literally said nothing about how you make that happen lol that's not super useful, care to explain how you obtain 20-25 cities by turn 100 without initiating any wars?

 

[hungryitalian]

Also don't know why you're quoting "opening" I don't even think I used that word?

 

[Melchizedek]

Early aggression is a dominant strategy in Civ 6 because the AI sucks at war. However, I think it's good to have a thread focusing on strategies for those who like to play less warlike, even if they aren't theoretically as powerful as exploiting the AI's laughable military tactics.

I Usually play on standard maps, not really large so i can't speak for that, but i've definitely had issues even with something as early as my 2nd city location being succumbed to loyalty pressure (in part because i am trying, to like we discussed earlier, stop them from taking too many good locations early on) because i have a 2 pop capital, 1 pop newly founded city, and the ai will have just placed a 3rd city down with the other 2 being around 3-4 pop. by around turn 20. the loyalty pressure from those cities is just too much for a new city to handle without buying a monument right off the bat. Even on a good second city a monument will take about 15 turns if you are working 3 production at one pop (including city center) and the +1 production policy card.

The geometry of the AI cities has an impact here. If all three of their initial cities are curved around a potential expansion location so that the loyalty pressure will be unmanageable in a dark age, I'd settle somewhere else. Most of the time they don't curl around me like that; if they do, I'd say they're so close they will attack eventually, so even if you're not going to start a war, you might as well let them settle the city, then take it when they start one.

It also depends how much food potential the planned city has, and how soon, since the best loyalty defense besides governors is population.

In my experience before R&F one of the main differences between immortal and deity was that on immortal there is usually at least enough room to settle some decent cities, even if I might miss the best spots. On deity, it felt like war was the only plausible means of expansion. That's why I stopped playing deity awhile back. However, maybe R&F has changed things in that regard, or maybe better players know how to get settlers out even faster than I can.

 

[hungryitalian]

The geometry of the AI cities has an impact here. If all three of their initial cities are curved around a potential expansion location so that the loyalty pressure will be unmanageable in a dark age, I'd settle somewhere else. Most of the time they don't curl around me like that; if they do, I'd say they're so close they will attack eventually, so even if you're not going to start a war, you might as well let them settle the city, then take it when they start one.

It also depends how much food potential the planned city has, and how soon, since the best loyalty defense besides governors is population.

In my experience before R&F one of the main differences between immortal and deity was that on immortal there is usually at least enough room to settle some decent cities, even if I might miss the best spots. On deity, it felt like war was the only plausible means of expansion. That's why I stopped playing deity awhile back. However, maybe R&F has changed things in that regard, or maybe better players know how to get settlers out even faster than I can.

^ this is why i actually don't enjoy playing on deity, i feel there is no chance but to go to war it's almost a must not even to simply do well but to straight up survive the beginning stages of the game. On immortal, with at least the 2 warriors before turn 30 and having the 3 slingers by pol. phil. or soon after you actually have a chance to not be forced into war.

The only issue with you're "depends on food potential" argument is that you would be forced into creating a granary (instead of the builder for hopefully more amenities) right away after monument in order to sustain that lvl of growth early on, otherwise you are basically staying at 4/5 housing max and then you might as well switch to production with all the food penalties with low housing.

I also like to keep my pop. count relatively low for the first 5 cities, focusing on production in order to maximise amenities early on, so in order to not activate the need for amenities you try and keep or other cities (not capital) to around 2 pop. if possible and only move on to 3 once you have your builder up in the city.

Early aggression is a dominant strategy in Civ 6 because the AI sucks at war. However, I think it's good to have a thread focusing on strategies for those who like to play less warlike, even if they aren't theoretically as powerful as exploiting the AI's laughable military tactics.

That is sort of the thinking behind the thread, i know how useful it is to simply make an army and just take advantages of the ai's bonuses. (we all know the higher difficulty doesnt actually make the ai better it just gives them starting bonsuses to basically everything, so it makes sense you can win super fast because occupying those cities who have had those bonuses used on them since be beginning of the game will always be better than cities you grow out initially). I Just don't like playing that way.

 

[Esperr]

That's great but you literally said nothing about how you make that happen lol that's not super useful, care to explain how you obtain 20-25 cities by turn 100 without initiating any wars?

Kill kill kill. Archer rush if you have a softy near you, or horse/knight rush if you have horses. Otherwise an archer/cat/sword mix works. Settler spam with AH/magnus, magnus rush plaza in second city while cap with more production does more important things. Number of citys depends on map, a lot of fractal games arent going to let you have 20 citys by 100. Most continents and pangea games you can have 25-30 most of the time. Just don't stop expanding, which is a mistake I think a lot of less experienced players make either due to tedium or being scared of amenities.

If you go straight peaceful, then magnus/AH spam is key. You want to get it going early and you have to take some risks and aren't going to be able to defend yourself as easily to early DOW/JW. Its also a lot harder to spam that many citys, but with magnus and some good chops its possible but it will be more slow because you aren't getting any citys that already have a district like when you capture them.

I divide the game into opening and winning, civ doesn't really have a "mid game" like a lot of other 4x games. You go from development and spamming to trying to acheive your VC immediately.

 

[hungryitalian]

Kill kill kill. Archer rush if you have a softy near you, or horse/knight rush if you have horses. Otherwise an archer/cat/sword mix works. Settler spam with AH/magnus, magnus rush plaza in second city while cap with more production does more important things. Number of citys depends on map, a lot of fractal games arent going to let you have 20 citys by 100. Most continents and pangea games you can have 25-30 most of the time. Just don't stop expanding, which is a mistake I think a lot of less experienced players make either due to tedium or being scared of amenities.

If you go straight peaceful, then magnus/AH spam is key. You want to get it going early and you have to take some risks and aren't going to be able to defend yourself as easily to early DOW/JW. Its also a lot harder to spam that many citys, but with magnus and some good chops its possible but it will be more slow because you aren't getting any citys that already have a district like when you capture them.

I divide the game into opening and winning, civ doesn't really have a "mid game" like a lot of other 4x games. You go from development and spamming to trying to acheive your VC immediately.

Thanks for providing your non-combat option, i agree i think the AH early is key. By what # settler do you usually have your AH built? do you think it could be possible to do after the initial 5 i mention in the first post or would you do it as soon as you unlock stateworkforce? Also when you say spam magnus/ah besides the actual governor/building you mean spam settlers in that city correct?

 

[MarigoldRan]

But that IS the non-combat option. You only kill your neighbor and then you're peaceful for the rest of the game. If that's not "non-combat", I don't know what is.

 

[hungryitalian]

But that IS the non-combat option. You only kill your neighbor and then you're peaceful for the rest of the game. If that's not "non-combat", I don't know what is.

I won my game w/o going to war until i was about to win my culture victory when the ai attacked as a desperation attempt, around turn 200. I'm not saying if the ai doesn't go to war with you to not take advantage i'm simply choosing have enough of a trade relation and army size/value in the early parts of the game so that i don't have to rely on a strategy that is "i have to kill my neighbor" as my go to.

 

[Civ_Gumby]

Thanks for providing your non-combat option, i agree i think the AH early is key. By what # settler do you usually have your AH built? do you think it could be possible to do after the initial 5 i mention in the first post or would you do it as soon as you unlock stateworkforce? Also when you say spam magnus/ah besides the actual governor/building you mean spam settlers in that city correct?

I think a bit of the fall with this that on the higher difficulties the map gets swallowed up so fast that you probably aren't planting many cities after getting and AH. Haven't really experimented with it myself, I will give it a go some time on the weekend. How effective/how often are you finding this strategy.

 

[Esperr]

Thanks for providing your non-combat option, i agree i think the AH early is key. By what # settler do you usually have your AH built? do you think it could be possible to do after the initial 5 i mention in the first post or would you do it as soon as you unlock stateworkforce? Also when you say spam magnus/ah besides the actual governor/building you mean spam settlers in that city correct?

I think a bit of the fall with this that on the higher difficulties the map gets swallowed up so fast that you probably aren't planting many cities after getting and AH. Haven't really experimented with it myself, I will give it a go some time on the weekend. How effective/how often are you finding this strategy.

I play on Deity and IMM as a reference.

If your trying to go full peace the map will be swallowed but you can still spam 10ish citys ussually, you jist wont get prime spots. Space, among other things, is the reason that kill your first neighbor is such a go to.

But if you insist on going full peace:
Magnsus/AH to settler spam. On full peace games its ussually after city three unless i sell luxury and buy settler one. Best case scenario, you have a lot of bad city spots and hopefully enough slingers into archers to fend of early joint DOW. BESTEST case you get GOTH and classical golden for monumentality and can start faith spamming settlers and builders to chop rush important districts like campus and some Theatres.

I honestly find pure peace games to drag. I like to at least kill,my first neighbor just so i don't have to constantly deal with random DOW every 30 turns, and it just gives you space to breath. Obviously its always map dependant.

Also with magnus/AH you want multiple citys building settlers, not just the magnus onr once AH is up.

Try to starategically place citys as well to cut off an AI from expanding into "your" territory. Even if the spots are bad, try to find ones with stone and trees to chop in an early district. If you have a bunch of citys stuck at <4 due to housing thats fine, every city is still a campus at worse.

I havn't done a pure peace game in a while, but i have done a few since R and F came out.

Edit:also try peace games on fractal and shuffle. It tends to create more choke points on the map, so you can cut off A.Is easier and give you time to practice and get a feel for the timing. Unfortunatly, unlike say IV, you cant just adopt somebodys religion to get them to let you alone. So prepare to fight off all those random DOW early.

 

[RealHuhn]

I play on Deity and sometimes you only have space for 6-8 cities, maybe 1-2 a little later. In this case it doesn't make sense to go for AH. Audience Chamber works great then. Spamming cities is not the only thing you can do anyway.
If you can manage to buy the first settler for 320 gold and get a quick 3rd city, you can stay on those 3 cities until you get the +50% settler card. Either get two quick campuses or two holy sites for a religion. You can also use the time to setup the Oracle/Pingala combo which is super strong for great people spam.
Time your techs correctly to get the most out of the district discount mechanism and get all your early districts for half the prize (except for the first 2 but they are cheap anyway). Use the extra housing from the Audience Chamber to quickly grow or harvest your way to size 10 cities with max amount of districts.

I've had very succesful games without early city spam. It does require a bit more careful planning though.

Also, big difference to Immortal. If you want to be able to maximize your chance to survive the early game, you absolutely have to go slinger first.