Any tips, critiques, or suggestions welcome

[Insidion]

My civ is Mongolian (aggressive and the +2 culture in all cities traits seemed nice). I did all the settings normal like fractal on noble. I researched AH first since there were some cows and I was hoping to find horses for my Unique Unit Keshiks. Then I got BW so i could chop and some tile improvement researches.

I got my 3rd city next to some horses right as i finished researching riding so i could get my Keshiks, so things were working out pretty nicely.

By this time I had writing and alphabet and an open borders agreement with Alexander who i was pretty sure was the only other civ on my continent.
He had 3 cities, one of which was pretty weak and had a worker going and i had 2 keshik right next to him. So i declared war stole his worker and burned the city after killing 1 archer who was wandering nearby and 1 archer inside the city.

I continued to produce keshik and bring em over to his other city plundering his resources etc along the way. By the time i had 6 keshik next to his 2nd city, i attacked it and lost 2 or 3 in the process of killing his 3 archers.

Next I moved down to his main city and plundered all his stuff and kinda chilled for a while waiting for my archers and axemen to show up. Then I started to feel smart and decided that there would be no point in killing him off and I'd try doing some tech trading cuz I read about it in a lot of the noobie FAQs posted on here. He had 3 techs available, about 15 or so turns worth of research, so i traded that for a peace treaty.

I expanded built a few more cities, made sure I was following the 60/40 rule so I wouldn't be losing money on city maintenance. Then I declared war again as soon as the 10 turns was up, burned his new city again, stole another worker, plundered his stuff around the capital and figured, well I might as well keep using this guy, no biggie. So I offered him a peace treaty again and got 9 turns worth of research stuff off him (sorry I can't remember what it was but I figure it was stuff i don't have to spend time researching).

That's where I'm at so far. So I have a lot of things I'd like to ask and anything else anyone wants to throw in would be appreciated.
1. Any suggestions on what i just wrote or if it sounds like I did something wrong or wierd lemme know.

2. Is there any reason I should just kill off Alexander (I've come in contact with no other Civs)?

3.
-Heres my research path etc:
-After alphabet I wasn't sure what to research. I got mathematics so I could build aqueducts to improve the health in some of my cities.
-I still wasn't sure what to do since i didn't really feel like I needed to improve my military too quickly. So I got drama cuz the theatres can help with + .
-Then i figured, what the hell? im this far in the tree I might as well get music for the free Great Artist and maybe even make Notre Dame. I'm currently 7 turns from finishing it.

? What should I have done in this situation research wise (considering I'm basically alone on the continent) or in general before or after i get to alphabet etc?

Anyone who read all of this I appreciate it. Fire away with anything you can think of. I'm sure it will spark more questions and things I could use some incite into. Nothing is too basic since i'm a noob

-Insidion

 

[martin031]

For the second game, it sounds like you are doing pretty well. Nice strategy to keep him around to force techs from him. It doesnt sound like you should have to worry about him in the near future, but i might not stray too far from the military techs because you don't know who might land on your shores. Have you sent out galleys to map your coasts to see if any land is reachable?

 

[Insidion]

k i'll keep military teching at this point. thanks for the galley info. Didn't think about that.

 

[r_rolo1]

Can you post a saved game?

 

[yena]

It sounds like you are doing well, but it can be dangerous to be too isolated since you will be outside the tech trade network. I suggest that you research Optics so that you can send ships to discover the other civs.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Box him in by planting some cities of your own near him, so you wont have to wory to much of him sneaking of with a settler on land or by sea.

 

[pigswill]

Destroy Alex and get the continent to yourself. Meanwhile tech towards optics and sail off to find new civs to trade with.

 

[frob2900]

If your isolated like you described, getting optics ASAP is important, like some posters have noted. Since youre not philosophical cottages are what will get you there so aggressively try to grow your cities and their cottages as fast as you can. Avoid unnecessary city improvements and focus on cottage growth..
(If you do get any great people, try to make it scientists and use them to bulb something..You can get really key techs this way such as astronomy..)

In my experience isolated situations can lead to a low happy cap due to limited happiness resources (on pangea I can usually find enough happiness resources by warring/trade). Run Hereditary rule if you must to get larger cities..

You should check i Alexander is sitting on any good resources (gold/dye etc.) and if he is, then it might be an idea to conquer him. Its a tricky balance actually, since if he is teching well and you can make him happy enough to trade techs, then it might be an advantage, allowing you to get and a bunch of useful techs in trade (trading techs really does noticeably accelerate tech rate). If it were Mansa Musa or someone i'd definately advise checking the possibility of getting good diplomatic relations and then trading... Then again, in my experience Alexander is generally a mid-range techer and a backstabber to boot so in this case conquest might indeed be more sensible than trading.

Another important thing is that as soon as you make contact with the other civs, start keeping an eye on the tech trades. You want to trade shrewdly once youve made contact.

If your unlucky the other continent might have become a same religion/happy with each other/tech-trading cabal, in which case you might be many techs behind when you discover them. This is a nasty situation but sometimes unavoidable on isolated starts. If it happens, consider getting an invasion fleet going ASAP (trebs/cannon+riflemen+grenadiers ought to be a workable combo up until they get infantry).

Once they become modern, with infantry/tanks/aircraft, an invasion will be much, much nastier..

 

[rabidveggie]

I'd personally kill Alexander especially if his remaining city is his starting capital. Going for Optics is a good idea also to both meet computers and to be the first to circumnavigate the globe which will help you immensely.