CiV noobie seeks help/clarification

[Seikninkuru]

Hi there, I hadn't played a Civilization game since II many years ago. Even then I was quite young and didn't understand the intricacies fully. I do have CiV now and I quite enjoy it. A little bit of how I've played:

I've played as Iroquois, Siam, India, and Babylon.

I've won two science victories and a cultural victory(Prince levels).

I seem to become frustrated with various aspects of the game. First, I do not really enjoy constant war mongering. I simply just want to slowly expand my empire while maintaining friendly relations with other world powers. The problems I run into are basically that to 'win' you have to pick a victory type and gun for it. This makes sense except it seems to screw cultural(I'll get to that in a minute). Can you not just be a cultural, scientific, and powerful empire that is not a war monger? It seems the most effective strategies are simply just spamming cities or puppeting everything in sight.

My cultural victory as India was done as a OCC and I was surrounded on all sides by other empires, but managed to never fire a shot through... diplomacy?(or crappy AI, either way I managed to win with 9 turns left with only two military units)

I guess I don't know where I'm going with this post and I apologize, what I would love is some insight on how to play say, Aztec or Iroquois without warmongering, massive puppeting, but owning decent sized cities, and a fairly good reputation.

Also, I understand that hammers are the most important feature of a city location. I tend to either not have enough hammers or gold. What is the ideal location for a capital city as either of those two civilizations and is it worthwhile to wait and scout for a better location? How many turns can you hesitate to plant your capital?

Sorry if it's disorganized in thought, I really want to learn and figured there is no better place!

Thanks in advance,
Seik

 

[boehj]

I've played as Iroquois, Siam, India, and Babylon.

...

First, I do not really enjoy constant war mongering. I simply just want to slowly expand my empire while maintaining friendly relations with other world powers. [...] This makes sense except it seems to screw cultural(I'll get to that in a minute). Can you not just be a cultural, scientific, and powerful empire that is not a war monger? It seems the most effective strategies are simply just spamming cities or puppeting everything in sight.

[...]

I guess I don't know where I'm going with this post and I apologize, what I would love is some insight on how to play say, Aztec or Iroquois without warmongering, massive puppeting, but owning decent sized cities, and a fairly good reputation.

[...]

What is the ideal location for a capital city as either of those two civilizations and is it worthwhile to wait and scout for a better location? How many turns can you hesitate to plant your capital?

Taking these questions one at a time I would say:

a) I don't enjoy the constant warmongering either. It seems very hard to avoid. I have played a few games tho' up to Emperor difficulty we're I don't DOW and others don't on me. The key is to have a reasonably powerful military. If you appear weak, the AI will pounce (often ganging up). As far as I can tell, asking for PoC seems to help too. Be sure to check in with the demographics info screen often to see where you stand with soldiers. You want to be near the top of that list.

b) The Iroquois are hammer machines due to their UB. Make sure not to cut down any forests and spam lumbermills on forest tiles. This can be great for spaceship wins.

c) The ideal cap location for the Iroquois is in a really really big forest. Start bias should land you there. The Aztecs are a little more flexible but being next to a lake is handy. Move your warrior first to get a better picture of your surrounds. You can wait up to turn 2 before settling but I generally like to plant down on turn 0. Generally speaking, things that are good for cap location include:

-rivers
-a couple of luxuries nearby
-plenty of hills wirthin a 3-tile radius for putting up mines/lumbermills.
-a shielded location

 

[Nunya]

You may find this thread useful: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=395421