Thanks for the ideas, generalstaff. I'm trying Cixi and Bismarck at the moment. I notice that in most of my RoM games I spend LOTS of time in the beginning hitting 'End Turn' over and over again. What research and production should Cixi focus on to compliment her abilities? Just asking as a lead on how to improve with everybody eventually. Thanks!
Don't worry about pressing "End Turn" a lot early on.
Cixi's Organized is a great gold mine, hitting Code of Laws early not only gives you the powerful Confucian religion (+1 Gold per city) with Courthouses building twice, combined with Organized reduced maintenance quckly allows a gold stream early on. You want to get Bronze Working before Code of Laws since you will need axes to defend against enemy axes (the AI beelines that tech, watch out). Later, the double production of factories means getting Assembly Line early is extra important.
Cixi's Protective allows very strong Archers for city defense, researching Archery immediately for the free Archer gives you a defensive edge over your opponents. Archers start with Drill1, allowing you to upgrade that trait before it is available to non-Protective leaders who have to wait until Military Training. For upgrades for city defending Archers, mix up City Guard and Drill (City Guard is better defense, but Drill allows them to suffer less when the AI attacks you with siege). Also, with Stone, Walls are produced x4 speed, forget Monuments, unless you really, really need a city's borders to expand quickly (This means do not waste early production with Stonehenge, save it for a longer lasting Wonder, say, the Pyramids or Hanging Gardens, both of which are great for growth).
Notes: Offense is lacking, you will need to use the extra gold from Organized trait for Research once you have founded Confucianism. Researching military techs and crush your opponents with the next generation of weaponry, whether it is superior blades, Rifles, Jet Fighters, or dare I say, Plasma Weaponry.
My Cixi game is going great. I have 4/5 top cities and twice the score of the top AI player, with a stable empire I might add. My only issue is that I need to slow my expansion until I hit Banking and Guilds to give my Confucian Shrine the boost it needs.
EDIT: In addition, how can I keep gold and research at reasonable levels from the start of the game? No matter who I pick as a leader, I nearly always run out of gold before I develop too far and then my research plummets, which is bad for me because the long research of RoM already daunts me.
That is an issue with there being no gold producing buildings (buildings which add +1 gold). My Early Buildings module may help you with that problem (I have a cheap buildings which fills that niche).
However, plan city expansion, Carwyn is right, over expansion can cripple you, especially with Revolutions (it took a few games for me to handle three cities due to poor map distribution of resources). If an AI's expansion is worrying you, knock out a couple of his cities and Revolutions should take care of the rest; Realistic Diplomacy will handle the diplomatic penalties.
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Beyond that, chosing leaders/civs is really dependent on your playing style. Do you want to be an aggressive/warlike civ or more of a culturally advanced passive civ? There are a plethora of choices.
