For Civ 3, I started playing at Monarch. Since Civ 4 is so much different from Civ 3, I chose to start at Prince. I have played for two games now and both having achieved the Domination Victory. First was on a normal sized continental map and the second was on a large sized Terra map. My strategy is as follows:
1. Build a 1 or 2 quick units (warrior/scouts) and send them out to explore the other civs.
2. Build 1 worker for each city.
3. Try to have three cities in close proximity (3-4 space) to your capital with good resources nearby, horses preferred.
4. Focus on religion: Ignore meditation as computer will always beat you to Buddhism. Instead, try to get Hinduism while all of your components are focusing on getting Buddhism. From there, keep researching religious techs until you have founded, Judaism and Christianity.
5. After you have founded 3 out of the 4 early religions, research, hunting, animal husbandry, horseback riding, in that order. This should give you access to horse archers (6,2). They are good for deterriorating your enemy's resources and defences via pillaging (although not my favorite as I like to keep the cities and their surrounding improvements in tact when I take over
).
6. Once you can make horse archers, churn out like 8-10 of them. By now, you should have found most of your opponents on the same continent. If you had agreed to open borders, your religions would have spread into their cities as well, giving you a good knowledge of where they are and big they are. With that information, go attack the civ closest to you and also the weakest.
7. You should have no problem conquering it as they should still only have archers for defending. With a few good promotions, your horse archers will probably be fighting battles with something of the following odds: 7.6 vs 7.5, which ain't too shabby.
8. With the weakest civ conquered, you should be dramatically bigger in size than your closest rival. Dedicate a few cities to culture and economy while dedicate others to building defenders and invaders. I only stick with horse archers and war elephants as they can be promoted to knights.
9. If you are confident, start invading the second place on the list to slow down their progress. If not, pick off the next weakest opponent to strength yourself. Always keep in mind the distance penalty because you want your new found cities to be effective and not a money drain.
10. As you may have guessed, you should be speeding toward knights in your research objective. Knights are 15,2 and upgradeable from your existing force with all promotions in tact. They can easily walk all over your enemy defense lines. Now, just go after the second strongest opponent and repeat. Your opponent will always be playing a catch-up game from this point on.
With my current game, I have reached the Modern Age while my closest follower is still in the Classical Era. Out of the 8 opponents, I have already wiped out 5 and am in the process for the 6th, while maintaining amiable relationship with the remaining 2
. Watching your Mechanized Infantry pummeling enemy's strongest unit (Longbowman) is a lot of fun 
Yssilk
1. Build a 1 or 2 quick units (warrior/scouts) and send them out to explore the other civs.
2. Build 1 worker for each city.
3. Try to have three cities in close proximity (3-4 space) to your capital with good resources nearby, horses preferred.
4. Focus on religion: Ignore meditation as computer will always beat you to Buddhism. Instead, try to get Hinduism while all of your components are focusing on getting Buddhism. From there, keep researching religious techs until you have founded, Judaism and Christianity.
5. After you have founded 3 out of the 4 early religions, research, hunting, animal husbandry, horseback riding, in that order. This should give you access to horse archers (6,2). They are good for deterriorating your enemy's resources and defences via pillaging (although not my favorite as I like to keep the cities and their surrounding improvements in tact when I take over
).6. Once you can make horse archers, churn out like 8-10 of them. By now, you should have found most of your opponents on the same continent. If you had agreed to open borders, your religions would have spread into their cities as well, giving you a good knowledge of where they are and big they are. With that information, go attack the civ closest to you and also the weakest.
7. You should have no problem conquering it as they should still only have archers for defending. With a few good promotions, your horse archers will probably be fighting battles with something of the following odds: 7.6 vs 7.5, which ain't too shabby.
8. With the weakest civ conquered, you should be dramatically bigger in size than your closest rival. Dedicate a few cities to culture and economy while dedicate others to building defenders and invaders. I only stick with horse archers and war elephants as they can be promoted to knights.
9. If you are confident, start invading the second place on the list to slow down their progress. If not, pick off the next weakest opponent to strength yourself. Always keep in mind the distance penalty because you want your new found cities to be effective and not a money drain.
10. As you may have guessed, you should be speeding toward knights in your research objective. Knights are 15,2 and upgradeable from your existing force with all promotions in tact. They can easily walk all over your enemy defense lines. Now, just go after the second strongest opponent and repeat. Your opponent will always be playing a catch-up game from this point on.
With my current game, I have reached the Modern Age while my closest follower is still in the Classical Era. Out of the 8 opponents, I have already wiped out 5 and am in the process for the 6th, while maintaining amiable relationship with the remaining 2
. Watching your Mechanized Infantry pummeling enemy's strongest unit (Longbowman) is a lot of fun Yssilk
