Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
Pangea Map/ no barbarians/ no cheats
I had only played chieftain before, and just wanted to see how hard this level really was after reading all the horror stories on this message board about this level.
Attempt 1: Americans
Built four scouts right away and sent them off on auto-explore. Set research to 0%. Got a couple of free techs from goody huts and some gold. Contacted a couple of civs who hadn't met each other yet, traded techs with them, went back to the other civ trading a tech for another tech I didn't have yet. Wasn't long before I had all the 7 starting techs, and some cash. I built my cities 4 tiles apart (use to build 5 on Chieftain), since I knew I needed them closer together on this level, and since the AI would get most of the land anyways. Saw a couple of luxuries not too far away so rushed settlers towards them right away to claim them. By the time map making was discovered I wanted to trade maps, but no one would give me a world map, just territory map in exchange for my world map. Started with the first civ and did this, then went down the line getting everyone's territory map. I then went back to the first civ and exchanged maps for some extra money (since my map was more valuable now). Was able to buy more techs and caught up to everyone in techs. I was actually ahead of some of them just over halfway through the ancient era. Saw that just a little less than half had Literature, so I sold that before everyone else did.
I had an average military because of all the workers I had bought (30 gold each) from other civs as I checked with every civ at every turn to see if they had any new techs to buy yet.
So by the time I entered the Middle ages I was one tech ahead of everyone, except for the Persians, who I had just bought Monotheism from. I had a puny little country of 8 or 9 cities (compared to at least 20 by everyone else). Getting those luxuries made my civ a sprawled out mess of a country. My country was in the shape of an airplane. The Indians/ Greeks/ Japanese almost totally isolated two of my cities from the rest. I had a score of 400+, most of the other civs were between 800 and 1200.
In the same turn Persia and Egypt (the two most powerful civs) demanded tribute from me. Persia wanted something like 55 gold/turn, Egypt wanted Monotheism. I refused and both declared war on me. Luckily both were on the other side of the world. Sold Monothiesm for alliances and gold. So everything was running fine, since almost everyone was at war (I kept my forces at home, and some of my neighbors refused to get in the war unless I payed them way too much money). I thought WOW, I might actually survive this and maybe get a diplomatic win, since most civs were 'Polite' towards me.
But then Greece declared war on me. They were my neighbor, so I got most of my other neighbors in an alliance by selling a tech. So I was able to defend myself. Then tragedy struck
I was losing cities to the Zulu culture!
I gave up after that.
Attempt 2: Babylon
Built my cities even closer (3 tiles apart), something like BillChin's stategy. Figured with this strategy I could have twice as many cities, therefore twice as much culture, twice as big of a military, etc, and I could defend myself easier, although production of very costly units might be a problem later on. Figured out how useful the whip is in Despotism (never had to use it on Chieftain!), especially on the happiness improvements, the new happiness counters the unhappiness of the whip (the temples only cost one citizen, because of Bablyon's attributes, if you rush it after one turn of starting construction).
Doing real good right now, according to cultural score, my culture is exactly equal to my Aztec and German neighbors. But I don't have the early exploration capabilites as I did with an expansionist civ. So my map is worthless (dang jaguar warrior mapped my whole territory early on ), and could only buy techs from the Aztecs for a while there. I'm not done playing yet, it's real early in this game, but now the Germans have a single spearman wandering through my territory, just looking to start a war. 
Just as I'm building up my military for an offensive against the Aztecs and hopefully get some of their wine (I currently have 0 luxuries).
I had only played chieftain before, and just wanted to see how hard this level really was after reading all the horror stories on this message board about this level.
Attempt 1: Americans
Built four scouts right away and sent them off on auto-explore. Set research to 0%. Got a couple of free techs from goody huts and some gold. Contacted a couple of civs who hadn't met each other yet, traded techs with them, went back to the other civ trading a tech for another tech I didn't have yet. Wasn't long before I had all the 7 starting techs, and some cash. I built my cities 4 tiles apart (use to build 5 on Chieftain), since I knew I needed them closer together on this level, and since the AI would get most of the land anyways. Saw a couple of luxuries not too far away so rushed settlers towards them right away to claim them. By the time map making was discovered I wanted to trade maps, but no one would give me a world map, just territory map in exchange for my world map. Started with the first civ and did this, then went down the line getting everyone's territory map. I then went back to the first civ and exchanged maps for some extra money (since my map was more valuable now). Was able to buy more techs and caught up to everyone in techs. I was actually ahead of some of them just over halfway through the ancient era. Saw that just a little less than half had Literature, so I sold that before everyone else did.
I had an average military because of all the workers I had bought (30 gold each) from other civs as I checked with every civ at every turn to see if they had any new techs to buy yet.
So by the time I entered the Middle ages I was one tech ahead of everyone, except for the Persians, who I had just bought Monotheism from. I had a puny little country of 8 or 9 cities (compared to at least 20 by everyone else). Getting those luxuries made my civ a sprawled out mess of a country. My country was in the shape of an airplane. The Indians/ Greeks/ Japanese almost totally isolated two of my cities from the rest. I had a score of 400+, most of the other civs were between 800 and 1200.
In the same turn Persia and Egypt (the two most powerful civs) demanded tribute from me. Persia wanted something like 55 gold/turn, Egypt wanted Monotheism. I refused and both declared war on me. Luckily both were on the other side of the world. Sold Monothiesm for alliances and gold. So everything was running fine, since almost everyone was at war (I kept my forces at home, and some of my neighbors refused to get in the war unless I payed them way too much money). I thought WOW, I might actually survive this and maybe get a diplomatic win, since most civs were 'Polite' towards me.
But then Greece declared war on me. They were my neighbor, so I got most of my other neighbors in an alliance by selling a tech. So I was able to defend myself. Then tragedy struck
I was losing cities to the Zulu culture!
I gave up after that. Attempt 2: Babylon
Built my cities even closer (3 tiles apart), something like BillChin's stategy. Figured with this strategy I could have twice as many cities, therefore twice as much culture, twice as big of a military, etc, and I could defend myself easier, although production of very costly units might be a problem later on. Figured out how useful the whip is in Despotism (never had to use it on Chieftain!), especially on the happiness improvements, the new happiness counters the unhappiness of the whip (the temples only cost one citizen, because of Bablyon's attributes, if you rush it after one turn of starting construction).
Doing real good right now, according to cultural score, my culture is exactly equal to my Aztec and German neighbors. But I don't have the early exploration capabilites as I did with an expansionist civ. So my map is worthless (dang jaguar warrior mapped my whole territory early on
), and could only buy techs from the Aztecs for a while there. I'm not done playing yet, it's real early in this game, but now the Germans have a single spearman wandering through my territory, just looking to start a war. Just as I'm building up my military for an offensive against the Aztecs and hopefully get some of their wine (I currently have 0 luxuries).
After many failed attempts i visited the strategy forum for some help.
