I Define A New Level Of Bad; I Need Some Tips

[AnaNg]

You're getting some really good advice here and I didn't look at the saves but I did want to comment on one thing:

monty is already ahead.

Seriously, don't worry about the score at 2000 BC. It's so early and so much can change. Make sure that you set a solid base for what you're trying to do (good techs/city locations/tile improvements/civics for warmongering, for instance) and in the long run you'll be just fine.

 

[Quechua]

I took a look at your second save, and I think it may help if you always try to decide what your current goals are and focus on them. You're getting advice in this thread from all different directions and I'm sure it's a bit overwhelming.

But right now you are at war, so that is your main priority. You don't have enough units to proceed, and you need to be building more. The pyramids aren't important now, and you shouldn't be building a chariot when you can build horse archers. I do think it's good you're building a settler - you want to claim iron quickly and start building praets. Kyoto will claim iron eventually, but there's no need to wait. For instance, there is a nice site next to iron on the coast that will also claim gold.

Don't worry too much about overexpanding. You haven't expanded too much, in fact there are plenty of nice sites left to settle in your own territory. But you main priority now is to build more units and hook up your iron. And if you capture an enemy city you always have the option to raze it, don't be afraid to do this!

Good luck!

 

[oyzar]

no point in razing on that level though... As long as he hook up reasources / work them and get some other improvements he should be fine. focus on allways working improved titles don't work any titles giving a return of 2 or less food+hammers(unless there is a cottage on it). The first levels are really easy you need to just get a grip of what you are doing and not do all sort of other stuff that doesnt make sense(build obsolete units, walls, dont build granaries(the most powerfull building in the game) trying to get the early religions without starting with mysticism). No need to build wonders when you can build praets / workers / settlers to take over the world...

 

[xanadux]

Took a look at the first save. Some additional observations:

1. Not only are you building walls, which is a big waste of hammers, but you are stunting your capital's growth and working unimproved tiles to finish them quicker. In the time you built the walls, if you had worked the irrigated flood plains, your city would be size 5 rather than 3, and have far more food, commerce, and production. There are 2 primary goals in 'standard' early game development as far as building goes. Get a second city out, and grow your capital to work as many improved tiles as possible. By the point of your first save, your capital should probably be size 6 or 7, and be able to work 2 mined plains hills and a mined forest hills and still have surplus food if necessary. Once that first settler is out, you should work every 4 or more food tile until your capital is at it's happy cap.

2. Related to 1, you wasted time building roads that don't do anything when you could have been building mines (you don't have any yet). Between not growing your capital, and not improving the tiles, you are producing less than half what you could be at this point.

3. As I mentioned before about the tech, you don't need to research everything. You have researched almost every available cheap tech instead of grabbing iron working early. The only techs you needed here before IW were BW and agriculture. Nothing else helped you in any way. Just go straight to alphabet after you get IW, and you can trade for every tech out there.

4. You haven't scouted really at all. Once you have IW, you need to know where the iron is. In your second screen shot you had a horse archer. Well there are 2 very easily reachable iron resources you could have settled. Horseback Riding is an expensive tech that has no use for an early empire that has metals and does not have a horse archer UU.

This is really an incredibly good starting location for Rome ... good food and decent production in the capital, enough food for cities 2 and 3 to be able to have massive production from slavery, and iron very close at hand.