Max Civs / Small Map: Strategies needed

[xgalaxy]

Firstly,
Thank you for taking the time to help out a really really bad Civ player.

Okay, here is the scenario. I like to play custom civ games with the following settings:

Small Map
Max 18 Civs
Ancient Starting Tech
No Time Victory
No Space Victory
Rest is random

I have played through 4 games. I have yet to win. Someone please throw me a freaking bone here.

One of the things I've noticed is iron seems to be key. It is extremely difficult to approach another civ from a military standpoint if they have acquired an iron resource and I have not. So, to start. Does anyone have any advice in this particular situation? The problem is, I have no way of telling if my region will have iron until I have researched the tech. But by the time that has happened.. it is pretty much too late to stage any sort of unit rush on another civ. Trying to kill a civ that has iron when you don't is like trying to blow a brick house down with your breathe... now I know how the big bad wolf felt!

The other area I need advice on is learning how to manage a one city empire. In this kind of custom game you're pretty much guaranteed to not have more than 1 city before culture from the other civs engulfs all remaing unused land. Once in a great while if I rush for a settler the second turn I can pull out a second city..but it's extremely rare and the risk that the second city will flip to another civ is extremely high unless I'm running with a culture based civ myself.

I guess what I am saying is I suck. My managing skills seem to range from one extreme to the other with no in-between. For instance, one game I'm way too conservative on building military units and over-emphasizing buildings. Another game I'm building too many military units and not enough infrastructure(wow I misspelled that!). Plus, I just plain suck at them workers.. so much so that I just automate and forget.. which I know hurts me. So please, someone help a poor soul out here!

Thanks for any advice. Like I said.. I like playing the game this way even though it is extremely infuriating at times and I never seem to win. I just need a few pointers.

 

[darkromeo]

Well since you play with that amount of civs on that small map, the starting position very important. I think there isnt much you can do after getting a bad one, taking an aggressiv civ with an early, not on iron depended UU could be worth a try.

 

[KAuss]

Ivory... Diplomacy...

Elephants are the most powerful unit in the early game... Their only weakness is the spear guy...

Copper would let you build axemen to counter the spears...

This is how the computer usually try to take my iron when I have the only iron around... They horde elephants but don't build axemen... It's even more funny when they stack them with camel archers or horse archers... A stack of pikes ran them right over...

If you don't have copper or ivory, then you gotta prepare to be someone's b****... I would just bulid temples and pray LOL...

 

[Rustypipe]

Pretty well with that much little space you would have to pray on a good starting location. Even though this is kinda cheap you may want to start over if you really get shafted, but anyhow.

Another thing would be pick a civ with an early UU unit to help dominate the map an aggresive civ usally helps. If the unit is iron based better pray you get some or pick a civ that starts with tech's that can help you rush to iron working to find iron before the comp does in hopes of snagging it.

Also another idea would be to pick a creative civ. With this trait every city instantly gets a +2 culture rating which expands boarders very quickly which may allow your to pull in more land letting you secure more resources. Pretty much on a small map how much space and resources you have is key to victory so give a Creative, Philiscophical civ a try. This will allow for fast boarder expansion and you can usally snag up all 3 starting relgions with this combo letting you get some massive culture and coin in the beging to help boarder problems and money problems. From there work thouse boarders and try to get great arists to push back the comps boarders via friendly/non war terms untill you have what you need. Then build up an army and crush crush crush.

The only other tatic I can sugest is this. Be a civ with Financial trait and build 1 farm if it will help the food imcome greatly then cottage / mine / wind mill the snotout of everything else.

Also you can try the settler rush with by chopping down forest if your feeling daring. Get your main city to pop of 2 then produce a worker and chop down some tree's around you to shoot out that first settler crazy fast. Usally you can get a settler out in 8 turns apposed to your normal 15-20.

Hope this helps

 

[Plug]

Well,

if the position really is terrible, and you can't take the elepants route, I recommend going for culture. I played a game on Duel, pangaea, with 18 civs, and used culture to take an enemy city, and also to expand my borders over a source of iron. However, I did do this on Warlord where I wasn't really pressured by the AI militarily.

If you can get some good wonders and great artists you can really expand.