as said one german troop in 1942,, german tank can kill 10 soviet tanks, but they always have 11, as you suppose this statemant is based on how to build up strong production base,, if you think that in this game tehnology is more important than you are wrong
this strategy is quite simple,, you are building 6 cities - in the early stage,, as more as it possible, but you must build them with a plan,, many ppls build cities near resources but often loose to me, production is more important,
you need to draw while playing in MP game a plan of your future cityies locations,, if you are expirienced player than you should know how to draw,, draw panel allocates in Global View option, in left bottom bar, under the players tab,, when you will plan your cities start to rush 6 settlers,, this is fully safe game strategy
1. civilization specialities
1.2 your civilization leader must have Creative trait in order to you dont have to build cultural improvements to influence newly builded cities to reach its economical radius fully, this is mayor importand,, second you must have scout to recon area for making city building plan, thirdly i made some counts for Imperealistic trait (warlords) +25% settlers production
I recomend you catherine creative and\imperealistic in future
my theory is based on many victories games, this strategy best fits for Inland Sea Quick FFA game
all tiles in civ4 are good but in my stage (116 turns) we will talk only about prod tiles, best prod tiles are 4 prod or richer, such as flood plains and hils, not talking about bonus tiles(wheat, pigss,copper and t.d) they produce 5-6 prod with farms or mines (food or hammers not importand,,, not wealth!)
i made my counts on building 6 cities+capital counting all tiles to be 4 prod tiles, this is minimal count so it will be that or higher
2. building plan
2.2 worker it will take 10 turns(8if you lucked to find a city on a hill)
2.3 warrior to defend city in any case and to avoid unhappy faces
2.4 you are improving your state manually! do not automate improve richest prod tiles
2.5 city must grow till population of 6 = max population on noble diffuculty to not have any unhappines, while it will grow i advice you to build arhers to defend future empire
2.6 when you will reach 6 pop city build a second worker, by that time you should finish improving you working squares to goal 4 prod tiles by that time you city will produce 199 hammers - 40 hammers for worker it will mean that you will have around 8-9 archers
2.7 build roads to your future cities now its time to prepare you territory for agressive expansion building 6 cities will cost you 312 hammers (imperialistic) you prod will be not lesser then 13/per turn, so you will finish you task not slower than in 24 turns
2.8 build up roads to future cities , in all newly cities you must start to build 1 worker,, when city will be build improve 1 best square and move forward to build roads for next cities
2.9 when you cities will finish to build worker its up to you what they will build next, soldiers or buildings, depending on F11 rivals power , your worker must now build improvements on 4 prod square manually
you will spend 312 hammers on settlers, and after that your newly builded cities in 66 turns will reach 6 population and produce more than 2000 hammers not including worker spendings, capital prod and tiles with more than 4 production and all you empire prod will be above than 100 per turn (not counting forges)
Please observe my statemand and make suggestions or tell me if you have other opinion obout my strategy rightness,, i am not at home now so i cant attact any screensshots or make my counting graphick, but i plan to made it in soo future
