need help with the epic game - large map

[J4Ck]

Ok. My first post!
i started playing Civ 4 (warlords) few weeks ago. Its a great and quite addictive game. I enjoy strategic and tactical possibilities, and i love this forums... i found very interesting guids hre. I won few games on epic and normal speeds, but im getting very frustrated with this map i'm playing right now.
Its a terra map. epic speed on noble difficulty. 10 civs. There are 3 continents but all civs start on one.
I'm playing as Stalin against Roosevelt, Napoleon, Churchill, Alexander, Frederick, Brennus, Montezuma, Huayna Capac, and finaly Julius Caesar.

Starting position is awful at the north with lots of tundra and snow and little grassland. Right next to me there is Roosevelt. No horses. Iron and copper are on Roosevelt's side so i thought to attack him very early and i manage to win a war and get few more cities that are on a decent position as well as iron and copper. But the thing is, Caesar and Capac have great places with lots of grassland and by the time i finish Roosevelt im much much behind their technology and power. Later Napoleon declares war and i manage to take him out too and thats where problems starts. Sharing a border with Caesar and Churchill.. England cities are on even worse position so im not trying to get in the war with them, and i try to get Casar on my side. I just can't get in technological advance and im roping from the top of the list to the end.

I started playing this map maybe 2-3 times with different diplomatic and war strategies but got even to worse position.
I think i'm not that good for this map and im asking for help from civ veterans if they can help me. think this is great map (i like it cause its hard)... so if someone wants to try it out heres the Initial autosave file... and if you got to victory or even close PLEASE write down how u did it.

 

[J4Ck]

heres the link for the map.

AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivWarlordsSave

 

[J4Ck]

forgot to say. playing on warlords patched to 2.13. cheers!

 

[vicawoo]

Erm, giving us just the start means we might play out very different games. More specific advice is easier to give later periods.

Also, how did you want to play this? Take over the world as fast as possible, develop an economy, utilize wonders, good diplomacy?

I see the start, lots of seafood, sheep, hill. Very early options if you settle in place: 1) research fishing, bronze working, utilize plain/hills for fast workboat, grow and whip worker. best commerce, lost worker turns, and you have to build something for the 9 turns before fishing. 2) research animal husbandry then bronze working, worker first, improve sheep, similar, except your worker will have nothing to do for awhile. 3) research bronze working, then fishing, build worker, chop workboat.

Or you could settle on the plains hill. Con is you lose a fish and you lose a mineable hill to a food heavy start, but it'll get your first worker out faster.
Or you could move your settler off your little corner and close to something. Except there's a ton of forests and you'll waste a lot of turns.

 

[J4Ck]

i did the start once again!
i wanted to rush and conquer america as fast as possible cause lack of space. built first city on the settler 'spawn' tile. i'll put in some of the screenshots.
here how research went.
1) bronze working - in the meantime built warrior than start worker. scout scouted copper on crappy location... copper location
2) iron working - building settler and warrior after worker, sent worker to chop down some forest. after iron working research scouted iron and settled new city on this location and - iron location.
(i thought it was a lot better place than the 'copper place').
... built barracs in capital.
3) research the wheel - sent worker to mine iron
4) research fishing - while worker builds road from 2nd city to capital and build some w.boats and started building axes and barracs in st. petersburg.
5) research animal husbandry - while building army
6) started researching mysticism, meditation, polytheism, priesthood, than archery, built stonehenge (didnt discover any religion... wonder if i should research anything else??? )
after i discovered archery 'america is wiped out')

And here is 'the big picture' in 565 BC
No America

I think i did a good start. But i need suggestions please.
Should i now start attack on napoleon and continue researching military technologies??? or?
How should i specialize those cities?

 

[vicawoo]

Screenshots. I grabbed horses north of JC and have a city next to the bronze near montezuma, and chariot rushed all of JC but his capital. It's on a hill, so I might need catapults. Now that I have control of JC's land, I'm not so worried about roosevelt, Louis and Roosevelt have mostly tundra and can be killed off whenever. Montezuma's the next big threat to me.

It's hard to play peaceful in this map. I would have razed new york and resettled later 1S.

 

[J4Ck]

just wanted to say i finished this map as i started the way i wrote here. it was a space race victory. after finishing Roosevelt, started war with napoleon, and soon with Caesar.
1637 AD - roman empire destroyed, and than i had really nice cities so i tried to stay peaceful with others.
had a good relationship with Churchill and Frederick that helped me later with crappy wars against Alexander and Monty.
Finished second on the score list right after Capac

... its funny to look minimap at the end of the game:

only barbs on the second continent...