PtMac Noble

[Htadus]

Play the Map and Civilization. (PtMaC)

Hello fellow fanatics. I am a civfanatic who primarily play xOTM and SG games. I have found myself commenting on Strategy forums of late and thought of doing a series of games from Warlord to Immortal difficulty level. The intension is to emphasize how to adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of the map and to best use the traits of the drawn Civilization. There are no set rule to this style of play beyond striving for sustainable rapid expansion and some risk taking. Risk taking is all player dependant but forethough and planning can minimize the risk and increase the reward.

So in order to maximize the unknown, the map will be generated using shuffle feature, and the civ and AI will be randomly generated using Buffy Mod with HoF settings. The map will be the first generated and standard in size. Only other setting I used was to give AI Random Personality. Hay....who turn the lights out. So Monti may behave like Gandhi.

For the first game, I intend to play a peaceful victory game but the game will likely involve some warring as map demand it and will be at the lowest level difficulty used in xOTM’s: Warlord.

I welcome shadow games and both questions and criticism. Please use spoiler tags when discussing the map and neighbors I have yet to discover. All others, lets talk openly. Thanks.

Ok lets roll the dice. Aaaand we get........

Spoiler :

I see, I guess it is time to done my Kilt. hmm: I do not own one).............Brennus. I only played him once so far. Cool.


He is
Spiritual (one of my favorites) = switching civics and religions, and
Charismatic= Extra happy and see the Stonehenge as a favorable Wonder,

His unique unit is reasonable since it is a low demand swordman (copper is usfficient) and his unique building can be useful. We shall see. So overall not that bad.

Here is the Start:

Spoiler :

So here is the setting:

Spoiler :

Time to play the map.

Initial Thoughts of map:
Great deal of food: All good starts have food and alot of it.
Coastal: With two seafood, this is the best early commerce.
No rivers:
No precious metals: Always nice to have them but can live without.
Ivory: We have hunting and ivory. What's not to like about that?

So in summary, this is a great site for growth and expansion but little weak on commerce. There is always scientists and land nearby in the fog.

Initial Play Thoughts:
There are 5 tiles that demand attention: 2 corns, Ivory and 2 Clams. The best results come from growing the city to size 5 before starting the 1st settler. This may change based upon the surrounding land.

Initial Scouting:
I do not think I will move from the current spot, however, I sent the scout to the forested PH to see...

Spoiler :

Nothing Exciting. So I will settle in place.

Initial Tech Thoughts:
Learning aggriculture is a given. What next?
I could tech AH and head to Alphabet and trade for all the low level techs. But that would mean not being able to chop or locate copper. Copper is significant for this Civ moreso than others. But what will my worker do all that time? Do I want to wait to trade for fishing and the wheel? No, since I do not even know if I have anyone nearby. So right now the tech path is to follow agg with Fishing, The wheel and to BW. this may not be the optimal but it will provide me with more options to grow.

Lets play Set 1 :
SIP, start learning Agg and build a worker. Explore will do a long loop around in a clockwise loop. on T6 he meet Hannibal to our east. By turn 25 the stopping point we have met these clown;

Spoiler :

So what have we been doing so far?
Worker
The worker spent 1 turn working the Ivory before bulding a farm on the wet corn. This save 1 worker turn. Had he run to the corn, he would loose a turn. Then he improved the Ivory and a road. Next he will farm the remaining corn. Here is what the capital look like.

Spoiler :

Once the capital is done with the WB, it will build a warrior and another WB. Then likely warrior, a settler and a worker and repeat....

Scout: He killed two animals and discovered...

Spoiler :

Next:

• Cont teching to BW
• Explore more
• Road to next city
• expand

Next city is going to be a production city and will be on the coastal PH 2S and 1W of the rice.

That is it for now. I'll be back.

 

[The Oz-Man]

Can't shadow without the save!

 

[Htadus]

Can't shadow without the save!

Opps.

I had to leave in a hurry.

Here it is.

 

[Htadus]

Before I play next set, I want to expand on couple of information screens.

First is the Foreign Advisor

Spoiler :

Since Random Personality is turned on, these AI will not necessaraly behave as they normally do. So it is important to get some clue as to how they may behave. One thing you can notice is that the Chinese dislike both Hanni and Louis. That tell me that he is an aggressive AI. Both Hanny and Louis like each other. They are a two of a kind peaceful AI. Beacuse they have high peace weight, they do not dislike the chinese in return.

There is an excellent document I down loaded a few years ago that give a great picture of this AI characteristic. If I find it, I will make a link to it.

Next image I would like to discuss is the Demographic screen. I would like to touch on a few items...improtant items.

Spoiler :

GNP: We are at last place w.r.t. gold/commerce production(also at the begining, this directly reflect science out put). This need to be improved. The AI with 25 gpt is likely a Financial AI such as Hannibal. There seem to have nore Financial Ai out there or someone got a sweet precious metal tile.

MFG: This is good and will only improve as the city grow and new cities are added. Right now, we are Ok.

Crop (aka food): We are in the 5th place. Which mean all but 2 AI have same or more food than we do. That will help them grow fast. It is likely that we will be number 1 very quickly.

Soldiers: I consider this the most critical part of the game to know inorder to prevent getting DoWed. (This has no impact on Monti). There is very little chance of being DoWed this early. However, we want to maintain a position in the middle of the pack during peace time. Units, buildings and technology contribute toward this number. There are excellent referances in the War Academy.

I will leave the others out at this time but in short, Approval rate is related to Happiness and Life Expectancy is related to Healthiness.

Ok I think I will play the next set now.

 

[Htadus]

PtMac1-Noble

Second set: Readying for Peaceful Expansion.

By turn 28 (2880 BC), the worker is building the second farm, Capital finished the WB to start on a warrior and we completed mining and start BW. With the two commerce from the clam tile, the completion of BW droped from 11 turns to 10 turns. Thats nearly a 10% jump. So yes it is good to get the other clam netted up asap. Also we met Willi.

Capital grows to size 4 on turn 30 and the new pop work the farmed second corn.

When the capital grow to size 5 on T33, I select to build a settler to get things rolling. The worker is roading toward the current planned second city to south.

Grrrr. BW is complete on turn 37 and the only visible copper is near the fish to the south. Since we really want it, the worker is going to be roading a ways longer than I had originally planned. This city will be my Moai Statue city. It will have copper and fish and 12 coastal tiles. Not bad and since it will be a decent production city for the entire game. Also tech wise, I choose to skip AH and go the Pottary route since I want Granaries ASAP to help my cities grow fast and a few cottages for the Capital.

Spoiler :

Settler out on T40 and heads south. I activate city governer to allow the capital to grow and complete the warrior in 3 turns. Pottary in 2 turns,

Spoiler :

City 2 was founded way down in the south claiming the copper. I just noticed the copper tile in the islands to northwest.

Spoiler :

Several things just happend.
Our city maintanance went up to 2gpt. Had Vienne been located closer, this would have only been 0-1 gpt, but copper. Oh well. We gained 1 gpt from the new city's center tile and since the road was completed before the city was founded, each city get 1 commerce per turn from trade. So in total, commerce went up from 14 gpt to 17 gpt, but due to maintanance, the actual increase is to 15 gpt for the entire empire.

This is a good time to introduce science micromanagment(mm).
I only do this during this early part of the game because here i can easily recognize it. Once libraries and specialists come online, this is too much to deal with and may not be beneficial. The mm I am recommending is to turn science to 0% for 1 turn and return to 100% the following turn. It will, in general, save 1 gpt each turn. But if you look at it for a 10 turn duration the savings adds up to be 10% of a 100 bulb tech. Not bad right?
(Option1: If the bpt at 100% is a even number, then running science at 50%, will prevent the 1 gpt loss before libraries and specialist)

Writing is learned on turn 51 and the second clam is netted for the capital. It has grown to the happy max of size 7 and working a few undeveloped tiles. Once the capital finish the worker, another settler will be whipped and a wb (for vienne) and granary is in the production que(spelling?).

Spoiler :

Vienne is working a cottage and building a Monument. At size two, it will be whipped and a warrior, Granary and a Barracks will be built. Then Axes. France look nice does it not?

Spoiler :

The known World

Spoiler :

I have math as a place holder. Where to next? I think Alpha may be better for extorting techs and building science.

 

[Htadus]

PtMac1-Noble

Third Set: Peaceful Expansion to 7 cities (150BC in this game)

During the expansion period, pick sites to secure resources, block Ai expansion, and reserve a good amount of living space. The problem with this map was there were not many good areas before getting cut off by AI and what was left was weak.

The Whip: Deity Equalizer or the Biggest Human Cheat

I am not a big user of the whip and like to work as many good tiles. However the power of the whip can not be ignored. During peace time it should (must) be used for building settlers, workers, Granaries, LH, Forges and Libraries in order to advance, build and grow fast. But that demands you have food in the city or the growth is stymied. In this game I whipped the capital a lot but was easy with the other cities. yes they were whipped but reasonably.

I also made sure that I had pop to work all my good tiles. So I would let the capital grow into unhappy and whip with 2-3 pop as shown the image. This whip also completed the granary with 24 overflow hammers.

Spoiler :

The expansion went like this and had plenty of overlap:

Spoiler :

City 2: Claim Copper and as future Moari Statue city. It had a fish as its only food source. Weak so far. Mines, coast and 1 cottage. Production city,

City 3: Founded to block Luise from settling north and to access Marble. This move ended up not working as intended. No food sources but many river tiles. Farms and cottages sofar. Hybrid city.

City 4: Filler city sharing tiles with the capital. It has wet rice and many hills. Another production city. Farms, mines and 1 cottage so far.

City 5: Captured Barb city. Pigs and wheat and 2 Spices. Will assist with GP generation.

City 6: Share the wet corn with the capital. It has paper in the inner 9 tiles. Hybrid city. Farms and mines.

City 7: Claimed Horses and share the pig with the Barb city. Coastal and has many river plans. Farms, horses and pigs. It would have been better to go after Luise Capital.

Oracle Mess

The city I blocked Luise with was intended to build me the Oracle to get Metal Casting. The idea was to chop a Monumant and when the culture expand to build a quary on the marble and chop 2 more forests to complete the Oracle. Well Luise had differant plans by completing ToA in that city to complement the SH he had built. So on the same turn my culture expand over the Marble, his culture expands to over take that tile. Since I only had 1 cpt and he had something like 20 cpt, he won. So now I was positive I will lose the Oracle but it was only late and came in (whipped) on the same turn as CoL. I was lucky to get CS out of it. Now I can chain farm.

Alpha
After the lucky Buro break, Tech path took us to Alphabet. And this is what the tech situation was like whe we learn Alpha. It should be noted that if this was emperor or higher, some one would have had Alpha by now and teching it would not be part of my plans.

Spoiler :

At the end of the turn, we were well ahead.

Spoiler :

Fog Busting
During early game, I was able to fog bust most of the areas with 2 warriors. Luise's culture and ours kept barbs out fo south. Only 1 barb warrior killed a farm before getting killed by one of celtic warriors. Also it was at this time the copper was connected with a road.

Religion

When I founded Confu, I was 7 turns from Alpha and chose to hold back adopting a religion untill I was done with the trades. When i did convert Suli went sour. Oh well.

First GP
Our first GP was a scientist. he could have bulbed Philo, built an acadamy or been settled. In this game I do not need Philo for trade, as in a high level game, so it was not considered. So the options were settle or academy. Settled the GS would give 7.5 bpt and and academy was good for 9bpt at a sustainable 40% science rate. So was an academy he built.

War is next

As you can see, i am out of land to expand to and the time is ripe to go to war. If Luise did not have the SH, I would let him live but now I am not sure. But I do know who I will go after first. Hanibal is my first target. His land is superb and give me a good second base location for the Forbidden Palace. He also have several cities with towns already.
I have been building up the military slowly and just now started cats. It is likely some whipping is going to happen in all cities. Also I saves several forests for this purpose:cats.

Will be back with war news.

 

[Htadus]

PtMac1-Noble

Fourth Set: End of Peaceful Expansion: First War.

Reason for war in a Peaceful VC:
At the begining I stated that this will be a peaceful game and that has not changed. However it is always better to be in a powerful position to deter unruly neigbors form misbehaving. Also with random personality, I have yet to determine who I will be able to manage diplomatically. Lets face it, Brenuss is just not a culture dude even though he is spiritual. So as of right now my plan is to head to space. Ok, Ok, I admit, it is my favorite game. For a fast space game, I need/like to have about 20 cities. Right now I have 7 and I have a ways to go. But things may change and adapting to changing situations is part of playing the map.

Current Army:
As you can see my current Army on T109 is weak, just 8 axes, 1 spear and 2 Galic warriors. So as planned I sent my workers to chop cats.

Spoiler :

Once I had a sizable force, T118, I split them into 2 groups. A larger force with about 5 cats and 7 other units headed to Hannibals Capital and a slightly smaller group went to his Gem city. Hannibal founded his 5th city on T117 along our intended path but it would have auto razed if captured, therefore it was ignored. On T123, We captured Hannibal's capital and He payed Luise to DoW on us poor Celts.

Spoiler :

So.....this Louis is a backstabber and I expected it and wanted it. The reason I wanted to get him to DoW is to minimize you DoWed my friend negetive modifier and keep options to win by UN since Bren is not good for space either. With that in mind, my Oracle city had enough units to counter any attack. Actually, once I sent a force to take Paris, Louis surprised me by sending an axe and a sword to my oracle city defended by an Archer and a warrior. Luckily my culture had expanded to reqire him to take 2 turns to get to the city but I had to whip an axe tomake sure nothing bad happended.

The wars ended on T136 with Hannibal out of the game and Louis down to 1 city.

Spoiler :

So the Butchers Bill for Celts are 10 cats and 4 galic warrirors. The army killed 5 warriors, 6 axemen, 11 archers and 6 chariots. But the best gain was from city capture. We went from 7 city empire to 15 city empire. Not bad.

Spoiler :

Seige Units
BTS weakened the seige. So unless you have a massive amount of seige units, it is a waste of turns to beat down culture with seige units once the city has more than 20%culture defense. The best option is to promote suicde cats with collateral damage and attack with 2 cats and then scrifice a ground unit. What happen is that collateral damage units does most of the damage to other defenders and some times nothing to the main defender. So when you use a city rader sword/Galic to attack the main defender, you end up increasing the chance of other cats(if needed) chances to withdraw. This works with LB's too.

What is next?

Do I want peace for a while or do I use the units I have to go after another AI?

Spoiler :

Well, it won't hurt towar even though my economy appear t be in the hole. But I am interested in all the techs William has and not wanting to trade.

Spoiler :

I am going to use this small break to recon both William and kublai before i decide anything but in the meantime, I am going to stop teching Philo and head to Lit and Music. Soon I will switch to Casts System and run specialist to get to these two techs asap. Then it is to Education. At that point I will determine which VC I want to pursuit.

Economy
It look like my economy is in the garbage. But it really is not since I have all the recovory techs. Alpha, Currency and CoL.

So my next agenda is to set up a second core around the Forbidan Palace AND I am considering moving may Palace. I need to see more of the map to do this. So for the next set I will build CH's and forges, and other needed infrastructure like Granaries and LH's. Also Barracks but I will doubt it.

That is all the time I have now and I will be back with Education.....and may be more cities.

 

[Htadus]

PtMac1 - Noble

Fifth Set: Post War recovery and End game plan.

Expanding the empire from 7 cities to 15 led to deficit research supported by city capture gold. This would be a good time to focus on getting the economy in order. Some of the recovery process has already begun in the form of building CH's to reduce maintenance. However, with a significant army available it was time to see who we want to keep around for the UN. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this game is going to the UN.

Having been tracking the Victory screen during the game, it appear either William or Suli will grow to be second largest civ next to us. We can guarantee William being second biggest civ by letting him get more land to our east. So we can eliminate William as a potential next victim.

So who is going to be our friend? On Diplomatic side it appears that Qin and Kublai likes Organized Religion Civic which we can easily deal with. However, we are going to have shared border culture pressure issues with Qin. So he is not the best friend candidate. So we will be best buds with Kublai AND we can reduce/eliminate Qin.

Spoiler :

Chinese War

Before dowing Qin, lets see his military and use the few turns to heal and gather forces. The super healer was sent to recon the Chinese land and it is in poor defense.

This is what he discovered..

Spoiler :

So the Celtic forces were split into 3 fronts and DoWed Chinese on T148. On T155 and after having captured 4 good cities, a cowardly peace was obtained to consolidate forces. (We had too many wounded units but mainly was trying to save the Super healer who actually captured the last city; Beijing)

Technology Research and other Misbehavior.

During this period, Celts noticed the need to learn Literature to build the GLib, Calendar to build plantations and music to get the free GA to use for a GA in order to generate the needed GS's to bulb toward learning Mass Media. So at the end of this set, the Celts knew Music, Literature, Calendar and Education (1GS). Also traded for HBR and currently learning Compass.

Spoiler :

In the meanwhile, the capital began building wonders that can help with the process. The Colossus, GLH and GLib are complete and just realized that no one has built the Pyramids yet. hummm.... Louis has Stone. It may be time to be done with him.

Spoiler :

All the cities will build a Granary and a Forge. A few select cities with food or commerce also had a library built and a few had barracks built. The cities are focused on growing to its maximum happy limit and used specialists once reaching that point. Of course with recent learning of calendar, they are growing again.

Note: I chose not to really use the whip during this set when the cities were happy since the Ai at this level is incapable of being competitive with human players. Also once the cities grow to 10+ population, the efficiency of the whip go down since it take longer to regrow the cities. Several active and former plyers had determined that the best size to use the whip is between 5-7 range with 1 or 2 food sources. Ultimately, it is the players choice to use the whip or not as I did.

About UN VC

There are several approaches to UN. In all the cases you need to be top 2 largest population Civ OR build/own via capture the UN. In brief, the ways to play for UN are;

1. Play nice with all and make friends. If possible work at creating a bad guy out of one of the largest civ.
2. Play nice with select civs and get rid of any Ai you can not make your friend. Keep a Civ that your friends do not like and help him grow to #2.
3. Play bad guy and start taking vassals and leave a lone civ to be your competition.
4. UN gifting. You are the largest civ, but # 2 is very powerful and equaly loved by other Ai as they love you. So it is difficult to gurentee how the voters will choose. But there is a universally hated AI in the game (like Mansa) who is not big enough to be a candidate. In this case you can build the UN in a city near his or her border (prefer a former city of that AI) and gift the city back to him.

For this game I am using the 2nd varient. In addition, i am allocating spy points to William and Sully so, if needed, I can bump them out of any favorite civics/religion of remaing AI.

So in brief, I am on the cruise mode of this game. I will continue just growing and heading toward Mass Media. I am going to let the cities grow to max and launch a GA. During this time I will hire many scentists in food heavy cities to generate a few GS's to Aid the progress.

Will be back with the completed UN building.

 

[zig_zac]

I like the idea, and narration, although will wait for some higher difficulty games.

Why Random Personalities? Leaders personalities are important factors in every strategy. If this is intended to be instructive I don't see the reason. Other than you just like it perhaps, and it's OK of course.

 

[Keilah]

agreed, the game will be more instructive if you leave the leaders with their default personalities... unless you make it a detective game to find out which personality each leader has =)

 

[DMOC]

I believe you can find the actual AI personality in the game file, although it's still fun to try and decipher it without "cheating." As far as the game, it's going well, and looks to be an easy win.

 

[Htadus]

I used Random personalities mainly to keep things unknown and to make my intended VC's; peaceful VC's more challenging. Nothing more sinister/creative but it did cause me to keep a closer eye on Demographic and Info screens more oftern to figure out what is going on.

DMOC, how do you find out about the leader traits. This was the first game ever where an AI (Hanibal) learned Aesthetics before Alphabet. I would like to know which real AI he was pretending to be for future use.

 

[zig_zac]

My bet is Justinian.

 

[Htadus]

PtMac1 - Noble

Sixth and Final Set: UN.

The final set was fast and furious, and was on cruise control with the exception of worker assignments. Celts continued learning toward Mass Media. To help in this process several GS's were used to bulb parts of SciMeth and Physics, and used the Physics GS towards Electricity. Also launched 3 Mausoleum of Mausols powered GA's. So on T192 Celts Liberated Radio.

Spoiler :

While learning Mass Media (5Turn at 80% science), we founded several cities and gifted many cities to our friends with the hope of learning the favorite civic of Sulli. After Mass Media, the capital immidately started building the UN. Unfortunately we had no forests fro chopping or a GE for rushing most of the building. It was a slow building process of 22-23 turns.

Note: For xOTM's, if I know that I am going for a UN game, I would generate a GE very early in the game and put him in deep sleep. I hope some of you reading this will join us in Game of the Month series. It is a 1 save, 1 chance game. ok back to wrap up.

Finally on T213 the UN was completed and first Vote help. As expected, It was between Celts and Dutch who capitulated the Chinese. We chose not to capitulate chinese since Mongols did not like them. Brennus was elevted Sec Gen.

Spoiler :

6 Turns later first UN VC election was held.

Spoiler :

Aaaaand the winners is

Spoiler :

Here is what was built during the game.

Spoiler :

 

[Htadus]

Summary;

This game was intended for players from Settler through Noble. You can not loose with this kind of play.

Phase 1: Capital and growth

• Settling the capital. Food is king and I hope you have at least 1 good (5-6 food) tile.
• Exploring the area around the capital for potential second city.
• Start a worker. You can not get the lost worker turns back. We start the game loosing 10-15 turns of lost worker turns. Imagine the progress with 1 at the begining.
• Follow the worker build with warriors for fogbusting and city garrison. 2-3 is normal before 1st settler or 2nd worker.
• Learn techs that will allow the worker to improve the capital BFC and often heading to BW is good since you will know where copper is located.

In this game Celts had to go and claim French Copper and ended up gaining the trade routes but also increased the maintanance due to the distance. However founding the third city very quickly and very close to the capital normalized the maintanance since typically third city tend to locate far from the capital to claim a resource.

This is the time to pause the play and determine where to place the second city. If the capital is not fully grown to its max happy size it is not a big deal, the early second city founded close by will increase the science by 2 bpt immidiately if the trade routes are connected by road or the capitals culture.


Phase 2: Peaceful Expantion

• Locate and settle your first city between T30-40. Hopefully the cities are connected.
• After another worker (preferably whipped) let the capital grow to happy max (or beyond if slavary is available) start building settler/worker/warrior(or axes by then).
• Continue expansion till sustainable science is down to about 40-20%.
• Overlap is good.
• Tech toward getting all needed techs to improve the tiles around.
• Plan to learn CoL and Currency by 0 AD.
• You should have about 7-11 cities by then depending on the map.
• Always claim sites with food in inner 9 tiles of the city but do not discount food in BFC. Particularly if creative or has access to Monument.
• Always found a blocking city to force an AI to go away from you.
• Remember to keep you power level about 1.5x avarage. 2x average is better.
• if plaining for war start roads to the target cities.

In this game Celts were forced to block French very agressively and almost became a bad move but it worked out in the end. It was a gamble and forced french to found weak cities elsewhere.

It is time to determine what kind of game you are playing. For al but culture game, the next phase is inevitably war unless you are happy with just 7-11 cities. So itis time to build an offensive army and hopefully you know construction and can build cats.

Phase 3: Forceful Expantion; aka 1st War.
First select an opponant. I like to takeout someone that will be a monster soon or a loonatic that will give trouble soon. Hopefully the AI shares borders with you but that is not a requiremant. At this level, typical AI has about 5-6 cities and about 2-4 defenders in each and almost no stack of doom (around 0 AD). Monti and similar may have a stack and already warring . with that in mind build about

• 3 promotable cats per city intend to capture
• 6 units per city
• Include a spear and about 2 axes per group.
• Put togather 2 or 3 teams and move them near the target cities. Preferably just before Declaring war.
• Declare and move in using defensive tiles. Place your stack to avoid crossing rivers during attack.
• Give collateral damage promotion to the cats and attack. the reason for witing to promote the unit untill used is that it allows healing if damaged during movement.
• Follow up with attack units. You should have 3 cities within 2-4 turns of war.
• If the losses are great, heal units in the captured city.
• If the losses are minor and you still have about 3-6 helathy cats, create 2 groups and send to next 2 cities.
• Rinse and repeat.
• Stop the war once objective is acheved or if the AI will take peace and about to counter with a sizable force. Why loose a city once captured?

In this game celts did just that. Used cats for suicide only and not to bombard culture at 3 initial cities. The damaged cats did bombard culture while other units were catching up and the last 3 cities captured from Hanibal.

Now it is time to determine how you want to win this game. If it is a war game and the map is a land map, and you know the three critical techs: Alpa, CoL and Currency, then the game is pretty much done technologically. All you need is units for taking cities and workers to road to AI's and basic improvements. So you can turn off science and start gathering gold and go warring. This work really well with special UU like Preats, WC, Immortals, Phalanx and Hawach's. If I missed one, it was not intended. If the objective is a peaceful game or need Astro, then it is time to recover from financial collaps.

Phase 4: Post War Recovery.
Build Courthouse
Connect cities
Build Libraries in cities that can run scientists and/or high commerce.
Build Markets in cities that can run merchants and or high commerce.
Build Forges in cities that can work hammer tiles. Then preferably work tiles 4, 8, 12, 16 hpt.... etc to get the most out of the forge. But it really does not matter. These cities can build wealth or bulbs as needed.
Build units to stay powerful as needed.
Learn techs to get critical techs to develop the map and to the Victory selected.
Have fun winning.

Phase 5 and beyond: Do what is needed to win.
You may need a war or two, here and there, to make the game easier to manage. If you see an AI getting little out of hand, it is up to you to go spank him/her. You may want to help a weak AI who is your friend against a large mence or take him Vassal. Only the game and map will set this condition. Have fun Playing the Map.