Ah, okay. Is pangea okay to play on, though? All my other games have been on that.
Every map type is ok to play on. I just wanted to point out that the terra map type results in cramped starting positions and that is not the usual experience.
Pangea is ok. I find it a bit boring with one large continent and no new continents to discover after astronomy has been discovered, but it doesn't have the cramped starting positions of a terra map.
So in short; Quantity over er.. 'quality'. Build more cities instead of making your main city a population powerhouse.
Preferably both quality and quantity.
When your civilization grows in number of cities, you will usually also control more happiness and health resources which will help you to grow bigger healthy and happy cities.
I save the game tons, so I actually have a save from that point, which I've uploaded.
The starting moves of the game are about grabbing you a piece of land that you will control. If you wait too long, then the AI will grab it. You should have more than 2 cities in 850BC.
Your savegame is from 850BC while the second city is from 1920BC, but that doesn't matter. The savegame is interesting and shows some of your gameplay.
Your capital has build a library. This building is useful as it increases your science output with 3.82 science. However, I would surely have preferred another settler to expand your empire. The new city would add production and science to your growing empire and it would allow you to control more resources.
Your capital still has massive untouched forests around it. Each of those forest are bags of 20 hammers (30 after mathematics) that are just there to be picked up. It's like a goody hut that needs to be worked by a worker for 4 turns (chopping it) and then you get your price of hammers. Those forests can really help early game expansion. Instead of building roads on those forest squares, you could have chopped those forests for more workers, settlers, units and buildings. Often players 'chop' their second worker with their first one.
You have build Stonehenge in your second city, which probably has slowed your expansion. Always realize that building a wonder in the early game has serious disadvantages. The hammers could also have been invested in other things like settlers, workers and units that could have enlarged your empire. In this case, I can't see the great value that Stonehenge adds to your empire.
My guess is that Uppsala was accidentally build on the iron resource before you could see iron. Otherwise that would have been a bad move. The value that the tile can add with a mine is a lot bigger. Even if I hadn't known about the iron, I would still have build the city on the desert tile directly adjacent to its present location. The desert tile would have instantly changed into a useful tile as the center city tile always has a minimum output of 2 food, 1 hammer and 1 commerce. Additionally, you could then use the two coastal grassland tiles adjacent to the sheep tile. The tundra tiles are not that interesting. Of course, you would have gotten into a cultural war with Berlin, but you would only need enough culture to control the tiles close to your city and with some focus on culture, that should be possible. Sometime later you would conquer Berlin and that would end any culture war problems.
I don't see why Uppsale is so small. Have you recently poprushed it or did you just improve the sheep tile relatively late?
You have explored a lot, but since I would want to make war with Bismarck, I would have preferred to scout the area around his cities more.
The sailing technology would be useful for you. It would allow you to build the trading post (unique building version of the lighthouse) which gives +1 food to water tiles which is useful in your capital as it is using coastal tiles and more of your cities will use water tiles. It also allows trading over coastal tiles which would allow you to get foreign trade routes with other civilizations. Foreign trade routes are a lot more profitable than domestic ones.
There are also some civilizations left with which you can sign an open borders treaty which will improve relations and allow foreign trade routes between their cities and yours if you can see a trade route to their cities using roads, rivers and coastal tiles (after sailing).
I've signed open borders treaties with everyone and traded polytheism for sailing with Willem and now you'll see trade routes that give 2 commerce in your cities. You can trade with Germany because Berlin is connected to the ocean with that river and the ocean is connected to you.
I've also placed some new city signs on the map and drawn their borders with the strategic overlay. In your situation, I would found the 2 cities marked city and then go for war with Bismarck. After the war, I would found the 2 cities marked minor city. The minor cities will never be great cities, but they will make more money than they cost. They will mostly use coastal tiles which are actually quite decent when you have a lighthouse (trading post for the vikings).
To wage an effective war, you'd want catapults so I would beeline for those. You need catapults to reduce the defensive bonuses of cities and to weaken the defenders with direct collateral damage attacks.
Haha. I had heard things about worldbuilder before but never knew how to access it, when I presed esc to save I saw it and clicked it to see what it was/how it worked. I did that to the worker for the hell of it.. didn't change anything else or look at the other civs though.
Evil cheater!
On an entirely different note to this game. The second file I've uploaded is an earlier game I tried, with an attempted hybrid economy as Elizabeth. I sort of ran out of patience and stopped playing it. Any comments?
Hmm, I guess you have improved since that game.
You haven't taken a lot of land and my guess is that it has to do with the wonders that you have build in your capital. I would advice you to play a game where you are forbidden to build a single wonder. Just so that you can see what you could have done with those resources. There are many players who have so called 'wonder-addiction' and feel compelled to get every wonder that they can get their hands on.
You could trade for some health resources, especially if you cancel the resources that you have supplied to Ceasar for free. (I guess he demanded them.) You can end these one-sided trade deals after 10 turns without repercussions. Of course, you would be improving your relations with him if you keep providing those resources for free, but you can use them to improve your own empire.
Your cities should grow some, especially after you have gotten some health resources.
You can claim the whale resource in the north if you build a city there. It would give +1 happiness in all of your cities (with compass to build whaling boats) and another +1 happiness if you have a market. It would be a fishing city of course and not a strong city, but still useful enough. The same is true for the fish resource in the north which would provide some health to your cities.
There is a fairly large area (11 tiles) between York, Arretium and London that is unclaimed by any city. You can clearly see the area if you use the strategic overlay to draw borders around the areas that are used by your and your enemies cities. I would put a city somewhere in that area. It's not the perfect location for a city, but there are no perfect locations left.
Your border cities are virtually undefended while your capital in the center of your empire is filled with units.
Also in this game, I would prepare for war as soon as possible. It's the only way to get a better position in this game. It will take quite some unit building, but it is the only way to get more land and more power.
In civ, you can in general say that the number of tiles that are being used by your cities roughly translates into the power of your civilization. Every tile that is being used by your empire adds commerce and production to your empire. And if you control a large area, then you have a lot of resources to make your people happy and healthy and to trade to other civilizations for even more resources and gold.
ChocolateSnake BC-0850, version 2.CivBeyondSwordSave