Everyone who's been at the game a while tells me I should focus on spewing out settlers early to keep up with the AIs, and build up my military to keep them from declaring war on me. But something is wrong.
No matter how quickly I try to build settlers (and workers, to keep the towns connected, and military to keep the barbarians from killing off my settlers and workers), I quickly run up against a wall. My cities drop to population 1 or 2, which slows production right back down. Meanwhile, the other civs are still pumping them out and building wonders to boot.
If I happen to have space to begin with, a totally different strategy works better for me--build up early cultural improvements in a few towns first, start settling at a significant but slower pace afterwards. Once I've built up a sizable area, I then am in a much better position to outpace the other civilizations. But as often as not, I'm crammed in between a couple of warlike or expansionist AIs who gobble up the territory and leave me with nothing. Moreover, because I've been trying to build cities as fast as possible with minimal improvements, I'm usually flat broke long before I can start trading luxuries or resources, which slows me even further. Trading technology hasn't been working--the other civs advance faster than I do when I try this. And cutting my science rate just leads to being backwards.
Any ideas?
No matter how quickly I try to build settlers (and workers, to keep the towns connected, and military to keep the barbarians from killing off my settlers and workers), I quickly run up against a wall. My cities drop to population 1 or 2, which slows production right back down. Meanwhile, the other civs are still pumping them out and building wonders to boot.
If I happen to have space to begin with, a totally different strategy works better for me--build up early cultural improvements in a few towns first, start settling at a significant but slower pace afterwards. Once I've built up a sizable area, I then am in a much better position to outpace the other civilizations. But as often as not, I'm crammed in between a couple of warlike or expansionist AIs who gobble up the territory and leave me with nothing. Moreover, because I've been trying to build cities as fast as possible with minimal improvements, I'm usually flat broke long before I can start trading luxuries or resources, which slows me even further. Trading technology hasn't been working--the other civs advance faster than I do when I try this. And cutting my science rate just leads to being backwards.
Any ideas?