Small pangea map, weak start, massive wars; Tips?

[splunge the 2nd]

I'll post my save from home (at work on civfanatics rather than working )
I played a random start on Emporer difficulty and seem to be on a small pangea landmass as Spain. I started with no fresh water and no bonuses. I've picked up some enemy cities but abandoned some as the bully on the block Netherlands (who knew?) was poised to pick them up. I'm a bit behind in tech and lagging in empire growth. I'm more comfortable with standard continents where I can pick my wars and dominate my own continent to build a base to invade. This game is a cluster&%$# with everyone settling everywhere and lots of shifting wars.

Any genreal advice?

 

[Theov]

I'll post my save from home (at work on civfanatics rather than working )
I played a random start on Emporer difficulty and seem to be on a small pangea landmass as Spain. I started with no fresh water and no bonuses. I've picked up some enemy cities but abandoned some as the bully on the block Netherlands (who knew?) was poised to pick them up. I'm a bit behind in tech and lagging in empire growth. I'm more comfortable with standard continents where I can pick my wars and dominate my own continent to build a base to invade. This game is a cluster&%$# with everyone settling everywhere and lots of shifting wars.

Any genreal advice?

Hmmmm...
So no nukes yet you say?
You might want to try the diplomacy route. Stay up at techs and have a LOT of towns that you can turn into farms.
Research towards harbors and focus on luxuries.

Will check if you post a save.
Oh - post the 4000bc file with it please.

 

[MysteryX]

I would just offer some generic strategy I employ whenever there is a big bully in the world (and I am not that bully).

Make everyone else your friend. Do as much tech trade-around as possible with everyone near your level of tech, so your tier can catch up. Give some technology gifts to the laggers- mainly things they can use for defense. Then get everyone involved in a military alliance against the bully.

While your allies do the fighting, you hold back, and focus as much on building and research as you are able.

If the Dutch have to suffer multiple enemies on multiple fronts, even if they are able to easily dispatch the attackers, the sheer numbers should keep the Dutch units busy enough dividing to repel attackers that they cannot lauch successful forays into your allies' land. While they focus on war, their building and research will lag behind, allowing you the ability to catch up. Eventually they will start making peace treaties; but with multiple enemies, you have a good chance of keeping them in constant war if you can renew the military alliances after 20 turns have run on the peace treaties.

Then when you feel you have sufficiently caught up, you have two choices- swallow up your weakened allies one at a time, or go for the big fish.

That's without looking at your save. If you have already been in a lot of wars that had quite a lot of fighting already, you may have sunk attitudes far enough that you have trouble swinging the military alliances. If your land is bad enough, it may be hard for you to catch up even if you can slow down everyone else by keeping them warring.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Thanks for the advice. Here's the saves. I dodn't save the 4000 BCE but I included an early one.

 

[Raliuven]

Off the top, I don't think you have a problem winning the game. You are equal in size to the Dutch but they have a bigger population, mostly because your land is completely undeveloped. You have 3 native workers and 10 slaves for 13 cities. The isn't the best, granted, and getting water to the fields must have really sucked. You have an army of swords in the field. The biggest problem is that you have ranged far from your front lines.

If you can stimy the Dutch for a while and get peace, that will work. The English, Koreans, Vikings and Germans are on the way out the door. The French and Russians are doing okay but are half your size. You've got luxuries and will soon have a tech advantage over everyone though the French and Dutch are at least a little ahead. No one is building any Middle Age wonders yet, so you are not that far behind IMO.

The big thing is to consolidate your lines and IMPROVE your tiles. You need more workers. Fight a defensive war against the Dutch. Your army should make that managable. If you need to abandon land, gift the cities to French, Russians or Koreans and see if the Dutch will pick a fight over an undefended city. Solidify your position and then take out the French, finish off the Germans and the English. Pick up the incense in the desert.

Another observation - you have NOTHING but barracks and walls (which I hope were all free from Capturing the GW in London). NOTHING. That's a problem. You've got no culture anywher - no Libaries. No cheap temples (you are a religious civ). This will help you pick up tiles, prevent flips and boost research (in the case of libraries). Most importantly it will close all those gaps in your lines and hamper enemy movements.

I don't know what your research path has been, but one of the things should be to research for trade bait. We need to get out of Despotism ASAP. Liturature is always a good trade bait. I don't know when you picked up Monarchy, but you are a religous civ, why are we still in Despotism? Even if you want to go for Republic, swap now, waste the turn and then swap to Republic when you've grown a little.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Thanks for the input. I picked up Monarchy from peace settlement with the Germans and was hesitant to revolt while at war. I probably should make that move soon. I researched alpha to the right and missed the Philosophy slingshot. I researched engineering and have been slowly trying to get Republic as monopoly to trade.
Lacking fresh water, pop growth was slow, so workers got put off a bit.
I usually eschew culture. Temples never seemed worth it to me, but once I get a period of peace, I'll think about it. I was planning a minimal research game (pointy stick!) so didn't work to libraries. Yes, the walls came from picking up the Great Wall of England
I think I'll hold the German cities I have, maybe build a bit and let the French desert cities grow to 2 and target them next to expand in a less piecemeal way. Maybe build some embassies to dog pile Holland.
I usually play in Republic, but this time, may go Monarchy as it's going to be a bloody game.

edit for typo

 

[Raliuven]

You've researched Engineering since posting? I thought you were still in the AA? Maybe I missed that. I thought you were a tech short of the Middle Ages, missing Currency?

My advice, revolt immediately. If you are not going to research anyway, forget Republic and go Monarchy. The beauty of being religious is that you can just swap later for 1 turn wasted and go with something better. Getting out of despotism is priority #1.

I think you could get away with low culture - I usually build some markets/libraries/auqa/harbors even in a war game but I've never been given an award for a fast conquest! Of course you have neither Lit nor currency (IIRC) so no libraries or markets! At least not yet. I woud be tempted to up temples ONLY because we need some culture, we are a religious civ, and if we are not going to research then they are cheaper and come with a happy citizen & cuture for the upkeep. Either that or start dropping more cities! CxxC spacing!

Another option that I didn't explore was who has the ToA. If you can capture that for the free temples, even for just 5 turns, that will solve the culture/border problem, at least for a while. Another thought - since NO ONE has bothered with literature yet, you could shoot for the GLB and then coast on the other civs until education. I think the AI you have will go for MT before Eductation. Not sure on that, though. Korea will probably go for metal fast for their UU. Dutch and France are wild cards. No one else has the muscle to do any research.

Bottom line, though, is more workers. I understand the desire to put off the workers, but if your population is working unimproved tiles how much are they really worth anyway? You can't do without improved tiles at least around your core half-dozen cities. By 10AD you should have major infrastructure up and running and even without water in your initial cities, you have some okay land (not great by any means) around to push out settlers and workers. That's more about how you got here than what to do now, though.

One thing I noted was that the only embassies you have are with the Civ's you've pounded into the dirt. You'll need to spend some gold to get those allies. I though about that. Considering your extra luxuries, if you can get an embassy with say France you could have an ally. It will also weaken France so that when you attack them they will have either wasted their units or sent them to the other end of the world.

Only problem with calling in allies is worry about the Dutch gobbling them up and becoming a monster. Even so I would not be overly worried. Push out more workers to improve the land and put up your FP. I don't think I saw it in any of your cities.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Oops- construction, not engineering!
Thanks for the advice. I'll crank the workers and see about the FP after the revolution to monarchy.