Well, I change my original post because I see Dave answered that, but here's what else I had to say.
Read some of the strategy articles in the Strategy and Tips forum and Strategy Articles forum to make the game 'easier' for you. When you are more experienced, the game will be easier. Some of the articles were written for old versions of the game and may not apply to 1.29f, because those exploits were gotten rid of in patches. One example is pop-rushing. There are several articles that were written over a year ago about pop-rushing, because pop-rushing would give you 40 shields/citizen, but now only gives you 20 shields, so be careful about pop-rushing tactics. Any article that was written over 6 months ago, you should experiment with the tactic in a non-competitive game, before trying it in a game you really care about winning or care about your score.
Some other things not mentioned in the rule pages that a few people may consider an exploit, but is acceptable in the GOTM:
Using the palace as a pre-build. Start building a palace in one of your cities, so that when a wonder becomes available (when you get the tech), you can change production to the wonder and get it complete very quickly, because you have all those shields stored up. I have yet to see any competition that does NOT allow this tactic.
Mass upgrading. Build lots of cheap units then upgrade them when you get the tech. If you need more, disconnect the resource, build up more of the cheap units, reconnect the resource and upgrade again.
Getting around the '50% of citizens' limit for pop-rushing. You aren't supposed to be able to pop-rush more than 50% of your citizens, so you can't poprush 2 citizens while your population is 3. But if you pop-rush a spearman (20 shields) for 1 citizen, but then change production to barracks (40 shields) and pop-rush again the same turn, you get around this limitation. You could do the same for cash rushing by rushing a worker, but then change to something else (once 1 shield has been built towards a unit/building, the cost to rush it is dropped in half). You had to pay full price to rush the worker if you had 0 shields built towards it, but the price of rushing a larger item is now half-priced. It lets you rush an item in 1 turn instead of waiting a turn to get the price dropped in half. It is cheaper to wait one turn, but sometimes you may want something on that turn or to rush something every turn, and not waiting for every other turn.
), but it may come into play for some 60 shield items (granaries, temples). But 3 citizens is alot of people, but still practical in super high-corrupt cities.
