Always keep in mind the types of tiles each strat resource can appear in. You want a good mix of each of these tiles under your control. Having a great, river filled, grassland empire is great for growth, but it won't give you the resources required to win. Here's the tiles and what strat resources appear in them, sorted by number of resources supported:
Hills: Aluminum, Coal, Horses, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Mountains: Aluminum, Coal, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Plains: Aluminum, Horses, Oil
Desert: Aluminum, Oil, Saltpeter
Forest: Rubber, Uranium
Jungles: Rubber, Coal
Tundra: Oil, Saltpeter
Grasslands: Horses
Most of the resource rich tiles are in "undesirable" locations for cities. Grasslands--the best spots for cities--only give horses. So a lot of people I'm guessing are using their Civ2 brains and developing cities and territory only in the grassland areas. This is a mistake.
When it comes to resources, you can roughly divide terrain types tiles into four categories:
Highlands - mountains and hills with metals & ores
Dry flatlands - desert & plains with saltpeter, oil, aluminum
Forests/jungle tract - rubber, coal
River filled grasslands - for fast growing cities
Each gives a different resource mix or advantage. Try to get all general terrain types within your territory. Don't think with a Civ2 brain and only go after food producing squares for your territory.
On standard settings you generally get huge swaths of a given tile category. We've all seen the huge mountain/hill ranges, large tracts of riverless plains/desert, huge jungles & rivers. All generally crappy places for cites. Yeah, claim those great river strewn grassland areas that are perfect for cites. But get the other categories, too.
Unlike Civ2 where both you and the AI would ignore such mountainous, jungle or desert territory, here it's important you get control of these "barren" wastelands. That desert could later be the Arabia of your world, so planting an all desert city there in ancient times might not be so bad if it helps to claim the territory that gives you saltpeter or oil later in the game. Believe me, if you don't, the AI will.
It's also important to have at least one of your neighbors under your thumb. Either outright conquest and takeover, or being able to carry out the threat if they end up with something you don't have. In a current 16civ Monarch game I have everything I need because I claimed a large portion of desert to my north, (building cities of nearly all desert squares), had a bunch of jungle near my initial cities, and took some mountain squares from the Babylonians to deny them iron. I was able to make Babylon sufficiently weak by preventing them from iron. I was able to make them my vassal for a long period before taking them over entirely. Their whole empire's growth was hampered by the fact that their territory was mostly mountains and jungle. Now that it's mine it ended up being rich in rubber and coal. Resources I wouldn't have had otherwise. The "useless" desert I claimed had a saltpeter & oil. I'm betting on my northern desert/plains giving me aluminum when I get there, and the huge mountain range having uranium. Ok, it might not happen, but if I didn't have a lot of these types of tiles, I could be sure that it wouldn't.
Claim those "crappy" tiles and put cities on them. Not every city is going to be a producer in this game, some are just going to be "resource holders", or even just potential "resource holders". Get large chunks of every terrain type you can and you'll go a long way to solving your resource problems.
e
I can't believe I was playing roaming.
