Ision's post was fantastic, simple advice that helped many players I'm sure, but myself in particular. I was wonder addicted and reading this article both helped stop that addiction and helped propel me upwards.
There exists no such thing as wonder addiction... never did. There only existed a misunderstanding of how to use wonders. The misunderstanding lies in trying to do too many other things while building wonders. A 20k game *creates* focus in a more simple manner and that's the main point of my so-called "obstinancy". I simply don't see how not building wonders and instead training workers, units, improvements, managing the whole trading system from the get go, moving units, improving hundreds of tiles, founding tens of cities, etc. creates focus. How in the world can anyone think there exists more strategic information in a 20k game than in a regular game?
Here's some simple advice - don't jump off any bridges, don't chew with your mouth open, and don't be so condescending.
And yes, even though it's a negative, those all qualify as simple.
I still don't know *what* to do.
I don't think I could have reached 20K before 2050 on any level when I was starting out.
Did you *focus* on building wonders?
Ision's article is right on target and full of common sense. The Great Library is the number one crutch that must be avoided at all costs by newbies because of the huge opportunity cost on the mid to lower levels. The GL will hamper your learning curve by months. Once you have mastered these levels with ease without recurring to the GL you are free to build it on the higher levels. It is common sense really and sound advise.
Here's my history. I played civ III vanilla back in 2002, 2003, and maybe 2004 for a bit... not all that much. Maybe something like 6 or 7 games. I don't think I ever won on Monarch and only won on Regent a few times. I don't recall how much I built The Great Library, but I can say that I don't think I can say I had "mastered" Regent at the time. Back in January or so I started playing Civ II:Test of Time. Around the middle of April I started playing Civ III Conquests. I remember reading T-hawk's article on the 20k game, although not all that closely in retrospect. I started out with a few regents and then some monarch games, all of which went unfinished for a week or two. I didn't have a focused strategy or VC in mind.
After that, I played mostly 20k games on Monarch and won well over 10 of them barely trading at all, nor building any settler factories, nor much military. This includes quite a few OCC 20k Monarch games where I severly trailed in tech after Education, as I didn't research all that intelligently, and only in rare instances bought or traded for tech. I won two Emperor 20k games, one with 10 cities with the Egyptians and one with 5 cities as the Sumerians where I used island block. Still... I had tons of culture in the 5 city game and lots of defensive units where I could have rather well defend my 20k city for quite some time. In all these games, of course, I built the Great Library. Now, of course, what follows rather clearly falls well out of newbie territory in my opinion.
I read some good articles around here including Bamspeedy's (I had read it before, but didn't really understand the settler factory idea, nor about getting gpt for tech), and I've scanned through Cracker's opening plays. I doubt I follow all his strategies to a T, and perhaps I disagree with him in spots even... I don't know. I also read your article, Drakan. So, I tried it on Monarch with Carthage and raging barbarians and took the spaceship launch in the 14th century. No sweat, even though I stupidly ruined my reputation in that one. Then, I tried it on Emperor and easily won with the Maya getting a diplomatic victory in like 1310 after I popped an SGL towards the end. I did in on Emperor again with the Byzantines and won diplomatically in something like the 15th century this time. I did those all on standard sized maps. I tried in on demi-god with France on a huge map and won a decisive diplomatic victory in 1405... I had a good enough of a lead that I feel confident I could have easily launched. Then, after finally learning how to manage the barbies in COTM48, I did with the Byzantines and launched the spaceship on a standard-sized map.
Around the 20th of June or so I finished my Iroquois Deity game. You'll find the final save in your strategy article. I took a 10k diplomatic victory in something like 1185 without ever having spawned a leader. I had Scandinavia as my neighbor, who of course wanted a war. I had the Zulu as half a neighbor. They passed me right up at least twice, even though I had a pitiful army. I couldn't even trade for horses until sometime in the middle ages... I think around the time theology came in.... maybe a few turns before that... I feel rather confident I already had monotheism and I don't think that came up as the AIs free tech. So, I couldn't even train mounted warriors until then. I didn't train spears either... I trained 3 pikes. Nor did I upgrade *any* warriors to swordsman. I don't think I have a save around here from then exactly, but I can point you to a save and some screenies of my pitiful army in the early industrial ages... I think I actually gifted the scientific AIs and traded around tech for the referenced save below. I *eventually* upgraded my warriors to medieval infantries when the Hitties came demanding Electricity and I told them "no"... some 10+ turns later at least. I built and built and built and built all sorts of improvements, two juicy medieval great wonders (and of course, The Great Library, and the Forbidden Palace earlier). Here's the link:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6928291#post6928291
I finally acheived an Emperor-level spaceship victory without the Great Library in a sort of succession game *after* I had won this Deity game. That one played almost pure builder as we couldn't attack outside our cultural borders. In this game, we still did build an ancient-age wonder, plenty of medieval wonders, and lots more wonders where pretty much when everyone builds them... or tries to do so... from the industrial age on.
Now, how in the world does all this come as relevant? Well, if you don't build The Great Library or ancient age wonders as SirPleb and Ision suggest, what do you do with those shields? As you've said Drakan, you'll probably build swordsman. After that, you'll probably want to go on a rampage. I suppose you could build a marketplace and/or the Forbidden Palace and some defensive units. Sure enough swordsman can work very well. But, to get things clearly, Ision and SirPleb and pretty much everyone else has implied warmongering or perhaps more gently speaking... militarism... by negatively rating wonders so much.
As a builder, it seems extremely hard to fathom that any builder would really want improvements over wonders (that's the general "choice" as a builder, as you only train units in case of emergencies). Some exceptions may exist to this general rule, but it goes rather deep. I'll take Sun Tzu's over a university *almost* any day, as barracks everywhere gives me simple upgrades. I'll take The Oracle over a marketplace almost any day, since I need a temple for a cathedral, marketplaces require more shields, The Oracle works empire-wide for a while I have to build marketplaces everywhere, and The Oracle might kill a wonder cascade (O.K... the ToA comes as much more of a problem... still that's the point... I'll build Leo's to kill a wonder cascade anyday in a builder-style game).
Now, on the harder levels which works as easier... militarism or builder style? Drakan's strategy article indicates builder style. How does one learn builder style well? By practicing building. And what does that really entail? Building wonders... having the ability to estimate when one might succeed in building them and when one might fail *and the cost of failure of building a wonder vs. the cost of building a settler/worker or improvment*. I don't see how building swordsman/barracks or... pick a unit... helps with this all that much.
In light of my history I'll review your statement Drakan:
The GL will hamper your learning curve by months. Once you have mastered these levels with ease without recurring to the GL you are free to build it on the higher levels.
Since I had played Vanilla some years ago and learned something about how improvements in Civ II:Test of Time (the sci-fi game taught me to pay attention to improvment building closely actually, since I could go broke on workshops... the factory equivalent early on) let's say I "started" playing in Februrary instead of early April. Do you mean to say that avoiding the GL in Civ III would have taught me enough about the game to have beaten Deity in two weeks when I pretty much still ranked as a civ III newbie and hadn't started playing 20ks yet? 2 weeks after that even? I don't think so. Hampered by months... I doubt it.
Thanks for everyones comments