What's ur timeline like?

[carl corey]

Well, if Gandhi bothers him he can always finish him later. Toku on the other hand is good for defense. In one game I had a Defensive Pact with him and calmly won the Space Race while he was building the largest army.

 

[Idlenessss]

Well, in my experience, on monarch, u cannot ever make sure expectations, really. A lot depends on terrain. After I have scouted the significant territory around me, I think hard, for a long time, where im gonna put my cities, what resources im gonna get (and ok sometimes i even cheat and look at worldbuilder and see if im getting vital later resource(oil,aluminum,coal,depending), cause if not, then u are gonna waste a lot of time in a pointless struggle...), and this will determine what victories are looking the most promising.
But sometimes, the stupid AI throws this super obnoxious wrench in your plans, by say sending out a settler and setting up camp in exactly the most vital spot for you. This will force you to adjust your plans accordingly. Maybe you can capture the city, maybe you can culture flip it, or maybe you can alter your whole plan accordingly. I find that there is a lot of speculative if this then this sort of planning, and timelines become pretty impossible to adhere to, if you arent the kind of guy who likes to restart every time theres an issue.
If you got a lot of flat grassland and rivers, then you can expect one sort of thing. If you got a lot of coast, u can expect another, if a lot of plains and hills, then another.
Diplomacy becomes your only way to really fill in the gaps, and its super important. At least one other civ is going to outpace you hoplessly. Always. You cant drag them down alone, u gotta make friends, and quickly, and be faithful to them, and use them to drag the powerhouses down.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Let me elaborate my timeline:

Sure, you may take my words at literal value and settle the second city before 2000BC. But what I really meant was, the enemy capital starts with 2 culture a turn. To get it's second border pop, it needs 100 culture under normal speed, or 50 turns. If you can attack the enemy capital before 2000BC rather than settling your second city, often it will only be defended by 1 archer of 20% cultural defense. If it's not on a hill, it has strength 3*(1+0.5+0.25+0.2)=5.85. If you start with a strategic resource in your capital, an aggressive leader with 3 chariots or 2 axeman are likely to take it out, gaining you a great city with a granary most probably.

That's the real reason why Aztecs are good.

 

[Dan Quale]

I usually get a well balanced economy, nothing too fancy though ill post my end game first empororer win i just finished tonight, you may notice some interesting use of workers at the very end. http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/111399/I_won_empororer.CivWarlordsSave

 

[Napalm102]

The highest beaker count I found in my saved games is 792 for my capital (running universal sufrage, free speech). Thats at the moment of my space race win on prince/epic level. It was also an isolated start and practically no wars, except for the ones caused by my bribery.

But thats only if you put science slider 100%, set the capital to produce research and move 3 engineer specialists to science specialists. The actaull setting is less impressive cause I was upgrading my army at the time so I needed cash.

Save Game

 

[DaviddesJ]

The Ur timeline begins early in the 3rd millennium BC, and Ur reached its maximum size circa 2000 BC. After its capture by Babylon, Ur declined throughout the second millennium, and Ur ceased to exist as a city around 500 BC.

 

[Galileo44]

Wonderful! The sarcasm comes forth as expected finally.

 

[axident]

The Ur timeline begins early in the 3rd millennium BC, and Ur reached its maximum size circa 2000 BC. After its capture by Babylon, Ur declined throughout the second millennium, and Ur ceased to exist as a city around 500 BC.

 

[KMadCandy]

And at higher difficulty levels, you almost HAVE to light bulb a little bit at first just to catch up to the AI's cheating.

that to me was a big wake-up call in moving up levels. easy levels i never really needed to lightbulb, it was always 'wheeee, prophet, shrine!' and 'yum, scientist, academy here i come.' now i not only check what they'll lightbulb right now, i check the list to see if i can pull any good deals out of them soonish by researching stuff myself meantime.

Ugh I hate Ghandi for never giving me a straight deal.. I always practically give away my techs when trading with him. But I hate Toku even more because he won't even trade techs in the first place until it's so late into the game that he shouldn't even bother.

both are pretty much true. but at least gandhi doesn't resent it when he comes demanding techs and you say "no way!" he's a weirdo, loooooong memory if you declare war on his friends, normal memory if you declare on him, and he takes two aspirin and forgets by the next morning if you don't give in to a tech demand

 

[cabert]

gandhi doesn't resent it when he comes demanding techs and you say "no way!" he's a weirdo, loooooong memory if you declare war on his friends, normal memory if you declare on him, and he takes two aspirin and forgets by the next morning if you don't give in to a tech demand

That's why I never give in to gandhi's demands
I don't like this guy left unchecked.
If I can't bribe monte or alex to attack him, I'll do it myself. IMHO he is the most likely to run away with a game.
At second place, there are the american guys. Those aren't very agressive early, but if left unchecked, they build up really big empires, hard to take over late.