Hi all, 
Just wondering what everybodies style of playing is. Are you the Atilla the Hun type who likes to overrun any opposition at the earliest possible oportunity or are you more the peaceful type who wants to see his civilization prosper above all other things?
Personally I fit into the last category. I usually rapidly found 6 to 8 cities before 1000 BC as the core of my civilization. If I'm alone on a continent I try to clog up the entire place with cities so that no other cic can gain a foothold there. If I'm on a continent together with another nation I seek to establish a well defendable border and fortify it. After that my expansion is by and large restricted to colonizing some small nearby islands so as to create little protective shield around the heartland of my nation. I concentrate on science, wonders and improvements and I start building irrigations and roads immidiately after founding my second city (I strive to have one settler per city). My military is purely defensive until the modern age. From then on I sorta adopt a policing role. What that means is that whenever a civilization becomes too weak and is about to be trashed by a more powerful civilzation I try to intervene on behalf of the underdog and severely kick the bully's butt. I don't conquer any of his cities, though but rather help my ally conquer them until some sort of balance of power has been reached. Kinda like Uncle Sam I suppose.
I never conquer other civilizations as I want to have as many rivalling nations in the game as possible. In fact I would love to have far more than only 7 nations in the game.
I have to say that I'm very frustrated with the AI's irrational behaviour. Seems they just can't stand being at peace with me for a few turns. No, they ALWAYS have to make completely irrational demands even though I could mercilessly crush them in less than 5 turns if I wanted to. And then those stupid surprise attacks all the time. What the f***?? I support them with generous gifts of gold since they're to dumb to get their civilization going and they thank me by putting a knife in my back for no reason at all??
I dunno, but it seems to me that whoever programmed the AI must be suffering from an acute case of paranoia and should see a psychologist about it real quick!
Oh well, let's hear your strategies.

Just wondering what everybodies style of playing is. Are you the Atilla the Hun type who likes to overrun any opposition at the earliest possible oportunity or are you more the peaceful type who wants to see his civilization prosper above all other things?
Personally I fit into the last category. I usually rapidly found 6 to 8 cities before 1000 BC as the core of my civilization. If I'm alone on a continent I try to clog up the entire place with cities so that no other cic can gain a foothold there. If I'm on a continent together with another nation I seek to establish a well defendable border and fortify it. After that my expansion is by and large restricted to colonizing some small nearby islands so as to create little protective shield around the heartland of my nation. I concentrate on science, wonders and improvements and I start building irrigations and roads immidiately after founding my second city (I strive to have one settler per city). My military is purely defensive until the modern age. From then on I sorta adopt a policing role. What that means is that whenever a civilization becomes too weak and is about to be trashed by a more powerful civilzation I try to intervene on behalf of the underdog and severely kick the bully's butt. I don't conquer any of his cities, though but rather help my ally conquer them until some sort of balance of power has been reached. Kinda like Uncle Sam I suppose.

I never conquer other civilizations as I want to have as many rivalling nations in the game as possible. In fact I would love to have far more than only 7 nations in the game.
I have to say that I'm very frustrated with the AI's irrational behaviour. Seems they just can't stand being at peace with me for a few turns. No, they ALWAYS have to make completely irrational demands even though I could mercilessly crush them in less than 5 turns if I wanted to. And then those stupid surprise attacks all the time. What the f***?? I support them with generous gifts of gold since they're to dumb to get their civilization going and they thank me by putting a knife in my back for no reason at all??

I dunno, but it seems to me that whoever programmed the AI must be suffering from an acute case of paranoia and should see a psychologist about it real quick!

Oh well, let's hear your strategies.