I don't know if I have played anyone of any skill yet but I have been successful in nearly every MP game I have been involved in since I have adapted this gameplan. Obviously if I get attacked early everything changes, but it hasn't happened to me yet.
1. Ignore religion, sure the +1 happy and +1 culture helps, but Open borders are less frequent and great prophets are best spent on technology IMO. If I pick a civ that starts with mysticism and am am on a river, I may try but if I fail I am behind on chopping since bronze working will be coming that much later.
3. Wonder priorities. Great lighthouse and collosus, mainly because I find that they are almost never in competition to get(not because they are the best. It can be hard to get a good productive city on the coast sometimes but if I can just get a granary lighthouse harbor and the research/economy improvements out of them I'll be happy. Oracle and stonehenge would be wonderful but everyone seems to like these guys. And everyone else will be getting those techs before me. Pyramids is cool too, especially if i'm a spiritual civ so I can alternate between between police state and something less expensive when not at war. Usually though that's a highly competitive wonder and i'm busy with other stuff.
2. Commerce and tech hungry. I almost always want to have a financial civ. I love floodplains/cottages and coastal cities. My tech order is (mining) bronzeworking first as chopping is without a doubt the best thing to do early. Then I start on my resource techs, then the wheel. (hunting) archery comes relatively late and it's a chance I take but usually your opponents can't see what your cities have until they declare war, so unless they got horses right next to their city for chariots people don't usually like to blind rush. From there horseback riding if i got horses, pottery, masonry if i hadn't got already, writing and mathematics to get construction(the crucial tech I wish I could get sooner). From there to metal casting and machinery, which if I'm playing Qin, I might go for before construction because I love those chucks. After that I try to fill in the necessary techs for civics and research/econ growth.
3. Production. since I usually don't get a religion or play creative trait civs, I have to get an obelisk in most cities, and a barracks. The best way to do this I think is having a chopper in each city but I've been pretty poor at getting enough workers out to do this. By the time I get production I would like to have 4 cities, with at least 2 being able to give decent production and at least 2 on the coast hopefully next to a seafood resource or 2. In reality they could all be well balanced financial and production wise, it has happened before. I'll make a blend of units, axes spears swords and an archer or 2. Cavalry units too obviously if I can. If not oh well. When construction hits it's time to make cats. Even if I have elephants, I'm going to build cats first, 6-8 cats beats everything. After my first wave I'll definetly start throwing some eles in, but I just don't want to wait any longer(unless I have good reason to).
4. Diplomacy. It's nice to have at least one guy with open borders and a loose alliance with. I never have backstabbed anyone yet, but I'm sure I haven't found a good enough reason to yet. I may also trade techs if I'm reasonably sure that I can do what I'm doing better than the guy i'm allying with, but it will stop if I see him trading those techs off to others. The best targets are people warring with my neighbors or someone I share a small frontier with. If my scout is till alive though, anyone who has territory next to where he is stuck at will do though. Obviously the worst guy to get good relations with is your neighbor if you only have one.
5. Battle. Well since I'm attacking kinda late that means that my opponent will be well roaded, which means every raider I send in to pillage will likely find a spear up his ass relatively fast, so I concentrate on taking a city or 2 with overwhelming force of my catapults. If it goes well, mop him up, if not it's time to try and reconcile before we attrition ourselves into oblivion while others take the lead.
Well wow I didn't mean to make this so big, but any tips on improving this would be helpful and if you find it helpful, then greatl. Also how you handle your MP games would be great too since I notice threads about them specifically are rather sparse.
Edit: Wow preview is my friend, I should use it
1. Ignore religion, sure the +1 happy and +1 culture helps, but Open borders are less frequent and great prophets are best spent on technology IMO. If I pick a civ that starts with mysticism and am am on a river, I may try but if I fail I am behind on chopping since bronze working will be coming that much later.
3. Wonder priorities. Great lighthouse and collosus, mainly because I find that they are almost never in competition to get(not because they are the best. It can be hard to get a good productive city on the coast sometimes but if I can just get a granary lighthouse harbor and the research/economy improvements out of them I'll be happy. Oracle and stonehenge would be wonderful but everyone seems to like these guys. And everyone else will be getting those techs before me. Pyramids is cool too, especially if i'm a spiritual civ so I can alternate between between police state and something less expensive when not at war. Usually though that's a highly competitive wonder and i'm busy with other stuff.
2. Commerce and tech hungry. I almost always want to have a financial civ. I love floodplains/cottages and coastal cities. My tech order is (mining) bronzeworking first as chopping is without a doubt the best thing to do early. Then I start on my resource techs, then the wheel. (hunting) archery comes relatively late and it's a chance I take but usually your opponents can't see what your cities have until they declare war, so unless they got horses right next to their city for chariots people don't usually like to blind rush. From there horseback riding if i got horses, pottery, masonry if i hadn't got already, writing and mathematics to get construction(the crucial tech I wish I could get sooner). From there to metal casting and machinery, which if I'm playing Qin, I might go for before construction because I love those chucks. After that I try to fill in the necessary techs for civics and research/econ growth.
3. Production. since I usually don't get a religion or play creative trait civs, I have to get an obelisk in most cities, and a barracks. The best way to do this I think is having a chopper in each city but I've been pretty poor at getting enough workers out to do this. By the time I get production I would like to have 4 cities, with at least 2 being able to give decent production and at least 2 on the coast hopefully next to a seafood resource or 2. In reality they could all be well balanced financial and production wise, it has happened before. I'll make a blend of units, axes spears swords and an archer or 2. Cavalry units too obviously if I can. If not oh well. When construction hits it's time to make cats. Even if I have elephants, I'm going to build cats first, 6-8 cats beats everything. After my first wave I'll definetly start throwing some eles in, but I just don't want to wait any longer(unless I have good reason to).
4. Diplomacy. It's nice to have at least one guy with open borders and a loose alliance with. I never have backstabbed anyone yet, but I'm sure I haven't found a good enough reason to yet. I may also trade techs if I'm reasonably sure that I can do what I'm doing better than the guy i'm allying with, but it will stop if I see him trading those techs off to others. The best targets are people warring with my neighbors or someone I share a small frontier with. If my scout is till alive though, anyone who has territory next to where he is stuck at will do though. Obviously the worst guy to get good relations with is your neighbor if you only have one.
5. Battle. Well since I'm attacking kinda late that means that my opponent will be well roaded, which means every raider I send in to pillage will likely find a spear up his ass relatively fast, so I concentrate on taking a city or 2 with overwhelming force of my catapults. If it goes well, mop him up, if not it's time to try and reconcile before we attrition ourselves into oblivion while others take the lead.
Well wow I didn't mean to make this so big, but any tips on improving this would be helpful and if you find it helpful, then greatl. Also how you handle your MP games would be great too since I notice threads about them specifically are rather sparse.
Edit: Wow preview is my friend, I should use it
