How do you expand?

[Dr. Trespasser]

I've bought Civ 4 when it first came out and have been playing it ever since but I've always had one problem. How the heck do you expand your empire and still keep up militarily and wonder wise. I've always been one of those people who love to go with 6 Custom continents with 6 total civs starting on their own and letting first contact come after navies become part of the game and this has always been pretty fun. Well I kinda got bored with that b/c I've always known the game is pretty much built for close interaction with neigboring civs. Thinking of this I started a Huge Terra game with 8 civs on Noble/Epic. Before I know it, the AI civs are all over the place putting cities in stupid locations that affect my future plans, they somehow manage to pump out military units, settlers and do crazy amounts of research twice as fast as me. I knew I would have to conquer to live where I want but it would take tens of turns to built up a force necessary to take even one of their cities.

My question is, what strategies do you use when living fairly close to many AI civs. They just expand so fast, to keep up I would be sacrificing wonders and city development. What do I do? Also, are wars for "lebensraum" (living-space) with neighbors friendly and otherwise a waste of time or are they a necesity?

[Solver]

First, you don't have to be the biggest one. Being stuck at 4 cities is very bad for you, but you don't have to have the most cities, this is not Civ3.

Note how Huge maps are intended for more than 8 civs - as a result, every civ on this map will be larger than you would otherwise expect.

Overall, I find that lebensraum wars are quite necessary sometimes, and they're very often useful. Generally, I go and beat up on one civ in the early game, maybe not completely destroying them, but getting myself more room. Which civ? Well, of course, your geography is important here. However, if you have a choice, it's better to fight a civ that you'd probably end up at war with anyway. Genghis Khan or Montezuma are aggressive and are thus good candidates for a war; someone like Mansa Musa or Gandhi could end up being a very good trading partner if you don't fight, though.

Your problem actually probably lies elsewhere, not with expansion. You should be able to get pretty far ahead of Noble civs in research - build cottages. Cottages are awesome. Through good use of cottages you can, in fact, be pretty good in the tech race on Monarch, even.

[LDiCesare]

What Solver said.
If it's crowded, for example once you built your second city you already have a border with another civ or it planted a city in your city spot #3 or 4, forget about settlers and try to get axemen/catapults. Take one of his cities and then you may make peace (with a bit of luck you can get a tech in exchange for peace if you researched far enough). Also make sure you get some great persons (libraries, forges are good for that - temples if you ounded a religion).

[Ijuin]

To give you guys an example, I am using the huge Earth map (I forget who made it, but it is the one downloadable in the Apolyton files section). I am playing Elizabeth on Monarch level, and I control ONLY the British Isles. However, I am running Representation, Bureaucracy, and Free Market, have the Great Library, an Academy, and Oxford University in my capital, and am STILL the most advanced civilization in the world in the Industrial Age. I think this shows adequately that land mass alone does not determine success.

Here's some hints: If you run Bureaucracy and build an Academy in your capital, then it will produce more than double the regular science amount. If you can snag the Great Library then it's even better. You can get over three hundred science per turn in just your capital city.

[Dr. Trespasser]

, landmass doesnt matter, I'm going to have to totally rethink my strategies.

On a side note, do you think being isolated on a small island vs being on a continent with 2-3 civs at your borders makes a difference in the "dont need alot of territory" strategy? b/c most of the time its the latter.