I'm the mayor of simpleton

[Dry]

Originally posted by Nikolai
How much cottages vs farms should I make? I have read that the more cottages the better, so I've tended to make cottages on everything except food resources and tiles where I can get some valuable shields.

I don't have strict rules about farm vs cottages, but my rule of thumb is following:
- cottages in all plain/grassland not adjacent to a river.
- cottages in all flood plains
- farms in plains next to rivers (a lot of exceptions here).
- cottages or farm in grassland next to river, depending on situation.
These are more soft guidelines than hard rules.

More important, I think, is to try to make your cottages become towns and villages asap. When I early pop rush, I make sure 2 or 3 cottage squares are always occupied, so they improve asap.

[Older than Dirt]

On Noble level you should be able to build the Pyramids and switch to Representation which should boost your income and research enough to keep up. Also, if you do not have some good trade income in your capital and don't get it to grow large, you will have to be aggressive and attack and pillage a lot to get enough money to keep at 100 percent research. I always try to attack and eliminate a close AI civ by about 1 A.D. and then build until about 1000 A.C. by which time I usually have a significant lead technologically. If you don't have a really good starting location on levels above Noble, it seems pretty hopeless to me unless you turn off tech trading.