What's my problem?

[TheRockit]

If anyone would please review my saved game file and provide some advice I would really appreciate it!

This game is played with current patch, no Warlords expansion, on chieftan (I usually play Warlord).

This game is a pretty typical example of my play style, on Warlord, Noble, Chieftan... whatever difficulty I usually work this way. Going for social/culture advances and building a lot of cities while trying to avoid war.

I'm pretty sure I am about to get jumped or a rival is building up for war (Monty is close by) but what in general do you suggest I do to make my play style more effective?

Thanks for the look!

(I am still looking for those Apolyton University files to play)

[MilesGregarius]

Just as a first impression, you must spread your religions. You've founded both Hinduism and Judaism, but neither has spread to your entire empire. You really need your state religion in every single city. Civic bonuses like extra hammers or XP only apply in cities with your state religion.

More importantly, in your present situation, having your state religion provides culture points. Barcelona and Seville are old cities, but they have zero culture. Neither has even expanded to fill their respective fat crosses, so your not getting all you can out of either city. Furthermore, high culture levels provide higher defensive bonuses if your cities are attacked.

Additionally, spread your religions to your neighbors. Having the same religion will keep you on much better terms with them, and, since you founded them, will let you know what's going on in their cities.

So I'd say:

1. Immediately switch to Judaism. Izzy is spiritual, so there won't be any anarchy. This will immediately start kicking out culture points in Barcelona and Seville, allowing them to expand their borders, almost instantly for Barcelona. It will also improve your relations with your Jewish neighbors, Cyrus and Qin.

2. Since you are running organized religion, start crapping out missionaries to bring all your cities into the fold.

3. Agree open borders with the other powers, even if only temporarily, to get missionaries into them so they convert to your religion. You'll find your foreign relations a lot smoother once you do.

4. Even if you choose Judaism as your dominant religion, get Hinduism into all your cities as well. This will allow construction of additional temples and monasteries. It will also allow you to switch seemlessly to Hinduism at a later date if you want and will provide extra happiness/culture if/when you switch to free religion later.

5. Assign a priest to a city with a temple to shoot for a Great Prophet. Since you control both the Hindu and Jewish holy cities, you can build their respective shrines to bring in much needed income. Which brings me to ...

6. Build cottages. I don't see a single one, and your empire is very cash poor. Get some up and running pronto.

7. You need more workers. You only have four workers for six cities. More workers will let you get your cottages up and running quicker and allow you to chop rush (you seem to have plenty of virgin forest) key production, like your Pyramids.

8. And why arent you running slavery? That way you can pop rush to spped production/reduce population on overcrowded cities.

And as a minor point, both the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens generate Great Engineer points, so I tend to try to build them in the same city.

Anywho, just my $0.02. Hope it helps.