Need advice on monarchy game

[Casus Belli]

Ok, I've just increased my difficulty to monarch for the first time and ended up on an interesting map that I've decided to play until I "perfect" my strategy for this situation.

Its a large map, with archipilagos and otherwise standard settings. The starting position is pretty good. Im located on a fairly large island (room for 10-12 cities with only minor overlap) that is connected by 1 square to a slightly smaller island to the north. South of me is another large island that is far enough away from all AI players to let me settle it before they reach it. The only AI threat from the start of the game are the Maya's who live on the smaller northern island. But the terrain up there is pretty bad with heavy jungle and many mountains, so they will end up falling behind.

I'm a builder type, prefering to build up a moderate number of fully improved cities rather than the ICS tactics. I usually dont conduct early wars unless I feel forced to do it for expansion purposes or to get vital resources.

On this map I only have contact with 1 other civ for a long time, so there is very little tech trading. That has left my wondering what the best research strategy is. Should I concentrate on techs that are cheap because others already have them? Trying to get a lead in one area means that I fall way behind in others because I cant trade for those techs.

Another challenge is the total lack of fresh water on my home island. What is the best way to deal with this handicap?

The game is CIV3 Conquests and patched up with the latest patch. The 4000BC savegame is attached in case anyone wants to see it, or try this game for themselves.

[Donegeal]

Well, Civ isn't working for me at this point (still in the recovery process of a massive and destructive infection), but I'll tell you, the last time I played an Island game on monarch, my early strat was to just colonize my island (12 cities, lots of overlap, but had fresh water) and build spear/catapult/workers and made a unit wall all the way around making it impossible to even get attacked until marines. I made sure to build the Great Library, cranked my research to 10% (to get Rep. The AI avoids this tech and it can take awhile to get it otherwise) and sent out dozens, and I mean dozens, of Currah/Galleys on suicide runs (I missed out on the Lighthouse which made this more difficult, but it eventually worked). By the time I got Edu for free, I was in a republic with 12 size twelve cities (with all city improvements), wasting no space (with fully developed terrain) and excellent relations with everyone I had met (since they could not attack me because of my unit wall, they never declared war on me). I then used my contacts to broker excellent tech deals that lead me to be at 100% research and still making 1000-1500 gpt. I made sure to keep a tech lead by making everyone else broke and cruised to a UN victory without ever firing a single shot, killing another unit (besides a couple of Barbs before I settled the Island) and being #6 of 16 in score.

It was a builders dream.... and I'm a warmonger!

[vmxa1]

A screen shot of the current status or save would be useful to see what the land looked like.

If you have an island with no water, you should use coastal cities often to add tiles and then build harbors.

Pushing off any tenants is wise as you want all the tiles.

Get alphabet and curraughs out to find others.

Research sounds like it needs tobe done with an eye to what you need, not what you can trade at this point. I would have made an attempt to get the free tech for philosophy and then make the GL. If I had managed that, I would race to republic and then considered weither to back off tech research or not.

[vmxa1]

Ok I ran out few turns. Up to the point where I built the Colossus. I was going to build the pyramids, but I was afraid it would trigger a GA.

The Mayans have water, so I don't see any problem down the road to remove them.

I did not let them into my end of the map. I got lucky and had the hut by the choke point pop a settler and I founded a city to freeze them out.

They have no tech I did not have. I would pack cities in at CxxC fo rthe most part. Send out ships after alphabet (done 1500bc).

First hut gave pottery, so after Colossus (1475), I build a granary.
I see Mayans are making the pyramids and they may get it as they are industrious and AG. That will come in handy if they do.

I see no space ship allowed. I would suggest you enable the wait at end of turn and disable those automations for anything but battles.

Try to save anything you think you may want to post and not use the autosave as it is too large.

You only have one lux, so you will need to take down the Mayans soon to get the two I see they have (not seen all of their land).

You should be able to out tech the AI in this map, if they are all on islands. If one is on a large contient and takes out the others, then it could be an issue.