No hope for the perfectionist player?

[DrakenDuck]

I'm always hearing about people getting tanks and launching space ships way early in the game, say in the 1600's - 1700's and on difficult play levels to boot. I cannot see how this can be done short of cheating, but I have heard that if you follow a strict procedure of some sort, build this, resarch that, etc, it can be done. That's no fun at all, having to conform to a rigid style of gameplay just to win.
Why do we have to build cities so quick that we barely have improved the surroundings around the first one? I don't like managing a ton of cities, even with the govoner it's annoying. I generally like to build 4 or 5 towns and dominate an area within those and really work on improving the terrain and building up defensive units, and then if somone messes with me THEN I start expanding by taking over the civ's cities. While I can survive with this method on higher levels, I can't seem to win with it in any level, there just is'nt egnough time before retirement.

[Steve Clark]

In my limited experience so far, I am playing like I always play...a perfectionist conqueror. I have 9 very nice cities on one island continent (at Chieftain, which helps) and they crank out enough vet units to take over one enemy civ after another, and still score really high in culture. That may be more difficult at higher levels, but I have that you can still play perfectionist and still dominate militarially.