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Anyone playing on the various Earth maps should have discovered that there's different strategies depending on your civ. Marla, for example, gives us a program which edits starts, so that everyone starts in the right spot. This is what I use. The game plays differently than a normal, random 16 civ huge map.
Europe is crammed with civs. Egypt, Zulu, and China have plenty of expansion room. India, Aztec, American and Iroquois are somewhat limited, but still have much more space than Europe.
For those named, the standard, random-map rules apply. But for Europe:
Make contact with everyone else first. This should be your highest priority in the beginning. Know your neighbors starting techs. If you (Rome) can trade Warrior Code for the Greek Alphabet, then the Germans have nothing to trade with them. But that's basic strategy, and works on any map. The only difference is you know who starts where, and how to get to them first.
Cram as many cities as you can into the space you can carve out. 9 squares per city. Not the full 21 you're used to. Even for Russia, you think you've got plenty of room to expand eastwards... the AI will get there eventually, unless you want to stay at war with them from the moment they send a settler and spearman your way.
The AI places new cities to account for expansion. With your tightly packed cities, you can get more production out of the same space. In my current German game, I've packed 12 cities in the area that the AI (when I'm not European) fills with 7. That's 5 more Knights I can have in production. You won't go past 12 pop for a long time, anyway.
Once you fill your chosen area, stop. Build up your cities. The French and Romans will waste their production sending wave after wave of settler/spearmen deep into Siberia. You can develop your area, build Aqueducts (if necessary, find those rivers!), build Barracks. Pump out the military. There's little point in building wonders. More often than not, the European civs will be the ones who build the wonders, so let them, and then take them. London usually builds Colossus and Great Lighthouse. And they're easy pickings.
And for the Western Hemisphere civs, make contact with them your next highest priority. But DO NOT, under any circumstances, even if it means war, give contact to anyone else. In my last game, I had the Americans paying 260 to trade world maps with me. When I traded maps with the English, and saw that they were exploring in that area, then I sold contact to everyone for everything I could get. Once they got contact with the rest of the world, they ceased to be polite, ceased to have 260 gold to trade, and generally acted quite rude. But until they make contact with the other 12 civs, you can simply trade maps and tech (they'll be WAY behind) for enormous ammounts of gold.
Europe is crammed with civs. Egypt, Zulu, and China have plenty of expansion room. India, Aztec, American and Iroquois are somewhat limited, but still have much more space than Europe.
For those named, the standard, random-map rules apply. But for Europe:
Make contact with everyone else first. This should be your highest priority in the beginning. Know your neighbors starting techs. If you (Rome) can trade Warrior Code for the Greek Alphabet, then the Germans have nothing to trade with them. But that's basic strategy, and works on any map. The only difference is you know who starts where, and how to get to them first.
Cram as many cities as you can into the space you can carve out. 9 squares per city. Not the full 21 you're used to. Even for Russia, you think you've got plenty of room to expand eastwards... the AI will get there eventually, unless you want to stay at war with them from the moment they send a settler and spearman your way.
The AI places new cities to account for expansion. With your tightly packed cities, you can get more production out of the same space. In my current German game, I've packed 12 cities in the area that the AI (when I'm not European) fills with 7. That's 5 more Knights I can have in production. You won't go past 12 pop for a long time, anyway.
Once you fill your chosen area, stop. Build up your cities. The French and Romans will waste their production sending wave after wave of settler/spearmen deep into Siberia. You can develop your area, build Aqueducts (if necessary, find those rivers!), build Barracks. Pump out the military. There's little point in building wonders. More often than not, the European civs will be the ones who build the wonders, so let them, and then take them. London usually builds Colossus and Great Lighthouse. And they're easy pickings.
And for the Western Hemisphere civs, make contact with them your next highest priority. But DO NOT, under any circumstances, even if it means war, give contact to anyone else. In my last game, I had the Americans paying 260 to trade world maps with me. When I traded maps with the English, and saw that they were exploring in that area, then I sold contact to everyone for everything I could get. Once they got contact with the rest of the world, they ceased to be polite, ceased to have 260 gold to trade, and generally acted quite rude. But until they make contact with the other 12 civs, you can simply trade maps and tech (they'll be WAY behind) for enormous ammounts of gold.
). 
That, or I will get too frustrated with 10 minute turns that will only get longer.
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