Perfect economy and military at the same time!

[Gravity Happens]

Ok this is the new strategy that I just tested out today, and it worked pretty well but it seems like it would take a lot of practice

First of all, here are the bonuses that work the best, look for a civ that is Industrious, Militaristic , or Scientific (Germans, Chinese, or Persians/Ottomans). Start out building settlers non-stop. Build a new city, build settlers there too ( if it can't get to population 3 without some irrigation, have that city produce workers non-stop). Build like crazy. If you ONLY build settlers in the beginning of the game, you can actually build cities and expand faster than the computer up to the MONARCH difficulty. Now you may notice that you are lagging slightly behind in technology, so raise the science funding as far as you can without losing money. Also, the advantage here is that you can demand money from the computer players and actually get it, since you are stronger than them. Use this money to buy technologies from them. Also try to get resources and trade routes to sell resources for additional funds. NECESSITY: get iron and horses hooked up and make sure a lot of cities have access to them. Around the time you make it to the medieval age (the computer might get there first, but when YOU get to the medieval age), get to chivalry first. Since you might be the Chinese, so much the better you get riders (woo!). Start using your good production from all of your cities to stock up a whole lot of knights/riders. Don't switch to republic government if you care about war weariness (you should, its lost me several games in the past) . Switch to monarchy right before you declare war on your unfortunate neighbor. If you wanna, sell some resources to other civilizations to keep your economy going. But here's the real secret to your military success: don't bother capturing enemy cities and dealing with all of that resistance crap. Have a bunch of settlers ready from your earlier days of expansion and fill in all of those cities with your own once they are razed. I have found that your war machine moves much faster this way. Destroy your enemy before they have a chance to call for help on another civilization. Once that enemy is defeated, you may find it hard to stop conquering (your cities always want to automatically build a darned lot of knights/riders as soon as you're able to) either A. contact your governor and change it there so they don't build offensive anymore, or stomp somebody else. Now for the economy part... keep threatening! Continue this trend through the game and you either win a territory or a conquest victory before you know it (I won a conquest before I got to modern armor.)

[Gen.Dragolen]

Gravity,

At which levels have you been playing, and at which settings did you have the barbarians?

I have tried this route a few times when it appeared I was alone on a large continent and wound up facing 60 barbarian horsemen in one game. The other 3 civs had reached medieval times about 20 turns ahead of me, and all I had been doing was producing spearmen and settlers.

You always have to tailor you starting to what the terrain and civ placements will allow, because the AI usually has a much better starting position and will be pumping out settlers much faster than a human player will manage in the same time, or they will start out with two settlers instead of your one.

Otherwise, your Rapid EXpansion (REXing) strategy is the only way to go. Vene, Vidi, Vici !

[johncmcleod]

I agree, witht this strategy you won't have enough troops to protect your massive empire and barbarians/other civs will take a lot of cities.

[stonewall]

This is what I was thinking. If you produce nothing but settlers (and workers from some cities), who is protecting the cities from AI and Barbs? Sounds a bit risky....

[Gravity Happens]

Whoops... forgot to mention (sorry I've been at camp for a long time so I am only replying now) choose low barbarian settings to make it a little easier, but if you want a lot of barbarians, have one of those cities that can't make settlers without irrigation crank out military units to make a military fast. I tried this earlier, and it worked pretty well.

[zorbop]

when i do this, it works untill the comp gets to the midievil. this is when my spearmen are up against the barbarian horde that spawns when midievil age is reached. with larger borders, the horde almost ALWAYS goes for me. if i'm lucky, they will all die attacking a single city, but on emperor, and with later patches, this does not happen. i've found the best way to win is early conquest, not rexing. rexing only works for me on regent or sometimes monarch... any higher and determined ai attacks will capture your cities, and barbarians will kill all your workers.

[Gravity Happens]

Try using your workers to hook up iron and make swordsmen or hook up horsies and get horsemen and go destroy the barbarians before the medieval age. I tried this again recently, and it helps if you have a LOT of workers, set them to 'auto build trade network' which is my best friend

[Vorral]

I often play using an REX strategy, but a subtle variation on your theme is easily possible, if you want to keep the economy going strong. Mind you, everything is hinged on your starting location (unless you're building your own maps). When you're pumping out settlers in low pop cities, you might notice that on your pop 1 cities, it takes longer for your settlers to come out. No one wants shield waste, so use that time to build wealth or military units in the early game. Once Medieval Times crushes your spine with barbarians, your standing army is ready to take them out, usually with enough units to hunt the encampments themselves instead of waiting for the death clouds to come in.
When you're playing against more than 6 civs on a large map, make sure you've got it set for Pangaea or Large continents. Otherwise this strategy goes down the pooper really quickly.

J.Maul

[Gravity Happens]

I forgot to mention... i practically only ever play huge pangaea with maximum opponents... so it obviously was designed for those settings. Try it, its won me several games since i first concieved it.