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There is a laundry list of information below so don't feel overwhelmed. Most of it deals only with Deity level playing although a lot of these tips can help you on the lower settings I'm sure.
The information below will be from experiences that dealt with playing on larger maps vs 7, 11, and 15 AI opponents, Raging hordes, Deity, and otherwise every other setting as Normal.
On the highest settings I went with the French and Americans and the French definitely win out because of the comerical/industrial attribute.
When playing at the two highest levels and aiming to win there are a few things that you must keep in mind.
One, don't believe for one second that you are going to be able to keep up with the AI in terms of units, technology, wonders, money, expansion, or just about anything else for a long...long...LONG...time. So don't try. Want the Great Library? Ain't happening. Forget it.(Note: It may be possible to get the Great Library if you are playing with less civilizations as opponents...like...4 or so.) I've tried going for the Great library with every resource in my civilization geared towards just building that one wonder...I wasn't even close. I sugget not even starting wonders since they would put you so far behind in the beginning as to negate their worth. Yes, I realize that means the AI cheats horribly...oh well...get over it.
Two, you must settle a region as fast as possible. Holding it...don't worry about defending it...you must build cities.
-Ancient Era
I went through the same map 5 times to see the exact ratio the computer was building at compared to me. The AI will build its first expansion city around 3800BC. Basically 4 turns into the game. He will expand 3 more times normally before you hit 3200BC which is about the time you will have your first expansion city coming online. This 4:1 ratio continues for awhile until you are devoting more resources to expanding than he is(because he is building city improvements and great wonders).
Before doing anything, change your tax rate so you are getting an 8/2 split with science. 80% of your commerce is going to taxes. I haven't seen a noticeable difference until you start generating more commerce so setting it this high early will squeak out some extra revenue.
Your First task when starting at this age is to get your main city started to crank out settlers. I've tried having my worker join the city to jump start my civilization but I haven't been able to get it to work because you need 2 warrior's by the time a city reachs size 3 to deal with unrest.
So instead of joining your city have your worker go around to the spots your city is using and build mines if you are on grasslands/hills or irrigation if you are on plains. The basic idea here is to get more production out of your starting city. You cannot increase food production on grassland but you CAN increase shield production under depotism.
Ideal starting spot is on a river next to a hell of a lot of cows and grassland/hills. Mine it all.
Your build order is going to resemble something along these lines.
Warrior
Warrior
Settler
Warrior
Settler
You can build spearmen? Great...don't. Build warriors. Build them because they build twice as fast as spearmen. When you are waiting on a city to hit 3 again...then start with your spearmen.
When you build your first Settler take one warrior out of your home town and start exploring. Aim on building your Settler someplace where you will have an easy time with food and is nearby to your capital. Once there it should copy the capital's build order pretty much.
How to place your settler's:
It is already explained in this forum how to expand correctly but I'll put it here again. The idea is to capture as much territory as possible. If you have found another civilization nearby...great...build TOWARDS them as fast as possible. After the initial building frenzy then go back(and don't slack and try to put it off later) and build cities behind your front lines. If you do slack the computer will try EVERYTHING in its power to take your land.
This part is incredibly important. You MUST capture as much territory as possible. Later in the game when you see rubber JUST across your border and you have to pay close to 1500 gold just to get it from your neighbor instead of you having it...recall this point where you should have gotten it.
Resources don't pop up until you have the technology...just because rubber isn't there now doesn't mean it won't be later. Grab as much territory as possible. If you see Iron...take it.
Last game I did I was able to put down 17 cities before I ran out of room to give you a baseline.
As you continue on in the Ancient times you will eventually come to the point to where you have run into a neighbor with your borders. Here is the great thing about depotism...sacrifice. At this point you get to start sacrificing your loyal citizens for the greater good.
There is one building under depotism which you can build for great effect. A granary. It allows your cities to grow faster...which means you can off the citizen's faster in order to get the temples/libraries/etc out faster. A temple can generally be rushed at a size 3 city.
The outlaying areas are so corrupt that to build a granary first and then a temple is nearly impossible to do in time. Instead, you rush the temple once your city hits size 3. It is more important to have a size 1 city with a temple than a size 3 city without one. Sooner you build the temple...better off you are. You need that culture.
It is also more important to have a colloseum/library than it is to have a marketplace. Culture is important. Why?
I've noticed a trend among the computer to take out the civilizations that didn't have a lot of culture. There seems to be two deciding factors when the computer decides who its next opponent is. First is location. Who is near it? and what is its culture? If you are the only civilization near one of the AI civ's then you might want to sign over the deed to the keep. It is possible to cajole the AI but it is rather difficult unless you have the culture to back it up.
So build those culture improvements.
After you have gained 2-3 techs cut your science all the way back to 0. It is useless to try and keep up with the other civilizations and the AI has one huge flaw that I've found. It counts the numbers of troops you have...not the type of troops. It also matters little about placement. You can have 99% of your troops near the north pole and the AI doesn't seem to notice that you have only 1 lonely warrior defending your entire empire. Last game I made it into modern times with warriors and spearmen defending my cities from Jets, Tanks, Modern Inf., etc.
Why cut back your science to zip? Because it is cheaper to buy the advances from the other civilizations than it is to actually research the technology. The only reason to build libraries is for their culture.
Don't go for Monarchy...go for the republic...you only want to switch governments once during this game because it will take anywhere from 5-10 turns to change governments unless you are part religious(which is an incredible trait to have if you plan on changing governments a lot).
Once you get the Republic make sure you are gaining a good bit of money each turn. That means at least 20 gold each turn. If you aren't then you have built too many troops or your cities aren't growing fast enough.
If you have a city near your capital or your capital is on a river there is a nice and easy way to get a huge boost in your game.
In surrounding cities build 3 settler's. Take them to your city and have them join the city...boom...size 12 city. Now you are gaining a lot more money and production from your city.
After you have taken all land possible you should have between 7-9 workers taking care of the land.
Middle Ages and beyond:
At this point in the game(300AD or so) you'll notice that while you are just now about to start to creep out of the ancient era the other civilizations have not only entered the middle ages but are about to hit industrialzation era. Don't worry...keep out of sight and mind and everything will be allright. Your goal is to dodge having the noose thrown on your head. If they direct their anger towards you then you would be dead no matter if you built all military units or built up your economy for later.
When buying technology from the surrounding civilizations...do so from the WEAKEST ones. Don't pour money into the big ones...only makes things worse. You want to keep the other civilizations alive to act as a buffer for you. If you have a resource they don't have...sell it for tech. If you are offered maps or contact with other civilizations...don't go for it. Let the other civ's find YOU.
You are going 100% all out to increase your money, culture, and technology.
If everything went well then you should be buying technology every 4-5 turns until you get banks(which you go for right away after you have republic). Get banks/courthouses everywhere throughout your civilization and see to it that your cities are 12's unless they are on the outer fringes of your territory. After you have banks you should start to buy tech's once every two turns which is a LOT faster than if you were researching it. Make sure you pay them in lump sums...don't write IOU's by doing per turn cash payments. Try and skip techs that are not necessary to get to the next age and won't really help. Chivarly...will it really help you? Not a lick. Monarchy? Nope. Nationalism...same thing there. The tech's with an O and a slash through it mean you don't need it to go to the next age.
You continue to race up the tech ladder and around 1300AD you should be approaching the modern ages. Your income should be 300-400 gold per a turn. Your cities should be close to having every improvement possible built and you should be well on your way to having RR's everywhere. This part is the key...
Pretty soon you'll have the manhatten project built if it hasn't been built already. You are still on spearmen most likely unless for some reason you diverted money away from teching up...bad bad bad...you need tech.
Sooner or later a couple of the larger civ's are going to start banging it out and you'll notice something very...strange...you have a no mans land.
A no mans land that is almost fully developed except for the lack of towns. Lots...and lots...of those strategic resources you most likely don't have are going to be located there so before this time comes...crank out around 10 settlers and a few transports of some sort. When the war starts head on over with your settler's and start prop'ing up your cities.
Couple of things happen at this point. One, you have caught up in tech. Now comes the fun part...you start SELLING tech. Tech costs so much at the higher levels that some of the AI civs have fallen behind. Buy from the rich and sell to the pour. Yeah, I know it doesn't sound right but do you really care about them or you? You...right.
Pretty soon you'll find out that in order to tech up through the other civ's costs 3-4k which is mighty hefty if you think about it though...it really isn't that much. You pay 3k to one civ and then turn around and sell it for 6-7k. You just made 3-4k in one turn.(Note: This strat makes the lower levels a joke unless you are only playing with less than 5 civs or on a really small map. Becoming a tech merchant is the easiest way to win the game on the lower settings.)
You should have barracks in a few towns so you can upgrade your troops. Move them there...upgrade them...move them out. Remember that Spearmen upgrade to mech infantry...warriors don't. Even so...early on...warriors being cheap to build is better than not getting those settlers out as fast.
I'd tell you what to do now but it is pretty much go to war(you did set it so you had to conquer 2/3's of the world...right?). It is possible...yes...and these strat's are how I did it a few times. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of junk but hopefully the point has come across on the basics. If you have any questions, comments, or hints on how I can improve my game I would appreciate it. I've been cutting it close on Deity level and I'm sure there is something I can do to improve my efficiency.
Hope this helps...
Elhombre
The information below will be from experiences that dealt with playing on larger maps vs 7, 11, and 15 AI opponents, Raging hordes, Deity, and otherwise every other setting as Normal.
On the highest settings I went with the French and Americans and the French definitely win out because of the comerical/industrial attribute.
When playing at the two highest levels and aiming to win there are a few things that you must keep in mind.
One, don't believe for one second that you are going to be able to keep up with the AI in terms of units, technology, wonders, money, expansion, or just about anything else for a long...long...LONG...time. So don't try. Want the Great Library? Ain't happening. Forget it.(Note: It may be possible to get the Great Library if you are playing with less civilizations as opponents...like...4 or so.) I've tried going for the Great library with every resource in my civilization geared towards just building that one wonder...I wasn't even close. I sugget not even starting wonders since they would put you so far behind in the beginning as to negate their worth. Yes, I realize that means the AI cheats horribly...oh well...get over it.
Two, you must settle a region as fast as possible. Holding it...don't worry about defending it...you must build cities.
-Ancient Era
I went through the same map 5 times to see the exact ratio the computer was building at compared to me. The AI will build its first expansion city around 3800BC. Basically 4 turns into the game. He will expand 3 more times normally before you hit 3200BC which is about the time you will have your first expansion city coming online. This 4:1 ratio continues for awhile until you are devoting more resources to expanding than he is(because he is building city improvements and great wonders).
Before doing anything, change your tax rate so you are getting an 8/2 split with science. 80% of your commerce is going to taxes. I haven't seen a noticeable difference until you start generating more commerce so setting it this high early will squeak out some extra revenue.
Your First task when starting at this age is to get your main city started to crank out settlers. I've tried having my worker join the city to jump start my civilization but I haven't been able to get it to work because you need 2 warrior's by the time a city reachs size 3 to deal with unrest.
So instead of joining your city have your worker go around to the spots your city is using and build mines if you are on grasslands/hills or irrigation if you are on plains. The basic idea here is to get more production out of your starting city. You cannot increase food production on grassland but you CAN increase shield production under depotism.
Ideal starting spot is on a river next to a hell of a lot of cows and grassland/hills. Mine it all.
Your build order is going to resemble something along these lines.
Warrior
Warrior
Settler
Warrior
Settler
You can build spearmen? Great...don't. Build warriors. Build them because they build twice as fast as spearmen. When you are waiting on a city to hit 3 again...then start with your spearmen.
When you build your first Settler take one warrior out of your home town and start exploring. Aim on building your Settler someplace where you will have an easy time with food and is nearby to your capital. Once there it should copy the capital's build order pretty much.
How to place your settler's:
It is already explained in this forum how to expand correctly but I'll put it here again. The idea is to capture as much territory as possible. If you have found another civilization nearby...great...build TOWARDS them as fast as possible. After the initial building frenzy then go back(and don't slack and try to put it off later) and build cities behind your front lines. If you do slack the computer will try EVERYTHING in its power to take your land.
This part is incredibly important. You MUST capture as much territory as possible. Later in the game when you see rubber JUST across your border and you have to pay close to 1500 gold just to get it from your neighbor instead of you having it...recall this point where you should have gotten it.
Resources don't pop up until you have the technology...just because rubber isn't there now doesn't mean it won't be later. Grab as much territory as possible. If you see Iron...take it.
Last game I did I was able to put down 17 cities before I ran out of room to give you a baseline.
As you continue on in the Ancient times you will eventually come to the point to where you have run into a neighbor with your borders. Here is the great thing about depotism...sacrifice. At this point you get to start sacrificing your loyal citizens for the greater good.
There is one building under depotism which you can build for great effect. A granary. It allows your cities to grow faster...which means you can off the citizen's faster in order to get the temples/libraries/etc out faster. A temple can generally be rushed at a size 3 city.
The outlaying areas are so corrupt that to build a granary first and then a temple is nearly impossible to do in time. Instead, you rush the temple once your city hits size 3. It is more important to have a size 1 city with a temple than a size 3 city without one. Sooner you build the temple...better off you are. You need that culture.
It is also more important to have a colloseum/library than it is to have a marketplace. Culture is important. Why?
I've noticed a trend among the computer to take out the civilizations that didn't have a lot of culture. There seems to be two deciding factors when the computer decides who its next opponent is. First is location. Who is near it? and what is its culture? If you are the only civilization near one of the AI civ's then you might want to sign over the deed to the keep. It is possible to cajole the AI but it is rather difficult unless you have the culture to back it up.
So build those culture improvements.
After you have gained 2-3 techs cut your science all the way back to 0. It is useless to try and keep up with the other civilizations and the AI has one huge flaw that I've found. It counts the numbers of troops you have...not the type of troops. It also matters little about placement. You can have 99% of your troops near the north pole and the AI doesn't seem to notice that you have only 1 lonely warrior defending your entire empire. Last game I made it into modern times with warriors and spearmen defending my cities from Jets, Tanks, Modern Inf., etc.
Why cut back your science to zip? Because it is cheaper to buy the advances from the other civilizations than it is to actually research the technology. The only reason to build libraries is for their culture.
Don't go for Monarchy...go for the republic...you only want to switch governments once during this game because it will take anywhere from 5-10 turns to change governments unless you are part religious(which is an incredible trait to have if you plan on changing governments a lot).
Once you get the Republic make sure you are gaining a good bit of money each turn. That means at least 20 gold each turn. If you aren't then you have built too many troops or your cities aren't growing fast enough.
If you have a city near your capital or your capital is on a river there is a nice and easy way to get a huge boost in your game.
In surrounding cities build 3 settler's. Take them to your city and have them join the city...boom...size 12 city. Now you are gaining a lot more money and production from your city.
After you have taken all land possible you should have between 7-9 workers taking care of the land.
Middle Ages and beyond:
At this point in the game(300AD or so) you'll notice that while you are just now about to start to creep out of the ancient era the other civilizations have not only entered the middle ages but are about to hit industrialzation era. Don't worry...keep out of sight and mind and everything will be allright. Your goal is to dodge having the noose thrown on your head. If they direct their anger towards you then you would be dead no matter if you built all military units or built up your economy for later.
When buying technology from the surrounding civilizations...do so from the WEAKEST ones. Don't pour money into the big ones...only makes things worse. You want to keep the other civilizations alive to act as a buffer for you. If you have a resource they don't have...sell it for tech. If you are offered maps or contact with other civilizations...don't go for it. Let the other civ's find YOU.
You are going 100% all out to increase your money, culture, and technology.
If everything went well then you should be buying technology every 4-5 turns until you get banks(which you go for right away after you have republic). Get banks/courthouses everywhere throughout your civilization and see to it that your cities are 12's unless they are on the outer fringes of your territory. After you have banks you should start to buy tech's once every two turns which is a LOT faster than if you were researching it. Make sure you pay them in lump sums...don't write IOU's by doing per turn cash payments. Try and skip techs that are not necessary to get to the next age and won't really help. Chivarly...will it really help you? Not a lick. Monarchy? Nope. Nationalism...same thing there. The tech's with an O and a slash through it mean you don't need it to go to the next age.
You continue to race up the tech ladder and around 1300AD you should be approaching the modern ages. Your income should be 300-400 gold per a turn. Your cities should be close to having every improvement possible built and you should be well on your way to having RR's everywhere. This part is the key...
Pretty soon you'll have the manhatten project built if it hasn't been built already. You are still on spearmen most likely unless for some reason you diverted money away from teching up...bad bad bad...you need tech.
Sooner or later a couple of the larger civ's are going to start banging it out and you'll notice something very...strange...you have a no mans land.
A no mans land that is almost fully developed except for the lack of towns. Lots...and lots...of those strategic resources you most likely don't have are going to be located there so before this time comes...crank out around 10 settlers and a few transports of some sort. When the war starts head on over with your settler's and start prop'ing up your cities.
Couple of things happen at this point. One, you have caught up in tech. Now comes the fun part...you start SELLING tech. Tech costs so much at the higher levels that some of the AI civs have fallen behind. Buy from the rich and sell to the pour. Yeah, I know it doesn't sound right but do you really care about them or you? You...right.
Pretty soon you'll find out that in order to tech up through the other civ's costs 3-4k which is mighty hefty if you think about it though...it really isn't that much. You pay 3k to one civ and then turn around and sell it for 6-7k. You just made 3-4k in one turn.(Note: This strat makes the lower levels a joke unless you are only playing with less than 5 civs or on a really small map. Becoming a tech merchant is the easiest way to win the game on the lower settings.)
You should have barracks in a few towns so you can upgrade your troops. Move them there...upgrade them...move them out. Remember that Spearmen upgrade to mech infantry...warriors don't. Even so...early on...warriors being cheap to build is better than not getting those settlers out as fast.
I'd tell you what to do now but it is pretty much go to war(you did set it so you had to conquer 2/3's of the world...right?). It is possible...yes...and these strat's are how I did it a few times. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of junk but hopefully the point has come across on the basics. If you have any questions, comments, or hints on how I can improve my game I would appreciate it. I've been cutting it close on Deity level and I'm sure there is something I can do to improve my efficiency.
Hope this helps...
Elhombre
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