🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm still finetuning my strategy, but since I am three years from
landing a space ship at Emperor level, I will post my general approach.

At the very start, build a city within your first three moves.  Then militia
for local exploration (to find the next city site), barracks, then phalax
for defense, then a marketplace, then a settler.  Do not build a granary
until you have the population well under control, otherwise it will grow too
fast to keep control.  Build roads in good squares around the first city on
the way to your already selected second city site.  Each city site needs
potential food, trade, and production.  Some river squares give all three,
resource squares are a big win, but usually you need develop some plains,
hills or grassland squares.  I could write pages just on site selection.
cities 4-5 squares apart is ideal.  Having roads between
cities allows a few chariots to protect all your cities if they are
carefully placed.  Go for mostly knowledge early.

Next, realize that the Pyramids Great Wonder allows all forms of government,
even those not yet researched.  Try to get that as soon as you can afford
it.  Don't change from despotism until you have 4-6 viable cities with
defendable borders.  Each city should have at least a temple and marketplace
and a couple of roads or river squares for trade, and every troop should be
in its home city before you attempt to change.  Then go straight to
democracy.  Your cash flow and food should increase dramatically.  Keep just
enough troops for defense and local counter attack.  Chariots work well on
roads as they can leave a city, attack an intruder and return to the city in
a single move.  A catapult is for final defense when the enemy is next to
the city.  One phalanx should be in every city.  Be sure every city has at
least one settler, and develop as much as possible.  Put 20-30% of your
revenue into luxuries, and build temples, colossums, and catherals.  If you
manage the trade and entertainers properly, cities will declare President's
day, and population will explode, which will provide more than enough
revenue to make up for the luxuries.  Put some into knowledge and build a
cash reserve so you can buy miltary units when others expand to threaten
you.  Also be prepared to buy time by paying tribute, but don't expect too
much time.  Be careful not to talk to an enemy who you want to crush.  The
senate will prevent you from attacking if he does not demand tribute.  Aim
for railroads as soon as possible if you are on a single land mass.  Connect
your cities quickly, then put railroads everywhere you have population.
Boost your settlers to two per city.  Railroads add one food or one
production or one trade, depending on the type of square it is in.  A fully
developed city can easily exceed 20 in population units.  All cities need
markets and temples, but after that, let each city specialize to some
degree.  Up to three Caravans are good when you can afford them.  Cities
with high trade benefit from a bank and really show good results from
libraries, etc.  High production is good for barracks, max
temple/collossem/cathedral, then your best military units which can be sent
elsewhere and change their home.  Really high production can be used for
building wonders.  Use your cash to rush production for cities with low
production but high food or trade so they can grow.  Don't have all cities
working on long term projects at the same time, as you need some to adapt to
sudden invasions.  Learn all the ways to use diplomats as they do not cause
home unhappiness.  When you don't have urgent needs, a few extra diplomats
can be handy.  Inciting revolts can sometimes the cheapest way to win a war.
Stealing technology can be the only way to catch up sometimes.  In a couple
of games, I only survived because I was able to steal Automobile and build
Tanks.  Even then, the others sent off spaceships in the 1850's.

>Don't bother with the instant advice, it's usually irrelevant.
I found it helpful at first, especially for reminding me to build a caravan
or something similar, but the instant advice has no understanding of
coordinated city strategy, so I don't use it anymore.

>It's absolutely imperitive that you are the first to achieve industialization.
>It gives Woman's Suffrage Wonder, which is extremely important, allowing one
>to wage war while a republic.  Democracy isn't important until you start
>polluting.
I agree Woman's Suffrage is really important in this strategy.  Democrary
is much more lucrative and helps build your population as compared to
republic.  Also, corruption goes away totally in democrary, so no
courthouses are needed.

I could go on and on, but I find most of the fun is in taking a general
approach and seeing how to adapt it to the specific conditions of each
game.  There is a book out which provides lots of advice, but I have only
glanced through a friend's copy, so I can't give it a proper review.

At Emperor level, a number of strategies which work at lower levels fail.
In particular, Knowledge comes cheaper to your opponents than to you.  So
unless you have a really dominant cash flow to buy knowledge with, they
will get ahead of you.  You must be very selective in what you go for and
when, and look for opportunities to gain critial knowledge.  Embassies
allow you to know who gets what when.  If you lose a city, try to recover
it asap, before it can be reenforced.  In every Emperor level game I have
played, I have had to face nuclear weapons, so have settlers on hand for
post nuclear pollution control.

In my current game, I had several good breaks early, including starting with
two settlers (other civilizations near) and finding an advanced civilization
before I built a city, so I kept my two initial settlers for no cost
throughout the game.  Even so, I only got 4 discoverys from the Great
Library before someone else got universities, and could barely keep up
with my leading opponent's technology, even though they only had 4 cities.