In a lot of my games, the world ends up half empty because of a lack of ambition by other civs.

I’d like by the mid to end game to have the whole world settled.

Are there any settings or mods that help this?

I've been wondering since CS often give quest asking for road between city, can you form a city connection with CS then connect it to your other cities? (If the CS is in the way)

For context, playing as the Zulus right now on Immortal difficulty at Marathon speed in huge map. I got spawned extremely close to Russia, which is kind of unfortunate because I really need to get a 4-city tradition gameplay and complete the national college as soon as possible to get into the Medieval era and spam Impis. So, how do I kill Russia here? Russia is one of the civs that must be wiped out as soon as possible on Immortal and Deity or they'll get a massive runaway by mid-game.

First time I'm seeing this. Antwerp was allied with Alexander, Kuala Lumpur with me. Alexander declared war on me, i gave units to Kuala Lumpur and looks like Kuala Lumpur conquered Antwerp and made it its puppet. When you click on Antwerp it opens Kuala Lumpur pop up.

(The settings for this game were Deity, great plains, small, standard speed)

pretty fun strategy where you skip all early science for production and gold to create undefendable carpets of impis.

besides the bajillion other bonuses impis have, the 25% bonus against gun powder units means even riflemen cant defend against a swarm of cheap impis.

The strategy...

- early game: steal as many workers as possible. I stole 3-4 here. I skipped shrine too
- build: scout -> scout -> granary -> monument
- liberty for early production and quick settlers
- honor secondary later
- temple of artemis for growth and production of comp bows
- 4-6 cities depending on space, i had 4 here
- construction for coliseums as needed
- stables -> markets to maximize production then gold. markets, stables on in cities where they really help. we are minimizing our build order so we can build more spearmen.
- ikanda -> spearman spearman spearman... till civil service
- plus like 6 comp bows
- work merchant slot
- selling every extra lux, horse iron for gold. if you have friendships, keep siphoning their gold.
- ideally time a golden age and merchant before liberty finisher, (I missed both here)
- liberty finisher for great merchant
- upgrade impis at civil service
- move impis in swarms with roads, keep swapping hurt impis with full health ones at the back of the pack, clear shooting positions for your comp bows as quickly as possible
- always maximize flank bonus
- if a city is like 30 or lower combat strength, you can even start smashing your impis into it
- take ranged defense promotions on comp bows. this is much better than trying to go for logistics and range
- now we tech machinery, and spam comp bows in the mean while.
- by now, we should have a merchant + gold from capturing cities to upgrade a disgusting amount of crossbows with promotions. this speeds up taking the next cities a lot
- just hitting impi and crossbow in every city at this point unit i am at unit limit
- building roads to the last civs while fighting others
- plant a city next to the most annoying one to general in twice to get my crossbows in place for the final kill

definitely an easier play on great plains, which is a terrifying map for zulu. but in a way, something like is the ultimate way to use this civ. forgo all science to invest harder in production for their OP af unit.

I upgraded like 14ish spearman to impis at civil service and left overs later. stayed at around the max unit limit the whole game which you increase by taking cities

I’ll say that if you have coal in your cities or have enough faith per turn, Order is the best for achieving science victories. However, if you have a lot of gold or academies then Freedom is the best for science victories. Does this opinion vibe with anyone?

I want to know about this because I’m playing as Songhai right now on Immortal difficulty and have coal in my cities as well as a lot of faith per turn so I went Order. The issue with this is that William, who was hoarding wonders the entire game went Freedom so I’m hit with dissidents, putting me at -3 happiness right now. Bismarck, who was my long time friend, also went Freedom instead of Order for some reason, making my game slightly more difficult. Should I wait until end of declaration of friendship to kill William? I’m afraid that I might be damned to diplomatic hell if I do so.

R5:
Emporer, Pangea, Marathon, huge map.
Started with America 2 turns away from this spot and now I am thinking about playing it save for religion or just go bonkers with food.
Give me your 2 cents to it