In the past I can remember waiting to launch to AC until hopefully all the world was full of fully developed cities all trade routed to an ecologically enhanced (yes they allow you to transform their ground when you have a carrier with a couple stealth fighters watching over their riflemen defended city) remaining Babylonian city with greatest trade potential.

**The game as allways was deity, RH, wet-warm, archapelago, large world, 7 civs. restarts allowed for AI's destroyed.

Goals in this game that kept the interest alive for me until cycling through endless cities finally fried me was:

a)To find the GREATEST INITIAL CASH OUTLAY of gold on establishment of a trade route.
I do remember getting near 2000, for oil on demand once, and around 1000 occasionally for stuff.

b)To seek the GREATEST SIZE TRADE ROUTE
memory says it was around 24 or 26 not sure.

c)to see what the HIGHEST POPULATION could be reached by the deadline

d)to try to keep the TOP FIVE CITIES blue (my civs color) through the game.
Usually n/p

e)Keep SPOTLESS REPUTATION throughout game

Who me be despicable?

f)see if HIGHEST CIV SCORE could be reached this way or by fastest bloodlust conquest.
Can't remember highest score but one of my Son's "Bogus Ben" of the Bogus still has the title on it in my family before MP. It was way up there. On the older (amiga)versions of civ we would often max the game out as it had an upper limit of pop before it crashed. I don't think it would let you have quite 100 million.

g) last but not least~ GET ALL WONDERS.

This is very hard to do and can not remember accomplishing it totally, tho I got the best ones. In old civ I think I did it as there were fewer wonders.

Those were mine what are/were yours?

What are some results in the above catagories you would like to share?

I've tried this several times, but have not been able to pull it off so far. One of three things will happen: (1) one of the AI civs kills another (before I achieve diplomatic control), (2) barbarians wipe someone out early on, or (3) I don't have quite enough "oomph" to conquer the world on the final turn.

I'll keep trying, though. :-)

Also the highest possible initial cash trade bonuses are when you deliver a demanded later commodity like oil or uranium,

AND AND AND

the city you sent it from demands something from the city you deliver to.

My favorite way to take out an AI civ it to capture its capital, then bribe the remaining cities so they stay intact. Takes a bit longer if capital moves a few times.

I usually play deity, seven civs, raging hordes, large map, and limit myself to eight or ten cities. This makes the game go faster, and large land area makes the expansionist AI more of a threat late in the game. I almost always finish with a spotless reputation and don,t usually need to bribe cities. Bribing units, however, is another matter.

questions:

1.What kind of small map? completely random or did you go for continents? for example

2.Did you get any help?(ai destroyed by barbs or each other)

3.Did you go heavy on hut hunting and take out a few that way?

4.Elephants or knights?something else?

5.what civs?
I notice some civs(England for example) build barracks and walls early.Would this make a difference?

I always seem to get a few "stubborn" cities on rivers with walls and barracks.I lose many turns on these cities

6.Did you have any techs to start?I go for Monarchy>Feudal>Chivalry>attack(Smartfart).I will trade for any pre-reqs I can.What happened in your record?

1. Random. Not a great starting position, actually - I was in a corner of a single continent.
2. I know one Japanese city was destroyed (the names were out of sequence). I destroyed/captured three cities each for 5 AI civs. I don't think the orange civ could find a staring place on the map.
3. I tipped 16 huts, picking up 1 horsemen, 1 chariot, 4 archers, 1 knight, 425 gold, Pottery. Got a barb horsemen out of one hut.
4. Knights (vets, see #7).
5. Japanese, French, Egyptians, Chinese, Indians. I never encountered a walled city.
6. No starting techs.
7. Sun Tzu, no HG

Had a nice river system for my first 4 cities but I always seem to get something like above.1 civ on an island.A few walled river cities...argh.

This is very difficult challenge.I shouldn't say "no prob" by 400AD cuz its not quite that easy.You need to get fortunate to break AD

It really helps if you can get some gold huts early.

I use entertainers alot and i don't bother with huts except in 1st millenium.

I don't use ICS. I rather build my cities far away one from another because i cover larger part of map and my knights need less turns to reach their target.
It really doesn't matter if you start with or without techs.
With-some but not ALL of AI's are close to you.
W/O -you're alone and you can expand w/o worries that AI charriot will bump in your fresh city and demand 150 gold from you.
By the time you have enough money to rush STWA,you'll have all techs you want even if you had a clean start.

The biggest problem I have is finding all the ais and getting my first 4 cities down ASAP.

For this challenge I want to have at least 4 cities and be in or very near to Monarchy by 3000bc or so.Thats not so easy.

I just finished a 200AD game where I got 2 advancers and 100 gold in my first 5 huts.That made a big difference.I had all my cities(6) built by 3000BC.

I did another 200AD game where I built nothing but non vet horseman.It takes alot of horseman to take a phalanx defended river city

These 2 games went very well but I'm still many turns away.I may be at this one awhile

But I think fastest conquest is the ultimate challenge for me. I'm a crappy warrior and would really have to struggle to get below even 1000 AD.

GP suggested an interesting one: keep hitting space bar, doing nothing. Wait as long as possible before founding the first city and then try to win the game (either way).

If I remember correctly he successfully waited until 1000 AD, maybe even later.

The most boring, my own "staying in despotism" (the whole game). Never finished any tries... Slow!