Generally keep on expanding as much as your happiness situation allows - build Colloseums early and in many cities. Depending on difficulty level and luxury resources aim for around 6-8 cities till turn 50 (quick speed). This means, expand fast, though donВґt plant cities too far apart, instead claim as many tiles as possible. not cutting forests to build lumbermills.

Also your cities wonВґt be growing 'too' big (=stay at relatatively low population) because youВґll rather will want to work production tiles which on average donВґt provide too much food - e.g. Rivered Plains tiles are good (in GA 2food-2production-2gold), lumbermills on forests, rivered (1-3-2) or not (1-3) are great, so be careful about chopping away too much of those early on. You want to work as many tiles as possible to take advantage of the bonuses of the GAs, especially of the production bonus. The synergy of bonuses for waging war and Great Generals being able to continue Golden Ages is powerful as well. Golden Ages effectively fight the lack of production Civ5 brings with it (in relation to production costs), allow to ignore Trading Posts for a long time (until you got so many resources that setting up one or two gold cities is quickly and easily done) and for Persia they support both waging war or continuing buildup. Set up a big empire with the help of one or two Golden Ages early on and then from a certain point on just stay in Golden Age for a 100 and more turns until youВґve achieved the victory condition of choice with higher production capabilities, quicker buildup and a stronger and more mobile army. Together with the combat bonus waging war becomes very easy - but itВґs also crucial for empire buildup transforming PersiaВґs workers into Indian Fast Worker from Civ4. The movement bonus is at least borderline overpowered as well. The increased length is especially important, because each Golden Age lasts a turn shorter than the one before it down to three turns. PersiaВґs Golden Ages last longer and provide a unit movement and combat bonus. Finally GAs last slightly longer by default than in Civ4.Д«asically Golden Ages are stronger by default, yet easier accessible than in Civ4.

Furthermore Golden Ages are much easier accessible: Excess happiness leads to it, Cultural Policies can trigger one, there is Taj Mahal and most importantly Great People including Great Generals can launch it. In Civ5 tile yields have been generally decreased compared to Civ4, while Golden Ages still provide one additional production and gold to every tile that already generates either.

This strategy is not based on this bug - depending on the settings and game plan, youВґll be in Golden Age most of the game bug or not. All-in-all the strategy works well even if you miss on the 2-3 wonders youВґre especially interested in.Д«e aware that there is a bug increasing Persian Golden Ages to ridiculous numbers. If you get all parts of it together - and that is not too hard even on the highest difficulty levels in Single Player - you will be at a big advantage whatever your game might look like. This strategy is basically an exploit of unbalanced game mechanics.

Civ 5 water mill