Here is a method I used, this is not the best way to play the game, but it helps you learn more by trying something very different, and learning how you can use it.
1. play as roman, augustus casear
2. When you start, build 1 warrior, 1 settler, 2 workers.
3. research masonry first
4. use your warriors to find stone resource, your settler is going to settle right next to it
5 research the wheel, and start building the pyramids in your first city, have your second city build a second settler. connect your stone to your primary city
6 start researching bronze working and iron working, once you have bronze working chop trees to finish the pyramids and build some axeman. You must get the pyramids, once you do switch to representation.
7, once you have ironworking start building praetorians non stop, and start researching towards code of laws, skip everything you dont need. You probably need agriculture, but you can probably skip animal husbandry, and almost everything else, you need to determine what you need according to the map, but code of laws is most important.
7.1 Writing is a prereq for code of laws, once you get that, whip your citizens to get libraries in your research cities.
8, keep building praetorians, at this point you can have between 3-6 cities depending on map size. (I play maps bigger than huge with 24 players)
9, if one of your neighbors has the holy city for buddhism or hinduism, kill him first.
10. Raze all the cities, pillage all the improvements, except, do not raze holy cities or their original capitol. At this point you are probably bleeding money, you need to attack at full speed and pillage as much as possible just to keep your research going, you must be very aggresive, do not stop.
11, once you have code of laws, you need to switch to caste system. Now with representation/caste system you can build as many scientists/merchants/artists as you want and each one gives you 3 extra science.
12, at this point you want to expand, build some settlers, but mostly continue to take other peoples cities, now you capture them instead of raze themj (unless the city is in a crappy spot) You also want to build your cities up as much as possible in food production so you can have more specialists, most cities will be all farm land.
This is not a super strategy, but it is a very very different way to play. Try it, and if you fail to either get pyramids, or if you can't get to code of laws before your economy shuts down, reload the autosave from 4000bc. Switch some stuff around. This plan is risky, and requires you to succeed in the early parts, and also you cannot waste time, so it helps you learn the difference between needed and nice. I think I had killed two civilizations before I even researched pottery ( I researched a lot of other stuff, but while the computer was trying to start his hamlets growing I was already killing.) The goal of this is to try something very different, and do everything you can to squeeze every last drop out of your economy and army to rush to get the caste system. Even if you win the first time, you might want to play the same map several times this way.
I did this on an XXL map (mod for bigger map sizes) with 24 computers, and no vassals. Before I finished code of laws, I had already killed the persians and razed and pillaged most of their land, by the time I turned my attention to the babylonians I had 50 stacks of 40 praetorians. (on really big map sizes the computer tends to have huge stacks of units.) I used praetorians to completely destroy 4 civilizations before I got macemen, I continued to use praetorians with just a few macemen because praetorians were cheap to put out. By the time I got to rifling, I had the lower 3rd of the map as all mine, and I was putting out so much research through specialists that only the Indians were even a respectable threat.
There are other ways to play as well, the best way to become better is to try to play different ways, and also to replay the same game several times different ways.
Oh, and one last thing, every city increases the maintenance costs of every city, so expanding as fast as possible is bad, unless you have the economy to support it.
1. play as roman, augustus casear
2. When you start, build 1 warrior, 1 settler, 2 workers.
3. research masonry first
4. use your warriors to find stone resource, your settler is going to settle right next to it
5 research the wheel, and start building the pyramids in your first city, have your second city build a second settler. connect your stone to your primary city
6 start researching bronze working and iron working, once you have bronze working chop trees to finish the pyramids and build some axeman. You must get the pyramids, once you do switch to representation.
7, once you have ironworking start building praetorians non stop, and start researching towards code of laws, skip everything you dont need. You probably need agriculture, but you can probably skip animal husbandry, and almost everything else, you need to determine what you need according to the map, but code of laws is most important.
7.1 Writing is a prereq for code of laws, once you get that, whip your citizens to get libraries in your research cities.
8, keep building praetorians, at this point you can have between 3-6 cities depending on map size. (I play maps bigger than huge with 24 players)
9, if one of your neighbors has the holy city for buddhism or hinduism, kill him first.
10. Raze all the cities, pillage all the improvements, except, do not raze holy cities or their original capitol. At this point you are probably bleeding money, you need to attack at full speed and pillage as much as possible just to keep your research going, you must be very aggresive, do not stop.
11, once you have code of laws, you need to switch to caste system. Now with representation/caste system you can build as many scientists/merchants/artists as you want and each one gives you 3 extra science.
12, at this point you want to expand, build some settlers, but mostly continue to take other peoples cities, now you capture them instead of raze themj (unless the city is in a crappy spot) You also want to build your cities up as much as possible in food production so you can have more specialists, most cities will be all farm land.
This is not a super strategy, but it is a very very different way to play. Try it, and if you fail to either get pyramids, or if you can't get to code of laws before your economy shuts down, reload the autosave from 4000bc. Switch some stuff around. This plan is risky, and requires you to succeed in the early parts, and also you cannot waste time, so it helps you learn the difference between needed and nice. I think I had killed two civilizations before I even researched pottery ( I researched a lot of other stuff, but while the computer was trying to start his hamlets growing I was already killing.) The goal of this is to try something very different, and do everything you can to squeeze every last drop out of your economy and army to rush to get the caste system. Even if you win the first time, you might want to play the same map several times this way.
I did this on an XXL map (mod for bigger map sizes) with 24 computers, and no vassals. Before I finished code of laws, I had already killed the persians and razed and pillaged most of their land, by the time I turned my attention to the babylonians I had 50 stacks of 40 praetorians. (on really big map sizes the computer tends to have huge stacks of units.) I used praetorians to completely destroy 4 civilizations before I got macemen, I continued to use praetorians with just a few macemen because praetorians were cheap to put out. By the time I got to rifling, I had the lower 3rd of the map as all mine, and I was putting out so much research through specialists that only the Indians were even a respectable threat.
There are other ways to play as well, the best way to become better is to try to play different ways, and also to replay the same game several times different ways.
Oh, and one last thing, every city increases the maintenance costs of every city, so expanding as fast as possible is bad, unless you have the economy to support it.