Civ 4 - More meandering

So I just finished a second game of it. 10 hours and 14 minutes I think. May have been 41 minutes. A bit sleepy. Took longer this time. Huge map instead of standard, which meant 12 total civs instead of 8. Space Race victory this time instead of Diplomatic. Egypt as Hatshupset instead of China as Qin Shi Huang. Chieftain difficulty instead of Settler.

Lessons learned this time...
Found more religions. I founded Buddhism but had a damned hard time getting other people to follow it. Several other civs founded other religions and just didn't want to switch after that.

Build boats earlier. On the Terra-style map all the Civs start on a sort of 'old world' continent leaving an entire seperate continent inhabited by only 'barbarian' cities and tribes. Almost lost out on managed to colonize it by not building boats to explore until pretty late.

Get a better handle on making use of the Great People. I managed two golden ages in this last game, one from spending some great people and the other from a World Wonder. But several times I had Great People sitting around and doing nothing. Need to use them for their benefits sooner. Takes too long to generate them in the later game after you've had several, and with the first Golden Age taking 2, but the second taking 3, it doesn't feel worth it yet to have two sitting and doing nothing and just wait for a third to show up.

Very fun. Finally starting to get the hang of it. Going to knock the difficulty up again and try India as Asoka and see if I like the Fast Workers or not. ( Plus, Asoka is one of my favorite historical figures. )