So, I’ve tried three games on King difficulty, one level up from the difficulty I was playing on before.

The first game I survived to the end with a tiny wee empire of three cities, but came last.

The second game, I started a very early war with the Egyptians, which turned out to be a mistake, as they took my only city and wiped me out before I’d discovered, well, anything. (I declared war in a fit of pique when they came along and stole a barbarian village I’d been working on. Oops.)

The third game was better. I was the Mongols and basically spent the entire game at war with the Zulu and the Americans. I made a few gains from the Americans, but that was countered by my losses to the Zulu. At no point could I really do anything to improve my civilization, as everything I had was going into military units and trying desperately to research new technologies to try and get ahead in the arms race. It didn’t help that a couple of my tank armies lost battles they should have easily won and were wiped out.

Civilization Revolution

I was the Mongols in that game.

Still, third place isn’t so bad. I just wish I could work out how to improve my game. Trying to keep a small empire means you don’t really have the resources to compete, but expansion just makes you a target for the other civilizations. It’s tough.