I'm playing Civ4 BtS for the first time in a good while? What settings do you...

[Dr. Nomadic]

Okay, now is there any civilization and settings that you guys would recommend? I was going to play as the Arabs (since they defeated me) on a continents map (can't keep playing pangaea!). I had plans on doing some conquest in the medieval period (wanna use that camelry!), and then just do things peacefully afterwards.

On a side note, sometime I might want to start a succession game for final frontier, since I got bored with the scenario (no wonders, specialists, or great people, argh). It could essentially be a beginner's scenario on noble difficulty, and I could take any submissions for the roster, though I want mostly some of the "lesser" (in other words, not Sulla or Kylearan or somebody, though as I said such people are okay, and I would certainly look forward to playing with the great Sulla ) members of RB to participate. Maybe me, Sulla, and 5 other guys?

We could also do a WWII succession game as well, since that scenario just overwhelms me to no end, and we seem to be woefully low on succession games exploring the BtS scenarios.

[Cyneheard]

If you want a peaceful win as the Arabs, I'd suggest grabbing Pyramids and Sistine before your Camel spree, then going for a cultural win, using lots of specialists.

I'd be tempted to do a FF succession game.

Final Frontier is MUCH easier than the regular game. The AI is much weaker, and we can hash out whether extra copies of a building are worth it or not. Among other things, the AI LOVES the +50% XP trait. It is a terrible trait to spend a promotion from a 2XP unit on. This makes their army so much easier to blow up. For a succession game, where the level of play tends to improve, I'd suggest Monarch or Emperor. Huts are a huge advantage to the player: I can out-scout my opponents every single time, no matter the settings (even Raging Barbs). This is mostly because I don't think the AI starts with extra units.
And I'd turn off culture as a win condition, it's way too easy, no one can stop you if you survive the early game. Maybe turn off ascension as well (the space race equivalent): once you reach the end of the tech tree, it's only 5 parts, and they're really small. Turning those off also gives us time to win how we wish.
Also, the leaders aren't balanced. If conquest/domination is your goal, then Brotherhood's by far the best. New Earth is good once you get your first health + happy resources online, and in the first 50 turns when you're small. Halis is rather weak: I haven't found spiritual abuse to be quite as significant, and the -50% culture production really slows them down on systems with good 2nd- and 3rd-tier worlds.
Brotherhood's +4XP, Charismatic bonus, and half-price training compounds, with Power as your "religion" meant 14-20XP units out of the gate. Def 3 Engines I Battleships protecting your stack of invasion ships, 2 or 3 carriers sending out flocks of fighters and bombers to tear through your opponents...

[Dr. Nomadic]

It is easy, but it's also a bit boring. If you have any recommendations on how to avoid that, be my guest. I'm sorry if I'm too annoying.

I was planning on doing the same thing I did as Mali; settle a second city and get the Pyramids ASAP after that. Then go out for mad expansion, use one city to build wonders (or infrastructure if that's more important), try to get to 5 cities by AD times, build other wonders that could help (essentially all the wonders that boost religious buildings or priests), go conquering somebody in the middle ages with camelry (BTW that term is from Age of Mythology, but I felt like using it regardless), and then settle for a spaceship victory (after having won a diplomatic victory in a game where diplomacy was horrible on everybody's part to some extent, with me, Alex, and my vassal Fred forming a dominant alliance, though I would've declared war on Alex afterwards; I was building a nuke to fire on his capital, and then I would've trained more defenders, but whatever, so essentially I won a backdoor domination victory). Maybe somebody else is going to die, who knows?

[Cyneheard]

For FF, yeah, I'm not sure. Conquest/domination is fun, but it's hard to find the right balance of difficulty. The AI will never be a match for tactical combat with a human.

[Dr. Nomadic]

A cultural victory via specialists and wonders doesn't seem out of the cards either. I'd prefer to avoid using the culture slider anyway (don't want to fall behind in tech!), and I'd rather train military units until I feel safe before I build culture in my cities. I unfortunately have to watch over my parents' servants right now, otherwise I would start my game VERY soon. Bah. (I'm using my mom's laptop to type this, and the computer doesn't have anything installed on it)

[Dr. Nomadic]

I was typing up my account of what was happening, and then it got eaten up! Argh! Long story short:

-Lost Stonehenge and The Oracle, built The Pyramids. Representation was a big help for happiness.
-Used the Arab UB to hire three priests for the Jewish shrine (I had founded HinJewism and decided to spread Judaism to everybody on my continent after it spread right to my second city).
-Had a four wine start (but I didn't found my capital next to four wines!)
-Met Catherine and Isabella on my starting continent. Izzy had not founded a religion (Buddhism still fell on turn 8 of the game, so maybe Monty or Asoka?), and I decided to refrain from aggression on my home continent, instead deciding to ally with the European women
-I had 3 cities in 1 AD, but 6 cities in 325 AD. At the same time, Izzy has 7 (plus she built Stonehenge and The Great Wall), and I believe Cathy also has 7 (not sure though).
-Catherine demanded two techs out of me. I obviously agreed!
-Founded Christianity on the last turn I played, so Apostolic Palace here we come!

After I get 5 games in (including my lost Mali), I'm going to start a succession game with a cool variant. That could take some time though!

[Jowy]

I have a good variant suggestion for your succession game "Not allowed to build any wonders at all"

[Dr. Nomadic]

Funny thing is that my variant was almost exactly that, except it was "cannot build wonders that will take more than 15 turns to produce." In other words, no wasting hammers big time on the Pyramids!

[T-hawk]

I'd be tempted to do a FF succession game.

Hey, I'd love to do that as well. Just started playing Final Frontier on my own this weekend. I jumped in on Monarch difficulty with New Earth, and I'm ahead in the midgame but not by a whole lot. Just discovered battleships and jump lanes, and probably heading for a domination attempt.

Re Spiritual abuse for Halis, the way to do that would seem to be to abuse the Doctrines in the military column. The cost reductions take effect immediately (it's not like a +% production bonus), so you could flip to any of them right before finishing a few ships of that type.

[Dr. Nomadic]

Well, I've been at 7 cities for a long while, and I'm in the process of gaining iron from Spain via culture (currently the tile is 48% Arab, and I have a Great Artist settled in the city since reading your stories told me that settling the great artist is better than a culture bomb in the long term), and I've been getting all the religious wonders I've wanted except for Angkor Wat, which I stupidly forgot about (hey, I'm not so big on Civ anymore!) and let Spain build in a border city. My third city, having finished most of the core infrastructure it needed, went trireme > aqueduct > settler. On the turn I started the settler, I stopped, as it shall initiate a new chapter in Arab history! (with a trireme exploring the high seas and settlers getting ready to poach spots the AIs haven't taken, a new age of imperialism is going to be afoot) And, let's see:

I was trying to post the save here, but it doesn't seem to work.