I played a ridiculous amount of Civ1 back in the day, and later Civ2 and Civ3. I deleted Civ3 around 2003 because I felt that it was sucking too much time away

I played a ridiculous amount of Civ1 back in the day, and later Civ2 and Civ3. I deleted Civ3 around 2003 because I felt that it was sucking too much time away from my real life. Haven't played any of the more recent versions but I'm sure that they're great. Instead, a few years back, I took up the occasional Civ1 again, downloaded as abandonware, and running in a DOSBox. A nice thing about Civ1 is that I can usually complete it in a few hours; as I recall, Civ3 could easily take a night to play through. I even played it with my son for a while. I think that he should know the classics. As for strategy, I play with three civs, I always prioritize research over taxes, and I prioritize expansion over fortification early in the game (I quit when this backfires). Once I get my civ rolling I have found the best strategy for getting a high score is to track down the other civs as fast as possible and to knock them out, starting at the capital. Once their capital has fallen and a few main cities, they will make peace. Then rest of the cities can be conquered at my leisure or they can be cheaply bought by diplomats and their building sold for scraps, decreasing the price further. An important prerequisite for the aggressive strategy to work is to get to them before they build city walls. Often, however, I find myself gravitating towards a "tech hub" strategy instead. It rarely leads to scores above 100% on king level but if feels kind of satisfying. The point of this is to appoint some city with potential for trade and growth (ideally all of its accessible squares should be plains or convertible to plains). Then build, as soon as possible, the Colossus (+1 trade per trade square). Then, in some order, a library (+50% science), a granary (faster growth), Copernicus' Observatory (+100% science), university (+50% science), and Shakespeare's Theatre (everyone is happy). Bring in caravans from the rest of the continent to speed up production, and to set up trade routes from the tech hub. Elsewhere, build the Pyramids (switch to democracy) and J.S.Bach's Cathedral (two happy faces per city and only way to keep democracy while dispatching a sail or a frigate with caravans from the tech hub). Research railroad and, once achived, assign all settlers to put railroads on the area surrounding the tech hub, boosting growth (in preparation for railroad, clear any forests and swamps, and build roads and irrigation). Postpone researching electricity since it will cancel the Colossus. With the tech hub strategy, the science light bulps of the tech hub will often overflow into the next panel on the city details screen and I'll usually have armors and planes and railroads before reaching 0 AD. After that, I guess the correct path is to switch to communism and eradicate all resistance. I tend to do this too late, though.