Notes on Playing Expert/Expert

You prob need to make more scouts. Make 1 for each branch from your starting location at the beginning. Also don't forget you only need 3 fame to get your first hero this means generally don't waste your tower to get your first hero. Make a cleric (building) and kill 1 group of enemies (or something like that) to meet the first mark. If your primary city is way out of the way then make your secondary city your focus. As long as the number of enemies is balanced for the map size you should be able to get off to a good start with any map. Learning to play to the map is big. Also this is one of the few games you have to be ready to abandon the strategy that you planned on from the get go. I've tried 4 times to do a Spell of Mastery game and had little or no essence that I could easily get to. My last game I had 12 cities and only 1 had essense. 

What map settings do you play on? These might be part of the "win or lose by start position" phenomenon you are experiencing.

If you have a bad start, have you tried just rushing the nearest AI and taking their cities?

Also, don't play against Yithril. They are the Zerg of this game, they can hurt you bad early on if they start near you. 

I just had a game playing Expert/Expert where my starting location was a 4/3/0.  So the first thing I built was a pioneer hoping to find a better spot nearby.  The best spot nearby was a 2/4/0.  Geez!  So I built another pioneer as soon as I could and found ... wait for it ... a 2/4/1 next to Yithril.  Oh no!  So I immediately declared war on Yithril and took over his second city (1/5/0) and razed it.  He began to send troops out at me and I stomped them until his capital (5/3/2) was no longer well-defended.  Now it's mine and Yithril is out of the game.  That is how you play on Expert/Expert even with a crappy starting location.  The secret is to crank out pioneers dude.  Oh wait, now that I think about it... that's the secret to winning every LH game.

People who win on really hard dif usually post specific conditionExample pile the guy who supposedly did it on insane made a complexly custom OP faction / sovereign. IMO that's complete cheese balling the game.

@ dacty4491

Here's some tips regarding your condition.

But first thing first, i've experienced similar situations many times (i play expert/expert at minimum, and sometimes ridi/ridi, and insane/insane if i have the mood, been playing this game for more than 500 hours total), i believe in your expert/expert looking for tips thread i've said it that you can win with bad spot, like 2 cities againts AI which have more, this is a game with 9 AI, with fewer AI you can build more city much easier. Of course this depends on which faction you are using. And in my case, i never use custom faction, i loathe them because they are insanely overpowered.

I assume you set the number of AI opponent at maximum number allowed for the map size, because if you don't do this, you'll rarely have a situation like 2 cities only, that almost always happens if you set AI to max (example: 9 AI for huge map)

I'll use the tips for ridiculous/ridiculous and insane/insane opening for pre made faction that is pariden and altar (no custom faction), because this easily works for expert/expert, and from my experience this always give you advantage, the rest is up to you. This is an opening that aim for winning as fast as possible with any means necessary (except cheats and exploits of course).

First, train 1 militia, forget about that tower of dominion, just train 1 militia, then make a custom scout with stealth trait, train 1 of that dude, then train militia to fill all your remaining slot in your initial sovereign's army. Control the scout manually, don't use auto explore, the stealth traits help but if you auto explore it won't help much. After you finish with the militias, make merchant then tower of dominion. As for research, if you don't have inspiration from water magic, research knowledge or leather armor (optional, and only for altar). Make the capital as fortress, it's better to aim for high essence yield, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't have any, the most important thing is the accuracy booster the fort gives.

The sovereign must be a mage, aim for summoner, rush that light bringer dude. Don't forget to cast Tulelage on the sov if you have it. After you have lightbringer, getting air elemental is a good choice, but it's optinal, if you decide to stop the summoner line, get heal and growth/shrink which synergy well with wisp and lightbringer. If you need spearmen, always make your own custom one with traits: fast (+2 init), finese (+3 atk if higher initiative), charge/constitution/ironskin (optional).

After researching knowledge, look around at your surrounding tiles near the capital, if you manage to discover some crystal crag, you can rush to enchantment (for training mage), if there are no crystal crag at all you will need leather armor. Your 2nd champion if possible should be a mage or commander, if you want fast win, go for mage and aim the same goals as with the sov, make sure to give the 2nd champion some militias/spearmen.

Also look for a horse, if you get one, upgrade the spearmen with horse, and if you have enchantment tech researched, upgrade spearmen weapon with ice spear, this should settle all and allow you to defeat all AI opponent if you act quickly and not dragging the game, at least untill you have 4 or more city, at that point it's safe to drag the game and just play around. It's best to upgrade everyone with horse (including champions and sov), but you must prioritize, the order of priority is: spearmen>defender>mage  (Unless you have overabundant of crystal), if you have decent number of crystal income then mage is top priority. You can neglect this in expert/expert, however in ridiculous/ridiculous and insane/insane (especially this), strategic mobility is very important, it's like the deciding factor whether you are defeated or victorious.

If you need a good unit beside spearmen, the default defender is good, its traits is already good enough, but i'd advise you to make your own and replace the plate armor proficiency with other things, like +25% damage on damaged enemy, this will make the defender synergy well with your custom spearmen, because spearmen will always act first, it will inflict devastating damage, allowing the defender to mop up the rest with its crushing blow ability (whose damage is increased by 25% thanks to the trait) because enemy unit will be in damaged enemy condition, which will always trigger the +25% damage to damaged enemy trait on your defender. When using spearmen, always try to impale as many target as possible, this not only maximizing your spearmen efficiency but also maximizing the synergy with the defender which has the said trait.

If you have enchantment tech, you should at least give 1 mage unit to each army (especially those with champion in it). For the mage, make a custom one too, recommended traits: anything that give accuracy and initiative, like fast, discipline, precision. 2 mages for each army is better. Also, if you don't have many crystal, prioritize upgrading weapon of spearmen (spear> ice spear) and defender (hammer> thunder hammer), with spearmen being the top priority than defender.

Important tech: knowledge, leather armor, enchantment, civic (for decreasing unrest), training (for accuracy booster building).

2nd city can be town or conclave, depends on whether you need more gildar income or not.

If your 1st city have high essence like 2 or more, try to cast Heart of Fire when training units. Aura of Grace>Aura of Vitality>Aura of Might.

That should be more than enough to win expert/expert with said settings, because it's enough to win ridiculous/ridiculous without problem. You can drag the game in expert/expert after you capture 2 or 3 cities of your first AI enemy, if you initial cities are limited by 2, then you should have 4 or 5 now, enough to equalize the situation.

All the above tips are useful, but I am not sure it's what the OP is after.

Let me be the first one to admit it: if I play on a high level and I start on a 7 resource tile, I usually ctrl-N. There are so many other factors influencing your early game - resources, monster lairs, quests and goodie hut items, first hero - that I allow myself to cheat a little with the very first step.

Pat on the back for the OP for resisting the urge to Ctrl-N.

I believe the OP problem is more on the how many cities you can build without conquering other player city at initial stage of the game, doesn't mention any specific about the tile yields.

But i agree with the OP, the tile yields is not as important as to how many city you can build as fast as possible before other spots runs out or in other words how many city you can build versus the number of AI city before each AI and you go to war against each other.

As to that problem, i understand it completely because i've been in the same situation many many times, if not almost always, and all my above tips is for dealing with such problem. Also, pioneer spam won't work, because this is like the first 15 turn of the game and at expert/expert or higher that decide whether you will get defeat/victory, and which most neutral are aggresive and will kill the pioneer, the only way is to solve the monster problem, or in other words clear them a.s.a.p then feel free to spam the pioneer, which lead to most people creating custom faction and sov, however some premade factions can also do that, albeit harder.

I think you need an ok start on higher difficulty levels, but I'm not sure I agree that you need a good start, not on Expert, anyway. I've won a game on Expert where I could only build two cities initially, and the AI eventually declared war on me and took my second city. I had one ok stack which I was able to use to defend my capital, and after I had killed his initial stack as it tried to take my capital, I was able to start taking his cities.

This would be a lot harder if the AI wasn't weak defensively, i.e. it doesn't build up new stacks after its initial ones are killed, and it doesn't defend its cities properly. But if you can survive that initial onslaught I think it it is currently possible to overcome a weak starting position.

One way to overcome a bad start:

Make sure to have 1 conclave, and get it to level 3 ASAP. Choose "Scroll Scribe" at level up. This building sells blizzard scrolls.

Blizzard scrolls obliterate trained unit armies (no casting time!). Just 1 or 2 scrolls can help you overcome hopeless odds. They cost 90 gold each, not prohibitively expensive, even early game. 

(quote #1) I could have used that spell, Eternal Summer, or whatever it's called, that allows you to transform the terrain, but I needed all the mana I could accumulate to fight monsters and level up my sovereign.

Here is your problem. First get the manual select improvement placement on your menu. Snake that city in a direction, and when you reach 4+ tiles from your city you should start seeing more city sites. (usually just grain+materials, but if you are city starved they work well enough) Monuments etc. are cheap and should be built for defense either way. 

Secondly, build your sovereign/leveling army better. Only time you should be using mana for leveling is on those risky and hard monster lairs with rewards for the effort spent. Design a unit with clubs and underdog traits early, full leather+shield, and traits (something else than Underdog if you want to keep the unit for later) when you get leatherworking etc. Having a powerful sovereign/hero quicker makes you able to clear more city sites as well as defend those early rushes. Consider doing solo sovereign in the start while grinding up to the 2nd hero (lvl3) at least so you get experience more efficiently. 

What? That's ridiculous. Instant Blizzard is possibly the best spell for high teched armies! I need to do this on my Insane games....!

I just started a game on hard/hard  and quickly came across Umber who's capital was a 5/5/2 with 2 clay, RIGHT beside and 1 death shard and 1 Iron Ore within spitting distance.

Um....what ever happened to 9 being the total a site can see?

Yes 9 is for us humans. Though once i have a city with 5/3/3. Not sure how, but when i open my kingdom ledger, the enchantment/essence is weird, it shows 3/1, my guess is it's just a glitch, as my city only have 1 enchantment, making it 9 total (5/3/1).

AI gets bonuses to yield when they settle, I think. So the tile fits the max, but the city gets extra food/materials if it belongs to an AI.

Ah, I see.

So if I were to take that city over it would revert back to being the 4/4/1 that it ?originally? was...interesting.

Also don't forget to account from bonuses from resources like clay pits. They can be feeding the AI from a very long distance as long as that city is closest of their cities to the resource. 

It was there first city and the beginning of a game (within 10 turns). Unlikely they are obtaining bonuses from elsewhere as I see around there entire ZoC. As mentioned, they had two clay pits right beside the city hub, but both were not improved upon.

It just seem like a very Very VERY lucky spot for this AI to start on...

This is something I actually really don't like about the game. Imo, the city building distance should be 6 tiles from your city, not 6 tiles from your cityhub.

It would be easy enough to fix too, considering that any city improvement first changes the tile to a city type. The city tile type could be the limitor.

As a side note, I really wish that there were several types of city tile. It doesn't have to be perfect, but basically a 'raised corner' type and a 'raised side' type that can be placed in any of the four orientations in order for the landscape not to be COMPLETELY abused as the city expands. Outposts can be placed on raised terrain...why can't cities?

Umm think of it this way your making little towns and they later form together to make districts of a much larger city. I actually like that I can customize how my city looks verses civ 5 where every 20 pop city looks about the same and the look is beyond my control

but they are separate cities....so it would hurt your unerst. Or you leave them....and the AI settles....and you can't 'salt the earth' because it's within your territory...