I'm a relatively new to the Civilization series, although so far I find the game very addicting. Anyways, I usually play at Marathon speed and Warlord difficulty (hopefully I'll move up pretty soon). In my current game with those settings on a huge Terra map, I'm playing as Gandhi. Now I've read about all the different chop rushes and the importance of developing an early lead. The first tech I thought about researching was Polytheism (in order to found Hinduism). After that, I was planning to research Bronze Working (to chop forests). Yet Polytheism takes 32 turns to research and Bronze Working takes 38. That's 70 turns of waiting! Is this normal? On top of that, the build times for a worker and settler are ridiculously high. I realize that in Marathon, the build/research times are scaled, although it just seems awkward doing nothing for 70 turns. I do send my warrior away to explore during this time (although I'm always afraid my city will get attacked by barbarians during his absence). I just feel like I'm doing something fundamentally wrong in the early game. This happens in almost every one of my games. I'm pretty much doing nothing but waiting. And I can't even chop to rush my production because the ability won't be available for at least 70 turns if I research Polytheism first. I've heard that it's a pretty good idea to found a religion if you start out with Mysticism anyway, and Bronze Working is also an early favorite. Could anyone help me out and possibly suggest strategies for research choices and build orders early on in the game? I just want to know if I’m on the right track or not.


Any advice will definitely help. Thanks in advance.

By the way, I forgot to mention that I'm playing Warlords, although I'm sure the basic strategy is the same anyway.

Fisrtly check which tile your city is working, make sure its not assigned a specialist or something stupid. You'll be best off working a 3 food tile or a forest. I prefer to let my city grow to size 2 or 3 by building a warrior, before building a worker, then a settler. Your tech choices aren't bad; also consider researching things like agriculture or masonry so your worker can imrpove the tiles. However most probably the "waiting" you are doing is down to the marathon speed setting. i never use it becasue, as you say you do nothing in the acient era. my advice is to play on normal or epic speed. btw chopping is not very effective in warlords, it was only useful in standard civ 4

It's just the Marathon speed setting. Build and research times are extended somewhat in proportion to the overall number of turns. The main effect of this is that the relative movement and healing speed of units increases significantly, meaning you can engage in more troop movement and more war in the same time. It tends to suit a more war-minded player to play on Marathon. It also makes the game slightly easier than on the other modes as the human player can better exploit things.