Starting over: practical tips?

Hi everyone, I'm new here and also new to Civ 5. This is my first turn based strategy game and I honestly don't know what the heck I'm doing. I have started the game twice, once in Russia and once in America, but on both playthroughs I hit a spot where I'm sort of stumped, so I want try again, but this time I'd like to gather some knowledge first.

So I guess some basic questions would be:

• What are good nations to start with?
  
• Should I try to build a lot of cities or just a few?
  
• Is it better to build a strong military first, or focus on developing cities?

Ok, that's all for now. Oh, also, I'm playing on Settler, Single Player, w. Barbarians

On Settler you can get by with almost no military. When you want to practice your military stuff, by all means, build military. But in the meantime, focus on your cities.

Focus on city placement. Things to consider:

1. On a river? (that's good)
2. On a coast? (that's good)
3. Immediately adjacent to a mountain? (that's good)
4. Is there food? (maybe the most important question)
5. Is there a luxury resource within a 3 tile radius? (at least one is good. more is better)
6. Do I have enough happiness to support this city? (don't purposely build cities that will plunge you into unhappiness unless you have a plan in place to quickly get back to happy)

other special considerations:
1. Natural Wonder within a 3 tile radius? (some are mediocre, but most are great)


Military:

If another civ declares war on you, make sure to get several archers (composite bows, crossbows) for defense. They are the best defensive units by far and they are also very useful on offense.

In regards to what civ to pick, I think that Russia and America are both very good starting civs. They both have good Unique Abilities and units but they don't particularly call for an altered play style, so you get a feel for the typical game of civ. A few other civs that are similar in that regard that come to mind are:

Rome (great early game UU)
Ottomans (great mid-game UU)
Babylon (great at science. Free early great scientist...plant an academy!)
Wu Zetien (great Unique Crossbow; Great Great generals)
Elizabeth (great navy)
Shoshone (great scouts; plop down huge territories immediately upon founding cities)

who else has suggested civs for a beginner?

Some civs' Unique Abilities call for a very unique play style. It is best to avoid them until you feel like you are wrapping your head around the intricacies of the game.

Read this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371

It's one of the best starting guides I've seen.

Poland is one of the best civs to start with.

But remember that the play style is different even at emperor. Just look at the general build order. Which techs they beeline. (Food and science because food=population=science) writing, philosophy, civil service education, etc. Build science buildings because you want it in all victory conditionsAnd social policy. This game rewards filling out policy trees rather than 2 here and 2 there. There are strategies like that though.

I reckon you are better of starting at Prince or King level, sure it will be harder but you will learn quickly from your mistakes.
Playing at the easiest levels allows a player to get away with strategies that are otherwise unrealistic.

You didn't mention whether you had played any of the previous civ games so I'll assume you haven't. First of all bookmark Civ V List of Acronyms and Terms as any help in these forums will almost certainly be filled with acronyms.
What I suggest is trying the tutorials in game before trying a real game, and when you do choose the lowest difficulty level and turn off barbarians(for now), you do this in the advanced options when you set up a game.

The key to civ5 is science, and that is directly related to growth so concentrate on that. Get 3-4 cities out and grow them. Learn the tech tree which you can do by clicking the 'open tech tree' button so you can study what techs do what, just remember some civs have some unique units/buildings which will be listed for your chosen civ. The science techs are Education, Scientific Theory, and Plastics, the growth techs are Pottery, Engineering(or the tradition finisher), civil Service, Fertilizer, Biology, and Penicillin

Terrain is improved by workers that you build, or steal with certain improvements only available after certain techs. You can clear forest/jungle/marsh when mining/bronze working/masonry have been researched respectively.

Exploration can be done with the scout from turn 0, coastal waters from sailing, embark land units from optics, and ocean from astronomy. The exception is Polynesia who can embark and sail over ocean from turn 0, and Korea who's caravel is replaced by a turtle ship that can't cross ocean.

Thank you so much everyone for your generous feedback! What can I say: Wow, I've got a lot to learn. I will start a new game as soon as I read the suggested guides. I feel like I can do a much better job with the info given here.

@Redaxe - Very nice counterpoint. Maybe I'll start another game simultaneously and set it to one of the more difficult levels. Thx.

Agreed with Redaxe, settler is too low. Start on king and start small (as in a small map). The AI isn't very good, and the developer didn't balance the difficulties. It is to be expected if you lose your first game at something. That's why to do a small map: so you don't get frustrated sinking a lot of time into a losing game. On settler you practically need a strategy guide to learn how to lose.

Prozac1964 said:

I have started the game twice, once in Russia and once in America, but on both playthroughs I hit a spot where I'm sort of stumped, so I want try again, but this time I'd like to gather some knowledge first.

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Please define “sort of stumped”? Did you lose, or just stop playing because you could not figure out what you were suppose to do next?

This all happened to me with tutorial. As I recall, you cannot actually win that game.

beetle said:

Please define “sort of stumped”? Did you lose, or just stop playing because you could not figure out what you were suppose to do next?

This all happened to me with tutorial. As I recall, you cannot actually win that game.

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On both attempts I stopped playing because I realized I didn't know how to play the game. Particularly on my second try with the American Civ, I noticed that the other city states were pushing right up to the borders of my capital and most of my other cities. I felt like I over settled - if that's possible, then I just randomly declared war on Antwerp until I overcame them and annexed them, not knowing at all what I was doing.

After that it was obvious that I needed to learn more about the game if I was to try again. And that is the reason for my thread. What should a player know when they are starting a new game. The basics really.

Prozac1964 said:

On both attempts I stopped playing because I realized I didn't know how to play the game. Particularly on my second try with the American Civ, I noticed that the other city states were pushing right up to the borders of my capital and most of my other cities. I felt like I over settled - if that's possible, then I just randomly declared war on Antwerp until I overcame them and annexed them, not knowing at all what I was doing.

After that it was obvious that I needed to learn more about the game if I was to try again. And that is the reason for my thread. What should a player know when they are starting a new game. The basics really.

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Overexpanding is probably the easiest mistake to make. Every city you make costs you happiness. The penalties get larger and larger. You need to farm luxury goods, swap spares with the AI and build happiness buildings before making too many cities. If you build cultural buildings they will expand your borders, usually quicker than city states can. If you see a hex you really want, buy it to make sure

You can conquer other civilizations ' capitals at this difficulty. If you use the honor social policy tree and rank up your units you can get to capture cities right away with the higher ranked up promotions for the cities.

Prozac1964 said:

On both attempts I stopped playing because I realized I didn't know how to play the game. Particularly on my second try with the American Civ, I noticed that the other city states were pushing right up to the borders of my capital and most of my other cities. I felt like I over settled - if that's possible,

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If you were getting up to the middle of the game, then it's quite normal for your borders to be touching other civilisations.... That's not really a problem. In fact, it probably means you were doing it right... The game is balanced to force people to go to war to grow past a certain size.

It is possible to over-expand, but the fact you were touching other civs isn't necessarily a sign you over-expanded.

On standard size maps you should, as a rule of thumb, be aiming to fully control four cities. That is, built or, maybe, annexed. Built is better. If you go to war you should probably puppet any other taken cities.

Oh - and the Civopediea is your friend. It's under the help button in the top right corner......

EDIT: On second reading I noticed you used the expression "most of my other cities". If you have enough other cities that most makes sense grammatically, then you possibly did oversettle a little. But if you chose the Liberty policy tree for your social policies, it could still work.

Prozac1964 said:

On both attempts I stopped playing because I realized I didn't know how to play the game. Particularly on my second try with the American Civ, I noticed that the other city states were pushing right up to the borders of my capital and most of my other cities. I felt like I over settled - if that's possible, then I just randomly declared war on Antwerp until I overcame them and annexed them, not knowing at all what I was doing. After that it was obvious that I needed to learn more about the game if I was to try again. And that is the reason for my thread. What should a player know when they are starting a new game. The basics really.

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Did you play CivIII or IV? Maybe the difficulty level is too easy for you, and you are just bored. The only real point is to have fun. The difficulty levels help with that. Keep all the defaults settings and play until you win or lose. Bump up the difficulty level until you lose a game. Then start experimenting!

Redaxe said:

Playing at the easiest levels allows a player to get away with strategies that are otherwise unrealistic.

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In many ways, it gets easier the higher you go.

Trade routes from AIs alone can plug alot of holes in your game, and at deity you can start receiving them at like turn 3.

Nares said:

In many ways, it gets easier the higher you go.

Trade routes from AIs alone can plug alot of holes in your game, and at deity you can start receiving them at like turn 3.

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It only gets easier at high levels if you are using good strategies to begin with. Using a strategy that barely allows you to win at a lower difficulty will not be better at a higher difficulty. However, you may find you can win in fewer turns at higher difficulties at times, because their science and gold is better, giving you a few more ways to tap off of the AI, but the AI will win sooner as well.

Uzael36 said:

It only gets easier at high levels if you are using good strategies to begin with.

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Watching wonders go before you even research the tech for them should help lead you to some good strategies.

Nares said:

Watching wonders go before you even research the tech for them should help lead you to some good strategies.

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I find it hard to believe that someone who builds too many wonders would know the proper build order without them. If they knew what was important to begin with, they wouldn't wonder spam.

beetle said:

Did you play CivIII or IV? Maybe the difficulty level is too easy for you, and you are just bored. The only real point is to have fun. The difficulty levels help with that. Keep all the defaults settings and play until you win or lose. Bump up the difficulty level until you lose a game. Then start experimenting!

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Thanks again to everyone for all the help. Beetle, I did not play any Civ games before 5. I also have never played a turn based game at all. I come from an RPG/FPS gaming background so I didn't have a clue about Civ 5.

I'm totally not bored, and I love the game...I just have so much to learn about it. I agree the point is to have fun...if it weren't fun I would stop playing it. Thanks for you advice.

Uzael36 said:

I find it hard to believe that someone who builds too many wonders would know the proper build order without them. If they knew what was important to begin with, they wouldn't wonder spam.

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Take away wonders and there's not much else to build.