Are there any strategy guides for Civ V?

I've started playing Civ V to-day and I enjoy it; it works well on
my computer, the graphics and voicing are impressive, and it
simply feels more fun. Despite that, though, I feel like I am not
doing as good as I'd like in my first game. Barbarians are killing
all of my scouts, my empire is unhappy, my capital is starving,
and producing an archer somehow takes 75 turns while a size 3
city requires 60 turns to reach size 4. I can't help but shake
the feeling that I'm doing something wrong....

I always play on Prince level [since it puts me on equal footing
with the AI, I believe it the 'fairest'] and I choose to play as
Germany simply because I want to lead my Fatherland to glory
(the bonus against barbarians does nothing to help me, as I
mentioned above).

Does anybody have a general guide to Civ V (vanilla version,
neither expansion pack) strategy? These would be things like how
to choose technologies to research, manage happiness, wage
war, and (of course) win the game. I couldn't find a guide like
this elsewhere; your aid would be a good help.

Have you checked out The War Academy yet? Most items are listed as either [BNW] [G&K] or [vanilla].

The War Academy was the first place I looked, but most articles there
are on specific social policies or countries. I hoped for articles that were
more detailed or similar to the Civ II through IV War Academy, rather
than listing information findable in the Civilopædia and adding a paragraph
or two more. Do you still have any other advice?

There are a lot of ideas you need to learn, so no one guide is likely to cover everything. As far as your barbarian problem, you need to fight with military units, not scouts. They are designed to scout. New cities tend to grow slow and build slow, it is best to get them growing a little bit before you attempt to focus on production. For the most part though, growth is key as it gives you more tiles to work, which as time goes on, leads to far more growth and production potential. Happiness is helped by unique luxury resources, which you can work with workers, or trade with other civs, or as perks for being an Ally with a city state. Make sure to upgrade these luxury resources.

This may be too advanced for you, but it does include a video which will help you understand a bit about what you are attempting to do.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371

It was found in the War Academy.

Have a look at the Civ V Guide Or on the 2K forums, Civ V Handbook for Despots & Dictators

Also try watching some lps and Maddjinns beyond the monument

They aren't strategy guides however they provide a great insight into strategies and understanding the mechanics of the game.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Unhappiness is the reason why your cities won't grow, and your units won't produce.

The way happiness works, is your cities are filled with people, and those people can be happy/unhappy. If you hover over the happy face up top you can see why people are happy, and why they are unhappy.

Growth is connected to how much food the city has. You can see info about that in the city building screen by hovering over the number of citizens in the top left corner. This will tell you where your food is coming from.

If you are having consistent problems with unhappiness and food my advice is to get more workers working the tiles that relate directly to food production and happiness.

The good news is that the twin problems of unhappiness and ******ed
growth seem to be solved; I now have learnt to focus on happiness
from the beginning, taking care to supply them with luxuries first. I
would like to personally thank Greenbrain for telling me how unhappiness
is tied intimately to population.

I am also learning about how war is waged in Civ, when Napoleon
declared war on me around B.C. 2000. I still have many questions
and other lesser problems, though:

• I always seem to be a backwards nation; most countries (4 to 6)
  enter the Classical Era before me. I don't know why this is; says the
  Civ manual the old system of setting research funds is gone, replaced
  by basing it entirely on population levels and buildings. Though this
  "backwardness" doesn't seem to hurt me.... Napoleon sent warriors
  at me though he was already in the Classical Era, while I had archers.
• Perhaps relating to that (since beaker production is directly re-
  lated to population), other countries seem to spread quicker than
  I. I noticed this when Washington started to settle all along the
  coast to my east. How fast do civs typically expand in this game?
  I know that Infinite City Sprawl has been tempered by happiness,
  but how quickly "should" I expand?

Articles on military strategy in Civ V would also be very helpful; I
had no plans in Napoleon's siege on Hamburg other than "strike
everywhere with archers" and the city reached 40% HP once.

A few tips: Build a scout immediately. Pick tradition for a few games as your first policy, and legalism ASAP. Tradition is always a solid performer, where liberty requires a little more finesse as things stand. Those free monuments in your early city spam are a big help.

Four cities by turn 60-80 is a reasonable goal, and you'll never really need more other than what you may puppet. It helps a lot with making national wonders feasible. So get your scout out, an early worker, chop to rush a settler whenever possible. Develop horses or iron right after your luxuries, because you can sell them to AI's for gpt quite often. This will help you generate some extra coin to try and buy another settler, or an early worker for more chopping and rushing.

Early food (a cow or a wheat/bananna) a single tile that's a strong 3-4 apples, and a single strong production tile is a big deal. Settling right on top of luxuries can help too, since the city automatically makes a few more gold for all time, and saves some worker turns that can be used to make that mine or farm.

One worker per city, or five for four, is a good rule of thumb. One missile unit per city, and a few scattered melee, should also be sufficient. Get libraries up everywhere timed to a beelined national college techwise, and your science will have a good early base. Turn 90-110 would be very strong on this for king level.

Whoops, past my break here, I'll try to post more later. Hopefully it makes sense and helps though, good luck!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=448510 Here ya go.