Quick tips for newer players?

Generic strat with any civilization is "grow big cities and max science."

Domination: have the most important units that are highly promoted and conquer.

Science: lots and lots of science.

Culture: build wonders, get Great Works of Writing/Art/Music. Use Great Musicians to "bomb" enemies with Tourism if one is far culturally stronger.

Diplomatic: buy up city states and/or do their quests. Freedom can gain influence via trade routes (with a policy) or gifting units (massively better with a policy). Autocracy can gain influence by intimidating city states (with a policy).

Hi Buguy

Welcome to the game and to the forum.

Firstly, don't get disparaged, the game's tough and the joy of Civ is all about learning the nuances and different styles and strategies. There are also so many Civs to choose from and they all play a different way.

In my opinion, learning how to get a scientific edge is always a good place to start. If your troops are more advanced, you can survive wars (or win a domination victory), if you can research a tech first, you're more likely to get the wonder and let's face it, if you research to the end, you'll be sending rockets into space for a science win.

Babylon is (in my opinion) the best civ for a science win and has great bonuses like it's Bowmen. There's a good science victory guide here that is worth checking out. Try following that path on an easy setting and see how you get on.

Shoshone is good for beginners as you get good advantages in the early game (which set you up for the rest of the game) but you can get bad habits.

Otherwise, as the guys have suggested, watch the youtube videos, search for specific civ guides and ask questions about particular things you're struggling with and the huge network of players will be happy to help.

And have fun...let's face it, that's why we play right?

Enjoy

Traz

Few randomly assorted tips

• Get those workers working. You want improved tiles. Don't delay them cause you have more important stuff to build. They are your most important unit. At higher difficulties with some practice you might be able to "steal" some from AIs but if you build them, build them soon. Don't build them first either cause you don't have the techs to improve stuff right from the start, but don't delay them too much.
• Scout the map. You'll get ruins, gold from CS, you'll know who's in the game and where they are. 2 scouts early is important. 1 might be enough on continent. You don't really need one if playing archipelago (until you can embark anyway).
• Don't build too many units. Even if you go domination you don't need "carpets of doom" like the AI does. Few high tech highly promoted units will win you the game. Lots of crappy units will get you bankrupt.
• Grow your cities. Build those granaries and water mills, farm riverside tiles. More population = more science and more tiles to work
• Don't go wonder crazy. You don't need them and you won't get them on higher difficulties anyway. Learn which wonders are important for specific victories and build only those.

Something I used to do on G&K a lot, immediately sell off everything you don't need, like excess horses and luxuries. In BNW you can only get cash for it if you have a DoF going. But if you meet neighbors quickly enough, they will offer DoFs soon and you piggyback like mad.

Save up for stuff to bridge other costs, like, if you're building your NC, buy a settler to not waste time, buy a thing in your n-th city to complete the "in every city" requirement for a National Wonder, etc etc,

always keep a look out on your borders, if you see a swarm of enemy units creeping close for no apparent reason (they're friendly, right), well, try to pay someone off to delay him while you get your defenses up. But you should get your defenses up anyway, AI is more likely to attack you if they see you have nobody around to defend yourself

I hope its appropriate to link to 3rd party sites, but http://www.carlsguides.com/strategy/civilization5/tips.php is pretty good for beginners.

Also, if you're having trouble picking a Civ to use, I'd say, Rome, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Portugal, Poland, Siam, Shoshone and Inca are all beginner-friendly Civs geared for different types of victories and playing styles.

Bob Morane said:

At higher difficulties with some practice you might be able to "steal" some from AIs but if you build them, build them soon.

Click to expand...

Note that this isn't required to win and it's basically a crutch. The AI is will also nearly instantly forgive you or a CS WILL instantly forgive you and not seek retribution. It's pretty stupid.

But it is technically also pretty powerful, in all fairness, even if I despise it.

Forgive me guys for being super unclear, but what I meant was I sorta know what I'm doing but I'm not great at the game don't know a lot about how things work. Looking for maybe like a step by step how to start what to build what to get and what to go for, for maybe like a good domination victory and what civ to choose? So i can do well but learn along the way.

In that case, you only need to watch the video LPs

I watch a lot of MArbozir let's plays, but he always does everything so fast and doesn't really go into depth explaining what he is choosing or why and I always miss the important stuff. I've watched about 3-4 full lets plays from him, still pretty clueless lol..

-Pat

You might consider LPs by folks who emphasize explaining, like Shenryr and MadDjinn.

If you select a worker and hit M (move) you can move your mouse over the map, and it will show you how many turns it will take to reach a tile.



But, if there is another unit already in the tile, the graphic will turn red to indicate you cannot move there -- even if the tile is out of your visual range.



This can be very useful if you are approaching an enemy city, and you want to find out where the enemy units are hiding. It is also useful if you want to move a worker or a settler across the terrain without an escort. You can find out if there are any units that might capture them.

:/ So nowhere to find some nice step by step written openers for a civ like lets say poland or something? :/

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378


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For Poland, you can try http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378. Others you can review include a 3-city Tradition opener (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371), a Bablyon opener (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503647), a Liberty domination walkthrough (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503931) and a Persian domination guide (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503111), but all of these may be less "step by step" than you are looking for.

One-size-fits-all, step-by-step openers need to be approached with caution, since the "right" approach to a civ depends on many factors -- what does the map look like, what is your desired victory condition, who are your neighbors and how are they behaving, how much production does your capital have, what luxuries are around, are you on a coast, do you need a scout to explore, etc., etc.

I'll give you a fellow newbie's perspective.

Don't build too many cities (>3, IMO) unless you are going for a quick domination victory. To build wonders you have to upgrade each city. Sometimes that one extra city is always making you wait to build a wonder just for that one additional luxury. Not worth it.

Don't sell your luxuries, trade them for new luxuries for happiness.

The AI is pretty bad at fighting. You can easily lure them into a archer trap by setting up a killing zone and the AI will walk right into it. You can sometimes out kill the AI 10 to 1, or better. Honestly. The key is to think ahead in battle and don't be GGGG all the time. Fall back and kill the enemy unit that takes the point. I have fought a number of major battles and not lost one unit with that strategy.

I can only definitely recommend Madjinns LPs and beyond monument series. he explains much detail very good.

The other thing you may try is the Game of the month series: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=411

Twice a month the staff post a starting save, which is then played by people and we discuss what we do, why we do it. The target victory condition changes, so you will learn. The good thing is that we do not discuss abstract strategies, but we discuss real situations. You will see what the good players do and can compare what you did differently on the same map.

Try tradition and be nice to the ai.. that's usually the way to go for a win. Make sure you make more technologies by feeding your cities and then making defenses quick enough too defend when you're attack. If the ai is beating you, then don't be afraid to quit and start over. Have faith. . Make sure you make at least one faith per turn.

It took me a while to discover that there are "set prices" for things you can sell to the AI. I don't remember to have seen this written down anywhere, but perhaps I just didn't look properly.

Anyway, you can sell any luxury resource for 7 gold per turn, unless the AI civ doesn't like you for some reason (you've done something naughty, like declaring war), in which case you will only get 6 (or less). After a while you may get a window saying "this deal has faded in our eyes..." which basically seems to mean they want to pay 1 gpt less.

You can sell items like horses and iron for 2 gpt. To get the most out of these deals the way to do this seems to be to sell *one* to the AI for 2 gpt, then immediately repeat the same offer. They seem to be willing to repeat the deal a few times before they get tired of it.

You can 1 gpt for accepting an embassy from an AI.

It is possible to get lump sums for items instead of gold per turn (if you need the money in a hurry), but I've never worked out what the "rules" are for this. I suspect that you get about the same amount in a lump as you would over 30 turns.