What Should a Newbie Focus On?

isau said:

I don't know if this will help but adopting this metaphor seems to have helped my play:

We often hear that winning this game is all about building science. So imagine for a second that you could play the game with zero opponents or barbarians and the objective was just to complete the tech tree. Right away you'd notice that without any need to defend yourself, that you could complete the tree fastest by chasing the techs and buildings that help science first. That would be these, and they will form our biggest overall goals:

Library
National College
Education
University
Observatory (only if you settled next to a mountain)
Public Schools
Research Labs

You'd also notice that since Science is largely based on Population, increasing Population will help a lot. Population also helps with production and gold so it's a triple boon. For population we need food, which means:

Pottery (always our first tech, and its on the way to sci techs anyway)
Animal Husbandry (for internal trade routes)
Sailing (a second trade route)
Aqueducts -- but we get these free with Tradition finisher and its part of why people consider Tradition extremely powerful
Civil Service, which gives us free food near rivers and lakes (which is why we always build farms there first)

The other critical thing we'd need is happiness to keep growing. The resources available every game change. But we need to assess our early priorities to grab:

Calendar (on the way to science stuff anyway)
Mining (out of the way but cheap)
Trapping (furthest out of the way and usually lower priority than 2 above
Masonry


If we started in a jungle or heavy forest we may need to veer off course to grab:
- Bronze working


The pattern that basically emerges is this, for me:
- open with Pottery
- Writing
- combo of policies needed for early happiness
- Animal Husbandry and/or Sailing with plan to send internal trade route to our second or third city. Should have a Granary built.
- Philosophy
- [assess safety of situation: may need to "hit the breaks" and make a run for Composite Bows roughly here]
- Civil Service
- Education
- back fill tree up to Metal Casting or so
- Astronomy


Now obviously, in the "real" game enemies do attack you and barbarians do exist. But the way to think about that is "hitting the breaks." Generally whenever you chase military tech in the lower half of the tree you are metaphorically hitting the breaks on science. You're basically saying you're far enough ahead and to pause briefly to grab extra defense or military strength. Winning the game comes down to finding the balance between hitting the breaks and zooming forward.


As for manually working specialists, here's a way to make it super-easy for you: only ever assign Scientists. This isn't an "ideal" approach but I find it a decent tradeoff between micromanagement and effectiveness. You get Scientist slots from Universities and Public Schools. I'm not saying Great Engineers aren't effective, just that they require more practice to know what to use them for. You pretty much can't go wrong with Scientists as long as you just plant early ones and bulb later ones (after public schools or so).


For selecting wonders, a general rule of thumb is if it provides points toward a Great Scientist, it's a goal worth considering. If it provides points towards some other great person, it's usually safe to skip it. This doesn't apply 100% of the time but at least sets some basic priorities. The only major exception is the Great Library, which most people agree is too difficult to obtain past the early difficulties, and will become a crutch that holds you back in trying to transition to higher difficulties.

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bcaiko said:

A question for the OP: When do you decide what victory type you're going for? You can make course corrections along the way, but the early you start steering yourself toward victory, the better. By the Renaissance, you should have a darn solid idea of what you're doing to win and be on the path there. (Just be sure you aren't ignoring other victory types completely. I.e., playing a culture game with no military will make you dead fast.)

If you're going for both the Great Library and Stonehenge (which is doable on King), you need to do the Great Library first. Get to Writing right away, because you can't go that long without a Library in your capital. And the Great Scientist points will be beneficial. Any early GSs should build an academy on top of a bonus resource (like deer or wheat), so you can work the tile and get the long term benefits from it when you start building Universities and the like. If a neighbor takes Stonehenge and you're the Celts, just go take it. The Celts are build for Culture by conquest anyway. Know the strengths of your Civ. Frankly, many players will tell you even to skip the Great Library, since the single, early bonus tech may not be worth your time (unless going for something essential, like Iron Working for a UU).

Specialize your cities. When you build a city, know what it is supposed to do. Is it meant to pump gold and culture? Is it surrounded by Jungle and food so as to be a specialist factory/science center? Will it be producing your military units? Cities with a focus do better.

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David McMurdo said:

Thanks guys.

One practice I have that I sometimes question the soundness of is in making an early rush for culture, faith, and science. I usually go for Stonehenge, The Great Library, the Pantheon, the Oracle, and the National College in that order. These all provide great benefits, but obviously while I'm producing them in my capital I'm not producing anything else, and they very much dictate the direction of my research in the early game. I rely purely on social policies to provide me with my first worker and settler.

Is this a sound way to go about things?

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By the way, you see if someone converts your city to their religion, do you get the benefits of their religion? It's just that sometimes I've noticed that I can suddenly purchase mosques or Cathedrals with faith, and can imagine no other reason for it.

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