Beginner need tips and advice

Hi guys, firstly, sorry if I posted this at the wrong board / posting a common question.

Alright, I'm still kinda new to the Civilization series, I played a few games in the "2" and "3" difficulties (not sure what is it called again) and I loved it! I tried multiplayer with a friend of mine but I can't seem to catch up with everyone else during mid game. Thus, I need some advice or tips for the game, maybe like what I should or shouldn't do, what I should focus or avoid etc.

Normally, I started off building a scout as instructed by a friend and then building worker after that. However, I've seen a topic in this board as most of them started with shrine or monument first after scout. After building my worker, I'll jump off to building available wonders, like Stonehenge, Great Library, Oracle etc. I can see that as I build a wonder, I'm lacking behind, a lot but I'm worried someone else build it as there can only be one in the game. I feel like my early game strategy has a major fault. Its still alright in easy difficulty but I fear that this strategy is a bad one on higher difficulty or playing with experienced players.

Second, I always run around with only one scout and one warrior and avoid building military units. Sometimes I build / purchase one archer when things getting out of hands with barbarians. Then again, I do see some AI tried attacking other AI early game with bunch of warriors. I was a victim once and it was terrible. The only time I build or purchase units is when someone had a large army on my borders or when I am in war.

Third, sometimes I neglect faith which I often regretted end game, especially when I'm doing Culture Victory. I was a few steps away from winning a friend (who was doing Science Victory) but have insufficient faith to purchase Great Musician for the tourism effect (its 2nd effect).

Last question, probably, how to I earn points faster? I'm always taking the last place around mid-game and not too sure how the others (AIs) catch up so quickly all of the sudden.

I do search around for guides but majority of them are about what to focus for a certain victory (unless I was on the wrong track in searching) whereas I am searching for a general strategy.

Sorry guys and thanks a lot for your help.

Since you play on lower difficulties you will be able to neglect military a lot more. Build order after the new Fall Patch seems to be Scout, Scout/Monument, Shrine, then go from there. You will probably have to build a worker as the lower difficulties will make it harder to steal a worker from a CS or AI.

On the lower difficulties it is easy to wonder spam pretty much every wonder in the game but it will get you into very bad habits once you get into harder difficulties. Early wonders especially. Great Library gets harder and harder and into the almost impossible realm at the upper levels.

The most important part, especially since you fall behind....are you going into City Management and manually setting the worked tiles and specialists? It's especially important to build science buildings and staff the specialist slots.

Don't worry about score points, it won't effect much unless you are doing a turn/time victory. It is best used to indicate a possible runaway and who you need to watch out for

Thanks for the advice.

I'm kinda worried about the habit of mine to own all wonders, sometimes I'm not sure to whether go for developing my city (by building other buildings) or rush for an early wonder like Stonehenge, Great Library, and Oracle. About what wonder I should build for certain victory, I guess I should refer to guides for that.

I did use the city management screen but only buying tiles/units/buildings and utilizing the citizen management part, where I often go for production focus when I got enough citizen or when building wonders. I'm not familiar with the term "specialist" in this game, I've seen it a few times when I am choosing Ideology and I thought it refers to Great Person. I guess I'm wrong? I'm not really sure what they are. So, I probably did not manually set or staff the specialist slots.

I have found these useful in learning how to play Civ 5:

http://www.carlsguides.com/strategy/civilization5/

And a good opening is this one:

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

There is a video around of one of the top players in which he starts by building four scouts then a settler!

And if you want an extraordinary demonstration of how to fight, watch these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvDosx_OQs0

Players at the highest difficulty levels often don't seem to build any wonders at all, to judge from the opinions I have read on these pages -- or perhaps only one or two that they consider essential for their strategy, and that only relatively late in the game. An exception might be the Pyramids when playing Liberty. I have seen a video of one game played by an expert that was lost because he tried to build a wonder. For myself, I've tried to train myself for higher levels by not building any wonders at all, and seeing if I can still win without them. It's a good way to wean yourself off them. One has to be coldly calculating (which I am not!). In the end, it's all numbers and formulae -- a few nicely coloured pixels ought not to influence us.

mbbcam said:

I have seen a video of one game played by an expert that was lost because he tried to build a wonder.

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Out of interest, which video is this? I'd be interested to see the decision play out.

firagax said:

I'm not familiar with the term "specialist" in this game, I've seen it a few times when I am choosing Ideology and I thought it refers to Great Person. I guess I'm wrong? I'm not really sure what they are. So, I probably did not manually set or staff the specialist slots.

Click to expand...

Specialists are population you assign to buildings with a specialist slot. So instead of say, working on a mine they go into one of the university slots and produce more raw science every turn. The different buildings also increase the appropriate Great Person points enabling you to get Scientists, Engineers or Merchants sooner. To occupy a slot just click on it directly or if you want more precision click a tile on the city screen to get someone unemployed then click on the building slot.

Most people populate these slots as soon as they are available assuming a sensible city size over say - 10. Bee-linng to the appropriate techs to get the building (Education for universitys) is a good tactic.

Great Scientists are the most popular. You can 'plant' the early ones to make an academy on a hex, giving much improved science a turn (make sure it's worked by checking on the city screen) or save the later ones for bulbing (saving a few turns) for an importent tech.

Buildings with science slots are university, public school and research lab.

Thanks for the replies, guys! I guess I should stop building too much wonders now.

I just went to check out the specialist slots and am kinda ashamed of myself for not noticing something so useful! And I've a bad habit for neglecting Food at early game. Now I probably need more citizen to occupy the specialist slots.

I'll try run through those links given Thanks! If I have anymore doubts, I will post it here.

consentient said:

Out of interest, which video is this? I'd be interested to see the decision play out.

Click to expand...

If my creaky memory serves me correctly (and it frequently doesn't these days) it was one of peddroelm's videos. (I love them, btw.) Further, I seem to recall he was playing England.

It would be more accurate to say that he gave up the game as lost at a certain point, since it was clear that he was going down. He attributed this to trying to build Petra (I think). I don't believe he completed the game.

Yeah, I love his videos too.

As for Petra, I know that its really overpowered, and many Liberty players have success using the finisher GE to get it, but I usually just ignore it on Deity, because it normally goes a lot earlier in my games.

if you play single player, then as you move up in higher difficulty it's less of building a general "strong" empire but more of building a "specialized" empire, that would allow you to reach the VC you seek. Of course "strong" empires in general have an easier time than most, but sometimes it's difficult to prevent AIs from wandering in to victories if you don't get yours fast enough.

In multiplayer, war is king. I suggest looking at some of the war academy articles on unit movement and damage calculation, then watch a few LPs to get a rough idea of unit composition and positioning.