Benchmarks to shoot for?

[Overlord Bunion]

Or mileposts or what have you I suppose...

I am a former poster who lost his old account info on an old computer and was pretty infrequent on the forums anyhow.

I just took the plunge last week and decided to give Civ 5 / G&K a try after playing Civ IV for so long.

I like some things and some things not so much so but that's beside the point of this post. I was hoping to find out what sorts of benchmarks to shoot for / general guidelines for completion / competitiveness I suppose.

I have completed my first win at Prince and intend to try and make the jump to Emp since CiV seem a bit easier than IV in my opinion.

I tend to play American Civ / Marathon Speed / Small Continents / High Sea / Sparse Resources / 22 AI Civs + 10 City States.

As I understand from lurking a bit the AI seems to be a bit terribad at Naval engagements but I cant help but love the idea of Navies. Too many years in the USMC probably make me love amphibious assault.

In any case a few questions:

National College is it really that game changing? When should I have it (barring as soon as possible - give me an era idea or turn count).

Around the same time frame what would competitive Culture / Finance / Science incomes be?

On Emp - how much attention should I pay to getting a few wonders strategically? I went nuts and took them all on my first game on Prince that I played thru / won.

Sparse resources seems to make it harder to have a high happy count the few times I have tried on this higher difficulty - I usually just eek by with 2 - 4 happy or a neg 2 happy deficit. How troubled should I be?

Thanks for the input fellows I will pepper with more questions I am sure as these get answered.

 

[joncnunn]

National College : before turn 100 (preferably around turn 70) on normal speed.

Wonders are much more difficult to build on Emperor than Prince.

Happiness: Build the maintenance free happiness buildings, cash rush in the least productive city, build Circus Maximus, and don't expand too fast. (And refrain from building cities that would bring nothing in at all; if you go conquering the AI, you'll also need to raze their junk city sites.)

As to science: See demographic screen (bottom row); after you back fill, you should be #1 in Literacy on Emperor and below for the rest of the game. Being #2 or #3 indicates you need more universities/ more filling of science slots.
(On immortal level, it may take a bit longer to catch up and it's okay to be running neck & neck if you've already doing all you can towards science; AI is poor at making Information Era tech priorities and so its easy to pass them there by making Huble a priority.)

 

[krc]

Happiness: Build the maintenance free happiness buildings, cash rush in the least productive city, build Circus Maximus, and don't expand too fast. (And refrain from building cities that would bring nothing in at all; if you go conquering the AI, you'll also need to raze their junk city sites.)

What level do you usually play at? On king or emperor, I rarely seem to need the Circus Maximus until relatively late (and then it depends on how many puppets I get). I've seen in other posts/threads that you think it is really important, but I seem to do okay with social policies and faith-based happiness buffs. Is Circus Maximus really more important than some of the other things you could be building? (Like more units? Or science buildings?)

 

[The Pilgrim]

Nowadays we almost completely ignore ND, even more so Circus Maximus. In G&K they both are less important. There are easier and faster ways to get extra happiness. Not bad if you have nothing else to build but delaying some of the really important buildings/units in favor of either of them isn't worth it, imo.

 

[Browd]

ND can be a godsend when you conquer it in the middle of a domination spree, but agree that it often isn't worth the hammers to build yourself.