Can some1 help me. I'm trying to become better.

[JeremiahCivFan]

1. Would you reccomend automated exploration?
2. How should I approach scientific research, especially in the beggining
3. How early and how much should I build military
4. I heard a suggestion to never let a city sit at its limit and I think he was mostly referring to building settler factories but I want someone experienced to let me no weather or not it is wise to use workers to transfer population from a city at it's limit to a city that is still growing. Is the growth worth the production cost is the real question.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

1. I wouldn't. Seriously, it's not worth it - you can explore better than the AI.

2. In the beginning, research is important - you don't want to fall behind. Go for techs that the AI doesn't research much. You can view a list of the techs the AI favors/doesn't like to research here. If you can get a monopoly on a tech an AI doesn't have, you can do a 2-fer or 3-fer or X-fer (a number of techs for just your own). Trading is very key, so don't feel like you need to research every tech. Check the F4 Foreign Advisor screen every turn for possible trades.

3. Not much - expansion should be priority on higher levels. Build workers/settlers and warriors early on, fill up all available land, and then you can start to build barracks/swordsmen. Don't get distracted with military when there is still land to fill. Afterwards, you can start warring (usually it'll start up Late Ancient Age to Early Medieval Age). Look for good peacedeals with the AI - you might get some good techs, gold, and cities from them.

4. Food is key in this game. If you have a city that can grow + produce a worker every turn (worker factory), by all means you can start merging workers will cities that are agriculturely challenged - the more food you have, the more population you have, and then the more tiles you work, the more gold and shields you get, etc, etc. It's a action-reaction sort of process.

So welcome to CFC. There are some great pages on this site to learn how to play better. Namely, the War Academy is a great place to start - and it's not just about war. cracker's Opening Plays Article is a good first-read. The other articles there are very useful. You might also want to check out the other forums here, as well as the Succession Games forum, where a team of players plays a game together (taking turns), and keeps a log + screenshots. You can learn a lot just by watching others play, and you'll see which strategies are popular. Good luck!