Note: I fully expect this guide to grow from the headings I've given it thus far; if you have a suggestion for one, post it!
Looking through this board, I notice that while there are some good guides linked in the war academy, they all consider specific strategies and paths as opposed to weighing concepts and frameworks for success. They also tend to take for granted that the player already has a fair amount of common MP wisdom and knows, for example, that displayed scores are, at best, inconsistent indicators of who's in the lead.
So, I'd like to turn this thread into a concensus of some of the basic wisdom of Civ and how they relate specifically to multiplayer, so people who are considering getting into a game are better prepared and have a better experience the first time around. For example: While the Bureaucracy civic has somewhat limited use in single player since empires tend to be somewhat larger, it is very useful in MP since players are, on average, much more aggressive than AIs and as a result empires tend to hold fewer, better cities.
Please, try to give thought out, objective contributions to the thread instead of merely reciting "what works for you". Recitation makes it much more difficult to discern what's well-based and what isn't, and furthermore can incite unproductive arguments that I'd prefer to avoid.
I will be filling in my own thoughts in the days to come, but I am admittedly a relative newcomer to multiplayer and I expect to be wrong in places.
Glossary: There is a bit of jargon used on this forum that folks should be aware of
Before even joining a game, there are a few things you should make sure you know about the game it:
Civ profiles
Obviously, the first thing one must do is choose the Civ you're going to play. This will determine a large amount of your strategy throughout the game so it needs to be considered carefully.
Leader Traits
With traits, it is important to take into account how much time you can reasonably expect to be in war. Wars many times, but not always, tend to taper off at era changes or major technological landmarks as players get a new round of upgrades for the home front and other things to occupy their time. Maps get more violent the smaller they are and the higher the time scale is - Small/Marathon maps would be exceedingly violent, while Huge/Quick maps would be quite peaceful. Precisely how violent a map will be requires a judgement call, but it is important to be aware of this. If you are unsure, err on the side of violence. Again, humans are much more prone to war than AIs.
The bottom line on Traits: Overall, Traits are far more weighty a decision than any other part of your selection, so they should be prized much more highly. For your first couple of games, I'd recommend leaning toward military traits, but don't forget to account for your play style a bit. Boudica, Washington, Ragnar, and Churchhill are all splendid choices. As you gain experience and get a feel for judging maps on their characteristics, you can branch out a bit.
Unique Units
Each Civ has their own unique unit, which replaces a stock unit somewhere during the game. If you'd like a great amount of detail on each individual unit, refer to aelf's fantastic guide on the subject. This section is only for noting the particularly exceptional Unique Units (UUs) and their applications.
Starting technologies
Your leader's starting technologies will drastically affect the early game. Most of the technologies are fairly easy to research, but some are generally prized more highly than the others. If it is not listed here, you may assume there's nothing too special about it.
The bottom line on Civ profiles: Overall, Traits are far more weighty a decision than any other part of your selection, so they should be prized much more highly. For your first couple of games, lean heavily toward military traits and take only token considerations otherwise, but don't forget to account for your play style a bit. Boudica, Washington, Ragnar, and Churchhill are all splendid choices. As you gain experience and get a feel for the pacing of Multiplayer, you can branch out.
Multiplayer Civics
The more violent and fast-moving multiplayer clearly emphasizes some civics, while making others less important. This section will discuss them as they relate to Multiplayer.
The first 100 turns
The early game is absolutely critical in multiplayer. Making major mistakes such as not expanding fast enough, expanding too much, not having a sufficient military, founding your cities in the wrong area during this period will haunt you for the rest of the game. This section will cover aspects of the first 100 turns, and recommend some specific strategies as examples at the end.
Critical early game technologies
All technologies are not created equal. As one might expect, choosing to work on the wrong ones early on will hamstring you for a long time to come. This section will enumerate the most critical technologies through the Medieval era and give some specific ideas for getting there at the end.
Classical War management
The first major wars typically start in the Classical era, with the advent of Machinery (and Catapults). Being prepared for and managing yourself in this first major war will oftentimes determine whether or not you're even around to see the end of the game.
Looking through this board, I notice that while there are some good guides linked in the war academy, they all consider specific strategies and paths as opposed to weighing concepts and frameworks for success. They also tend to take for granted that the player already has a fair amount of common MP wisdom and knows, for example, that displayed scores are, at best, inconsistent indicators of who's in the lead.
So, I'd like to turn this thread into a concensus of some of the basic wisdom of Civ and how they relate specifically to multiplayer, so people who are considering getting into a game are better prepared and have a better experience the first time around. For example: While the Bureaucracy civic has somewhat limited use in single player since empires tend to be somewhat larger, it is very useful in MP since players are, on average, much more aggressive than AIs and as a result empires tend to hold fewer, better cities.
Please, try to give thought out, objective contributions to the thread instead of merely reciting "what works for you". Recitation makes it much more difficult to discern what's well-based and what isn't, and furthermore can incite unproductive arguments that I'd prefer to avoid.
I will be filling in my own thoughts in the days to come, but I am admittedly a relative newcomer to multiplayer and I expect to be wrong in places.
Glossary: There is a bit of jargon used on this forum that folks should be aware of
- Pop borders - This is slang for the event "The borders of (city) have expanded!" when your cities reach a culture threshold. The first border expansion is often considered critical to a city's maturation.
- Fat cross - This refers to a city's cultural boundaries after their first border expansion, which resembles a very fat cross. These are the workable tiles your city will ultimately have access to.
- Whip - This refers to hurrying production by sacrificing population, usually under the Slavery civic. Many skilled players use this very liberally.
- Chop rush - This refers to chopping forests and jungles down and using the one-time
bonus to rush something important, usually a Wonder, Worker, or Settler.
Before even joining a game, there are a few things you should make sure you know about the game it:
- What period are you starting in? - Usually, this is Ancient, but sometimes it isn't. Make sure you take note.
- Is your game using Advanced Start? - If you're not familiar with Advanced Start, open a single player game, turn it on, and try it out. In short, instead of starting you with a Settler and one other unit, Advanced Start gives you a set amount of credit and lets you buy cities, units, and other benefits at the start of the game. It radically changes the early game and there will be an entire section dedicated to it later.
- Is the difficulty fixed? If so, what is it at? - In every single instance I have seen so far, it's been either strongly suggested or compelled to play at Noble difficulty, but again, you should take note to avoid unpleasant surprises.
- What speed is the game on? - Again, usually this is set on Quick, but this can change your strategies and a lot of the math in the game, so take note of it.
- What is the time limit on a turn, if any? - Often, winning at Civ 4 is a matter of planning dozens of turns ahead, and you may sometimes have to resort to some mental math or other deliberations to make sure your plan is sound. If you only have 2 minutes to make your turn, this can be difficult.
- What map type is it? - The game is fundamentally different on Pangaea than it is on Continents and fundamentally different again when on Archipelligo. Also, the game changes a lot on Small maps as opposed to Huge ones. Take note.
Civ profiles
Obviously, the first thing one must do is choose the Civ you're going to play. This will determine a large amount of your strategy throughout the game so it needs to be considered carefully.
Leader Traits
With traits, it is important to take into account how much time you can reasonably expect to be in war. Wars many times, but not always, tend to taper off at era changes or major technological landmarks as players get a new round of upgrades for the home front and other things to occupy their time. Maps get more violent the smaller they are and the higher the time scale is - Small/Marathon maps would be exceedingly violent, while Huge/Quick maps would be quite peaceful. Precisely how violent a map will be requires a judgement call, but it is important to be aware of this. If you are unsure, err on the side of violence. Again, humans are much more prone to war than AIs.
- Aggressive (Free Combat 1 promotion on Melee and Gunpowder units, double production of Barracks and Drydock) - This is a top notch power for generally violent maps, but if you are not fighting, it does nothing for you at all. Therefore, on generally peaceful maps (larger ones with shorter time scales), you should not value this trait as highly.
- Charismatic (+1
per city, -25% XP needed for unit promotions, +1 bonus from Monument and Broadcast Tower) - I would argue that this is the single best power you can have on violent maps, since it gives you more of what you need most - stability at home - and a great boost to your armed forces to boot. Much like Aggressive, though, it becomes less and less useful the more peaceful a map gets. The best part of Charismatic - the -25% XP for promotions - is useless when you're not in a war. - Creative (+2
per city, double production of Library, Theater, and Colleseum) - Creative is on the opposite side of the coin from Aggressive and Charismatic - on violent maps, it is very weak. The extra bit of culture will not help too much when an Aggressive or Charismatic leader sends a stack of units that totally outclasses your armies onto your doorstep. However, on more peaceful maps, Creative becomes a big boon by letting you save on basic culture facilities like the Monument, very important on the quicker time scales that peaceful maps tend to favor. The bonus production also gives Creative leaders an edge in culture wars on borders between empires. Pushing your enemies off a strategic resource like Copper or Iron is extremely frustrating to them since there is no simple, immediate way to take it back. This can let you weaken an an enemy without openly declaring war. Humans tend to see this as a much bigger insult than AIs, however, so be ready to deal with the backlash if you do this! - Expansive (+2
per city, 25% faster Worker production, double production of Granary and Harbor) - This is a good, solid trait. +2 is nice for countering the 
from nessecery upgrades such as the Forge, and every city is going to want a Granary, so the double production will never go to waste. The Worker production increase is arguably the largest boon, however. Multiplayer games require many more Workers than single player ones, since rapid improvement of cities and resources is important and dense road networks are critical for responding to attacks. Cities don't grow while Workers are under production, so bonuses to it are welcome indeed. - Financial (+1
on plots with at least 2 ) - Another very solid trait, especially on maps with a lot of coastline to exploit (which have 2 without any improvements at all). More translates into more 
, more money for maintaining cities and armies, and more gold in your coffers for emergencies. - Industrious (+50% production on Wonders, double production speed of Forge) - This is one power that is extremely good in singleplayer, but doesn't survive the transition to multiplayer very well. Hogging Wonders is a great way to win many singleplayer games because the AI is generally pretty bad at war. However, humans are much more aggressive, much more goal-oriented, and much more canny about war than AIs, so hogging Wonders simply makes you a juicier target. The fast build of Forges is good, because most cities will want Forges, but overall this is not a terribly good trait.
- Imperialistic (+100% Great General emergence, 50% faster production of Settlers) - Imperialistic can be either incredibly powerful or incredibly worthless. There is rarely a lot of middle ground. Imperialistic powers that start off with a decent amount of good land to settle can leverage their fast production of Settlers to get a great early start that will benefit them through the whole game. Similarly, if an Imperialistic power has a successful first war and gets a few Great Generals to settle in their main production city, the big XP boost will make their armies a force to be reckoned with for the whole game. On the flip side, if an Imperialistic leader is unlucky enough to start off in inhospitable areas with plain deserts and tundra, their Settler bonus is hamstrung. If their first war goes badly and they never gain military steam, their Great General benefit will quickly lose out to the more traditional Aggressive leaders. This is a gambling man's trait.
- Organized (-50% civic upkeep. Double production on Lighthouse, Factory, and Courthouse) - In many ways, Organized is similar to Financial. Civic upkeep costs are purely wasted coins that could instead be going into or maintaining a military unit. Organized leaders are generally richer because they cut this waste by such a huge margin, which has broad ramifications. They also double production on the Courthouse, which comes fairly early and should be built everywhere to further cut down on costs. Financial leaders have a potential to create far more net , but Organized leaders don't need as much to reach their potential. It's a tradeoff. It is worth noting, however, that at higher difficulty levels, such as Emperor, Immortal, and Diety, civic upkeep costs ramp up sharply; at Noble, Financial and Organized are roughly equal strength. At Diety, Organized is far and away the winner.
- Philosophical (+100% Great Person point production, double production speed of University) - Great People are very helpful, but it is fairly rare to see them change the course of a game. You will likely only have a handful of Universities as well. It has some applications if you have a very specific strategy in mind that relies heavily on the contributions of Great People, but when you are just beginning it should probably be overlooked. However, after you gain experience and can identify when Great People will be most effective, Philosophical can become a very powerful card when played properly. It is, however, much stronger on larger maps where you can devote more than just one city to producing Great People.
- Protective (Free City Garrison 1 and Drill 1 upgrades to Archery and Gunpowder units. Double production speed of Walls and Castle) - Like all the other army powers, Protective does absolutely nothing for you if you are not fighting, so if you expect your map to be fairly peaceful, consider something else. On violent maps, though Protective Archery units can mount very effective defenses in the field as well with a few levels, and can be helpful when accompanying your main stacks of troops. Double production on Walls and Castles can also make these structures worthwhile, especially if you have access to Stone on top of it.
- Spiritual (No anarchy. Double production of temples and the Cristo Redento wonder) - This trait is only par in singleplayer, but is actually quite solid in multiplayer. Atmospheres in multiplayer change very quickly, and entirely different civics may be appropriate as little as 10 turns apart. Not having to sacrifice one of those turns to anarchy is quite a nice perk. Temples are also handy for almost any city. This isn't a stellar trait, but it's not a bad one either.
The bottom line on Traits: Overall, Traits are far more weighty a decision than any other part of your selection, so they should be prized much more highly. For your first couple of games, I'd recommend leaning toward military traits, but don't forget to account for your play style a bit. Boudica, Washington, Ragnar, and Churchhill are all splendid choices. As you gain experience and get a feel for judging maps on their characteristics, you can branch out a bit.
Unique Units
Each Civ has their own unique unit, which replaces a stock unit somewhere during the game. If you'd like a great amount of detail on each individual unit, refer to aelf's fantastic guide on the subject. This section is only for noting the particularly exceptional Unique Units (UUs) and their applications.
Starting technologies
Your leader's starting technologies will drastically affect the early game. Most of the technologies are fairly easy to research, but some are generally prized more highly than the others. If it is not listed here, you may assume there's nothing too special about it.
- Mining - Mining is the prerequisite to Bronze Working, which holds two critical upgrades: the ability to chop down forests, and the unlocking of the Slavery civic.
- Mysticism - Starting with Mysticism puts you in a position to nab one of the first two religions, which brings an immediate +1 to your holdings and has other possibilities later on.
The bottom line on Civ profiles: Overall, Traits are far more weighty a decision than any other part of your selection, so they should be prized much more highly. For your first couple of games, lean heavily toward military traits and take only token considerations otherwise, but don't forget to account for your play style a bit. Boudica, Washington, Ragnar, and Churchhill are all splendid choices. As you gain experience and get a feel for the pacing of Multiplayer, you can branch out.
Multiplayer Civics
The more violent and fast-moving multiplayer clearly emphasizes some civics, while making others less important. This section will discuss them as they relate to Multiplayer.
The first 100 turns
The early game is absolutely critical in multiplayer. Making major mistakes such as not expanding fast enough, expanding too much, not having a sufficient military, founding your cities in the wrong area during this period will haunt you for the rest of the game. This section will cover aspects of the first 100 turns, and recommend some specific strategies as examples at the end.
Critical early game technologies
All technologies are not created equal. As one might expect, choosing to work on the wrong ones early on will hamstring you for a long time to come. This section will enumerate the most critical technologies through the Medieval era and give some specific ideas for getting there at the end.
Classical War management
The first major wars typically start in the Classical era, with the advent of Machinery (and Catapults). Being prepared for and managing yourself in this first major war will oftentimes determine whether or not you're even around to see the end of the game.
. Anyhow, yes the starts can be pretty imbalanced although mirror and balanced resources can alleviate that somewhat.
. I thought I'd lose the game but who knows? The only person who seemed competent (mali) left the game, saying it was practically over or something, prompting a bunch of crappy people to leave the game too, including my choker. The only guy left in the game was some builder inca player, who simply refused to press f9 ever or something and was easily dealt with by just pretending he was a prince AI or something.
. Best to play with friends.
on maintenance afterward.
)
