Help! Confused Newbie!

[Barney Fife]

Hi, **long post**

I got tired of waiting for Civ III Complete to get to the store so I plunked down more for Civ III Gold and Conquests instead last Thursday.
Been playing this game ALL weekend on the easiest settings and doing okay with the Zulus against the Indians, Iroquis, and Chinese - but have LOTS of questions.
I have read the manual and used the in-game references but there is a lot to be addressed I cannot find.
Please help!
Feel free to answer or discuss ANY of the questions.
Please refer to them by NUMBER.
Thanks in advance!

#1:
I haven't been able to get the "colonies to" function to work but a couple times. What gives?

#2:
When queing new units and buildings to build, I have been picking "wealth (1 turn)" because that seems like something I would want. However, I don't even know what it is, or does. Do I want "wealth" when it's available?

#3:
How do I use the barracks? Do I need one in inner cities?

#4:
How do I upgrade units? I did it a couple times by chance but generally I'm told it can't be done. It looks to me that I have the needed technology and resources, so what do I do?

#5:
Do I need to build not only a road to, but a mine ON luxuries to get their attributes?

#6:
Do I need more than 1 palace? And what does it DO?

#7:
What does the "build trade, automate" button do?

#8:
After I irrigate lands, do I need to build roads through them to get food to the cities?

#9:
I have a few cities that are STARVING but they seem to have enough agriculture. What is wrong?

AND NOW: The stuff that REALLY bothers me:

#10:
I have been letting the governers run the cities because I don't know what to do. I just tell him "sometimes" on all the options but wonders and the people stay pretty happy. When I DID try to run one, ALL HELL broke loose. Not to complain, but I couldn't find the info on running the cities. I saw how to adjust the budget for research and entertainment but that was all until I stumbled into making people tax collectors, entertainers, and scientists.
HELP!!

#11:
How, THE HECK, do I create ARMIES?
Right now, all I know how to do is to "stack units".
This is okay, but battles take forever, watching one unit at a time die off...
HELP!!

#12:
When I have done all that "looks" like I need to do with my workers - I have been "automating" them.
But then they appear to just walk from place to place and don't look productive.
Do I automate, have them join a city, kill them, or WHAT?

#13:
After the game advances awhile, it takes FOREVER to cycle through the screens to an active unit for me to move. The screen will go to every worker or unit that is automated in some fashion. Is there a way to turn that off and just cycle to units that are active? Or in other words, do I HAVE to watch all the animations each turn?

#14:
The city building seems repetitious to me and not much fun.
I have been queing something like:
worker, wealth, settler, worker, soldier, soldier, granary, barracks, library, market, etc. in all my new cities. And then I appoint a Governor.
Do I need to switch it up or is there a formula?

I will read this forum to find some of the answers now, as I am ignorant.

Your input is very much appreciated.

 

[Moonsinger]

I could answer all your questions, but I can do 1 at a time for now (since I'm very busy at the moment).

#1. You need to build road up to your resource (right next to it or right on top of it) before you can build a colony. Btw, your colony must also be outside your territory border and the road to it must also be connected to your palace. If your colony is on a different island, its road must be connected to a city that has a harbor (hint: during peace time, you could use someone else harbor, but that's another long story).

 

[Barney Fife]

Thanks for the reply!

I almost forgot:

#15:
TRADING and DIPLOMACY.
The other Civ's want an arm and a leg for any kind of trade or agreement.
For instance: I offer 2 technologies and 100 gold for one tecnology or a luxury and they are insulted. ?
So I don't normally trade with them.
I can't get them to align with me either.
Am I doing something wrong?

 

[wilbill]

2 - Generally speaking, don't choose "wealth" in your build queue. During most of the game, your cities should have more important things to build -- units, improvements, wonders, whatever.

3/4 - Use barracks to build veteran units (more hitpoints) and to upgrade units. One reason your upgrading has been hit-or-miss may be that you're trying to upgrade in cities without barracks. You also have to have the required tech for the more advanced unit, enough gold on hand for the upgrade, and any required resources.

 

[JackRules]

I'll take a stab at #11 - Armies. First, the only way to get your first army is to win a battle using one of your Elite units. Units become elite after winning other battles. Most good players hold back with Elite units until they can get a pretty sure win against an injured (redlined) enemy unit. You don't get a "Great Leader" every time you attack with an elite unit; in fact you may have to get several elite wins before a "Great Leader" appears. And you can only have one Great Leader at a time, so send him to a city, build your army, load it with three of your veteran units (save the elites for more leader fishing). And send it out. Once an army wins a battle, you can build the Heroic Epic small wonder in a city and then that city can build armies without a great leader. Great Leaders are fairly rare and even warmongers may only get a few during a game. I've had several games where I never got one.

 

[Drakan]

#6: You get a free Palace at the start in the first city you found which will become your capitol. The palace diminishes the corruption in that city and "irradiates" outwards less corruption. The first ring of cities created around your palace will be less corrupted, the second ring of cities placed surrounding that first inner circle will be more corrupt and so on. So your core cities right next to the palace are very productive and the further the cities the more corrupt and less productive. This is for C3C v.1.22 (otherwise Alexman would kill me). You can move your capitol to another city if you wish later on ( AKA Palace Jumping) or you can use the build the palace in other cities as a prebuild for a Great Wonder, Small Wonder, units, or city improvement.( If you wanna read more on prebuilds I suggest:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=92070 )

You can also create a Secret Palace which ought to work as a second palace, but in reality it only works fine in the city you build it. The sooner you build it the better (you can rush it with a MGL (Military Great Leader)) because it's a small wonder.

So basically your most productive cities (in number of shields) will be the one with the palace and secret palace. Then all those placed along the first inner core circle around the Palace.

#12: UH-UH-UH. DO NOT AUTOMATE WORKERS. this is the most underrated unit in the whole game and it's very important. I know it's a pain in the neck not to automate them, but that's how it goes. They can hook up six times six horse resources, and leave out that only iron you have there unhooked for hundreds of years if you are not careful.

# 8: No. ROFL!!! The roads will make the tiles more productive (once you get out of Despotism). the roads are to connect all you cities together to the capitol and have access to all resources, plus your units can move faster through your fledgling empire. Build roads ASAP.

 

[DragonRunner]

#9- Each Citzen in your city requires two food per turn- the little bread thingies. Any extra is stored in the box that runs down the middle of the city screen. If you have a huge pop, you need a lot of food. irrigating helps, as do bonuses.(Wheat, Cattle, etc)
#13 I think there's an option to turn off automated moves in the preferences screen, but then you might loose track of your troops. pressing shift speeds up movement, and that's what I usually do.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

#1:
I haven't been able to get the "colonies to" function to work but a couple times. What gives?

To access either a strategic (iron, horses, etc.) or luxury (gems, incense, etc.) resource, two things must be true. First, there must be a road or trade route connecting it to any city that you want to have access to the resource. Second, the resource must be in your territory. If the resource is not within your territory, you can build a road to it anyway and have a worker build a colony on that resource.

#2:
When queing new units and buildings to build, I have been picking "wealth (1 turn)" because that seems like something I would want. However, I don't even know what it is, or does. Do I want "wealth" when it's available?

Wealth basically means "instead of building a unit or a building, I want to produce gold. This is generally a very bad idea except late in the game, because 99 times out of a 100, you want a new building or a unit more than you want the gold. Late in the game, when your core cities are completely developed, it may pay to have them build wealth.

#3:
How do I use the barracks? Do I need one in inner cities?

The barracks do a few things. First, any city with a barracks produces veteran units instead of regular units. Veteran units have 4 hit points instead of the standard 3. Second, any unit that spends a full turn in a barracks automatically heals completely. Otherwise, you only heal 1 hit point per turn. Third, a unit can only upgrade if it is in a barracks (more on upgrades later).

In terms of whether you need one in inner cities, that's a play style question. On the one hand, you have to pay for the barracks -- both in terms of the shield cost of building it, and in terms of upkeep. On the other hand, if you're going for an aggressive victory (Conquest or Domination), you'll probably be pumping military units out of your core cities and shipping them off to the front -- in which case, the barracks would be worthwhile.

#4:
How do I upgrade units? I did it a couple times by chance but generally I'm told it can't be done. It looks to me that I have the needed technology and resources, so what do I do?

To upgrade, you need three things: First, the right resources. These are the same resources required to build the new unit. For example, pikemen require iron, so you need iron to upgrade a spearman to a pikeman. Second, enough gold. The cost of the upgrade varies depending on what you're upgrading to and what you're upgrading from. Third, the unit must be in a barracks. If you have all three of those things, press "U" to upgrade the unit, or "Shift-U" to upgrade all upgradeable units of that type.

#5:
Do I need to build not only a road to, but a mine ON luxuries to get their attributes?

Nope -- all you need is a road to the luxury and for the luxury to be in your territory (or to have your colony on it).

#6:
Do I need more than 1 palace? And what does it DO?

You can only have one Palace. As others have explained, the Palace reduces corruption. Ideally, you want it in a central portion of your empire.

#7:
What does the "build trade, automate" button do?

I've never used it, but I think it has the workers automatically build roads conencting the cities and connecting the resources to your cities.

#8:
After I irrigate lands, do I need to build roads through them to get food to the cities?

Nope. Roads do three things -- increase travel speed (most units go 3 times as fast over roads), increase income (any square your citizens are working that has a road on it produces extra income), and connect cities to each other and to resources. Railroads do a fourth thing -- they add one more unit of food to all irrigated sqaures and one more shield to all mined squares.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

#9:
I have a few cities that are STARVING but they seem to have enough agriculture. What is wrong?

Every sqaure your citizen works produces a certain number of units of food. Mountains produce zero. Grasslands produce 2. Then there are a variety of bonus factors -- irrigating a square makes it produce one extra food. Building a harbor makes all water tiles produce one extra food. Having certain bonus resources (cows, wheat, etc.) makes that square produce extra food. Being in a despotism government makes every sqaure producing more than two food produce one less food than it should. Being an Agricultural civilization increases your food production. (I think that's it, but somebody else will probably chime in with a list of 35 other bonuses or penalties to food production!)

Anyway, when you're on the city screen, you get to assign which sqaures your citizens are working. You automatically work the center city square, and then for every population point, you get to work one more of the 20 squares aroudn your city (the 8 immediately around your city, and then 3 more to the northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest, forming a sort of "X" around your city). Every citizen in the city requires 2 food, so be sure to be working squares that give you 2 food per citizen. Extra food after that gets stored, and when you've stored enough food (how much depends on how big your city is), you get a new citizen for that city. When you get a new citizen, all your stored food goes away (unless you have a granary, in which case only half your stored food goes away).

#10:
I have been letting the governers run the cities because I don't know what to do. I just tell him "sometimes" on all the options but wonders and the people stay pretty happy. When I DID try to run one, ALL HELL broke loose. Not to complain, but I couldn't find the info on running the cities. I saw how to adjust the budget for research and entertainment but that was all until I stumbled into making people tax collectors, entertainers, and scientists.
HELP!!

If I had to guess, things are going crazy for you because your citizens are unhappy. Before I explain how to fix it, keep in mind that Governors and cities are different from the budget. You're going to have to master both if you want to successfully manage your cities.

First, in terms of cities, see my description of making your citizens work tiles. If you take a citizen off working a tile (just click on a tile that's being worked), the citizen will become a specialist. At the start of the game, your only specialist is the Entertainer, who helps with your citizen's happiness (more on that in the next paragraph). As the game progresses, you get taxmen (who give you gold), scientists (who give you beakers), police (who reduce corruption), and engineers (who give you shields). Early in the game, it's probably not a good idea to use specialists except in rare instances.

As for the budget, if you press F1, you'll see two sliders. The top one sets your science rate, and the bottom one sets your luxury rate. What does that mean? Well, you know those little stacks of coins that are on the squares your citizens are working? That's income. Income can be spent on three things -- buying beakers, buying happiness, or being turned into gold. Setting your science rate on the F1 screen tells the computer how much of your income to spend on beakers. For example, if I set the science slider to 60%, 60% of my income will be spent on beakers. Every technology has a cost in beakers -- there's no easy way to tell what the cost of a particular tech is, but as you adjust the science slider, the F1 screen will tell you how many more turns it will take to discover the tech you're currently researching.

The next slider is the luxury slider. The higher you set it, the more of your income will go to making your people happy. People get unhappy when your cities are too crowded -- how crowded is too crowded depends on the difficulty level. There are a number of ways to make them happy. One is to get luxuries, either by building a road to them or by trading for them. Another is to build certain improvements. Temples, Cathedrals, and Colosseums all help keep your people happy. Marketplaces enhace the power of luxuries. A third method is to use Specialists. Entertainers make people in the city happy, and other Specialists don't count toward the population for purposes of calculating whether your city is too crowded. The fourth is to use the luxury slider. Typically, you'll have to use a combination of all four to get the most out of your cities. Early on, you'll probably be relying on the lux slider, since you haven't had a chance to hook up luxuries or build many improvements. As the game progresses, you can trade for luxuries, build improvements, etc., and may be able to tone the lux slider down. By the end of the game, maybe your cities have gotten too big for your temples and luxuries alone to do the trick, and you need to turn the lux slider back up. Again, a lot depends on what style you are playing (Are you conquering or peaceful? Do you have lots of trades going on, or does everyone have embargoes against you?)

There is no gold slider. Gold is just whatever's left over after you spend your income on science and luxury. If your science slider is set to 50% and your luxury slider is set to 20%, the remaining 30% of your income gets turned into gold and goes into your treasury.

#11:
How, THE HECK, do I create ARMIES?
Right now, all I know how to do is to "stack units".
This is okay, but battles take forever, watching one unit at a time die off...
HELP!!

To create an army, you need a military leader. Every time an elite unit wins a battle, there is a chance he will generate a military leader. Once you have a military leader, take him to a city and click on "Build an Army." He then becomes an army. You can then load 3 units into the army. The army will have increased speed and hit points.

How do you get elite units? Every time a regular unit wins a battle, there is a chance it will be promoted to veteran (remember, you can also build veteran units from scratch in cities with barracks). Every time a veteran unit wins a battle, there is a chance it will become elite (there's no way to build elite units from scratch). The chance of an elite unit generating a military leader depends on a few things -- Militaristic civilizations have an increased chance (I think it's normally 1 in 12 and jumps to 1 in 10 if you're militaristic). Once you've had a victorious army, you can build the Heroic Epic small wonder, which increases your chances (I think from 1 in 12 to 1 in 10, or from 1 in 10 to 1 in 8 if you're Militaristic).

#12:
When I have done all that "looks" like I need to do with my workers - I have been "automating" them.
But then they appear to just walk from place to place and don't look productive.
Do I automate, have them join a city, kill them, or WHAT?

Early in the game, you should never automate your workers. The A.I. is kind of dumb about how to use workers, and will send them wandering to stupid places.

By the mid-to-late game, it may be OK to automate your workers. I typically automate in the mid-Industrial Age. By that point, I've got a rudimentary rail network hooked up (so I can travel around my empire quickly), and have built railroads completely around my core cities (don't forget -- railroads enhance the power of mines and irrigation). By that point, it's usually just a matter of filling in the rest of the rail network, and it's easier to let the A.I. deal with the tedium of doing that. But again, in the early- and mid-game, take the time to micromanage your workers.

#13:
After the game advances awhile, it takes FOREVER to cycle through the screens to an active unit for me to move. The screen will go to every worker or unit that is automated in some fashion. Is there a way to turn that off and just cycle to units that are active? Or in other words, do I HAVE to watch all the animations each turn?

If you go into the option screen, you can turn off animations. You can also hold down the shift key to turn off animations, or just press Caps-lock.

#14:
The city building seems repetitious to me and not much fun.
I have been queing something like:
worker, wealth, settler, worker, soldier, soldier, granary, barracks, library, market, etc. in all my new cities. And then I appoint a Governor.
Do I need to switch it up or is there a formula?

There's no real formula. Different cities should be producing different things. A city that grows very quickly may be pumping out settlers. In this city, you might build a granary, but hold off on the barracks, library, and market for the time being. Another city may be helping build your army, in which case, you'll want to build a barracks and maybe a temple, but not a library or a granary. A third city may be safely in the interior of your empire, and may therefore not need a barracks.

#15:
TRADING and DIPLOMACY.
The other Civ's want an arm and a leg for any kind of trade or agreement.
For instance: I offer 2 technologies and 100 gold for one tecnology or a luxury and they are insulted. ?
So I don't normally trade with them.
I can't get them to align with me either.
Am I doing something wrong?

This is one of the trickiest parts of the game. Trading has a couple of components -- reputation and attitude. Reputation is whether the other nations can trust you. If you break a treaty, for example, the other nations won't trust you. Attitude is how they feel about you right now. Giving them gifts, for example, improves their attitude, while declaring war on them worsens their attitude. There are some tricky formulas, and it's all done behind the scenes, but you can get a clue about your attitude if you look at what it says on the trading screen (i.e. "Furious," "Annoyed," "Cautious," "Polite," or "Courteous."). I'm sure someone else will post the link that has the formulas for calculating rep and attitude.

From there, it's just a matter of finding the right price. Generally, technologies are more expensive if fewer nations have them, so that might be part of the problem. Also, some techs are worth more than other techs. The A.I. places a very high value on techs that allow new government types, for example, so you probably won't be able to get Communism in exchange for Industrialization in most cases. Again, someone else will probably post the link that has the formulas for calculating tech values. The better the A.I.'s attitude toward you, the better deal you'll be able to get. Also, if your reputation is good, you'll be able to offer ongoing trades (such as gold per turn, luxuries, or Rights of Passage). If you have a bad reputation, the A.I. won't accept a gold per turn (for example) deal from you.

 

[Yuri2356]

Once an army wins a battle, you can build the Heroic Epic small wonder in a city and then that city can build armies without a great leader. Great Leaders are fairly rare and even warmongers may only get a few during a game. I've had several games where I never got one.

Actually, you're thinking of the Military academy. The heroic epic increses the chance of Great leaders appearing from elite wins (I think it's normaly 1/16, and Heroic changes it to 1/12) Once you have the Military academy,(requires military tradition) that city can produce armies. The only other army wonder(small) is the Pentagon, which increases army capacity from 3 to 4. I belive the Pentagon requires you to have at least 5 active armies.

 

[Drakan]

Your numbers are correct Yuri 2356, except that to build the Pentagon you need to be marshalling in a field THREE armies, not five. Once you have them three you are able to build it.

As Yuri points out, I don't consider myself strictly a warmonger but I've never played a game in which I haven't had plenty of Leaders popping up. You need to have plenty of Elite wins per turn to "breed" them, I'd say 6 or 9 so you are popping regularly Leaders. Also you can only have one army per every four cities. And if you already have a Leader an MGL won't pop up unless you use the one you already have stored.

Sometimes I'm very unlucky and I can have 50 consecutive elite wins and no Leader pops up. Other times I pop up a Leader after two elite wins, cursed RNG. Read Barney Fife Sir Pleb's article on Armies in the Military Academy at CFC, it's now old but great, and ther's also a new one by Theoden which is more up to date in the Strategies section at CFC.

 

[ukrneal]

Barney - welcome to the forum!

You should also take a look at the FAQ. Many of the answers are there, plus a lot of other useful info that explain the mechanics of how the game works. There are many articles on strategy as well or just go the strategy forums.

 

[SJ Frank]

#15:
TRADING and DIPLOMACY.
The other Civ's want an arm and a leg for any kind of trade or agreement.
For instance: I offer 2 technologies and 100 gold for one tecnology or a luxury and they are insulted. ?
So I don't normally trade with them.
I can't get them to align with me either.
Am I doing something wrong?

There are some basic rules for tech trading (and researching too):

1) A tech becomes cheaper (to buy or to research) as more civ that you have contact with learns the tech.
2) A tech that is known by only one known civ (a monopoly tech) costs twice as much to buy. Even if the tech is known by someone else in the world, as long as you do not have contact with that "someone else", the tech still counts as a monopoly tech to you.
3) AI tend to prioritize researching military and government techs, and government techs cost more to buy.

Those are the facts, translating them into strategy:
1) Explore, send those worriors and boats all over the world.
2) Don't buy at monopoly price, but do try to sell at monopoly price. Take advantage of AI's lack of contacts.
3) Pay special attention to techs such as Iron Working, Republic, Feudalism, etc. AI's tend to prioritize them, so you could try to research another tech and trade with the AI's for these techs. On the other hand, it is usually cheaper to self research these techs.

#12:
When I have done all that "looks" like I need to do with my workers - I have been "automating" them.
But then they appear to just walk from place to place and don't look productive.
Do I automate, have them join a city, kill them, or WHAT?

No, don't kill them , but try not to automate them either.

There is a very good article in the War Academe by cracker that will show you how to manage workers. However, if you want the short version...

1) Irrigate all food bonus tiles, those are: cattle, wheat, grassland wine, game (after you chop the forrest) and floodplains.
2) Irrigate brown and mine green. If you have a choice, mine the bonus grassland (white-dotted green) first, then irrigate the plain (brown), and lastly mine the regular grassland.
3) Road every tile before you leave it.
4) Hold off mining hills and mountains until after leaving Despotism.
5) Improve the less corrupt cities first (i.e., you capital first, then the first ring of cities around your capital, then 2nd ring, and so on).
6) Connect every city at the first opportunity.

and a somewhat minor point:
7) don't over improve your city. If the city is at size 6, then it doesn't need 7 improved tiles.

Welcome to the forum

 

[Volstag]

#1:
I haven't been able to get the "colonies to" function to work but a couple times. What gives?

Not sure about this one. I've never used the command myself.

#2:
When queing new units and buildings to build, I have been picking "wealth (1 turn)" because that seems like something I would want. However, I don't even know what it is, or does. Do I want "wealth" when it's available?

In the early game, wealth is rarely a good option. In the latter stages of the game, it can definitely be handy (i.e. when you need gobs of cash). Also note that even though it says "1 turn", a city set to wealth will forever remain on wealth until changed (it least it seems that way for me).

#3:
How do I use the barracks? Do I need one in inner cities?

A city with barracks can produce veteran (4 HP) units. You can also upgrade units in a city with barracks.

#4:
How do I upgrade units? I did it a couple times by chance but generally I'm told it can't be done. It looks to me that I have the needed technology and resources, so what do I do?

See above.

#5:
Do I need to build not only a road to, but a mine ON luxuries to get their attributes?

No, you don't have to "mine" luxuries, per se. Just getting a road to them should suffice. If, however, the luxury is beyond your cultural boundaries, you'll have to build a colony on top of them.

#6:
Do I need more than 1 palace? And what does it DO?

Multiple palaces would be nice in some of my games . Basically, a palace represents the seat of your government. Cities that are closer to the palace are, generally speaking, more productive/efficient than far flung cities on the outskirts of your empire. The palace minimizes/negates corruption.

#7:
What does the "build trade, automate" button do?

Hmmm... actually, I have no idea.

#8:
After I irrigate lands, do I need to build roads through them to get food to the cities?

No. Roads, however, increase the commerce (gold) that a worked tile produces. Roads are obviously essential for allowing expedient travel to/from cities, etc. Ultimately, you're going to want to road every tile that's being worked.

#9:
I have a few cities that are STARVING but they seem to have enough agriculture. What is wrong?

They simply aren't producing enough food to maintain their size (and/or grow bigger). The best thing to do is to dedicate some surrounding tiles to food production (i.e. irrigation) and/or shift workers to tiles that are producing "excess" food. I may have my numbers wrong, but each citizen in your city requires TWO food. The only way you can grow is if you're producing more food than what you need.

#10:
I have been letting the governers run the cities because I don't know what to do. I just tell him "sometimes" on all the options but wonders and the people stay pretty happy. When I DID try to run one, ALL HELL broke loose. Not to complain, but I couldn't find the info on running the cities. I saw how to adjust the budget for research and entertainment but that was all until I stumbled into making people tax collectors, entertainers, and scientists.
HELP!!

This will mostly come from experience, but I would recommend that you DO NOT use the govenors. If a city "revolts", you simply need to make them happy. You can either: (1) increase luxury/entertainment spending on the F1 screen (2) provide access to additional luxuries (you need a road between the luxury and the city in question) (3) If your government supports it, station units there (they act as "military police" and keep people happy). Or, in certain situations, you can turn one of your citizens into an entertainer.

#11:
How, THE HECK, do I create ARMIES?
Right now, all I know how to do is to "stack units".
This is okay, but battles take forever, watching one unit at a time die off...
HELP!!

First you need a military leader (ML). Each time an elite (5 HP) unit of yours defeats an enemy, there is a chance that he'll turn into a ML. MLs have the ability to "create armies". Note that militaristic civs have a better chance of seeing MLs. Also note that MLs, and armies, aren't needed for successful military campaigns. In most of my games, I never even have armies.

#12:
When I have done all that "looks" like I need to do with my workers - I have been "automating" them.
But then they appear to just walk from place to place and don't look productive.
Do I automate, have them join a city, kill them, or WHAT?

As sucky as it sounds, I would encourage you to NOT automate your workers -- especially in the early/mid game. In the late game, you can get away with it. The ideal situation is one in which your cities are always working improved and roaded tiles. You need workers to get improvements (mines, irrigation) and roads. Generally speaking, the more workers the better.

#13:
After the game advances awhile, it takes FOREVER to cycle through the screens to an active unit for me to move. The screen will go to every worker or unit that is automated in some fashion. Is there a way to turn that off and just cycle to units that are active? Or in other words, do I HAVE to watch all the animations each turn?

No. Hit Ctrl-P. This is the preferences screen. There's a wide variety of settings for turning off animations, displaying moves, etc.

#14:
The city building seems repetitious to me and not much fun.
I have been queing something like:
worker, wealth, settler, worker, soldier, soldier, granary, barracks, library, market, etc. in all my new cities. And then I appoint a Governor.
Do I need to switch it up or is there a formula?

At the cheiftain and warlord level, you can really get away with building everything in every city. As you rise in difficulty, you'll come to realize that certain buildings, for certain strategies, for certain games, etc, are essentially a total waste of money and time. I should point out that I'm guilty of "overbuilding" myself, but I'm slowly getting better at it.

-V