My Newbie-ish questions

[onomastikon]

Hello everyone and thank you for your patience and help!

1. My main question will be in two parts, part the first is more general (a), and the question most burning in my mind is part the second (b), the repercussions thereof: Mysticism.
1a. I am still fairly new to Civ4 and quite new to BTS, having only played 3 games of it so far, and my latest 2 hence only on Prince. My last game was a breeze, because my starting position was just so choice. This game is much different; I have a bunch of rice, and a cow, and some incense and iron, but there's basically nothing else worth noting on the continent where I started. In other words, the thing that gets me is what in my mind I call the compound interest factor: mistakes or bad luck early on get compounded over the centuries, while a good start can make for worlds of difference later on. This is not something you can always see within the first few turns of the game, since I often only see the complete borders of my continent millenia later. Hence doing things right in the first turns ("early game") seems important for things in general. I think I still make a lot of newbie mistakes. Hence this more general question has as its main component the desire to obtain some newbie "early game" tips which DO NOT involve strong number crunching or plot optimization etc., but rather more like "focus on these types of research instead of those" etc. One of the more specific types of questions would be: Is it a mistake to try to settle close to strat-resources as possible before rivals do instead of concentrating on cities close to your capital and in choice plot areas? Is it a mistake to try to get religion fast instead of other techs? Why do most other civs always out-research me, at least till late mid-game?

1b Mysticism and nation choice. Mysticism seems to be my only hope of founding a religion, since if I dont start researching Meditation right away, not only Budhism but also Hinduism is gone, and then I dont have a chance. And I seem to feel that getting a religion is very important for early expansion (happiness is nice and that culture is important for getting that fat square soon to get the resources I need, etc.). I suppose my first sub-question could be: Am I correct in thinking that getting a religion early is important, and that Mysticism is important. If so, doesnt that narrow down my starting choices a bit? I feel almost naked with someone else, what do the others think? I'd like to try more stuff out, but these games take so darn long!

2. Does anyone have any general tips for learning to recognize when a rival is about to declare war? I ask because my relations with my rivals in some games were steady at cautious to annoyed the entire game, and we never entered a state of war, while in my current game I had decent, albeit cautious, relations with England for some time when suddenly he declared war on me. How could I have known?


3. I'm not a peacemonger per se, but I am a "builder". (Which is to say, I like a fight every now and then, but I dont like to play Civ, even BTS, like a wargame, because I think it isnt its strong point by any means.) My problem is that in the late game, there's nothing left to build -- it's all been built already. Does anyone who is a "builder" like me have some suggestions to overcome this shortcoming?

thank you muchly

 

[mystyfly]

1a: Yes, you're right, the early game is very important. This is a reason there are so many articles on the war academy about it. A lot is about optimization there, for example how to get the most production to get the first settler out in the first 40 turns. The location of the capital is very important. If you have gold/gems in your BFC (the 20 tiles your city can work), you'll be able to tech fast in the early game or support an early rush (meaning with chariots, axes or even swords) or REXing (rapid (early) expansion). Or lots of forests (which you can chop) can get you some nice wonders. Or flood plains are nice to cottage up your capital to reap the benefits from Buerocracy (+50% commerce in cap), or lots of food makes a good GP-Farm, or....

The first build usually depends on your civ and the starting location. If you have the worker techs to improve your surroundings, start with a worker. If not, research the worker techs you need and go warrior first and grow your capital to size two before you start a worker. You should emphasise on hammers and food and neglect commerce a bit (gold mines don't count ).

About settling:
It depends where you should settle, on what you like to do. If you want to go for an early rush, you shold place your second city next to a strategic ressource to get access to it asap and get the war going. If you plan on expanding peacefully and enlarge your empire later, you should draw a 'dotmap', meaning you mark the spots where you can place your cities so they're 'strong', meaning either able to produce lots of hammers, food, commerce or getting some nice ressources. If you want to REX, try to settle as few cities as possible (for maintenance reasons) as close to the AIs as possible and as you dare. Unless you expand slowly and peacefully, you'll often find yourself in an economic hole after the first land grab. But don't panic - if you survive until the ADs and have CoL (for courthouses to reduce maintenance) and currency (to build wealth for emergencies and the extra traderouts) and have a decent-sized empire, you're fine
How many cities you settle and where depends a lot on your strategy and the kind of economy you plan to run but you should always aim to get at least 6 cities so you can build important national wonders (forbidden palace, wall street, oxford uni, globe theatre).

1b: Mysticism is only needed after you founded your second city. A new city should mostly start with a monument (which you'll whip once it reaches size 2). An early religion is not important but much rather stifles your growth. It is much safer to adopt your neighbors religion for diplomacy bonus. Culture should be obtained via monument, or, if in caste system, you can also run an artist specialists until your borders pop.
Happiness is another thing. If you adopt your neighbors religion, you'll get that happiness anyway. Other ways are fur/ivory, gold/gems/silver and hereditary rule. HR is a very important tech which allows your cities to grow and become more and more productive.

2. ctrl + click on an AI to open the diplo screen. If you can 'bribe' him to war vs some other civ (the option isn't redded out), he isn't planning a war. If it is redded out, hover over the red writing. If it says "We have enought on our hands", he is planning a war, but not nessecarily vs you. You shold check this every few turns. Also note that the AI can be bribed into war vs you, for example if you DOW (declare war) on some AI, it might 'ask for help' and suddently you're at war with everyone (the so-called 'dogpile'). So pick your victims carefully.
To avoid being attacked, you should always remain a decent power-graph, meaning you should always have enought units so the AI doesn't get stupid ideas. I'm afraid cautious isn't enought to protect you from being DOWd...

3. I'm not really a builder. But it seems you don't specialise your cities. You should have produciton cities that build wonders of the world and military units. Those cities don't really need markets or banks as they don't produce much commerce anyway, usually. If you (think you) have enought units, let them build wealth or research. Your commerce cities often lack hammers so they're usually constantly busy building multiplier buildings like markets. If you still lack buildings, build wealth and research as well.

hth

 

[onomastikon]

Thank you mystyfly

a couple of follow-up questions if I may?

to 1a: Is it a good idea to chop down all those forests asap? I sort of thought it would be clever to save a few, so that later you can make some lumber mills and so that you have some more health? Is that silly of me?

to 1b: First of all, I want to emphasize that I mean the very early game. Then, I find it fairly hard to "get religion" from my neighbors at all. I almost never get any religion from my neighbors before open borders, and even then infrequently, and open borders is no longer early early-game (but more like mid-to-late early game). Caste system I have never run, since I hardly have the food to support so many specialists and the tech needed for caste is late early game. Hereditary: yes, always, its my choice until I get the democracy-type techs, but it's also not real early. So basically are you saying: Dont worry about religion as a culture-spreader or happiness factor at all? (Since once I get it from my neighbors, it's basically the Medieval ages.)

to 3: Yes, I dont specialize enough. I just dont see really how or why. I am almost always desperate for money until the Renaissance, and hence every little bit counts. So I try to make almost all cities generate as much as they can. In order to do so, they shouldnt be small (and lots of small cities cost more anyhow), hence I need food. Food is also good for slavery. And since I cant built squat without hammers, I need some production too, although production seems the least important element (since I can rush with slavery and later with money). In the late game, I always have many more hammers than I can use. I almost never see a reason to skip making a multiplier building (grocer, market, library, bank, forge, etc.), is it really not worth it? What could I be making in the meantime that's more useful than a long-term payoff?

Thanks so much!

 

[Blackluck]

I play large, huge marathon games. I rarely war, doing so mostly against civs that poach a city site I want (or if they continually bombard me with spies.) If I get a low commerce start (lots of jungle say) then I'll let the AI settle around me and take the cities later if necessary. Tech lead will often translate into superior troops, meaning you don't need as many units as the AI will have. If you get lucky with ivory war elephants will pretty much keep you secure either defensively or for short offensive wars through the middle ages. With or without ivory, the statue of zeus is almost a 'must' if you faced with aggressive neighbors.

On the religion front, I tend to get Code of Laws virtually every game (oracle) for the court houses as much as the religion. Whether you go heavy religion or not can be influenced by your civ choice - - for instance with Ramses you can really leverage his traits well (spi, ind) with all the religious wonders. However for other builder type civs -- for instance Louis of France -- you don't necessarily need to found a religion. For industrial Civs metal casting becomes a nice tech to take from your oracle build. Your first two religions though will probably only be possible with a civ that starts mysticism (and some early commerce.)

You can get happiness from running early representation if you get the pyramids, or even just from monarchy, or from adopting a religion that spreads to you. Worst case is using slavery to keep your pop in control. But adopting someone else's religion is useful If you're on a crowded map with an aggressive civ (e.g. Ragnar) as maintaining pleased/friendly relations with your other neighbors is highly useful -- because with the likes of Ranger it's not if he'll declare but when, and you'll want to enlist their aid against his rushes (Ragnar usually doesn't fool around when it comes time to war against you.)

In terms of city placement, organized and financial civs do much better with sending out your first few settlers in blocking patterns toward the AI (if you don't, the AI will build towards you. Virtually every AI will do this, even the more passive ones.) Usually though the very high culture from being a builder keeps intense border pressure on your rivals -- their border cities turn out to be virtually useless for them (some civs will get very angry with the border wars, but that's why you have one city at least cranking out units.)

I don't generally run out of things to build since my tech rate is often pretty high. However I do tend to get Currency early so worst case is I'll have a city that has managed to build everything run wealth for a while. (On marathon though this is usually pretty rare in the early/mid game. Marketplaces alone are like mini-wonders they take so god awful long to build .) Late game, sure, lots of cities will end up running wealth, but by then your victory conditions have clarified and those cities don't really need to do much else (with huge maps you'll find yourself quite often with sprawling empires and lots and lots of cities.)

I don't rush my neighbors -- usually there isn't any need. The exceptions do occur, though. If I like the map and there is a civ capitol within 6 or so squares, or if a very aggressive Civ is within shouting distance I'll try to either cripple them or take them out if possible.

 

[helemaalnicks]

1. You'll almost always get a religion from somewhere. Some civs are more likely to find one than others, at some point you will see this. Guys like Isabella (any), Ghandi (hindu) will try to get one asap. Handy to know this. If you're on a landmass with multiple civs, and you don't convert, you'll often even get more than one, so you can choose your friends! You don't need one early in the game. The most important things you want to get out of a religion are diplomacy, and the late game happiness boost. If you want to make sure you don't found your own religion, just get some worker techs asap, and choose a character with the "cultural" thread, like willem (good UB, and good traits), or someone else you like.

banks, markets, etc. are only usefull if you make gold. They don't multiply the commerce

, but they multiply the gold

. The difference is, the commerce is what you find on the tiles (it's the "income" of your civ). That is split into research (on which the library/university, etc multipliers apply), and gold (to maintain your civ), to which the wallstreet/bank, etc multipliers apply. There are also sources that produce raw gold (priests, shrines, corporation headquarters), to those, the multipliers also apply. Building a bank is often unnecassary in a city. Look at your city screen for more iinfo on that, and calculate what a market or bank does to your total gold output before building one, so you'll know whether it's worth it. You can often build more useful stuff, like units (defensive or attacking), research multipliers, etc.

There are two basic approaches to building a economy. Food or cottages. With cottages in every city, (except one, that has a good food surplus, where you use specialists in order to get some great pple), you get smaller cities, but theyll make lots of commerce. Another approach is building lots of farms for a lot of food surplus, and run specialists in every city (except maybe in the capital, where you can build cottages to maximize the bureacracy effect (+50% commerce).

It's certainly not wrong to build lots of farms, since it's just another approach to the game. Just make sure you get lots of specialists to get your research going. What is also quite important for running specialists (in my opinion), is getting them some early wonder support. Pyramids are great for early representation (+3

per specialist, and great library is also good for +2 free scientists. (Great library is also good for the "specialist city" if you use the cottage approach, often refered to as "gp farm" on this forum.

For these two "specializations" are two traits, that emphasize the strength of these approaches. With lots of specialists/farms, philosophical is very good, for getting more great persons, and for cottages, financial is good, for +1

per cottage.

Try and specialize your economy, and try to handle diplomatic/military affairs well. The latter includes being wise when it comes to choosing a religion (you found or that spreads to you), and make sure your power rating is ok at all times, and maybe invade some dude sometimes, because it's fun, and it gives you a great boost in production, and later in research.

 

[SJN]

Thank you mystyfly
to 1a: Is it a good idea to chop down all those forests asap? I sort of thought it would be clever to save a few, so that later you can make some lumber mills and so that you have some more health? Is that silly of me?

I like to save a forest or two until the late game for lumber mills (and a railroad). How I usually choose to do this, is I don't cut down a forest in a square I don't want to work. I don't like putting cottages on the "plains" squares (1 hammer, 1 bread), and if I can't irrigate them, then I'll leave a forest there.

That said, the benefit of a forest later in the game means nothing for a critical build. If a wonder is super critical to your strategy, you may decide to chop the forest anyway.

to 1b: First of all, I want to emphasize that I mean the very early game. Then, I find it fairly hard to "get religion" from my neighbors at all. I almost never get any religion from my neighbors before open borders, and even then infrequently, and open borders is no longer early early-game (but more like mid-to-late early game). Caste system I have never run, since I hardly have the food to support so many specialists and the tech needed for caste is late early game. Hereditary: yes, always, its my choice until I get the democracy-type techs, but it's also not real early. So basically are you saying: Dont worry about religion as a culture-spreader or happiness factor at all? (Since once I get it from my neighbors, it's basically the Medieval ages.)

I disagree about a religion hampering you, as mystyfly, said. For a long time I would only play with players that had Mysticism so that I could get Stonehenge and a religion. However, as I've tried other strategies, I've found I can live without it.

On the other hand, I have been picking "industrious" players, of late, and I still try to build stonehenge. For an industrious leader, it's not very tough and it will generate great prophets that you can use to tech bulb (research using great prophet) a religion like Theocracy.

I've also found, as a side note, that at the levels I'm playing (Prince) I can usually get to "Code of Laws" first if I choose. I like CoL for the courthouses, but as a side bonus, I get a religion plus a starting missionary.

There are a lot of ways to keep a civ happy in the early game without a religion. You can even control population size by having them produce settlers and workers (during which the population will not grow) and through whipping out builds.

But the key about whipping is *you have to know what to build*.

to 3: Yes, I dont specialize enough. I just dont see really how or why. I am almost always desperate for money until the Renaissance, and hence every little bit counts. So I try to make almost all cities generate as much as they can. In order to do so, they shouldnt be small (and lots of small cities cost more anyhow), hence I need food. Food is also good for slavery. And since I cant built squat without hammers, I need some production too, although production seems the least important element (since I can rush with slavery and later with money). In the late game, I always have many more hammers than I can use. I almost never see a reason to skip making a multiplier building (grocer, market, library, bank, forge, etc.), is it really not worth it? What could I be making in the meantime that's more useful than a long-term payoff?

This was a hard one for me when I first started, but it is the difference between winning and loosing, trust me.

If you read the articles on this site, you'll see discussion of CE and SE. CE is a cottage economy, and SE is a specialist economy. In CE, the goal is to build cottages all over the place. In SE, you build farms, farms, farms (and then some more farms) and you use specialists (scientist, merchant, etc) to generate your science and gold. I haven't really figured out SE yet, so I'll focus on CE.

In the first couple of cities you build, you need to make sure you have a good site for a commerce city, and a good site for a production city. Specialization starts at the beginning.

If you find a "flood plains" location, that's obviously going to be your commerce city. Flood plains look like desert squares that border a river. They generate 3 food and 1 gold. The minute you put a cottage there, they generate 3 food and 2 gold, and that gold bonus just grows, and grows over time as the cottages grows into a hamlet, village, town, blah, blah blah. For much of the cities life, however, it won't produce a lot.

Even without flood plains, grassland squares will probably be ok for this commerce city. So build cottages.

Production cities should go where there are lots of hammers. This is usually hills. To help get the food you need, try and find hills near just one square of a big food resource like wheat, corn, rice, or so forth. If you find something that produces 5 bread, you can support three hills squares that provide one bread each and still have population growth (you need an average of 2 squares of bread per tile for population growth).

So why specialize? Why not have a city with a hill or two, a city with a cottage or two, and so on?

The answer is the multiplier to build ratio. If you have three cities with equal science rates, you have to build a library in all three of them. But if you combine the science all into one city, than building a single library has increased your science rate by 25% immediately. If, at the same time, you were building a forge in a city that has the lion's share of your production, you've just increased your industrial capacity by almost 25%.

Another reason why it's so important to have a commerce city (specifically, a science city) is because of the Great Scientist building. This gives a 50% bonus to a city's research. Especially in the early game, this can be an incredible boost to research if you have a specialized city.

And don't forget the "Oxford University" and "Wall Street" wonders. These should be built in cities you have carefully groomed since the beginning. Make sure you can still build a national wonder in each of these two cities.

The production equivalent, by the way, is Ironworks. You're going to need to make sure that you have enough food to support such a polluting monster.

 

[helemaalnicks]

If you find a "flood plains" location, that's obviously going to be your commerce city. Flood plains look like desert squares that border a river.

isn't that obvious to me. Flood plains is often just that little push in growth a city with 1 or 2 food resources needs to become a specialist powerhouse. I once had a starting location with lots of floodplains, and my capital ended up having a population of 39 (!!!) for 19 specialists (!!!), with representation, there is no nr. of cottages that can compete with that. It had a research output of over 500 beakers, and over 400 hammers.

 

[SJN]

Yes, I think I said I wasn't very good with specialists. I *love* cottages. For a CE, I just think flood plains make the most sense for cottages.

And if you're "financial", it's even more "duh"

 

[helemaalnicks]

Yes, I think I said I wasn't very good with specialists. I *love* cottages. For a CE, I just think flood plains make the most sense for cottages.

And if you're "financial", it's even more "duh"

that's funny, since I don't know how to build a proper CE. I always end up building too many cottages (now isn't that strange? ). I also feel like I'm not maximizing my output if I build cottages. I just hate them. Culture slider gets damn expensive, generally less production. No room for tweaking out of research and emphazising production in times of sudden war and need for lots of hammers. In a SE, I often even end up building 0 cottages the entire game .

 

[SJN]

isn't that obvious to me. Flood plains is often just that little push in growth a city with 1 or 2 food resources needs to become a specialist powerhouse. I once had a starting location with lots of floodplains, and my capital ended up having a population of 39 (!!!) for 19 specialists (!!!), with representation, there is no nr. of cottages that can compete with that. It had a research output of over 500 beakers, and over 400 hammers.

Can you post a screenshot?

I'm trying to figure this out. Ignoring any city beaker or hammer production, you would have 900 generated units for 19 specialists. That's 47 units per specialist. I'm not getting this...

Ok, I happen to know how much production can be generated with the maximum amount of engineers, I did it once. In a city with Ironworks, it's something close to 50-60 hammers. I can't see how you would get to 400 without some production in the hills nearby. Look, all I'm saying is, I once had a city with Sid's Sushi, a forge, factory, industrial park, and ironworks and maxed out engineers and I wasn't getting 400 hammers. I had 9 settled great engineers too!

Did you have a wonder that was providing bonuses to the specialists? I mean, is it the Angor Wat that gives priests extra hammers? I know that Caste System doesn't give you unlimited Engineers. Is you had 19 priests, that would be 19 hammers + bonus. Say Angor Wat, factory, forge, ironworks, etc you still can't get 400.

I'm pretty sure that if you had 400 hammers, there was an overflow production from a previous build.

As for the 500 beakers, if you have 19 scientists plus 25% for library, 50% for University, 100% for Oxford Universtiy, and 50% for an academy, that would generate 185.25 beakers. Where are you getting these numbers from?

Please post screen shot.

 

[Supr49er]

... 2. Does anyone have any general tips for learning to recognize when a rival is about to declare war? I ask because my relations with my rivals in some games were steady at cautious to annoyed the entire game, and we never entered a state of war, while in my current game I had decent, albeit cautious, relations with England for some time when suddenly he declared war on me. How could I have known? ...

Watch for an AI civ to change their civics to Vassalage and Theocracy.

Keep an eye on the Info Screen (F9) - click on Demographics on the bottom and keep a close eye on the Soldiers row. If you are not near the top, you will be attacked.

Of course, mouse over the leader names in the lower right corner of the main screen, and keep track of their attitudes toward you.

 

[helemaalnicks]

Can you post a screenshot?

I cant, because I dont have a savegame of the end. I will try to find an earlier one (around 1700-1800 i guess), to which you have to add ironworks then. Wait a sec.

 

[helemaalnicks]

A few notes:

1. I didn't have acces to coal at that time, which made me lose quite a lot with ironworks in there.

2. The forests got farmed over very soon afterwards, for more growth

3. I was dumb enough NOT to build oxford .

4. The research is off, but just add some of the gold to the research and youll get the picture. Not all of the gold is commerce, but a lot of it still is, so my numbers were pretty much correct.

5. On the normal view, the city stops growing larger after it reaches something like 30 pop. I was kinda dissapointed since I hoped the city would swallow all the tiles around it too .

shots in 1943:

outside delhi (to see what buildings I had):

inside delhi

 

[SJN]

Can you take another screenshot where you mouse over the "325" hammers? It will show the base + overflow.

By the way, what level of difficulty?

-- SJN

 

[SJN]

Can you explain where those 400 beakers are coming from? I can't figure it out.

What other wonders do you have in there?

EDIT: Ok, I see 99 beakers from great persons, 9 beakers from specialists, and 57 beakers from civics. that's 165. Without Oxford, where is the rest coming from?

By the way, a lot of this production/beakers is from the settled great persons, not the specialists themselves.

-- SJN

 

[helemaalnicks]

I had all buildings apart from:

Coal plant, Nuke plant, Hydro plant.
I had no national wonders except NE and Ironworks.
I had all world wonders except:
Great Lighthouse, Collossus, Chicken Pizza, Sistine Chapel, Spiral Minaret, SoZ, Notre Dame, Kremlin, UN, Maussoleum of Mausolossus, Hagia Sophia.

As you can see, I skipped some to make sure I didn't get the artists. Guess what I got after building the Taj mahal?

Anyway, screenshot:

Yup I kinda cheated by building a spaceship. But then again, I didn't have coal at that moment, and I had 3 golden ages while/before building the ship, so it's not like production is suddenly a lot higher then it used to be.

Nice city anyway, but not maximized. It wasn't the best starting spot either. It was good, but it could certainly have been better.

 

[helemaalnicks]

By the way, what level of difficulty?

monarch.

By the way, a lot of this production/beakers is from the settled great persons, not the specialists themselves.

but specialists dont come from cottages, so that was also all this city's doing.

I didn't even settled all great persons.
1 engineer for the elevator.
7 random Gp's for 3 consecutive golden ages. (yes, I know I should've build the mausoleum, someone beat me to it.

 

[SJN]

Yes, specialists generate great people. That's obvious. But my point is, you can only settle great people in one city. Your science output total is only 800 or so... by this point in a game, I usually have multiple cottage cities with a science output of 1500 or so at 60%

(ok, ok, so in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a conqueror, not a builder...)

It makes sense to have a single city as a gp farm, but I just can't figure out how to run the entire civ like this...

(Ps... only playing at Prince level and trying to figure out how the heck you build all those wonders without others beating you to it)

-- SJN

 

[helemaalnicks]

No, my science output is 600, and if I run the slider 100% (which i break even on), I make 1400, with only 8 cities.

How do I build those wonders?

Simple, the toughest wonders are the first ones. Stone made it easier to build stonehenge, pyramids, etc. And with the great people that soon popped out one after another, my productioncapacity was so huge in that city, that building a new wonder became easier and easier.

The units were all build by other cities, that were mostly production cities, but of course capable of stopping production and emphasizing science, to get some GP's from techs, and to tech to certain (wonder) goals faster.

The production cities were tasked to defend the "empire" (i only had 6 cities till scientific method, when I needed to grap two more for oil), and my capital did nothing but building wonders all day. Then at some point there are less wonders to build, and thats when you take 20 turns (it won't take much longer) to build the entire infrastructure. With such a great production, and so many settled great people for very strong early research, beating opponents to wonders is a piece of cake.

btw: it's not like this is my standard tactic or anything. I try different approaches and economies to keep it interesting, trying my own pple (dutch empire) at the moment for a CE @ monarch, and it's going better then it used to go, but now that I have to specialize cities Im having a hard time again on how to choose which ones should be production, and which ones should be commerce cities. No trouble getting a GP farm up though . I also never know how many cottages I should build in a commerce city, and how many farms. Should I build the windmills (because I'm financial) or build more farms? For an SE it's a nobrainer, since mines are simply better, but for CE i find this really hard. Im best at playing SE based wargames (cheap culture slider is soooo good, don't underestimate that! ). However, I found this game interesting, and will do it again sometimes.

 

[Willem]

Am I correct in thinking that getting a religion early is important, and that Mysticism is important. If so, doesnt that narrow down my starting choices a bit? I feel almost naked with someone else, what do the others think? I'd like to try more stuff out, but these games take so darn long!

No you're not correct. If you don't start with Mysticism, there's no point in trying for any of the early religions, but to go for Confucianism instead. If I start with Mysticism I'll go for Meditation/Buddhism right away. But if I don't, I'll ignore all of them and concentrate on my Worker techs and Archery. By the time I have those I beeline for Code of Laws and 99.9% of the time I'll end up with Confucianism. In fact, if I can start with Buddhism I'll still go for Code of Laws after my Worker techs and Archery, and end up with two religions. Of course I'm playing on Noble level, so you may have to make some adjustments at higher ones. But even still, Confucianism is more than doable if you want to bypass the early ones. Happiness usually isn't an issue until that point anyway so you're not really losing much by giving up on the very early ones.