Need some starting tips...

[django86]

First of all,hello to everyone,i have been lurking this forum for ages and now i have finally decided to post.

I have been playing Civ since the "Call to Power" games and i consider myself almost a veteran(by the number of games i've played)but im not a skilled player....i mean i have always understood the mechanics of each civ,and i can easily beat my friends in MP games,but i never got too much into micro managing(due to laziness) which i suppose is the base to beat the highest difficulties.

What i am looking for here,is some starting tips on this new CIV.I play on huge maps with 10-12 civs.

1)What should i focus on during the first turns?i usually go for a couple of scouts,then a worker,then a settler,then a military unit.

Tried 3 games so far(but never got so far in the game,approx 50 turns at normal speed)and i never tried to build a monument.

2)Am i wrong or barbs cant actually attack a city?i got some barbs just staying beside my city letting me shoot them till dead.I didnt have any unit in the city so i thought i was screwed

3)As for techs,should i go for writing right away so i can build libraries and raise my research rate?

4)From what i have seen so far,ranged units own the game.Im thinking that maybe i should build a melee unit once every 3 ranged units.Good or bad?

5)Playing on a huge map i got lot of space to expand,should i go spam settlers and expand as quickly as i can?In CIV IV it was the key to early success...

Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

[django86]

bump bump

 

[Nebu]

donno exactly. im still abit confused about this game.
its a good new experience of civilization, but it needs so many addons, mods and updates, just my 2 cents, before it becomes really CIV5. feels more like a basic package now.

for the start: i think, depends what ur target is, and which civ u chose.
e.g. if u take the french u can neglect abit to build Monuments at the beginning, or u can use the culture ability for a culture victory, if u build M. fast and stonehenge and u chose the right civics for culture.
if u have e.g. the agypts with a 20% bonus for wonders, and u have access to marble, and u go for Tradition, u can start to spam wonders ... and will see what u can go for later, as target.

it seems, its now more important to play ur civs abilities, like before in civ4.
all over, if i have fish from the beginning on, i go for sailing first.
if i have cottle or flur, i go for animal husbandry and traps ...

e.g. makes no profit to u later if u spam trading posts everywhere if u play indians, than would be better to go for farm and food, and a more isolated style, with wonders and civics.
for me, there are no right ways to start in general, just ways to do it wrong

 

[automator]

I'm doing trial and error myself. Why are you stopping at about 50 turns, however? At 50 turns, not much has happened besides scouting out, fighting a couple barbarians, maybe founding a city. Not much you can learn from something that short.

My first game, I realized I'd screwed my economy. So I started again. I thought I was doing great (war is fun!), but then I'd also screwed my economy because I wasn't actually looking at roads to see what was connected to what -- trade routes require real thought! Next game, I was doing great, but hadn't concentrated enough on defense, so Napoleon decided to cherry pick from my little empire. So now I've started on a new game, building on the lessons I've learned so far.

What to build?
Pretty much build what will help you now and in the future. I've been starting off with a worker, then a military unit to deal with the inevitable pesky barbarian. Then it's all about checking for benefit - if you have surplus Happy, go found a city. If you're rolling in dough, but lacking happy, build a circus or a collusium or what not. Build an army.

Barbarians.
Yeah, they'll attack a city, but just as you know you can't take a city with a power rating of 10 with a single warrior or archer, the barbarians know that too. So that one or two units will just wander around, annoying you and destroying your improvements until you kill them off.

Techs.
Just like choosing what to build, it's all about what is going to benefit you. A library is great, but what happens if you have a large city with a library and I roll all over you with my army because you neglected to research any military techs?

Range versus Melee.
Range are great at what they're built for: Attacking at range. But they are not so hot on taking cities or finishing off units. You may have a nice mob of archers, but that archer is going to be crushed by a swordsman (since on defense against a melee, the archer has a combat strength of 2).

Cities.
My favorite change is that cities and expanding no longer has a tendency to crush your empire with maintenance costs. Happiness seems to be the big cap on expansion. If you slide into unhappiness, your population growth slows waaaaay down. Expand as much as you can, but make sure to balance it in a way where you can keep people happy, protected, and financially secure.

 

[afa2000]

If you dont mind my english, here are my tips:

1)What should i focus on during the first turns?i usually go for a couple of scouts,then a worker,then a settler,then a military unit.

At huge maps, I'll would do scout, scout, monument, worker, military unit. Your first social policy MUST be honor, or barbarians will be a problem. Scouts are very important, because they ignore terrain, letting you find ruins, natural wonders, city states and removing fog of war, which lets you spot every barbarian camp using honor policy. worker is obvious, but DONT make roads, besides the ones used to connect your cities. It costs 1 gold each one. I'm not sure, but I think resources dont need roads anymore. You'll need military units asap to get rid of barbarians.

Tried 3 games so far(but never got so far in the game,approx 50 turns at normal speed)and i never tried to build a monument.

Monuments are good for expanding borders quick, granting access to resources, besides unlocking some nice policies, such as the one "33 % building wonders" (forgot the names, sorry) - if you like wonders, of course -, the one about building settlers 50 % faster, etc.

2)Am i wrong or barbs cant actually attack a city?i got some barbs just staying beside my city letting me shoot them till dead.I didnt have any unit in the city so i thought i was screwed

They can and they'll do that once they pillage everything. But they can't take it, all they'll do is to take your gold.

3)As for techs,should i go for writing right away so i can build libraries and raise my research rate?

My first techs are worker techs. Because worked tiles boost your production, grant happinness (if available) and let your city grows, which boosts your science. You'll earn more money too, if worked tiles have gold.

4)From what i have seen so far,ranged units own the game.Im thinking that maybe i should build a melee unit once every 3 ranged units.Good or bad?

Ranged are not good at close combat. Melee also are mandatory at attacking cities. The best military units for early peacefull games are war chariots, IMO. Fast movement, ranged combat and strong enough to wipe barbarians.

5)Playing on a huge map i got lot of space to expand,should i go spam settlers and expand as quickly as i can?In CIV IV it was the key to early success...

That's not anymore. Extra cities produces a lot of extra unhappiness, the hardest issue to handle IMO. I think 4 to 6 cities is a good number, letting you especialize each one.

 

[shinkicker]

I think it's fair to say that early build order hasn't changed that much from Civ IV to Civ V - your early goals should always be early improvements (workers), protection (warriors, etc) and maybe Stonehenge or Pyramids.

But I would urge you to be careful spamming settlers. The biggest change in Civ V is the unhappiness penalty you get for number of cities AND size of population. As it says in the strategy guide "Happiness is a soft cap on expansion".

In my last couple of games, I've stopped at 4 or 5 cities, worked on Wonders and +happiness buildings, then added another city when I had the room and at least +5 happiness or more.

You can win the game with a small civ (< 10 cities) provided you've focused your efforts on max production, happiness, Great People and the right Wonders. Winning a massive military effort where you conquer the world is going to be far, far tougher than it's ever been in the past due to the unhappiness that comes with conquered cities. Puppets have their own drawbacks - mainly that you can't control what they build and they're liable to use key strategic resources for nonsense crap. They've changed the Civ game from one of conquest to one of balanced economic/political/military challenges.

Huge maps also have some of the same problems in V that they did in IV - eg, once you've discovered most of the map and you have a number of busy civs working, the game is going to lag like crazy. I try to stick to medium or large maps as much as possible for no other reason, and I'm running 4GB of RAM and a 1GB video card.

 

[srvs]

Why workers so late? Scout scout mon worker is like uh, 30-40 turns?

 

[Abremms]

here's whats been working well for me: i build a scout, then a worker, then start on a settler. while doing this, i research pottery, then writing. when writing is done, i switch from the settler to the Great Library (use the queue so you dont lose any hammers you spent on the settler). i can get the great library done prolly 80% of the time. if someone beats me to it, i get a decent amount of gold to buy whatever i might need next. If i get it, then i use the free tech on philosophy and start building the oracle for the free SP.

from there, just tech for local resources and whatever will play to your civ's strengths.

 

[Teejvan]

These are my starting tactics for either Prince or King level.

The starting location for your city is important; most of the time you can found your city immedietaly. However, have a quick look around. If you find a river, and it has Plains, Hills along it, you are golden! Along with some starting luxuries of course.

Once your city is built set your research for Potter, Calendar, and then Writing. Build a Scout, a Worker for tile improvement, and by now, start work on Stonehenge. The culture boost of +8 helps you in expanding your territory without paying gold, and with getting Social Policies quicker. Once thats done, I start on the Great Library.

As for your units, I always keep my Warriors on the same tile as my Workers in Alert mode so that I can deal with Barbarians. The Scout should be out looking for City States, espcially Maritime ones, because they can give you an amazing food surplus bonus in your Capital city when you buy their influence.

These are only some starting tips, after this my game can change depending on conditions, so experiment. Also, don't build buildings for the sake of it, try and avoid it unless they are necessary, or provide a bonus without maintence, like the Egyption Buriel Tombs.

ALSO: More often than not, my Scout on uncovering ruins often gets upgraded to either Archers or Spearmen. Then I harass a local Barbarian encampment for experience!

 

[shinkicker]

Good post, afa2000. If I may add:

but DONT make roads, besides the ones used to connect your cities. It costs 1 gold each one. I'm not sure, but I think resources dont need roads anymore. You'll need military units asap to get rid of barbarians.

Roads are 1g per hex, I think, so long roads are expensive. (Railroads are 2g per hex). Connecting cities to your capital is a must, as it gives you that critical trade route (+happiness), but if you can use harbors they're cheaper in the long run. (One reason I love archipelago maps).

That's not anymore. Extra cities produces a lot of extra unhappiness, the hardest issue to handle IMO. I think 4 to 6 cities is a good number, letting you especialize each one.

Agreed on that. One thing the human Civ player can do that the AI player doesn't, is to target techs a long way down the tech tree. If you focus your research like that, you can get some of the really key Wonders later like Forbidden Palace (1/2 unhappiness from number of cities) or Eiffel Tower (+8 happiness) that can keep you going in the late game when you're awash in unhappiness from population and conquered cities.

 

[afa2000]

Why workers so late? Scout scout mon worker is like uh, 30-40 turns?

Actually, it depends on the starting location and type of resources. If they are available at initial borders and dont need 2 techs (like mining-masonry or animal husbandry-trapping), you may exchange mon to worker where I listed. Sometimes, resources need 3 techs, as luxury at jungle (mining, to remove jungle, pottery-calendar). You may unlock soon the "25 % faster when working tiles" policy with the culture earned by monument. Besides that, I usually lose my workers to barbarians if I build them too early, so I'd rather wait my scouts remove fog of war and honor policy spot the camps to make sure I wont lose them.

 

[Jass]

Apolyton have got a good start strategy to show off the benefits of city states. Just start as the Egyptians and roughly follow the guide. It will open your eyes on what's new in Civ V (you could play this game a hundred times and still not use the city states properly).

Try it!

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/193019-CITY-STATES-who-s-your-buddy?

edit: to add a bit of my own, I don't think honor is important, I recommend building a scout fast to benefit from the villages (especially when your scout gets an upgrade is really useful), and use the city states together with the right SP (wait long enough before you build your second city so the SP are cheaper).

 

[django86]

Hey guys,thank you very much for all the detailed replies,i'll sure make good use of them.

Sadly i havent had much time to play the game properly,just a 3-4 quick games to understand the mechanics and to find the best map for me.

I realized on the last games that,unlike Civ IV, the "earth" map in this game is an actual representation of our planet,which is not what i'm looking for.

@shinkicker

Can i ask you on which settings are you running your game?i have a mix of medium and low(dont really care for graphic perfection),and im scared that even with that i could lag big time on Huge maps.

In Civ IV(on max settings) i experienced very little lag on huge maps,even with all the map discovered.

 

[afa2000]

Good post, afa2000. If I may add:


Roads are 1g per hex, I think, so long roads are expensive. (Railroads are 2g per hex). Connecting cities to your capital is a must, as it gives you that critical trade route (+happiness), but if you can use harbors they're cheaper in the long run. (One reason I love archipelago maps).

Yes, that's why I said you need roads only to connect cities. About harbors, that's a good tip.

edit: to add a bit of my own, I don't think honor is important, I recommend building a scout fast to benefit from the villages (especially when your scout gets an upgrade is really useful), and use the city states together with the right SP (wait long enough before you build your second city so the SP are cheaper).

Well, you'll find it very important if you play at OP settings, such as huge maps. Even more if you play with Askia, my favourite leader so far.

I realized on the last games that,unlike Civ IV, the "earth" map in this game is an actual representation of our planet,which is not what i'm looking for.

You may try Terra.

 

[django86]

I did try the Terra map,thats what i was referring to as the "earth" map.Thats the italian(my language)word for "earth",wasnt sure if the word stays the same in the english version.

 

[afa2000]

I did try the Terra map,thats what i was referring to as the "earth" map.Thats the italian(my language)word for "earth",wasnt sure if the word stays the same in the english version.

Actually, there are both Terra and Earth maps.

 

[django86]

Guess i will have to check it better then

Im 100% sure i tried the Terra map and it was like the Earth scenario from Civ IV.

Must be something with the translation,or possibly me being a re tard

 

[afa2000]

Guess i will have to check it better then

Im 100% sure i tried the Terra map and it was like the Earth scenario from Civ IV.

Must be something with the translation,or possibly me being a re tard

hehe, I speak portuguese, a latin language too, so I had the same problem