New to 5, old to civ

[Kurlumbenus]

I've been playing Civ since I. Just picked up 5 Gold through the steam sale, which includes G&K, and I'm trying to get some footing as I haven't played any civ games in quite some time.

My incredibly vague question is simply what's the best way to go about learning how to master the game? I'm fond of playing with random settings, just to stay sharp and maintain a sense of adaptability without growing too dependent on any conditions. Random civs, random maps, etc.

I plan on eventually asking for help with specifics, but I'm going to play for a bit first, get used to it. So the questions I've got now are going to be pretty general. Still, any help is appreciated.

My general plan is to play random setting games on each difficulty level until I'm reasonably sure I can win under whatever circumstances present themselves without picking up bad habits I'll have to unlearn later. I also remember from past civs that higher level difficulty strategies actually make lower-level play more difficult.

1. What's a good difficulty to start at, given the goal is eventually Immortal+? I don't want to start too easy or too difficult, as the goal is to learn to beat the higher difficulties.

2. Assuming I'm not going to go ICS, what are the target empire sizes for different strategies?

3. As I understand it, theorycrafting has them at Tall vs Wide and Wall vs Maul. Do these strategies stay equally valid (given a compatible civ) at higher difficulties? Are there general strategies outside the Tall/Wide and Wall/Maul continuum?

4. Are all victory types achievable at the higher difficulty levels?

5. Given my methodology (random civ, random map) what circumstances should I be using to determine which strategy and which victory type?

6. I see two repeating pieces of advice: 4 city trad and "build a scout first". The 4 city strategy's build order is Settler, Settler, Worker? How are these compatible, or am I reading the thread wrong?

Thanks.

 

[Falconiano]

I started on Immortal, and I believe it's the best start.
It will get you more trained for Deity as there is a chance of losing while pre-Immortal diffs are guaranteed wins pretty much.
In GK culture victories are pretty hard, it's all about launching in space there.
Civs will launch at 250 usually (I've seen Darius launch in 216 once, though that was Deity) so you must either launch earlier, win by diplomacy earlier, or just conquer the city with spaceship parts.

Tall vs wide is obsolete thinking imho: just play within the rules the current map.
Go tall, and when you have the smiles to get one more city, there is no reason not to settle/conquer it.
Most of my games I end up with 6 to 12 cities, while also keeping capital and another city (usually the one with best tiles) to the level of other civs' capitals.
The opener I had most success rate with in GK was scout-monu(if not full trad)-shrine-archer3-settlers, or GL+NC bulb philo and buy archers if you can double-chop the GL and there is no Egypt around.

 

[slowcar]

1) If you are a civ veteran new to part 5 i would suggest that you start your first game at King level. The one-unit-per-tile is a pretty big change, so wars will be something really new, but on the other hand the AI is struggling with that a lot more than you, most likely.

2) Expansion is limited by happiness, which is (mostly) global for your whole empire. A new city adds some unhappiness by its sole existence, and each population does the same. That means you have to get resources or other ways to get more happiness when you want to grow and/or expand.
Population = Science, basically, and your capital gets only half unhappiness in Tradition, so it should grow as big as possible.

3) You either like going to war or you don't. If you stay peaceful you may be forced into war anyhow, so better learn about it first. If you settle close to another civ they will go after you.
Usually defending is a bit easier due to cities shooting as well, and if you learn about citadels that will be even more true.

4) time victory gets quite hard, i guess. but otherwise, absolutely.

5) You can usually go for whatever you want. Read a specific guide for special victory types if you want to improve there.

6) the "4 city tradition" is a very good way to start. Not always the best, but you will have to learn a bit about situations where something else would be better.
You have read the build order wrong though, check it out again.

Settlers are best bought as they stop your city from growing while built, and you don't get a bonus when going Tradition, so the usual opener would be to improve one of your lux resources as fast as possible and sell them to another civ. This money is then invested by buying a settler.
(You usually get 240g for 30 turns on normal, unless the AI does not like you)

 

[Kurlumbenus]

What are the alternative starts to the 4trad?

For example: What's a good start when you find yourself isolated, say on an island map?

 

[slowcar]

What are the alternative starts to the 4trad?

For example: What's a good start when you find yourself isolated, say on an island map?

Then there is even less reason to expand fast with liberty, so you still go tradition.
The 4 is not set in stone, it's just the number of cities receiving the free stuff (culture building, aqueduct). If you don't have place for four cities going with three is fine, or even one only.

On an island you don't need to scout that badly and probably need a lot less early defense, so the build order would change. Still, meeting city states and other civs stays important, so go explore with an early ship.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Tradition is trendy, Liberty is more flexible. I completely disagree that being isolated = Tradition. In fact, IMO it's the opposite. Anytime you got room to spam cities, go with Liberty and don't stop building settlers until its all covered. Don't bother with National College until there is nowhere else to settle. There are many ways to beat the game, and for some reason all the forum fanboys are all up in Tradition's grill when... frankly.. they get smoked in MP trying to build Great Library and crap like that.