What should I do early game?

[FinalDoomsday]

really like the look and feel of this game but I still dont have a clue what to do when I start other than scout.

I'll probably have to wait for full release where there will hopefully be a full tutorial but just thought there might be some friendly rulers around here to offer some advice.

How important is civilisation choice? I've been picking whoever but are there any good newbie civs that get good growth or allow more room for error?

Should I be building lots of settlers early on? Should I just try and settle every city site I can get to before I start development?

How important are improvements early game and should I be building more workers? I've just been using the ones given when the city is founded.

Thanks

 

[Stringer1313]

I would start by settling and conquering the red barbs as fast as you can. This will get you 2-4 cities depending on difficulty level and map size. After that, I would then start consolidating with military and improvements. Your next decision is whether you want to start conquering tribes , and that will just depend on your relationships with other civs and whether they declare war on you. Civs are much more powerful than you are in the beginning so I would not try to conquer them early. If you get an early war declared, I would focus solely on defense, and NOT on conquering their civs, not until mid-game.

I tend to first build enough military units to conquer barbs, then switch to workers, to having 1-3 workers per city.

The other limitation is # of orders - I try to build enough military + workers so that I'm efficiently using all my orders every turn without anyone left over. If I'm constantly running out of orders, I stop building units. If I'm constantly having orders left over, i build more units.

Another thing is that at least in my experience, you can sustain a lot more military units on fewer cities than you think you can, if you are a long time 4x player. I find myself consistently underestimating how many military units I can build. With 4-5 mines, you can sustain like 15-20 warriors I think. What I like about this game is that you never choose between military units and improvements (except for walls), you're choosing between military units and civilian units mostly. So your workers can build improvements while your cities build military, which is really great.

 

[Dale]

Definitely do NOT come into this thinking the same as Civ. A couple of warriors and slingers taking on a major nation will just be get you anhialiated. Focus on a good mix of units: melee as the grunts, ranged as support, and mounted as your flanking units. You are really rewarded by using terrain and unit mix in either offense or defense.

If you're looking for a nation to play which is hard to fail at, and hard to master, try Babylonia. Their focus is on knowledge, but their UU is good. I've been playing a lot of Egypt recently, so I'll discuss based off that. You want your first city to have good growth, as your early settler pump. For Egypt that means landowners family. I like my second city to bring in the clerics family, since religion is a powerful discontent/opinion controller. With some work, a major religion allows you more flexibility with good and bad event results on your families. Clerics family seat should basically build only disciples. Get that religion out, build those religous buildings (as you increase your theologies) and go for cathedrals. Third family I bring in is sages. The family seat (3rd city) will simply do a couple of workers, then inquiry pretty much to the end of the game. Inquiry gives a science boost every few turns. On the sages family seat, have your workers build quarries and fill them with quarry specialists. Tons of civics, means faster inquirys. Apart from the capital settler pump, cleric family seat disciple pump and sage family seat inquiry pump, nearly all my other cities are on a unit, unit, other build rotation.

Take your open city sites first, then red barbs, then take out a tribe. Once you get to around 6 cities you should start being okay to take on a major nation who is already at war with someone. After taking some pickings off that first nation, and around 10 cities, then you start being big enough to take on a major by yourself. I like to think of the game like this:
Turns 1-20: explore and settle empty city sites.
20-30: take on the red barb sites.
30-50: take on a tribe.
50-100: take on anyone already at war with someone else.
100+: you're the boss!

Though to be fair, I've been playing this game for years. It may take you a few goes to get to this target.

 

[Redfuryau]

Definitely do NOT come into this thinking the same as Civ. A couple of warriors and slingers taking on a major nation will just be get you anhialiated. Focus on a good mix of units: melee as the grunts, ranged as support, and mounted as your flanking units. You are really rewarded by using terrain and unit mix in either offense or defense.

If you're looking for a nation to play which is hard to fail at, and hard to master, try Babylonia. Their focus is on knowledge, but their UU is good. I've been playing a lot of Egypt recently, so I'll discuss based off that. You want your first city to have good growth, as your early settler pump. For Egypt that means landowners family. I like my second city to bring in the clerics family, since religion is a powerful discontent/opinion controller. With some work, a major religion allows you more flexibility with good and bad event results on your families. Clerics family seat should basically build only disciples. Get that religion out, build those religous buildings (as you increase your theologies) and go for cathedrals. Third family I bring in is sages. The family seat (3rd city) will simply do a couple of workers, then inquiry pretty much to the end of the game. Inquiry gives a science boost every few turns. On the sages family seat, have your workers build quarries and fill them with quarry specialists. Tons of civics, means faster inquirys. Apart from the capital settler pump, cleric family seat disciple pump and sage family seat inquiry pump, nearly all my other cities are on a unit, unit, other build rotation.

Take your open city sites first, then red barbs, then take out a tribe. Once you get to around 6 cities you should start being okay to take on a major nation who is already at war with someone. After taking some pickings off that first nation, and around 10 cities, then you start being big enough to take on a major by yourself. I like to think of the game like this:
Turns 1-20: explore and settle empty city sites.
20-30: take on the red barb sites.
30-50: take on a tribe.
50-100: take on anyone already at war with someone else.
100+: you're the boss!

Though to be fair, I've been playing this game for years. It may take you a few goes to get to this target.

Great write-up and very helpful Dale.

Just wondering - do you use any city specialization or see much capacity for it in your game?

With my games so far (as Egypt) I have been using the Riders for military cities, the Sages for Civics/Science, the Landowners for food/iron/stone and all of them for money. It's been working out reasonably well.

 

[Dale]

Great write-up and very helpful Dale.

Just wondering - do you use any city specialization or see much capacity for it in your game?

With my games so far (as Egypt) I have been using the Riders for military cities, the Sages for Civics/Science, the Landowners for food/iron/stone and all of them for money. It's been working out reasonably well.

Specialisation really depends on the family class. If it's a military class, get those barracks and ranges up and fill them with specialists to boost those cities training, and faster units. Obviously you want a couple of cities really pumping food resources for growth (settlers, scouts, milita). If you use sages, anything that increases civics or science (library line) in those cities is going to pay big dividends. All cities benefit from more civics of course, so the stone cutter becomes the most important specialist in the game. Add specialists to all your resources first. They pay back much more than a specialist in a normal tile. Plus some resources give luxuries to keep families happy.

 

[nolegskitten]

Hello, I announced a dedicated "learn the game" weekly streaming session here, the first one will be focusing on early game, feel free to join and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have ;-). That will probably be the first written guide I make too, but there's a lot to cover and that will take some time.