What should I do now?

[Old Coot]

This is my first Civ game ever. I've read the manual, done the tutorial, and scoured this forum for tips. In this game I've gotten to the point where I'm kind of overwhelmed by possibilities, and could use some advice.

Here's the story so far:

Romans - Archelipego - Noble

I start off with what seems to be a pretty good position. It's a small island with room for only one city, but it has corn, and fish and three gem mines will become available after the first couple expansions. Since the Romans start with fishing and mining enabled, this seems like an excellent start.

4000 - Set existing warrior to auto explore - started building warrior
3960 BC - Researching Mysticism
3800 BC - First city expansion adds fish and gems
3720 BC - Researching Polythesism
3520 BC - Warrior finished set to fortify city
Started building work boat

3240 BC - Hinduism established - researching sailing
3040 BC - Work boat finished - training worker
2840 BC - 2nd city expansion adds two gems
2760 BC - Sailing finished - researching agriculture
2720 BC - Worker finished set to auto build - building galley
2480 BC - Agriculture finished - started wheel
2280 BC - Galley finished

So here I am. Except for one small bit of land to the east, the map is fogged in. My inclination is to set the galley to auto explore, and build a lighthouse, but after that I'm not sure what I should do.

any suggestions?


BTW - I assume that, sooner or later, I'm going to have to build another galley to transport a settler and worker to the New World. How do I load them onto the ship?

 

[vmxa]

Why start off a new game with such a tough start? Go ahead and save this game for later and play a new one.

Galleys are not allow to go into ocean tiles, so you may be stuck a long time, not much fun.

You should have a load button if the ship and the unit are in the city.

 

[Old Coot]

I should add, that if the city expands twice more, two more fisheries become available.

 

[Gerikes]

Why start off a new game with such a tough start? Go ahead and save this game for later and play a new one.

I'm gonna' have to agree. You're probably gonna' be stuck there for awhile until you can research Optics, which gives you the ability to train a Galleon that can move over deeper waters and carry units. You should probably try a couple games on a continent or Pangaea map first. If you're really trying to get a game where you start on an island alone, make a custom-continent with "One-per-team" for the number of continents.

Once you go through a game or so like this, you'll have a better understanding of exactly what luxuries of a larger land setting you're missing in such a restricted start, and then have a better idea of what you need to make up, in order to be successful.

If you really want to try this game out, take a look at what you need to get Optics under the research screen. Going straight for it may not be a wise choice, since you'll be leaving behind a bunch of other pretty important techs, so you may be looking at a pretty long game before you can even successfully get off the island. However, it should be considered a long-term goal.

 

[Steelsmith]

My advice, if you're new to Civ, would be to start on an easier difficulty level and use the default world settings. Standard size, continents, etc. I was an avid Civ III fan, playing at Monarch level, but I still started my first Civ IV game on the easiest difficulty setting, just so I could become familiar with all of the concepts. Once you have a few "easy" games under your belt, then try some of the other, more challenging settings.

 

[Old Coot]

Thanks guys!

I did send out my galley to explore, and it found a fairly large landmass to the east. I've managed to establish a second city there, and will see what happens.