What should my first city focus on?

[puenboy]

Is it food? Production, or gold? I find that I quickly go into a deficit and bankrupt my civ by going food heavy, but production makes growth so slow, which in turn slows down production as well. As far as I have played, I don't know how to start gold heavy, and I doubt that gold would be that important early game.

What's the gameplan for early game? I played on prince as Rome and by turn 90 or so bankrupted my country with -11 gold per turn, -11 happiness (a newly puppeted city taken from the Mongols included), and I can't get enough troops to fight the Mongols who I am currently at war with. I still have no idea what tech to go for, and I just build as many improvements as possible wherever possible and went liberty first for the early settler and worker.

 

[Ranos]

I personally leave my first city on default and adjust the citizens as needed if I want more of a certain resource on a certain turn.

Your problem is trying to get too big too fast. Start playing generically until you get a feel for the game. Build a couple of Scouts and a Warrior to explore and defend yourself. The go with a Monument to increase culture. From there it depends on what techs you've researched and what you want to do. Don't wait too long to build that first worker tho.

For tech, it depends on what victory you want to go with.

Science, go for Writing first so you can get the Great Library and Librarys in your second city. Then work on tech that give hapiness and military.

Domination, go for Archery and Bronze Working, the order is up to you and which civ you are. Then follow with happiness techs.

Culture, go for Calendar to get Stonehenge, followed by Philosophy for the Oracle. Follow it with, you should have guessed it by now, happiness and military techs.

Diplomatic, you need to go after techs that will get you gold. That depends on your resources and surrounding terrain.

Find that balance to work towards your chosen victory and maintaining your empire. Hapiness is a big key.

Don't build or capture cities faster than you can maintain happiness. Two cities early game is max until you get a couple of resources improved. Try to build your first couple of cities by new resources.

Also check out the War Academy for some more tips.

 

[Nosehair44]

The very first city should always be well rounded, it's your capital.
From that point forward, are you trying to expand to aggressively?
If you attempt to expand too fast you will almost always bankrupt yourself and be screwed early to mid game. Maybe too many tile improvements for your cities to keep up as well??
Are you paying attention to EXACTLY what you're building in each city and why?

 

[puenboy]

The very first city should always be well rounded, it's your capital.
From that point forward, are you trying to expand to aggressively?
If you attempt to expand too fast you will almost always bankrupt yourself and be screwed early to mid game. Maybe too many tile improvements for your cities to keep up as well??
Are you paying attention to EXACTLY what you're building in each city and why?

I am quite new and usually try to go for domination victory. As for expansion, I just find a good place with plenty of resources, and when I bankrupted myself I had only 2 cities. Is there a time where I should stop building improvements? I don't really know how big an impact culture and happiness plays in this. I build reactively (i.e. if faced with barbarians, go warrior/archer), and I try to rush iron and siege weapons to quickly wipe out other civs in the vicinity.

 

[Nosehair44]

I am quite new and usually try to go for domination victory. As for expansion, I just find a good place with plenty of resources, and when I bankrupted myself I had only 2 cities. Is there a time where I should stop building improvements? I don't really know how big an impact culture and happiness plays in this. I build reactively (i.e. if faced with barbarians, go warrior/archer), and I try to rush iron and siege weapons to quickly wipe out other civs in the vicinity.

Sounds like you're trying to research rush and are missing out the techs your civ needs to survive. (such as tile improvements towards food / gold gain)

If i were you, i would start trying the "1 city challenge" so you can the hang of true city management without all the hassle. Also, go for a cult victory when doing this.
Only having 1 city really gets your mind focused on specific tasks.
If you do well with only 1 city (getting the hang of micro-management) move up to 2 cities for the next game and so on and so forth.

This is an EXCELLENT (but lengthy) way to truly master all aspects of this game.

ALSO, in case no one told you (because no one told me) you only have to capture the enemy civ's capital. ignore the other cities unless they have wonders you want or are pumping out too many troops.

 

[zyx]

I let my capital grow to pop5 and then switch to production, because I like to build a lot of wonders.

A starting position next to a river gives 1 gold per tile.

I build a scout, monument and granary. I favor lubermills and tradingpost to mines on hills. I build all production increasing buildings in the capital - except if I have only 1 resource like iron i don't build a forge.

I don't spam units, as too many units kill financially.

And my second, third and fourth city has to give me at least one other luxury resource to keep happiness high.

 

[BobDole]

It really depends on where you're starting out. No sense in trying to force a city to do something that it's not suited to doing. Take advantage of the terrain and nearby resources.

 

[Mozzington]

OP, are you selling excess luxuries off to the AI? If not then do so. Say you have 2 silver, you only need one of them for your own happiness so sell the extra one to the AI for between 220-300 gold.

Same applies to open borders. Sell them open borders for 50 gold. Repeat above two steps every 30 turns with as many civs as possible. I usually find this finances my empire adequately until I can research currency, banking etc.

 

[Lyoncet]

Say you have 2 silver, you only need one of them for your own happiness so sell the extra one to the AI for between 220-300 gold.

More precisely, for 240 gold, assuming you're on good relations and they're not planning on backstabbing you.

 

[SimonD]

Like the others have said what you city focuses on would depend on what your city is producing or is capable of producing and what you need from the city. The first thing though is to site your city in a good position. I usually choose a hill with a production of at least two as it grows faster without me having to buy building fo it. I like it to be a single hill as any attacking army will not get a terrain bonus (unless it is covered in forest) but the hill will give you a defensive bonus (their loss your gain - so a double +). If it has a river running around the base of the hill that is even better as they will mostly be forced to attack across a river. Then it needs good resources around it in a nice mix between gold, food and production. Also not too far away from another of your cities if possible (especially early on). You might need to control city growth sometimes as runaway growth will give you minus happiness. Sometimes you need to focus on gold sometimes production and sometimes food but mostly I just leave it on default and spend my time micro-managing all the workers, making sure they improve the tiles the way I want them in the order I want them done. Building roads or railroads where they need to be built when I want them built.