Right, about Civilization 5...

[thesilentman]

I just got myself a copy of Civ 5 from the Steam trades thread (thanks once again Candid) and I'm at a loss for how to play. Well, the tutorial isn't exactly helping as all I see are dots, some tooltips and an interesting glossary that my brain is refusing to parse through for some reason. The most I'm doing in there is walking around until a barbarian tribe roasts me.

So, yeah. I need a quick run down of the game as I really like the idea behind it. Please help a fellow Civ 5 player trying to survive and learn the game. :-(

 

[Launcelot111]

I'm not great either, but here's some starter advice at least

-Instead of settling your city right where you start, look around for the best nearby place. Look at each hex for good food and production as well as any special resources. However, don't wait 10 turns to build the place. You need a city soon.

-Always leave a unit fortified in your city. I think archers and spearmen are best at this, but don't quote me. If you can, send an army with your settler when making a new city.

-Look for ruins, which can give gold or free techs if you're lucky.

-Less cities are better than more. Building a new settler decreases your population, which means less people harvesting the spaces around your city and slower growth. Also, more cities increases unhappiness, I think.

-Build a worker or two per city and just set them on automatically building improvements.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It's been a while since I played Civ5, so I'll just give the basics of what I remember:

The first step is to make sure that you build your first city during your first turn, considering you can't do anything until it is built. However, this does not mean starting on the first tile, as you can move (Settler has 2-3 movement points if I remember correctly). It might feel like a handicap, but you can easily recover with your next city, and ever turn you waste is another turn you waste building everything else up in your civilization. Unless you get a horrible starting point, I'd build it on the first turn.

As far as movement of units goes, the number of moves should be tracked in the unit panel, which is the bottom left of this [https://www.2kgamesinternational.com/sites/default/files/game/sea/civilization-v-588/screenshots/civ-v-ss05.jpg] image. In general, most early unites have 2 movement. Going through a basic tile (grassland, desert) consumes one movement point, and going through any unusual terrain (forest, hill) will consume 2, unless it is an explorer, which ignores the penalty. The same goes for every time you cross a river. Building roads around your civilization will also reduce the penalty and increase your movement speed in general. When you eventually get worker and settler units, make sure that you stack a military unit on top of them and never let them get away from him (always stay within a few tiles if you do break them away from the stack). Remember, units of the same type (military or civilian) can't stack on top of each other, but you can put one military and one civilian type on the same tile.

Early on, the emphasis should be on exploring. It is impossible for anyone to really take your city this early in the game considering they can defend themselves. So until you start pumping worker units out, you don't really need to worry too much about defending. Try focusing on at least one explorer, since they can cover the most ground, and a couple warriors, since they can defend themselves and defend your city when the time comes. Look for natural wonders and ruins, as they are highly beneficial. Don't declare war early on, and only deal with barbarians when the odds look good (the game will always let you know about this). Heal units that are damaged during these barbarian battles.

As for types of buildings and units in the game, you basically have the following types of focus:
Military: The most obvious. This includes your scouts, warriors, and archers (early game). Cities also technically are a military unit, considering they can defend themselves. However, you can garrison military units in a city to bolster its defenses, but they aren't allowed to attack/defend themselves. Some buildings allow you to improve your military units before they even go into battle.
Science: Pretty much the cornerstone of your entire civilization. If this isn't kept up, you have no chance of having a modern military, building more culture buildings, etc. Your science is allocated in both research and buildings. If you want to, though I generally advise against it except for under certain circumstances, you can have a city convert all its work to science. For the record, science is signified by a blue erlenmeyer flask.
Work: This is increased through your buildings, tiles within the city, and improvements made to those tiles (the game will always alert you to what it will do). Basically, the greater this is, the better your city will be at building anything, from buildings to wonders to units. Work is signified by the orange dot with a hammer.
Agriculture/Food: Used to grow your city, which is imperative if you want to expand and work more tiles within your city. If science is the cornerstone, this is the material that went to making it. This is signified by the green dots that you have, probably with an apple (can't remember). You can increase it through the types of tiles you control (grassland and animal tiles generally have some), and it can be increased through adding farms and pastures, as well as through specified buildings.
Culture: This is signified by the purple dot with a scroll. The amount of culture a city produces will determine the rate at which its borders expand. It is also used to reach social policies, which permanently increase your ability to do things, with some giving you immediate benefits.
Happiness: Happiness is that face that is either happy, neutral, or angry. You'll see it in the bar at the top of the screen. If memory serves me correctly, every city and citizen causes the happiness to decrease by one, but certain buildings and social policies will increase the happiness. That's the basis, and there are other effects, but I can't remember all of them. Basically, happiness is required to reach a Golden Age, which is a period in which your building ability increases, you get more gold, and it is generally the time to build wonders.
Economy: Needed to maintain your civilization, and it also helps to bypass the long process of waiting multiple turns for your cities to build something, provided you have enough gold. This is crucial to a diplomatic victory, as I'll explain later, and it can also help offset any weaknesses you have in your work output. It can be used for trade as well. From my experience, few civilizations win the game with a weak economy. Like many things, it is improved through tiles and buildings. It is signified by gold.
Civilians: Settlers and workers. Settlers build cities, expanding your empire; and workers improve tiles, helping your current cities.
Transportation: This connects cities to your trade routes, unless they are connected by ports over water (rivers don't count). They also increase movement speed in your empire, but it also helps invaders. Basically, avoid the amateurish mistake of overdoing roads, as they cost money to maintain. Establish trade routes and make sure your military units can quickly move through your civilization if need be. If you do that, you'll be good.

Finally, victories are a tricky thing. The Space Race, Diplomatic, Conquest, and Cultural victories are all self-explanatory pretty much, but always remember that, as indicated above, the different ideas of your civilizations work together, so you shouldn't discard one to build up another too much. For instance, you might forgo some culture to help build up your science for the Space Age victory, but that might make it more difficult for you in the long run. You also may be tempted to bypass building military units in favor of science buildings, but the enemy will attack, especially as you build up your science, so you need some military strength. You'll obviously have a focus, but don't let the focus blind you to what else you need to maintain. However, I'm not telling you what balance there is, as that is part of the fun of the game, and it is flexible depending on who you are facing and what they are doing.

Also, always remember your advisor panel, which is one of them in the top right. They give you a few tips. Some of them are helpful, but remember that they don't understand your ultimate strategy, so they may tell you to do one thing when another is more beneficial to you. Generally, though, they give good advice, especially to new players.

I hope that helps at least a little. I went into Civ5 as a veteran of the series, so I tend to forget how hard it really is to get into the series, even for a game that gets rid of a lot of the excess fluff like Civ5 does. If I were you, I would start off on a Duel map size on the easiest or second easiest difficulty, perhaps even with barbarians turned off (advanced options), though I would leave them on. Also, pick a map that minimizes the need for a navy. This will help you understand the most basic elements of the game without having to engage in too many of its mechanics. Once you get used to it, feel free to expand by choosing maps with more naval focus and increasing both the map size and difficulty.

 

[Syntax Error]

Here be a wall of text for the budding Leader of the Greatest Civilization on Earth.

Before Playing:
Consider the map type. The map type will have a large effect in your game. I suggest using Pangaea to get started. Or, simply, don't play with water (ocean) just yet. Water maps tend to go on for longer than land-heavy maps for a lot of reasons.

Check quick combat/movement. This will speed up your gameplay especially when there are a lot of units. You can set this option mid-game.

Civ Selection: I suggest go for Aztecs first if Vanilla. Ethiopia/Celts/Maya if you have Gods and Kings. The former for their ridiculously good UU/UB Combo and the latter since they will allow you to easily play with all the systems currently in place, Religion included.

Difficulty: Start on Prince. Anything below you would use if you want to dick around and build all wonders, for example.

So, you've clicked that play button and are now in your first game with your Settler and initial warrior. The options are endless! Should I settle here or there and what should I build and to research and why are those gentlemen in loincloths trying to bash my cranium in and OH MY!!!! Here's some guidelines and some tricks you can employ to help you.

Your first city: This is your capital, and like all great civilizations in history, most start near a bod of water. Mesopotamia had the Euphrates and Tigris, Egypt had the Nile, etc. In short: When at all possible, settle adjacent to a river. Rivers provide +1 gold to every tile adjacent to it, providing critical in-game commerce. What's more, farms built on them will get +1 food once you get to Civil Service. Other considerations:

Food: You'll need an abundance of food to grow your cities. Food indirectly provides production, since it allows you to have citizens to work the hills. Food directly provides science with the help of your science buildings. This is the most important piece in the early game.
Some nearby hills: You'll need production to get anything done.
Luxury Resources: You'll need happiness to be able to expand, and to get Golden Ages. Usually, you will have multiple copies of one and another type somewhere nearby. Note that Luxuries provide happiness on only ONE copy, so if you have extras, sell/trade/bribe it away.
Jungles: Minimize jungles. You will need Bronze Working in order for your workers to be able to clear them, and even then, they require A LOT OF TIME to clear (just be wary that Aztecs have a jungle start bias).
Forests: On the other hand, are a big help. Chopping them down (available at Mining) will yield 20 production for a city. Helps greatly if you want to rush buildings/units/wonders in the early game.
Mountains: Those create a natural barrier and is a requirement for Observatories (which provide a science boost) and some wonders. This is the least important consideration, since you can achieve a very high tech rate even without it. Think of it as Icing.

The best starting location right now would be: Floodplains (basically desert tiles cut through by a river) or riverside Grassland with some Wheat Tiles, a few Hills, a one-tile mountain, with at least one hill with a Mining Luxury Resource. If you settle a city on a Luxury resource, you immediately get the Happiness benefit the moment the tech comes online. You can use the above to settle your other cities as well. You'll find that the above are not always present, so you have to weigh the pros and cons.

Technology: Your starting area will decide which technologies you pursue in the beginning. What I usually do is go Animal Husbandry first to check for horses (which you can sell to the AI), then Archery so I can build something to defend myself with when I run out of infrastructure to build and then go for the luxuries. Not necessarily in that order though.

Culture: Accumulating empire-wide culture will allow you to select Social Policies. Culture on a per-city basis determines how quickly your borders expand. The more culture your city generates, the quicker its borders will naturally expand, reducing the need to buy tiles. Take note that the more cities you settle, the larger amounts of empire-wide culture you need to get Social Policies.

Military: You can defend yourself in the early game with four archers. More as you go high up in difficulty.

City States: these provide bonuses your cities otherwise don't have native access to. Maritime provide food, and this accelerates the growth of your cities, especially your capital. Cultural provide additional empire-wide culture, allowing you to get Social Policies sooner. Military gifts you units from time to time. Religious provide Faith, which you need to found Religions and buy specific units and/or buildings. Mercantile provide extra happiness. Bonus levels depend whether you're friends (green bar) or allied (blue bar). You need influence to be either, which comes from Gold Gifts and Quests and returning captured workers. They also provide additional Science with the right Social Policy.

Handling Barbarians: This is why you need an archer or two in your home turf. You'll need to protect your workers from being kidnapped.

Diplomacy: You can't please everyone, so get on the good side of a neighbor or two, and don't be a lying dealbreaker. Sometimes, other leaders will come to you asking why you have military near their borders. If you say you're just passing through, don't declare war on them for at least 30 turns (there's an invisible counter for promises, just not so sure how long). Dealbreaking is declaring war on a leader while you have deals currently ongoing. Don't be triggerhappy either, or you risk being declared a warmonger and international relations will just break down.

Civ 5 is a different breed, since it's the first game in the series where a tall empire (1-4 size 25+ cities) can directly compete with a wide one (many cities with lower population per city.) I suggest you go Tall and try a Science Victory, since it will take you almost the whole way through the Tech Tree so you can see more of the game. Aim for a sub-350 victory (normal pace). I can give more tips if you want

 

[Vhite]

I am a bit late to the thread but here's a bit of late game advice: Never trust the good guys. Ghandi, that Siam guy and others like that are gonna decimate you when war comes.

 

[The_Echo]

I've only played two games of Civ V. One was using the tutorial, and the other was a real game (which I won). I'd play more, but it's suuuuuch a timesink for me. I consistently lost track of time for hours.

I think if you just play a game on an easy difficulty with the tip/notification stuff turned on, you should be good.

That's how I played, at least.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I am a bit late to the thread but here's a bit of late game advice: Never trust the good guys. Ghandi, that Siam guy and others like that are gonna decimate you when war comes.

Never trust ANYONE. While Civ factions will loosely follow personality matrixes based on their real life counterparts (with the exception of Gahndi's nuclear fetish they put in for lulz), ALL of them play the game like very stupid human players. Which is to say, they will cheerfully cut your throat if they see you as a threat to win the game, especially if you're chasing the same victory conditions as them. This makes Civilization a terrible sandbox "empire simulator", because your neighbors will behave like bloody minded lunatics at the least provocation. It does keep the game from getting too easy/boring though. Or would, if the AI weren't pants on head stupid and completely reliant on cheats to stay competitive.

I sound like I'm totally trashing Civ V, don't I? It's really quite fun.

 

[TaintedSaint]

I have not been able to play this game for a long ass time just crashes, tried everything no fix. even tried disabling the cinematic. just crashes.

 

[franticfarken]

Don't go into to much detail about it. Play as a easier difficulty and expand your areas from city building massively while building a bit of military on the side.

When you win or lose, you pick up things for yourself. Best way to play any game.

 

[Bostur]

Your basic ressource in Civilization is cities, so you need to use your settler to found a quick city. With default settings Civ 5 will usually give you a good spot to start with, so settling at the initial spot will work out fine.

The concept of the game is then to explore the land, expand with more cities, grow your economy, wage war against computer opponents and eventually win by acomplishing one of the victory conditions.

After you create your first city a good order of actions would be:

1. Build another unit, either a combat unit or a scout.

2. Use your existing unit to wander around the map scouting. If you find some ancient ruins make sure to investigate them.

3. When your second unit is done build a worker. Use this to improve the land around your city. Improve the best squares first. You can see the yield of the squares and what squares the city governor decided to work by opening up the city view.

4. Build 1-2 city improvements. Depending on your civilization and what tech you have researched the best options vary, but monument and granary are usually good options.

5. When your city reaches 4-5 inhabitants build a settler and start a second city not too far from your first. See if you can find a spot with several different luxury goods, goods that show a happy smiley when you mouse over the ressource icon. You should turn on the option to show ressources on the map by clicking the appropriate button above the mini-map. If you can build your second city next to a river and/or next to the coast line that will help as well.

6. Play many games and learn as you go along.

 

[Candidus]

Snip

No problem silentfellow! I can't help much with gameplay because I've only spent about 30 hours in my own copy, and that was just after it released.

However, here's one critical piece of advice that requires only the minimum of Civ 5 familiarity from me:

Don't. Trust. Ghandi.

 

[lacktheknack]

I made <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/362.300946-The-Escapist-Plays-Civilization-V-MOAR-PLAYERS-PLS?page=1>a thread that was basically a grand LP of Civ V.

It's unfinished (never to be finished, sadly), and some of the screens are broken, but it should give you a decent runthrough of how to start a game.

 

[Altorin]

just play on your easiest setting as Rome and you'll be alright. Why rome, is that Rome has a very decent set of bonuses that don't require a lot of mucking about or special playing to make work - just make sure that your capital has all of your important buildings (which you should be doing anyway). Once you unlock iron working, try to make some legions and use them to build roads between your cities. By default, each road tile inside your territory will use 1 gold for maintenance, but if your cities are connected and you've discovered the Wheel, the bonuses you get from trade routes more then makes up for that. Prioritize roads over rough terrain. Make some ballistas and either rampage through the Iron Age, or keep them at home, upgrading them to more and more powerful artilleries later in the game.


Another thing to note is units keep their basic features as they upgrade, except range - eventually, your only ranged combat will be with boats, artillery and planes, but that's ok. in the start of the game, make a couple scouts and try and grab as many ruins as possible.. Early exploration is a must. Hopefully one of the ruins will turn your Scout into an Archer, and if it does, keep that thing alive at all costs.. Scout Archers are some of the best units in the game - it will always retain its scouting ability to ignore terrain bonuses, so that thing will be zipping around causing havoc and getting intel as long as you can keep it alive.


Typically, you want to put farms wherever there is fresh water (lakes/rivers). Most cities will want to be built on a coast, or on a river (or preferably both) there are some other higher level considerations but if you find a coast area with a lot of stuff and a nice river you definitely want to snatch it up. Things to note here are that cities can only use tiles that are within 3 spaces of them, so if you stack your cities too close together, you may find yourself with unemployment issues. Your territory (which expands depending on a cities' Culture Output, if that isn't clear - so build an early monument or else your cities won't grow) can expand past the 3 tiles (although city-states do not), and you can get strategic (iron etc) or luxury resources (silk, spices etc) outside those 3 tiles, but you won't get the actual tile's benefits (food, production, gold, etc) for unworked tiles.


As far as social policies go.. If you want to be cheesy you can take an early 2 points in Tradition (taking either +P for Wonders or Free Culture buildings... I suggest the former). Tradition is great for empires built around a central capital city - it starts out mostly focusing on small civilizations, but later benefits definitely spill over if your civilization becomes larger. Otherwise, take Liberty, and max it relatively early - Liberty benefits civs that expand early on, but you get a free settler (plus faster settler production), bonus production for buildings, faster terraforming, more golden ages/policies.. it's just a great policy in general.

When considering the opposed policies, typically I say go for Freedom/Rationalism.. The reasons for that might be difficult to explain to a new player, but let's say in the later game, especially if you snag the Statue of Liberty world wonder, Specialists become crazy good, and taking Rationalism will help you reach those techs before other players (although in easier settings, late-game wonders will basically be all yours). Piety can be good, especially if you're playing Gods and Kings and are playing a religion based civ. In general though, Rationalism wins out (EXCEPT if you are going for a really longwinded, Domination only game. Even without Rationalism, it's fairly easy to run out of things to research.. at which point, most of Rationalism will be worthless.. but at that point, you could probably do anything and win).


When it comes to specific techs, you could probably go Pottery -> Writing first, and try and get the Great Library.. While that's building, try and tech up to Mathematics (iirc, it's Animal Trapping -> The Wheel + Archery -> Mathematics). That gives you access to the Hanging Gardens. If you can get the Great Library and the Hanging Gardens, then you can either go for Iron Working (to get Legionnaires/Swordsman) or take the rather singular path leading to better boats and explore the seas, plotting out potential new cities.






This is of course just one way to play. I find each civilization interesting (although some are more interesting then others). The trick is finding out how the civilization is meant to be played. Taking a different civilization other then Rome, the above may not be ideal, but it should still give you a general sense of how to play and what to look for.

Just play though.. you'll learn how most of us did.. Playing. You won't learn much just reading about the game with no real context.

 

[Syntax Error]

If you want a very flexible opening, try and read up on "Tradition 4-cities Opening". It's powerful, gets you set up quite quickly and sets you up to pursue whatever victory condition you might want. Works better at higher difficulties, since you'll have more people to trade with.

 

[Laughing Man]

Strategy I use that works very well, is the expand, i.d and control strategy.

First things first is to start expanding from the word go, do it in a controlled manner ensuring that the economic cost doesn't out strip your income or defensive ability. New cities after you have so many will always cost you money to maintain until you have access to income increasing improvements. Just try to ensure that you will always have a positive per turn income, also ensure that your cities have some form of defence. It should help discourage enemy attacks.

I.D involves finding out where you are on the map and how many other nations are located around you. Trade with them if the trade is beneficial but do not allow them access to your lands and do not agree to any expansion limiting deals. E.g if you settle next to another nations borders you will get their diplomat asking you to not to expand close to their borders. If you agree you instantly limit your ability to expand and if you then go ahead and expand after agreeing not too you affect not only your rating with that nation but your rating with any nations they have had contact with.

Control, I always aim for Iron Work tech, the objective is to get Iron displayed on the map as quickly as you can. Once you have this I then build cities next to all available Iron resource, the reason is that it is a very powerful early game resource allowing you to build the Swordman which in turn is easily a step up from the pre iron units. You then have two options

1). I then find the smallest nation that I share land with build Swordmen and over run them, believe me if they don't have access to Iron they very often can't put up a fight. This gives an instant boost but will probably hurt your diplomatic relations with close nations.

2). If another nation has already gained access to Iron or the tech involved, I.d how big they are how much access they have, have they built any Swordmen. You basically want to gain control of their Iron resource and deny them access to this early powerful unit. The great thing about the Swordmen is that it can be upgraded and each upgraded is usually a sizeable improvement over the last.

 

[LetalisK]

Huh, think I might try Civ5 again, never got deep into it.

What are considered good economic civs/leaders, particularly in the early game? When I start a game I never quite know what route to victory I'm going to take, so I usually like establishing a strong economy early on, rapidly expanding, building up my cities as quickly as possible, and leveraging the advantage the rest of the game and determining later on exactly which route I'm going to take. Sometimes I end up over-expanding, but I find it suits my jack of all trades playstyle the best.

 

[Altorin]

Huh, think I might try Civ5 again, never got deep into it.

What are considered good economic civs/leaders, particularly in the early game? When I start a game I never quite know what route to victory I'm going to take, so I usually like establishing a strong economy early on, rapidly expanding, building up my cities as quickly as possible, and leveraging the advantage the rest of the game and determining later on exactly which route I'm going to take. Sometimes I end up over-expanding, but I find it suits my jack of all trades playstyle the best.

Well, Arabia's a great civ for sprawling empires with a lot of cities connected via trade routes.. Make sure to grab Macchu Picchu (basically, you need to find a decent city site with a close mountain range early on) and you'll be fine. That sounds like the one you're looking for, but for alternatives:

India's great for small civilizations with huge populations.. Try to grab whatever food based wonders you can (Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens etc) and be very careful where you place your cities - basically, only settle a new city if there's a resource there you can't get any other way.

If you want to go a "small but warlike", you can go with Ethiopia if you have Gods and Kings.. they're like India but suited more to fighting other civilizations.

Rome's also a great "no brainer" civilization, just make sure that you build your important buildings in the capital, and make sure you capitalize on the Legion's ability to make roads.

Persia's a great no brainer civ as well - Getting Chichen Itza is an important milestone for this civ as it takes their leader bonus and makes it even better.

If you have Polynesia, they have perhaps the biggest difference in their early game - water of all kinds is not a barrier to them, so feel free to colonize as many islands as you can.

Alternatively, a lot of interesting things can happen if you court the citystates appropriately, and depending on your tactics in that front, Siam or Greece can be amazing civilizations.

 

[LetalisK]

Rome's also a great "no brainer" civilization, just make sure that you build your important buildings in the capital, and make sure you capitalize on the Legion's ability to make roads.

I started a game with Rome but hated the map that was randomized, so I restarted as Japan, mostly because I figure Bushido would be incredibly useful for a small elite army, but I think I'm going to regret it. I did some more research into wide empires and unhappiness and I get the feeling that Rome's production trait is going to be vastly more useful for all those small population capped cities if I ever go on a conquering spree.