First few turns.

[vivas]

I am curious how you start. I always find it hard too pick the second government upgrade, improvement points versus knowledge or do you safe everything to buy a settler asap? I find the +1 knowledge hard to resist.

[niraviel]

I usually go Knowledge first not to be in an unwanted age later.
Then choose 2 others tech by map/resources.
Improvement points are very valuables early game as exploration.

You can delay second capital/city in basic difficulty, may be not in hardest ones.

[parent child bowl]

In 95% of cases I go Scouting or Workers first and I never go Tribal Elders or Farming first. Workers is always my first or second tech because of how strong it is. The 5% are when I spot a barbarian encampment turn 1.

Tribal Elders is almost never in my top 3. Getting my economy running is more important. I don't consider early Tribal Elders to be required to dictate Age 3 and 4 on Master because of how busted Local Reforms is.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by vivas:

I am curious how you start. I always find it hard too pick the second government upgrade, improvement points versus knowledge or do you safe everything to buy a settler asap? I find the +1 knowledge hard to resist.

I maybe should have read more than your title lol. I go improvement points before knowledge 100% of the time.

[TheCollector]

Don't rush your settler. You are limited to around 8 regions in the game (if you can pay the enormous costs and upkeep) and each region can support up to 4 towns and probably 50-100 population (if it has the up to 50-100 tiles it needs to supply this huge population). Settling your 2nd city too close will give you a huge disadvantage later on.

A distance of like 10 tiles between (capital) cities should be fine. Since AI usually starts in that distance, maybe try to take their capital instead. This has the additional benefit that this AI won't spam settlements in the area your capital region later wants to expand into.

So my first priorities are scouts (exploration, goody huts) and knowledge and then economy and military ...

[Arvid]

Forget how you played CIV!
It only looks like that on the surface because of the hex fields!
I've played a few games now and have NEVER been able to mine/harvest all the resources and certainly not been able to build all the refinements!
Only mine/harvest the ones you need (food) and for which you have points left.

[Wichura]

Successful run against Master AIs: Scouting first (free Scout), then Military one (free Archer) - that gave me at least 2-3 explorations and few villages. With 2 scouts (3 might be too much due to high upkeep), you can quickly map surroundings. Free archer, and this moment for sure will group with two warband units. 3 unit army may conquer small settlements - with nice loot, maybe it`s possible to conquer larger settlements.

The 3rd research depends on your first city bonuses. I`m choosing farming if at least one food type improvement is next to my city, or I`m choosing workers if not. At some early point, having a production (min. 2 lumber huts) in the city is essential to quickly build all the buildings unlocked by technologies.

For government points I go with +improvement. That gives much better benefit over the +1 knowledge which basicaly can be easly mitigated by Eureka in first Age.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by Wichura:

For government points I go with +improvement. That gives much better benefit over the +1 knowledge which basicaly can be easly mitigated by Eureka in first Age.

Eureka is really bad at the beginning of the game. Local Reforms grants you 5 knowledge while also granting you production, food, wealth and culture.

[Tobold]

Originally posted by vivas:

I am curious how you start. I always find it hard too pick the second government upgrade, improvement points versus knowledge or do you safe everything to buy a settler asap? I find the +1 knowledge hard to resist.

Millennia isn't the best balanced game out there, so some starting strategies are better than other. The current "meta" is to choose +Culture as a starting bonus, and then spam Local Reform on your starting city repeatedly. The amount of knowledge you gain from that is equal or higher than the knowledge you get from Eureka, and you get a lot of other points in addition to that. Take Tribal Elders as first tech and actually build the Council as soon as you can, even if it means pausing a previously started production. Spend your government points on +food first, +knowledge second, +culture third. Concentrate on culture and knowledge, ignore expansion for the start.

This strategy will get you to the Age of Bronze first, as early as turn 16. That means you can choose a national spirit first. Again, the national spirits aren't exactly balanced, and if you want to play a military game, choosing Raiders as national spirit is somewhat overpowered. On a smaller map with few opponents, some people managed to get a military victory using Raiders within the turn limit of the demo.

While you could of course take a different national spirit and go for a more peaceful game, the culture/knowledge focus works well if you want to be the first one to reach every age, and thus have the choice between standard ages, variant ages, and crisis ages.

[Exemplar]

Originally posted by Tobold:

The current "meta" is to choose +Culture as a starting bonus, and then spam Local Reform on your starting city repeatedly. The amount of knowledge you gain from that is equal or higher than the knowledge you get from Eureka, and you get a lot of other points in addition to that. Take Tribal Elders as first tech and actually build the Council as soon as you can, even if it means pausing a previously started production. Spend your government points on +food first, +knowledge second, +culture third. Concentrate on culture and knowledge, ignore expansion for the start.

This strategy will get you to the Age of Bronze first, as early as turn 16. That means you can choose a national spirit first. Again, the national spirits aren't exactly balanced, and if you want to play a military game, choosing Raiders as national spirit is somewhat overpowered. On a smaller map with few opponents, some people managed to get a military victory using Raiders within the turn limit of the demo.

While you could of course take a different national spirit and go for a more peaceful game, the culture/knowledge focus works well if you want to be the first one to reach every age, and thus have the choice between standard ages, variant ages, and crisis ages.

playing like this would make the game less fun for me.

i can find no reason to sprint so hard into the bronze age. i mean i have 5 plays-through now and i can't imagine why you'd skip the myriad xp and infrastructure just to be in the bronze age a few turns earlier. further, i don't find culture the meta start ability, but +1 archer. stack it with your 2 start warbands and you're killing barbarian camps out the gate. with a couple scouts (and you'll probably find another in a hut) and your army stack you'll explore much of the area, net lots of xp, probably another archer, improvement points, and one or both of your scouts will get promoted finding landmarks so you can turn them into leaders.

[Tobold]

Originally posted by Exemplar:

playing like this would make the game less fun for me.

That is totally understandable. Millennia is somewhere between a 4X game, where some people might simply want to optimize for the win, and a grand strategy game, where you have fun by just seeing what happens. There is a mathematical answer to the question "what is the best play", but that isn't necessarily the most fun for everybody.

[Exemplar]

Originally posted by Tobold:

There is a mathematical answer to the question "what is the best play", but that isn't necessarily the most fun for everybody.

yes, but i do not agree this is that. i think it lies in reaping as much early stuff off the map as possible, not sprinting to bronze age with little to show.

[Stealthkibbler]

Originally posted by Tobold:

Originally posted by Exemplar:

playing like this would make the game less fun for me.

where you have fun by just seeing what happens.

Deliberately triggering crisis ages to watch the AI suffer for their sins is truly something special.

[parent child bowl]

Originally posted by Exemplar:

Originally posted by Tobold:

The current "meta" is to choose +Culture as a starting bonus, and then spam Local Reform on your starting city repeatedly. The amount of knowledge you gain from that is equal or higher than the knowledge you get from Eureka, and you get a lot of other points in addition to that. Take Tribal Elders as first tech and actually build the Council as soon as you can, even if it means pausing a previously started production. Spend your government points on +food first, +knowledge second, +culture third. Concentrate on culture and knowledge, ignore expansion for the start.

This strategy will get you to the Age of Bronze first, as early as turn 16. That means you can choose a national spirit first. Again, the national spirits aren't exactly balanced, and if you want to play a military game, choosing Raiders as national spirit is somewhat overpowered. On a smaller map with few opponents, some people managed to get a military victory using Raiders within the turn limit of the demo.

While you could of course take a different national spirit and go for a more peaceful game, the culture/knowledge focus works well if you want to be the first one to reach every age, and thus have the choice between standard ages, variant ages, and crisis ages.

playing like this would make the game less fun for me.

i can find no reason to sprint so hard into the bronze age. i mean i have 5 plays-through now and i can't imagine why you'd skip the myriad xp and infrastructure just to be in the bronze age a few turns earlier. further, i don't find culture the meta start ability, but +1 archer.

I'd also argue that the strategy Tobold is describing isn't as good as he makes it sound. Your economy will suffer A LOT if you go that way and economy snowballs a lot harder that science does in this game.

You also don't need that strategy to be first to Age 3 and Age 4 on Master.

[Tobold]

Spamming Local Reform also inreases production and food by 50%, so it doesn’t really neglect the economy. You sacrifice settler expansion, but I found settlers in Millennia weak, compared to other games, where early settlers are a must.

[vivas]

Originally posted by Exemplar:

playing like this would make the game less fun for me.

i can find no reason to sprint so hard into the bronze age. i mean i have 5 plays-through now and i can't imagine why you'd skip the myriad xp and infrastructure just to be in the bronze age a few turns earlier. further, i don't find culture the meta start ability, but +1 archer. stack it with your 2 start warbands and you're killing barbarian camps out the gate. with a couple scouts (and you'll probably find another in a hut) and your army stack you'll explore much of the area, net lots of xp, probably another archer, improvement points, and one or both of your scouts will get promoted finding landmarks so you can turn them into leaders.

I like this approach.