Right then, newbie player needs advice.

[Abrecan]

Ive managed to coerce(And have enough patience) to deal with the lag I was getting(still pretty bad, but tolerable). And I've manged to finish games, My military abilities blow. In most other games, Im usually the one spamming off the infantry for a "ling rush", to use an overused phrase. Yet, I find myself being sidetracked, having all my cities spamming off the wonders. I play on noble difficulty, and even though my points are usually at 3x the amount second place has(I play financially/tech/wonder spammer). Usually the more agressive AI to tend have a field day with me. And lets not even get into navy.

I've just been winging and heading for a cultural/space race victory usually, but.. I rarely accomplish this, anyone have any good advice for a nub thats been playing this game for.. two, three weeks? (I know, Im a newbie )

[Kuciwalker]

Try a game where you don't build any wonders. Wonders are nice, but none of them are necessary to win, and it'll force you to think more about your unit/building build order.

[snoopy369]

More specifically, play a game where your only goal is Domination victory, and you allow yourself to only build ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY buildings. Granary, library, lighthouse, barracks, stables, courthouses I would say - nothing else in the early game at all, and as little as possible elsewise.

Then spend all the rest of your hammers on units. Once you have a big enough army, go invade whomever is nearest - rinse and repeat as you get a big enough army.

It's not a great strategy necessarily - but it will teach you to deal with military

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Try a game where you don't build any wonders. Wonders are nice, but none of them are necessary to win, and it'll force you to think more about your unit/building build order.

Yeah, good advice. Wonders really bog you down.

Try a civ with AGG, CHM, or IMP. As has been mentioned in other threads, the Romans with their Praetorians make a fearsome fighting force.

[Game-God]

I would add to this thread to WATCH your income/tech level carefully as building units can cut seriously into your finances and make you fall behind way to quickly, therby undermining your ability to take on any more than 1-2 civs during a standard game.

ie. Small wars-often is my best gambit to offer someone, and be sure to read this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5966344

It will help quite a bit. Though I do not condone Civfanatics as a site, this guy knows his stuff about the basic fighting strats.

Good luck

[Virulent]

Getting the hang of city specialization is pretty important for improving your game.

Just building buildings and tile improvements randomly will result in you being quite behind in the higher difficulty levels.

Learn what makes a good science city, a good military city, etc.

[Nugog]

I personally would say take Kuciwalker's & Snoopy369's advice to start with - and play as Rome - Praetorians are an awesome force for the beginner warmonger.

Also play on mainly land maps (pangea, continents etc) as you will not need to focus on naval warfare much to start with.

[realpolitic]

Wonders are good if you fight so aggressively that you run into financial problems. If you find this happening, you might want to have your most productive building wonders if you have 3 cities producing military units, but wonders are basically there to keep your finances afloat while you conquer the world.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Supr49er
Try a civ with AGG, CHM, or IMP. As has been mentioned in other threads, the Romans with their Praetorians make a fearsome fighting force.

Playing as the Romans doesn't really teach you good strategy for anyone but the Romans

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Playing as the Romans doesn't really teach you good strategy for anyone but the Romans

True - but Abrecan is asking for advice on how to grow his military strategy - gaining some military wins is a good way to start - and IMO Rome is a good place to start doing that.

[Abrecan]

This.. Sucks.. Ok so I did my first game as fully offensive, I used the romans (God, those Praetorians are pretty damn awesome). I had just taken out the third civilization(I got lucky, capital was in an area that was production heavy, so I spammed them out early on). Most of my attacking force was over in Lisbon, I had left a couple units per city to defend. All of a sudden barbarians stack spawn outside of all my cities, even the newly conquered one(Which I captured because it had The Pyramids). Fought them off for a few turns.. But my attacking force was weak cornered, my defender's weren't nearly enough. Was on noble difficulty btw.

Edit: Btw, I was talking mainly about early game. Late to mid game, all of my cities have decent production(Universal Suffrage, Only Mines and/or Cottages everywhere, the occasional special improvement of course.) And then I can start to spam out the units. But I rarely get to that point.

And Ive never really played expansively, I tend to keep only 6-8 cities. Only more when I'm keeping my enemies' temp in the middle of a war.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Abrecan
Yet, I find myself being sidetracked, having all my cities spamming off the wonders.

Yes, that's your problem. Just try to wean yourself off your wonder addiction and build more military units instead.

[Lord Avalon]

Nice wonder. Thanks for building it for me.

Keep track of where your opponents build wonders, so you don't raze the cities when you conquer them.

[unamablebuiler]

And when naval warfare comes around with the ability to move loads of units relatively quickly have a minimum of 4 defenders in each and every coastal city. I have had enormous trouble having only 2-3 modern defenders against hordes of medievial units (30 + units)

[Blake]

You want to build a lot of cities. Leave as few tiles as possible unutilized. Never leave food bonuses without a city using them. Remember cities will take forever to get to the maximum size of 20, so you can afford quite some overlap when it makes sense to do so (ie if overlapping cities can share excess food or be able to reinforce each other better in war or whatever).

Lots of cities lets you pump out units from lots of places, which is especially useful with slavery and drafting. Lots of cities means smaller cities, which means less problems with war-weariness.

I am fond of recommending the "No wonders whatsoever" playstyle for learning, but you can also reasonably go with "Only build wonders you have the resource for", like if you have a real easy marble hookup it makes lots of sense to build the Oracle... that is what is damn near close to optimal - only build/pursue wonders you have the resource for.

Also for technology, go up the "Iron Domination" side of the tech tree, that is:
Machinery, Feudalism, Guilds, Banking, Engineering, Chemistry, Steel etc...

This has few wonders, but gives you very useful stuff to build - the gold multiplier buildings are good, and the units are top-notch, it also has useful civics for a militaristic civ.