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Last update - 30.05.03
Introduction and comments:
This is here as a continuation of my "Initial RoN strategy tips" thread that can be found here, but it's gotten quite large and the first post can no longer contain all the stuff that I need. Here I will have several posts at start of the thread to try and fix the problem...
Now, whatever I write here is just from my own viewpoint, with whatever limited experience and skills I have for this game. This doesn, however, apply both to single player and multiplayer games - RoN AI is challenging enough to make it worth playing against. I hope this thread helps someone.
_____________________________________
Attrition:
Actually, it's a highly important thing, for it makes the defending player quite well-stuited to his position. Maybe this is unlike some other RTS games, where the attacker had an advantage just because he was attacking and pushing the other guy. So, build your first tower in an area that the enemy might reasonably attack, and be sure to research attrition techs there. Once you're at attrition level 2, enemy just doesn't want to risk attacking you by sending 3 units, for that will do him no good - attacks will come in serious numbers then. So, also when planning on building peacefully, get the attrition upgrades and make yourself a less inviting target. Well, that's pretty obvious, I guess.
Of course, this works both ways, never forget that attrition when you're the attacker. However, in some cases, you may see that your units enter enemy territory and take no attrition, which means that the enemy is still to research attrition level 1. If this is the case, attack his economy with haste! You have a free go through his territory, which is just a good motivation to have some Slingers chase his gatherers around for a bit. This will force the enemy to get a tower up, because he will now get quite wary of future attacks on his villagers, even if you're not planning any.
Speaking of attrition, it's an absolute must to mention the Kremlin wonder. If you happen to play as the Russians, GET IT!! Kremlin coupled with your Russian Winter ability results in some very, very serious attrition damage, and an enemy without sufficient amounts of Supply Wagons is going to have a real tough time invading you. This would also make your inner cities quite safe, because enemy units wouldn't be in much of a fighting shape after marching through lots of land controlled by a Russian player who has the Kremlin. Now, this brings me exactly on the topic of Supply Wagons.
You just can't underestimate these guys (or whatever they are). Be sure to bring at least one when attacking with you, and don't leave it too hard behind. Theoretically, the best position is in the centre of your attacking group, but that might make the wagon a relatively easy target. Do as you please, but don't leave him so far behind that he serves little purpose. All in all, the effect countered by Wagons is pretty huge, and you can even offset advantages of those Russians! Again, this is something that goes both ways. If you're under attack, make an effort to get rid of enemy supply wagons, and do it fast. Once your siege is upgraded to Bombards or better, it's a good idea to have a few field guns target the Supply Wagons. If you can manage to wipe enemy supplies at very start of the battle, it might even cause the enemy to flee (well, this particular note is more with MP in mind).
Remember them French here! If you're French, build many supplies, those units are your friends. And, against, the French, hit them with all possible speed, using your siege or Light cavalry or whatever is up to the task. When playing French, I've tried having 3 Supply Wagons in close proximity of my army at any time, and it worked reasonably well, even healing my troopers in enemy land, love that! Note that other nations can also achieve this via research, but it's quite a while till the respective technology can be researched.
City building.
Cities are crucial. Since most of you here are Civ players, you know that fairly well, and this is no different in RoN. You start with just one city, and the benefits that you get when building additional ones are fantastic. Therefore, don't forget to make that Civic research level 1, then find a few free citizens, or create them, and go make a new city. Once you have two cities, you can start to generate wealth better, as well as have a huge boost to your economy. Now, about what to build in your cities.
Farms are really, really important. They're what provide you with all the food, and if you lack food, you're in a weak position. Unfortunately, the cities have a limit of only 5 farms per city, unless you're playing the Egyptians. You will, no doubt, quikcly notice that 5 farms just aren't enough to get your economy going and also have some other developments in your nation. This means that you want a second city quickly. A word about the Bantu here, they have an absolutely fantastic bonus of cheap, cheap, CHEAP cities. So cheap that there's no excuse for not making a second city early in the game. Now, once you have your second city, fill it with 5 more farms, and now finally, with 10 farms, you have quite a surplus of food to continue your research and expansion.
Every city I build or conquer gets a temple as soon as I can reasonably afford it without giving up too much, which is actually soon enough. Temples provide the much-needed boost to your territory. This is important, because a) enemies can't be building up right outside one of your cities, b) you have more land to use, c) it increases your total land control %, which is a crucial play for taxation income. Of course, research your taxation level 1 tech as soon as feasible, because wealth comes into the play rather early. Now, every city also gets a Market, and this one should really be obvious to you. Consider this, you make Caravans at markets, and they trade between your cities. Each pair of cities you have can trade. Therefore, with your city number of n, every city can trade with n-1 cities. So, your total possible amount of trade routes is n*(n-1), which is quite obvious. Now, with 5 cities, which isn't THAT much, you have 20 possible trade routes, which means that you will not be having a wealth problem for quite a while. In fact, the Caravan limit is there for a reason - you shouldn't just be able to run away with as much wealth as you want. Note here - once you build a Caravan, you don't even need to do anything, it will automatically find a city to trade with and will engage the trade route, if possible.
Universities. A pretty high priority build for my cities. Mainly, for my first two cities, I get them very soon (and, of course, fill with scholars), and for the third city, it's medium high priority. I don't want to spend all my wealth on scholars, but 3 unis with them is a nice amount to get the research going quite easily.
Economic buildings. Well, what can I say here? It should be obvious that every mountain you can find should have a mine. It's not like there's dozens of those mountains, you know. For forests, make sure you are using a couple of them, but later it really becomes unwise to lumberjack every single tree you can find. As for Farms, I've already said much, but let me add a bit else. For third city, it's also 5 farms, a must have. For fourth and beyond, they're not that high of priority anyway, but build them nonetheless. Just don't hurry to make 5 farms at once with your 6th city. Gathering enhancement buildings. Show me a single reason NOT to build them when available, please. Lumber Mill, Granary and Smelter should pop up in every city. Well, for me Smelter is usually the highest priority, for mountains (and Metal, therefore) tend to be limited, but Granary and Lumber Mill also gets built. It's a very good prospect, you build it and forget, while getting additional resource output... sounds great? Well, it is.
Research
No comment
. There's quite a lot of technologies to research anyway, but you want to make your progress through them quickly, yet with consideration. First rule of a thumb - never have just one Library! It's not like they're expensive, and at some point in the Classical age, you're quite well suited to dropping one or two more libraries. Then, you can research multiple techs at once.
Early in the game, my personal priority seems to be commerce research, because I tend to hit the commerce cap limit pretty soon, especially with Timber gathering. IF playing Bantu, Civics is of utmost importance, for being able to go and build my second city for almost nothing. Military research is nothing something I value this much, for attacks can generally wait till a later point in the game (and they should, really), but military tech still is important, at least first 2 levels. First, it's the population limit, second, you need the ability to raise an army, even if not planning to use it! In fact, you should always have some military buildings at the ready, even at peace. Well, any RTS player will find this quite obvious. Science research is fine in the various stuff it provides, and never forget that it actually makes the other techs cheaper, making it well worth a path to pursue.
Advance ages at your own convenience, but don't delay it too much. In fact, if you have the resources, it's mostly better to advance. First, it always provides some bonuses, like the Classical age ability to build mounted units (and Mines!). Second, units from later ages are better, and really they are. Once you're in Classical, you can quite certainly expect your cavalry units to beat any Archaic unit that might come. Besides, the Classical Age opens doors for things such as wonders and some interesting prospects. Same goes for other ages, they all are worth it.
Industrial Age
Deserves a few sentences on its own, for it really changes the game. This is where the game changes economically and militarily. Mainly militarily, of course. Tanks become available, and that's a huge change. Simply put, no Enlightment age unit can reasonably fight against a Tank. Once you get the Light Tank tech, you get your heavy cavalry upgrades to those, and enemy infantry and archers suddenly are all doomed. Also note that Artillery is that much more deadly. The second big military change of Industrial Age is the arrival of airpower. OK, all you get for now is primitive fighter aircraft, but it all marks the beggining of a new area in military development. Fighters may not seem like much of a threat to your cities and ground forces, but take my advice - build them anti-aircraft guns! They become available now, and this is the time you HAVE to get them. Otherwise, you'll be very disappointed when in Modern Age 16 bombers fly up to your land and beat the crap out of one of cities. AA guns have quite a reasonable range, and you should clearly put them in proximity of every city center you have, as well as any wonders. I have lost my Collosus because of bombings, and I'm not going to forget that.
City attacking
A few words here, too. First, be sure to bring in supply wagons, because you will likely have to fight at least a bit inside enemy borders. Second, have siege at the ready, there's no other really effective method of getting rid of buildings. Now, my preference is to target the city center immediately with my siege, just trying to outflood the enemy with my units, and take down his military structures with other methods. In fact, once you have some 5 siege guns, taking the city center down to 0 HP isn't hard, and that's when the territory becomes neutral. Great stuff, no attrition, no building for enemy, and it all is going to be yours soon. This is usually where I turn my siege to other military strucutres nearby, while the infantry troopers are made for a more defensive role, often entrenched. Also, 2-3 citizens go for repairing the city center.
Be sure to remember that your siege, once level of Cannons or later, is also good against units, doing serious splash damage.
Beggining the game
What you do when you start the game can largely decide whether you win or lose. The decisions made in the first two minutes are absolutely crucial, and a good player will know what is he doing. However, one of the things that makes Rise of Nations shine is the no fixed starting build order - you can generally try several paths, all of them with their upsides and downsides. [Age of Kings note here: remember, the standard 25 villager Feudal Age, with doing exactly the same things every time for the first 10 minutes?]
However, here's an outline of the basic tips at beggining. Pause the game, if single-player. Now, take a look around. You have got your nice little city, a few peasants, and a Library, most likely. The first things you want to do are to get your economy going. While paused, do this: order to build citizens. Now, select your scout. It's not an easy decision now... you can either press Ctrl+E and have him scout automatically, or do it the old fashioned way and scout by yourself, setting waypoints, etc.
The professional player will clearly want to manage the scout manually, to sometimes explore more in one direction or other. However, it can be quite a problem for the less experienced players - it's often easy to forget your scout, and find out that he's sitting there idle, and you have little land discovered. That sucks, especially in RoN, where you have toknow the terrain to select the best locations for your next cities, as well as evaluate the strategic positions for future battles. If you feel that you can't control the scout, sure, let it go automatically. All in all, it will do a pretty decent job, concentrically scouting around your land, revelaing the rare resources (and picking some stuff from ruins!), and then heading on for lands closer to the bad guys.
Now that you have your scout moving and the citizens queued, it's time to go to the Library and select your first technology to research. I do very strongly recommend that Science Level 1, Written Word, is your first item of research. You get the access to Temple, which is something you want early on anyway, for the border booster, and best of all, you get a 10% cost and speed discount on your future researches.
For the start of your economy, of course, Food and Timber matter, and both about equally, although I tend to prioritize Food a little bit. Therefore - my first goal in the game is to get myself up to 5 farms ASAP. You start with 3, and 2 more get built by the first two citizens that come out, thus attempting to ensure continious flow of civilian units from now on. Not that it's enough, though. Now, just as you would, keep pumping them citizens out, till you have also your first Woodcutter's camp full. Try to have the Library researching something whenever you can.
What is the second tech to go for, then? Again, you can basically do anything that you like here, but I will often go for Civics level 1 Government, following Commerce Level 1 Barter then. Why Government? Because it gives you the ability to construct a second city, rather simple it is, no? And when you switch to an empire of two cities, it's where you start to reap many advantages. Notice here - if you're Bantu, you're a BIG step ahead of the game. With your (much!) cheaper cities, you absolutely have to research Civics level 1 ASAP, and then just go for a second city. IIRC, the cost was 15 food 15 timbr for Bantu second city, no?
From your capitol, get 2-3 citizens to a place that seems comfortable enough and build your second city, thus granting yourself another economic center, a border expansion and more options. Yet again, my goal is Food, and I want to fill the second city with 5 farms as soon as I can. I hopefully don't have Timber problems now. If the original forest near capital is big enough, then the full Woodcutter's camp is providing quite an income. If not, then I will also throw a timber gather point here at the second city, but still, 5 more Farms here are the priority. I guess then, it's easy to see why the Commerce level 1 is such a priority, I don't exactly need 10 farms if I have a low commerce cap.
So, a few minutes into the game, I want to have two cities, 10 Farms, some Timber income also from one or two sources, and I generally put a Temple in my capital as soon as I get that extra timber. Now, what to research next? Yet again - if you have the resources, keep the library busy, unless saving the money for an age jump. It now won't exactly matter if you for the Military research ASAP, or if you want Science level 2 first, whatever... look at your resources, evaulate the possibilities. However, you DO NOT want to skip Military level 1 tech. Some people have tried that, and it's a pretty terrible idea. You have to get Military level 1 to be able to build a Barracks or a Tower - basically, anything that can fight. Now, remember the Japanese, with which a good player will go on and attack you at 3 minutes. You know, if you get even a single military unit in your land when you don't even have the Military level 1 researched, you're positively screwed.
Classical Age is indeed a very good thing, but shouldn't be the 100% goal. Sure, you can go to classical without military technology and poor Timber income, but what good it gives? Go to the Classical age at your own convenience, but when you have researched level 1 for all the research branches... I've tried skipping civics at all, and delaying the second city till Classical, but the results were terrible.
Now, sometimes I get that extra Timber coming in fast while I am accumulating the final food for my classical jump. A few things to do early - if you have two cities, get a Market up and build a caravan. That's some wealth for you... In the Classical Age, you probably want to have a Temple in every of your cities. And, here it goes - if you have the Timber, build your first Barracks in Ancient or while going to Classical. It doesn't mean that you immediately have to rush or mass an army, but it's much better to have a building capable of producing some troops at need immediately.
Also, I try to get my first tower up in early Classical or during the advance, even. The reasoning here is rather simple. Attrition level 1 can be researched at the tower, and it matters. Psychologically, the enemy doesn't want to see his troops take that attition, and it also actually helps you defend against those damn rushes. Where to put that first tower? Look at the situation... if your second city seems like an area exposed to attack, then it's there. However, all things being equal, I prefer the tower in the capital, for it is really, really, REALLY annoying if an enemy manages to attack your capital early on.
The above guidelines have been set with a pretty peaceful beggining in mind. Of course, if you intend to be rushing your enemy, it has to be different, one thing being that you need to prioritize your Military research and actually make troops from your barracks. I am still to explore most of the possibilities for the early rushes, and will post on those some other day. For now, however, let me give you this tip - you can harass the enemy VERY early with almost nothing. Note that this requires good (probably manual) scouting, you have to know where the enemy capital is.
Introduction and comments:
This is here as a continuation of my "Initial RoN strategy tips" thread that can be found here, but it's gotten quite large and the first post can no longer contain all the stuff that I need. Here I will have several posts at start of the thread to try and fix the problem...
Now, whatever I write here is just from my own viewpoint, with whatever limited experience and skills I have for this game. This doesn, however, apply both to single player and multiplayer games - RoN AI is challenging enough to make it worth playing against. I hope this thread helps someone.
_____________________________________
Attrition:
Actually, it's a highly important thing, for it makes the defending player quite well-stuited to his position. Maybe this is unlike some other RTS games, where the attacker had an advantage just because he was attacking and pushing the other guy. So, build your first tower in an area that the enemy might reasonably attack, and be sure to research attrition techs there. Once you're at attrition level 2, enemy just doesn't want to risk attacking you by sending 3 units, for that will do him no good - attacks will come in serious numbers then. So, also when planning on building peacefully, get the attrition upgrades and make yourself a less inviting target. Well, that's pretty obvious, I guess.
Of course, this works both ways, never forget that attrition when you're the attacker. However, in some cases, you may see that your units enter enemy territory and take no attrition, which means that the enemy is still to research attrition level 1. If this is the case, attack his economy with haste! You have a free go through his territory, which is just a good motivation to have some Slingers chase his gatherers around for a bit. This will force the enemy to get a tower up, because he will now get quite wary of future attacks on his villagers, even if you're not planning any.
Speaking of attrition, it's an absolute must to mention the Kremlin wonder. If you happen to play as the Russians, GET IT!! Kremlin coupled with your Russian Winter ability results in some very, very serious attrition damage, and an enemy without sufficient amounts of Supply Wagons is going to have a real tough time invading you. This would also make your inner cities quite safe, because enemy units wouldn't be in much of a fighting shape after marching through lots of land controlled by a Russian player who has the Kremlin. Now, this brings me exactly on the topic of Supply Wagons.
You just can't underestimate these guys (or whatever they are). Be sure to bring at least one when attacking with you, and don't leave it too hard behind. Theoretically, the best position is in the centre of your attacking group, but that might make the wagon a relatively easy target. Do as you please, but don't leave him so far behind that he serves little purpose. All in all, the effect countered by Wagons is pretty huge, and you can even offset advantages of those Russians! Again, this is something that goes both ways. If you're under attack, make an effort to get rid of enemy supply wagons, and do it fast. Once your siege is upgraded to Bombards or better, it's a good idea to have a few field guns target the Supply Wagons. If you can manage to wipe enemy supplies at very start of the battle, it might even cause the enemy to flee (well, this particular note is more with MP in mind).
Remember them French here! If you're French, build many supplies, those units are your friends. And, against, the French, hit them with all possible speed, using your siege or Light cavalry or whatever is up to the task. When playing French, I've tried having 3 Supply Wagons in close proximity of my army at any time, and it worked reasonably well, even healing my troopers in enemy land, love that! Note that other nations can also achieve this via research, but it's quite a while till the respective technology can be researched.
City building.
Cities are crucial. Since most of you here are Civ players, you know that fairly well, and this is no different in RoN. You start with just one city, and the benefits that you get when building additional ones are fantastic. Therefore, don't forget to make that Civic research level 1, then find a few free citizens, or create them, and go make a new city. Once you have two cities, you can start to generate wealth better, as well as have a huge boost to your economy. Now, about what to build in your cities.
Farms are really, really important. They're what provide you with all the food, and if you lack food, you're in a weak position. Unfortunately, the cities have a limit of only 5 farms per city, unless you're playing the Egyptians. You will, no doubt, quikcly notice that 5 farms just aren't enough to get your economy going and also have some other developments in your nation. This means that you want a second city quickly. A word about the Bantu here, they have an absolutely fantastic bonus of cheap, cheap, CHEAP cities. So cheap that there's no excuse for not making a second city early in the game. Now, once you have your second city, fill it with 5 more farms, and now finally, with 10 farms, you have quite a surplus of food to continue your research and expansion.
Every city I build or conquer gets a temple as soon as I can reasonably afford it without giving up too much, which is actually soon enough. Temples provide the much-needed boost to your territory. This is important, because a) enemies can't be building up right outside one of your cities, b) you have more land to use, c) it increases your total land control %, which is a crucial play for taxation income. Of course, research your taxation level 1 tech as soon as feasible, because wealth comes into the play rather early. Now, every city also gets a Market, and this one should really be obvious to you. Consider this, you make Caravans at markets, and they trade between your cities. Each pair of cities you have can trade. Therefore, with your city number of n, every city can trade with n-1 cities. So, your total possible amount of trade routes is n*(n-1), which is quite obvious. Now, with 5 cities, which isn't THAT much, you have 20 possible trade routes, which means that you will not be having a wealth problem for quite a while. In fact, the Caravan limit is there for a reason - you shouldn't just be able to run away with as much wealth as you want. Note here - once you build a Caravan, you don't even need to do anything, it will automatically find a city to trade with and will engage the trade route, if possible.
Universities. A pretty high priority build for my cities. Mainly, for my first two cities, I get them very soon (and, of course, fill with scholars), and for the third city, it's medium high priority. I don't want to spend all my wealth on scholars, but 3 unis with them is a nice amount to get the research going quite easily.
Economic buildings. Well, what can I say here? It should be obvious that every mountain you can find should have a mine. It's not like there's dozens of those mountains, you know. For forests, make sure you are using a couple of them, but later it really becomes unwise to lumberjack every single tree you can find. As for Farms, I've already said much, but let me add a bit else. For third city, it's also 5 farms, a must have. For fourth and beyond, they're not that high of priority anyway, but build them nonetheless. Just don't hurry to make 5 farms at once with your 6th city. Gathering enhancement buildings. Show me a single reason NOT to build them when available, please. Lumber Mill, Granary and Smelter should pop up in every city. Well, for me Smelter is usually the highest priority, for mountains (and Metal, therefore) tend to be limited, but Granary and Lumber Mill also gets built. It's a very good prospect, you build it and forget, while getting additional resource output... sounds great? Well, it is.
Research
No comment
. There's quite a lot of technologies to research anyway, but you want to make your progress through them quickly, yet with consideration. First rule of a thumb - never have just one Library! It's not like they're expensive, and at some point in the Classical age, you're quite well suited to dropping one or two more libraries. Then, you can research multiple techs at once.Early in the game, my personal priority seems to be commerce research, because I tend to hit the commerce cap limit pretty soon, especially with Timber gathering. IF playing Bantu, Civics is of utmost importance, for being able to go and build my second city for almost nothing. Military research is nothing something I value this much, for attacks can generally wait till a later point in the game (and they should, really), but military tech still is important, at least first 2 levels. First, it's the population limit, second, you need the ability to raise an army, even if not planning to use it! In fact, you should always have some military buildings at the ready, even at peace. Well, any RTS player will find this quite obvious. Science research is fine in the various stuff it provides, and never forget that it actually makes the other techs cheaper, making it well worth a path to pursue.
Advance ages at your own convenience, but don't delay it too much. In fact, if you have the resources, it's mostly better to advance. First, it always provides some bonuses, like the Classical age ability to build mounted units (and Mines!). Second, units from later ages are better, and really they are. Once you're in Classical, you can quite certainly expect your cavalry units to beat any Archaic unit that might come. Besides, the Classical Age opens doors for things such as wonders and some interesting prospects. Same goes for other ages, they all are worth it.
Industrial Age
Deserves a few sentences on its own, for it really changes the game. This is where the game changes economically and militarily. Mainly militarily, of course. Tanks become available, and that's a huge change. Simply put, no Enlightment age unit can reasonably fight against a Tank. Once you get the Light Tank tech, you get your heavy cavalry upgrades to those, and enemy infantry and archers suddenly are all doomed. Also note that Artillery is that much more deadly. The second big military change of Industrial Age is the arrival of airpower. OK, all you get for now is primitive fighter aircraft, but it all marks the beggining of a new area in military development. Fighters may not seem like much of a threat to your cities and ground forces, but take my advice - build them anti-aircraft guns! They become available now, and this is the time you HAVE to get them. Otherwise, you'll be very disappointed when in Modern Age 16 bombers fly up to your land and beat the crap out of one of cities. AA guns have quite a reasonable range, and you should clearly put them in proximity of every city center you have, as well as any wonders. I have lost my Collosus because of bombings, and I'm not going to forget that.
City attacking
A few words here, too. First, be sure to bring in supply wagons, because you will likely have to fight at least a bit inside enemy borders. Second, have siege at the ready, there's no other really effective method of getting rid of buildings. Now, my preference is to target the city center immediately with my siege, just trying to outflood the enemy with my units, and take down his military structures with other methods. In fact, once you have some 5 siege guns, taking the city center down to 0 HP isn't hard, and that's when the territory becomes neutral. Great stuff, no attrition, no building for enemy, and it all is going to be yours soon. This is usually where I turn my siege to other military strucutres nearby, while the infantry troopers are made for a more defensive role, often entrenched. Also, 2-3 citizens go for repairing the city center.
Be sure to remember that your siege, once level of Cannons or later, is also good against units, doing serious splash damage.
Beggining the game
What you do when you start the game can largely decide whether you win or lose. The decisions made in the first two minutes are absolutely crucial, and a good player will know what is he doing. However, one of the things that makes Rise of Nations shine is the no fixed starting build order - you can generally try several paths, all of them with their upsides and downsides. [Age of Kings note here: remember, the standard 25 villager Feudal Age, with doing exactly the same things every time for the first 10 minutes?]
However, here's an outline of the basic tips at beggining. Pause the game, if single-player. Now, take a look around. You have got your nice little city, a few peasants, and a Library, most likely. The first things you want to do are to get your economy going. While paused, do this: order to build citizens. Now, select your scout. It's not an easy decision now... you can either press Ctrl+E and have him scout automatically, or do it the old fashioned way and scout by yourself, setting waypoints, etc.
The professional player will clearly want to manage the scout manually, to sometimes explore more in one direction or other. However, it can be quite a problem for the less experienced players - it's often easy to forget your scout, and find out that he's sitting there idle, and you have little land discovered. That sucks, especially in RoN, where you have toknow the terrain to select the best locations for your next cities, as well as evaluate the strategic positions for future battles. If you feel that you can't control the scout, sure, let it go automatically. All in all, it will do a pretty decent job, concentrically scouting around your land, revelaing the rare resources (and picking some stuff from ruins!), and then heading on for lands closer to the bad guys.
Now that you have your scout moving and the citizens queued, it's time to go to the Library and select your first technology to research. I do very strongly recommend that Science Level 1, Written Word, is your first item of research. You get the access to Temple, which is something you want early on anyway, for the border booster, and best of all, you get a 10% cost and speed discount on your future researches.
For the start of your economy, of course, Food and Timber matter, and both about equally, although I tend to prioritize Food a little bit. Therefore - my first goal in the game is to get myself up to 5 farms ASAP. You start with 3, and 2 more get built by the first two citizens that come out, thus attempting to ensure continious flow of civilian units from now on. Not that it's enough, though. Now, just as you would, keep pumping them citizens out, till you have also your first Woodcutter's camp full. Try to have the Library researching something whenever you can.
What is the second tech to go for, then? Again, you can basically do anything that you like here, but I will often go for Civics level 1 Government, following Commerce Level 1 Barter then. Why Government? Because it gives you the ability to construct a second city, rather simple it is, no? And when you switch to an empire of two cities, it's where you start to reap many advantages. Notice here - if you're Bantu, you're a BIG step ahead of the game. With your (much!) cheaper cities, you absolutely have to research Civics level 1 ASAP, and then just go for a second city. IIRC, the cost was 15 food 15 timbr for Bantu second city, no?
From your capitol, get 2-3 citizens to a place that seems comfortable enough and build your second city, thus granting yourself another economic center, a border expansion and more options. Yet again, my goal is Food, and I want to fill the second city with 5 farms as soon as I can. I hopefully don't have Timber problems now. If the original forest near capital is big enough, then the full Woodcutter's camp is providing quite an income. If not, then I will also throw a timber gather point here at the second city, but still, 5 more Farms here are the priority. I guess then, it's easy to see why the Commerce level 1 is such a priority, I don't exactly need 10 farms if I have a low commerce cap.
So, a few minutes into the game, I want to have two cities, 10 Farms, some Timber income also from one or two sources, and I generally put a Temple in my capital as soon as I get that extra timber. Now, what to research next? Yet again - if you have the resources, keep the library busy, unless saving the money for an age jump. It now won't exactly matter if you for the Military research ASAP, or if you want Science level 2 first, whatever... look at your resources, evaulate the possibilities. However, you DO NOT want to skip Military level 1 tech. Some people have tried that, and it's a pretty terrible idea. You have to get Military level 1 to be able to build a Barracks or a Tower - basically, anything that can fight. Now, remember the Japanese, with which a good player will go on and attack you at 3 minutes. You know, if you get even a single military unit in your land when you don't even have the Military level 1 researched, you're positively screwed.
Classical Age is indeed a very good thing, but shouldn't be the 100% goal. Sure, you can go to classical without military technology and poor Timber income, but what good it gives? Go to the Classical age at your own convenience, but when you have researched level 1 for all the research branches... I've tried skipping civics at all, and delaying the second city till Classical, but the results were terrible.
Now, sometimes I get that extra Timber coming in fast while I am accumulating the final food for my classical jump. A few things to do early - if you have two cities, get a Market up and build a caravan. That's some wealth for you... In the Classical Age, you probably want to have a Temple in every of your cities. And, here it goes - if you have the Timber, build your first Barracks in Ancient or while going to Classical. It doesn't mean that you immediately have to rush or mass an army, but it's much better to have a building capable of producing some troops at need immediately.
Also, I try to get my first tower up in early Classical or during the advance, even. The reasoning here is rather simple. Attrition level 1 can be researched at the tower, and it matters. Psychologically, the enemy doesn't want to see his troops take that attition, and it also actually helps you defend against those damn rushes. Where to put that first tower? Look at the situation... if your second city seems like an area exposed to attack, then it's there. However, all things being equal, I prefer the tower in the capital, for it is really, really, REALLY annoying if an enemy manages to attack your capital early on.
The above guidelines have been set with a pretty peaceful beggining in mind. Of course, if you intend to be rushing your enemy, it has to be different, one thing being that you need to prioritize your Military research and actually make troops from your barracks. I am still to explore most of the possibilities for the early rushes, and will post on those some other day. For now, however, let me give you this tip - you can harass the enemy VERY early with almost nothing. Note that this requires good (probably manual) scouting, you have to know where the enemy capital is.
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