I just started playing against Serious AI. I almost exclusively play Pangaea maps with default settings I realize that the answers to these questions might vary depending on what race you're playing -- I've sort of been dabbling in all of them, though.



I have trouble getting overwhelmed by the AI in terms of territory, particularly when they start near me. I've found it difficult to succeed consistently without a good start -- good anomalies, access to luxuries and strategics, and generally starting away from the AI settler spam. I typically try to start my first settler after the Founder's Memorial and Mill Foundry are built, and occasionally buyout the settler if I don't have enough industry. But after that second city, I find it hard not to slow down on expansion. It feels difficult to get out more cities without suffering severe happiness and dust penalties that become even worse during the first winter. It also feels as if these new settlements take ages to make profitable and self-sufficient. How often should I be kicking out settlers? When should I generally stop and start building up the cities? Should I be prioritizing high industry or a more or less even distribution of FIDS for new settlements? Is there a 'minimum' requirement for food and dust for new settlements? Should I make an effort to specialize my first cities in anything, or is that mostly a tactic for later settlements towards the endgame?



What's the purpose of the dust equipment you get later in the game? From what I can tell from the tool tip, they give the same stats as iron but cost more gold and industry?



One of my biggest qualms with this game (with any 4x, really) is that the late game is a slog, especially for military victories, but the early game is really tense. Is there any way to alleviate this late game issue?



Completely off topic, but are there any good multiplayer videos I could take a look at? I realize I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'd like to make an effort to jump into multiplayer once I get a better grasp on the game.

I would say: don´t worry. The game is like that, the AI spams settlers and has a hard time defending all that territory (except on endless, which can be though because of extra industry and science).



If you have plans for a region but can´t afford to move half your entire economy into settling that, just wait and don´t count on those plans. Make better ones until you can absolutely say: ok, that region is mine. If in this meanwhile someone settle it, you have backup plans and a lighter mind when deciding whether to attack them for the region or not.



War is always an option. For many factions it´s actually better to get cities from someone else intead of settling and growing them yourself, like the broken lords and necrophages.

My strategy is to make a fixed number of settlers per game and then focus on a military take-over. When I do that, I settle based on adjacency, strategics, and industry, in that order. I settle few enough cities that I find that they're all productive relatively quickly, inside of 20 turns. The number of settlers depends on when you want to have peak production. To have peak production around normal turn 40, I go for three cities (building two settlers), but if you want to invest a little more heavily, there's nothing wrong with 4 or 5 cities, and if you want an earlier payout, there's nothing wrong with 2 cities. I don't really care much about dust or science, because they usually take care of themselves for me unless my capital happens to be really poor.



Dust equipment has slight benefits over iron in terms of stats.



If the end-game is a slog, I would recommend trying to win as quickly as possible.



Multiplayer isn't so competitive (usually) that you need to prepare yourself. Just jump on in, and adjust your strategy as you see what happens. It's not as if there's any shame in losing. If somebody is miles ahead of you, friend them and ask them after the game how they did it.

excellent rule of thumb there.



I´d say the 4/5 cities approach for me is almost exclusive to Roving Clans. Eventually the quests for Ardent Mages, Drakken and even Broken Lords, depending on resource availability, might force them into that; but when I do it, I settle gradually until turn 40~50 and only really count with the industry of the first two.



The main problem with expanding too fast is that each city is a security issue on its own. It´s hard to defend your cities.

Necrophages I try 2 cities until war, whenever possible. All the rest I go for three.



Regarding tiles, the best you can do is to plan.

Science and Industry are always limited, so sticking to a type of terrain in order to benefit from buildings in the same tech is always the way to go. If you start on fresh waters, try to put as many cities as possible exploring fresh water tiles as soon as possible to benefit from Aquapulvistics the most. Planning when you´re going to research and actually get these season-dependent buildings done also helps wonder - research the tech during winter and get the buildings ASAP when winter is over, while avoiding spending industry on a building that might stop working in about 5 turns.



I see two big categories of buildings/techs - things that will improve extraction and things that will improve productivity. There´s always something you can extract and something you have to produce through your population. These somethings can even change from the early to the late game, if you settle on a small forest and expand into ice for example. It´s important to constantly recognize what´s going well, what seems to be too good to be true, and what you need to invest on.



It helps wonders to understand whether you´ll focus on "Exploitation" - with many spread out cities, low overall approval which means low overall food and industry, a low count of high level districts and a lot of surface; or if you´ll focus on condensed cities, with high approval and district levels, high population count and little "Exploitation" surface.



tl:dr - the game is made in way that every tile can become very useful with the right tech and building. Not having above average tiles at the start means you´ll have to play defence instead of offence, until you unlock your tile´s potential. By the middle of the game, a forested river is as good as an anomaly.