Thanks Wesbat – those are some good tips. I honestly find the railroad thing INSANE, especially compared to the later games, but it’s great if you put the investment into lots of rail (which is totally worth it).
I just won my first game after a few goes experimenting with different starting approaches. What worked for me was building a defensive unit for my first city, then a scouting unit (militia) to explore, and then spamming settlers to focus on building cities rather than growing them (plus keeping costs down by not having to pay building maintenance). I also made sure to build roads as I moved my settlers to the new city site to prioritise movement between cities (and later, railroads), and made a quick dash for Monarchy as early as I could. By not building too many buildings I was able to keep my tax rate basically zero for a long time (but playing on easy so might not be possible on a real difficulty level). A bit different to how I’d approach one of the later games.
I personally find the start of a civ game the most exciting.
