Starting Strategy Guide

This guide provides detailed strategies for the crucial early phases of CivIdleCli, helping you establish a stable and growing civilization.

First Steps (First 5-10 minutes)

Starting Resources

You begin with:

• 1 villager
• Small amounts of food and wood
• No buildings

Immediate Actions

1. Gather Food First

   • Command: gather food 1
   • This ensures your villager produces 2.3 food per tick while consuming 2.1
   • The small surplus of 0.2 per tick will help you accumulate resources

2. Check Status Regularly

   • Command: status
   • Monitor your resource rates and accumulation

3. First Resource Goal: Wood

   • Once you've accumulated 30-50 food, switch to wood gathering
   • Command: gather wood 1
   • Gather enough wood (20) to build your first hut

4. Build First Hut

   • Command: build hut
   • This increases your villager capacity to 3 (1 base + 2 from hut)

5. Return to Food Gathering

   • Command: gather food 1
   • Build up food reserves to around 100-150

Key Early Buildings (First 20-30 minutes)

Build these in the following priority order:

1. First Farm (Cost: 100 wood, 50 stone, 100 food)

   • This should be your top priority
   • Provides 3.5 food per tick plus 8% gathering bonus
   • After building, your food production should jump significantly

2. Second Hut (Cost: 20 wood)

   • Increases villager capacity to 5
   • Enables recruiting more villagers

3. First Lumber Mill (Cost: 100 wood, 300 stone)

   • Produces 2 wood per tick
   • Gives 10% bonus to wood gathering

Villager Recruitment Strategy

When to Recruit

• Recruit your first additional villager after building your first farm
• Command: recruit villager 1

Optimal Villager Assignment (First 3 Villagers)

• Villager 1: Food gathering
• Villager 2: Wood gathering
• Villager 3: Stone gathering

Food Economy Check

Before recruiting each new villager, verify your food economy:

• Each villager consumes 2.1 food per tick
• Ensure your food production exceeds consumption by at least 1.0 per villager
• Example: For 3 villagers (6.3 consumption), aim for at least 7.5 production

Resource Balancing Strategy

Phase 1: Basic Infrastructure (3-5 Villagers)

Aim for this resource assignment:

• Food: 40% of villagers
• Wood: 30% of villagers
• Stone: 30% of villagers

Phase 2: Expansion (5-10 Villagers)

• Food: 30% of villagers
• Wood: 30% of villagers
• Stone: 20% of villagers
• Gold: 10% of villagers
• Knowledge: 10% of villagers

Building Progression

1. Huts (for population capacity)
2. Farms (for food stability)
3. Lumber Mills (for wood production)
4. Mines (for stone and gold)
5. Market (for gold bonuses)
6. Library (for knowledge)

Common Early Game Mistakes

1. Expanding Too Quickly

   • Recruiting villagers faster than your food economy can support
   • Solution: Always build food infrastructure before recruiting

2. Neglecting Food Production

   • Not having enough farms or food gatherers
   • Solution: Maintain at least one farm per 3-4 villagers

3. Unbalanced Resource Gathering

   • Focusing too much on one resource
   • Solution: Distribute villagers according to current building needs

4. Not Planning Building Costs

   • Getting stuck without enough resources for important buildings
   • Solution: Check building costs with the buildings command and plan accordingly

Reaching Sustainability

You've reached early game sustainability when:

1. You have 3+ farms
2. Food production exceeds consumption by at least 5-10 per tick
3. You have 8-10 villagers with balanced resource gathering
4. You've built at least 2 of each basic production building

From this point, you can focus on knowledge gathering, research, and advancing to the next age.