Would like community feedback: is this a normal game for you? (See post)

You need to explore more, seriously. The fact that you haven't met an AI yet screams this. You should be sending scouts out in every direction until you meet an enemy. Settle everything you can, everywhere you can, then you can teleport everywhere (Hint: it's called Spirit Walk for Empire). Build those merchant shops, the 1 food is nothing, Make a caravan and send it to your capital, and wherever you have the Oasis = food cost covered to spare. This fix did absolutely nothing, I'm usually rolling in food.

Also, if you're getting bored this early, you should be playing on smaller maps.

Yeah, 90% of the game currently is spam cities and armies.  You basically have to rush to be competitive.  Play this like you do starcraft/starcraft 2 and you will do well.

That does sound like a bit of a rough start, but I agree with Kalin on most of his points:

-Explore, explore, explore.  On most of the "large" maps (there's only 3, maybe 4, "random ones") circular exploration isn't efficient.  I send my sovereign in one direction, Janusk in another, recruit a champion or two as I go and send them in another direction.  Single cheap champions are perfect explorers, they can run away from all battles early on and pick up goodies.  NOTE:  Do not use auto-explore, it is terrible, won't pick up goodies, runs in circles, back-tracks large areas to explore a corner that a human can plainly see is a dead-end, etc...

-Settle cities about 8-10 squares apart even if there's no resources (prioritize resources obviously).  Even small cities provide a caravan (2 as empire) which can boost food production in your farming city.  They also provide influence and covering an area in influence reduces (or stops if complete) monster spawn and caravan slaughter.  I usually have 10+ cities by turn 100, basically every city is always making a pioneer until I run out of room, or need military.

-my experience is that you don't need a defender in every city, just the border cities.  Save up for stronger units.  One strong unit trumps 2+ week units almost every time.

This is not true at all.  I'm on turn 500 with my current game on a huge 128x64 map and I only have 5 cities (one is simply a choke-point for my armies).  The AI has about equal strength to my own.  I have spent a lot of time exploring the map with transport ships and finding islands suitable for colonizing.  Monsters are everywhere and brutal.

The idea that you have to spam cities to have fun is pure bunk.

I am playing on an Elementerra map, which may have something to do with it, but I have not had 1 minute where I felt bored.

So is it normal to only be able to build one below average team of 3-men Scouts every 18 turns or so? (1 for the whole Empire b/c that is all the materials I'm making)

I didn't realize there was a point in putting cities where there are no resources - I thought this would lead to food issues for minimal resources?

I feel like I have these teeny-tiny armies at turn 150 and cities that have to wait forever to build granaries etc. b/c the materials are in tension with building soldiers (soldiers or buildings but not both most turns).....

I build something every chance I get (army or city improvement) but maybe the key is making a lot more cities - I could have probably 6-8 additional cities.

I am exploring and usually by now I've met an AI opponent .... but that isn't the main point... the main point is the slow pace.

I realize it is TBS (what I usually play) but could someone give me an idea for these categories in # of turns:

Early:

Mid:

Late:

Example:  Early 200 turns  Mid 200-400 Late: 400-600   ...... or are games on a much shorter scale?   What are people experiencing?

J

Cities don't cost any food unless you build housing or merchant, so no worries there.  I don't play Empires, but Kingdoms have a 1 material building w/ no upkeep, and also a 1 arcane research with no upkeep, so your influence-spreading, teleport-enabling cities will still be useful (very useful to you, since it sounds like you found no old growth forest / clay pit / marble quarry to shurn out the materials).

NOTE: this means you'll end up with max size 10 hamlets all over the place, but if that doesn't bother you - rock on!

Personally I think you should have more cities and units by that point in the game.

Scout aggressively to find those resource nodes. I just use peasants until my economy gets going and send them out far and wide to uncover the map. Rush pioneers to any areas with resources ASAP with a peasant escort to get them before the AI and to get them hooked up to your economy as soon as you can. Once you have a second city you can even use your sovereign teleport to get your pioneers and escort part way to their location to speed things up further, although this usually isn't necessary unless you're in an actual race with the AI for a location.

Build caravans early to get more food for more cities. Build influence cities if needed to fill the holes between your resource cities so you have a solid border and push the monster spawn areas out to the hinterlands. Research adventure techs if needed for even more resource nodes. Build the appropriate multiplier buildings to boost those resource nodes, prioritizing whatever resource you don't have enough of first.

Also, I'd recommend turning notable locations and quests back on, especially on a large map. You are denying yourself valuable opportunities to get extra resources (which is sometimes crucial for getting going in the early game), troop experience and items. It also is something fun to do while getting your economy revved up.

In my current game I have 5 cities, 4k to work with and I have 4 groups of 4 archers and 2 catapults in each city.

What you need to do is upgrade your warfare research more and get more experienced fighters and so there are GROUPS of them isntead of just one at a time. 

Also another thing is try another game and make a new save spot. It might just be the one map you are on that this will happen on. For me its differnt each time I play because maps are differnt,etc...

Also explore a little more! And man you NEED more fighters! hehe one in each city? Come on now! Sounds like the begining of my game hehe.

Keep exploring and building new cities, aswell as making sure to build stuff in each city when u can.

Technically there is a point, building cities in that wasteland "revives" the land. You can also specialize those cities for gildar/tech/arcane. You pretty much have to have a lot of cities. I play on a large map, few hundred turns in, been exploring a lot, I know where the other factions are but have not encountered them yet...and almost have a metropolis. I have no issues getting resources..you just need to expand more and research more into adventure tech. If you do everything you need to do, you will have no issues, and it simplifies everything.

Markets are good for specialized gildar cities. Slap on a palace, the world wonder market, the gildar+% from city levels, and a bunch of other things and that 1 gold turns into 4-5ish. Food is very easy to get later on anyway.

I don't know about everyone else, but when I play on a large map with ridiculous AI I consider it like this:

Early: First 100 turns, establishing my area of control, finding choke points, exploring, maybe killing 1-2 AIs that started a little too close to me.  Although the one time I did the Master Quest I completed it on about turn 112.  I have it turned off now because it's just too easy.

Mid: Turns 100-200 (roughly) My area is roughly established, choke points controlled, filling in area with extra cities as possible/needed, dealing with any other annoyances (AIs that irk me)

Late: Turn 200+, slaughtering the rest of the AIs

Game ends: somewhere around turn 250-300 I've usually gotten bored with killing off AIs one at a time (never losing a unit, come on better AI!) or I hit too many out of memory crashes and start over (hoping 1.08 will fix some of this, but other issues have kept me from finding out, come on slipstream patch!)

Edit: I should point out that I don't usually build too many units because they take soooo many turns to produce, I usually have the resources, but 15+ turns to produce a squad of guys that is mediocre just seems pointless.  Instead I summon up an army of 2 fire giants, 2 stone giants, and 2 Ice Lords and I just go slaughter everything.  Fire giants and stone giants take out anything ranged and weaken things, Ice Lords butcher anything that gets close to melee.  Though with organize going bye-bye I may have to rethink my games may drag on longer and I may need more, and better, doom stacks.

I have the same problem starting an army. I've tried many games and have been unable to field a decent sized army or units for city defense. There are not enough ways to produce gilder and tools to create a viable army.

Current priorities should be to eco boom your first few techs in Civilization, followed by a couple military techs, followed by going all the way down the adventuring resource techs. Then do what you want based on your style/resources. The game is still too easy.

I agree with the others. You have to expand more agressively. Use caravans to ramp up your food income.

But if you're bored.....why have you turned off notable locations/quests. Isn't that asking for a dull game? For me that part of the game is almost funnier than the 4X part

Asmodean

Wow, playing without quests and notable locations... that's a really big part of this game. 

That's one of the weakest parts of this game.  Since every map has lots of random elements it is very easy to get a bad map.  When you get a bad map the game can become a real slow paced struggle.. but I like that. I will admit though that better map creation needs to be looked into for making more balanced maps everytime.

That's your fault.  Buy movement enhancing items for him asap... I ALWAYS buy him the boots that give +1 movement for 10gildar when my first city is founded.  As soon as I can afterwards I buy him the cloak that adds additional movement.

I don't know your history, but this is a TBS .. the 'FUN' is in planning how you will progress then implementing that plan over time and watching it come to fruition.  Whatever it takes.

As I have said, it is partly(ONLY PARTLY) the games fault because, honestly, they could have come up with something better for making random maps more balanced for a good play session every time .. personally, I don't want this because I like to get a bad start and then plan my way out of it to success.  For the general public though, I think I would have included an option to generate more balanced maps.

As far as your gold situtation, I can only say that you need to learn the gameplay a little better .. at first I had a lot of trouble , but now I can acquire about 20gil per turn in the first 50 turns easy.  The research tree is a big issue here.. it's not really clear what to reasearch or when like most games are, BUT I LIKE THIS.  If you look carefully at what each research does, you can see that you need to 'weave' your way through the branches because some of the techs have an affect on techs that are not in their particular branch ,and they cause changes in the game world.  This is especially true for Civ and Adv ... resources drive your economy, but the techs make it better.  There is no point in grinding your way down the military branch when you can't afford the stuff it unlocks. Also, there is no point in churning out research to make higher level heros available when you can't afford them and at the same time making the world more dangerous. 

Specialize your cities, and don't try to make every city uber.. make them effective at using the resources they have nearby. 

That's about the best I can tell you.. experiment and have fun.

You're doing some wrong then. It shouldn't be hard to get some early troops and pioneers out so you can expand. Peasants are fine until you can afford better. I get the sense some people just aren't prioritizing their builds. Getting the troops you need for defense, exploration and expansion is usually much more important than getting that nice-to-have new building you just researched (except perhaps when that building helps address a critical resource shortage). You have to make plan and make choices, you don't have enough resources to do everything. Rapid expansion is what gets your economy on a solid footing the fastest, so that's my priority for the early game, not more buildings. Go get those resource nodes and everything becomes easier.