Civ V, first attempt

So I recently got my hands on a copy of Civilization V on Steam. Apparently this is a popular game. I wouldn't know. I've never played it before. But I guess since I now seem to own it, I might as well give it a try, right? I'll have no idea what I'm doing, of course.

I picked Nebuchadnezzar because seriously, is that a cool name or what? Plus he gets to, like, Cabal Therapy them every turn, so that's gotta be good, right?

 

Seems fine to me. Gotta be better than Suleiman, since I'm pretty sure there aren't any Djinns or Efreets in this game for him to destroy. And none of the other guys even have Magic cards, so they can't be all that great. 

The first conundrum is what to research. That, and the mystery of "What the hell I'm supposed to do with this warrior unit," but the research makes a better screenshot.

Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Mining...geez, these all sound so boring. Okay, I'm going with mining because I see a mine right next to my city, so I want to mine that. Hi ho hi ho. 

And then it wants to know what "Social Policy" I'm going to adopt? We've got Tradition, Liberty, and Honor. Meh, nothing too exciting. Order sounds nice, but that's not available yet, apparently, because Order wasn't invented until the Industrial Age. I'm going to go with Tradition because you might say every one of us is a fiddler on a roof, trying to scratch out a simple, pleasant tune without breaking his neck, and how do we keep our balance? Tradition. I don't want to break my neck, so I'm picking Tradition.

I really don't know what these warriors are supposed to do. I guess I just make them auto-explore? Don't see anything around for them to fight yet. 

One thing I'm noticing about this game is that it's kind of slow. I keep having these turns where I literally do nothing except tick down these counters another turn. It's supposed to do that, right? I'm not used to this.

Some other guys wandered into my area, but I don't understand what sort of diplomacy I'm expected to do. I suggested a friendship but none of them accepted it, and I asked them not to settle too close to me but apparently that annoyed them, so...

Also, I found a city-state and they gave me some gold to commemorate our...meeting, I guess, which was nice of them. Then some barbarians started attacking them and I helped them out a little, which made them like me. Yay? I assume that's good. 

I researched Writing and it gave me a free scientist: Marie Curie. Is she Babylonian? I thought she was French. Did I steal her from Napoleon? I hope he's not mad. In any case, she founded a University and now I get...like, science points or something, I dunno how this works. 

I made a worker, but I don't actually know what workers do in this game. For now I just told it to auto-whatever, so hopefully it's smart enough to figure things out without my help. Do I build stuff faster, or what?

And some barbarians showed up near my city. I don't think I have the hang of combat. The only units I have are warriors. I could research Archery and get bowmen. Should I research Archery? I'll research Archery. 

I don't understand this game. But I've been playing it for almost two hours, so it must be okay.