TSG 145 Opening Action Report

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG145 Opening Actions thread.
STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed at least 80 to 100 turns in your game.
This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing through your first 100 turns. Apart from normal decency, the only posting restrictions are to please not post videos until the deadline is finished and to use the spoiler tags for screenshots. Here you can post questions related to the game and share your achievements/anger/frustration/victories while you play. Please remember that we are running a family friendly site, so express anger or frustration with this in mind.
Please use this thread to discuss your goals for the game and your opening moves through the first 100 turns. Anything after that should be posted in the After Action thread once you have completed your game.
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- What Social Policies did you choose?
- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith
- Any surprises?

 

[Vacuuman]

I'm 69 turns in, but since it's quick speed I figured that's alright. I felt pretty confident that the starting location was the best spot, so I plunked down right there. I decided to go with Tradition, and I got a nice culture ruin early on to help out with that. The game speed is throwing off all my normal deadlines and general sense of timing. I built ToA and am 1 turn away from Oracle (NC around turn 63).

For tech, I went with pottery straight away and followed with AH > mining. Initial build order was scout > worker > granary > shrine > settler. Sent the second settler to the mountainside/coastal hill, where it has access to both GBR tiles as well as the additional salt. Teched to comp bows because Theodora is close and weak, and then started on getting my NC techs.

As of right now, I just took Theodora's capital, although her dromon/archer/city triple team took out several of my archers on its way down. She's not offering anything other than straight up peace, and I'm contemplating whether to continue attacking and raze her second city (removing her from the game), continue attacking until she offers more beneficial peace terms, or settling for peace to focus on my economy and religion (second religion, Earth mother, tithe, +2 faith from wonders). I've already met Attilla, Ashur, and Wu.

Any advice?

 

[zxcvbob]

I started this one last night and played for about 2 hours. Don't remember what turn I'm on; almost to Renaissance era, and I'm number one in tech but having trouble holding that lead. I'm going to have to move from my laptop to the desktop computer because the game keeps crashing/locking-up/overheating and shutting down. (must be the large map)

I went Tradition->Patronage and will switch to Rationalism as soon as it unlocks. I settled in place; monument, scout (I didn't think I'd need a scout on archipelago map, but this one is weird) shrine, granary, archer, prebuilt worker until I hit 4 pop then switched to settler. I put my first expo next to the mountain to the east and started beelining Currency so I could build Petra. London built Hanging Gardens, York did get Petra, and then I settled Nottingham later than I should've down by the GBR. London and York have so many hammers I've pretty much run out of things to build. Three cities isn't really enough on a large map, is it?

I met Theodora and Attila very quickly, then Ashurbanipal and Wu a little later, and I think that's it so far. Someone I haven't met yet (I assume it's mainly just one) is building a lot of wonders that I want, like ToA and Oracle and Notre Dame. Attila built Stonehenge; I think I founded the first religion and he founded the 2nd a turn or two later. The two of us have the largest militaries, and the lead goes back and forth even tho' I'm not building all that many units to keep the costs down. Theodora did not get a religion at all, and no more are available. I don't think she even has a pantheon. The game has been peaceful so far, and she's the obvious target when I get my warmonger on, but other than proximity her cities aren't that attractive. She did build Colossus, so I suppose that's worth stealing. I'm seriously considering teaming up with Attila and declaring war on everyone as soon as I get SOTL's.

 

[KingDante]

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
Emperor = Should be able to get at least one ancient wonder of my choice. I wanted to go Tradition. Mainly I need to scout and figure out what my choices are for cities. This map can be really bad for cities, so that was important to see if I could find 4 good city spots. I always prefer peaceful games, so I'll probably stay peaceful until at least Ship of the Line. Then I might consider some war.

Also, I lack experience with quick mode. Only played a few times, and that can throw off my timing. Because it's a large map I'd need to go information age to force the vote, instead of warring everyone down to 3 people left.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
Settled in Place. I scouted to the forest to the north. Thought it looked good for a potential 2nd city but didn't see enough to waste the turns to move. After two more turns of scouting though I found the mountain, desert, coastal, hill with oasis, and knew it would have been a great capital spot. However, it probably wasn't worth moving for the turns lost.

2nd city = Founded on Mountain, Hill, Iron next to Great Barrier (East of capital)
3rd city = Founded on T39, Mountain Hill, desert, coastal, oasis on Capital side of water (North of capital)
4th city = Founded on T67 (after NC) on top of the Dyes to the far north.
5th city = Founded to the Far East in the middle of the 4 fish peninsula. (Fairly late settlement.)

Build order: Scout -> Worker (2 turns) -> Shrine -> Worker (finish) -> Settler -> Settler -> Granary -> TOA (T42) -> Library -> NC(T57) -> Oracle (T66)

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Decided to always settle on coast due to map settings. Also wanted to make sure I could use cargo ships to capital when at all possible. Terrain allowed me to find 5 good city locations instead of the standard 4 city tradition. I found more, far away, but they weren't worth it by the time I could get them online.

- What were your initial priorities?
Make sure to get National College before T66 (Maintain competitiveness for science progression), Don't lose any city spots to AI, Land Petra in the Desert city location to the north of capital, Found a religion with Tithe (gold is always helpful for VC)

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Pottery->Iron->Horses->Archery-> NC-> Petra -> Education.

Just took a standard science victory path. Diplomatic victory is primarily science limited. If I can win on science, I will win fast.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
Tradition. Completed Tradition T66 when I built Oracle. Then led into Patronage for the next set. (Targeting to eventually get the science policy from allied CS)

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
Built: ToA (T42), NC (T57), Oracle (T66), Petra (T71), Borobudor (T72), Mausoleum (T76), Machu Pichu (T78), Chichen Itza (T85), Alhambra (T93), Notre Dame (completed just before/around T100, but I missed the exact turn to write it down)

Got Beat: HG (beat by 4 turns, T60)

A note on wonders. I was able to build twice as many wonders as I expected because of getting Petra in my expo. This allowed me to have two great production cities, which could win on wonders. I was also solidly in first place after turn 40. Never looked back.

- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith
If I have the tiles, I almost always go early faith. Built a shrine on T7, Founded Earth Mother Pantheon on T19, Founded first religion T46 (had first religion for what seemed like forever) (Tithe Pagodas, probably should have taken wonder faith here instead), T93 Enhanced Religion (30% distance spread, World Wonder Faith -hahaha).

- Any surprises?
Great Barrier Reef!!! So good. This was astoundingly good for my game. I found it early (Turn 13), and decided to rush out a settler (as soon as I hit pop 3) to make sure my neighbors didn't take it. When I settled my city there, my science went from 7 bpt to 9 bpt immediately. A huge boost, because it grew quickly to pop 2 which meant another 2 bpt.

I was also extremely surprised at the structure of this archipelago. The "island" that we start on is way bigger than any I'm used to for this map type. Starting with my scout paid off, much better than I expected.

Overall, I am quite impressed at how easy this game has been. Salt start with two great first expansions (including an awesome Petra city) allowed me to runaway with the game. I'm double the points of 2nd place and have been for some time. I have made a few mistakes on optimal build path, and haven't been purchasing buildings like I should be for a super fast win, but I've been enjoying the Sim City, so I take that as an acceptable trade-off.

 

[KingDante]

I'm 69 turns in, but since it's quick speed I figured that's alright. I felt pretty confident that the starting location was the best spot, so I plunked down right there. I decided to go with Tradition, and I got a nice culture ruin early on to help out with that. The game speed is throwing off all my normal deadlines and general sense of timing. I built ToA and am 1 turn away from Oracle (NC around turn 63).

For tech, I went with pottery straight away and followed with AH > mining. Initial build order was scout > worker > granary > shrine > settler. Sent the second settler to the mountainside/coastal hill, where it has access to both GBR tiles as well as the additional salt. Teched to comp bows because Theodora is close and weak, and then started on getting my NC techs.

As of right now, I just took Theodora's capital, although her dromon/archer/city triple team took out several of my archers on its way down. She's not offering anything other than straight up peace, and I'm contemplating whether to continue attacking and raze her second city (removing her from the game), continue attacking until she offers more beneficial peace terms, or settling for peace to focus on my economy and religion (second religion, Earth mother, tithe, +2 faith from wonders). I've already met Attilla, Ashur, and Wu.

Any advice?

Hard to give advice with incomplete information, but I have a few things which may help.

1. Wiping out Theodora before she founds a religion, can be useful to limit religious conflict, and especially wiping her out before you meet everyone is good. However, I wouldn't want to do so if it causes me to lose multiple units or waste production building units. Only keep good cities.

2. I'd want to get up to 4 good cities as quickly as possible. Not necessarily going to be useful because you might have already passed the time where founding can be worth it, but you can probably found cities up until maybe turn 80-90 or so without harming your end game science too much. Since you already have NC, that's a priority to finish quickly immediately following NC if you don't already have the 4.

3. It's diplomacy victory so it's vital that you be the first to meet all of the civs. Ships are likely needed for that, so building multiple to find everyone is likely a good idea. You also want to be the first to reach Printing Press so that you found the World Congress.

4. Votes start at Information Age (1 civ) or half civs at Atomic. So, play a standard science game from there.

 

[zxcvbob]

As of right now, I just took Theodora's capital, although her dromon/archer/city triple team took out several of my archers on its way down. She's not offering anything other than straight up peace, and I'm contemplating whether to continue attacking and raze her second city (removing her from the game), continue attacking until she offers more beneficial peace terms, or settling for peace to focus on my economy and religion (second religion, Earth mother, tithe, +2 faith from wonders). I've already met Attilla, Ashur, and Wu.

Any advice?

Get Attila (or Ashur) to remove her from the game so you don't take the blame for it. Attila is better because he will raze the city, and he's cheaper to bribe.

 

[Kendon]

I settled in place and built scout, monument, worker; couldn't wait to steal one. In practice games I only needed a scout once but I suspected this time the staff might surprise me with a big island, and so you did. My initial priority was Sailing but my worker had to stay busy so Mining came first. The practice games suggested that falling behind in Science would be hard to make up so Writing was also ahead of Sailing.

I went Liberty for lots of settlers, plus one Honor for barbarian culture. At first I stayed away from wonders but then I tried Temple of Athena, Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Borobudor and Petra. To my surprise I got all four. Then I made a late try for Temple of Zeus but before I really got started Attila had it.

I did want faith if only for the money from Tithe. With the copper and salt Earth Mother was an easy choice.

The main surprise is the absence of surprise. I thought Attila would attack but he's busily building wonders. Now I need to get to Astronomy and a caravel. That's when I expect surprises.