TSG71 Opening Actions

I had quite some fun yesterday evening with this game -- thanks for posting it!

Seeing there were more sea resources to the north I decided to settle on the marble -- the marble helped me with building GL and NC and the location gave me access to lots of food in Venice.

I built a scout which was pretty useless -- gave me a map from one ruin before being stuck by the Zulu border. Then built a very useful worker for lots of farms and mines.

Just after getting philosophy from GL and building NC I built 1 spearman, 3 composites, 1 catapult and 1 trireme and took the Zulu capital (sacrificing spearman, warrior and catapult in the process).

I annexed Antwerp with my first GM and then Zurich with the second which appeared later in Antwerp. Hope to get one in Venice as I have a merchant specialist there.

Exploration did not go very well -- will be better once I get caravels.

Shrine helped me get god of the sea, and then got religion from Hagia Sophia, chose tithe, then got missionaries from Borobudur -- hope to get my religion strong and wide for lots of money!

Did not manage to use all my trade routes yet -- only 2 cargo ships at the moment. Will remedy!

Finished Tradition and have 4 nice cities at present...

First time playing Venice.

Did the opening a while ago, undecided if I will finish the game.

I'm not quite sure how some people decide to settle on a coastal hill without exploring that option with the Warrior, given that the starting tile is already decent. But the Warrior revealed lots of additional seafood, so that's where we went, too.

We managed to squeeze past the Zulu capital with a Scout the turn before they closed the gap. The Scout got upgraded to Archer, and sat there isolated for ages, waiting to be rescued. Couldn't get myself to disband the poor fellow.
Eventually we became friends with Zurich and he could embark.

I still have no idea how to time the discovery of Printing Press but other than that, the game is going fine.

The obvious tree of choice for a friendly game is Liberty (after Tradition opener), with its free Merchant of Venice. If you go stealing and conquering instead, full Tradition is the better path. But I did not set out to use the shortcut where you don't have to research as far if you take out all but one AI.

Going Pottery-Sailing-Optics, our first Merchant of Venice came early. So early that we sent it exploring for a bit before the Marble and Pearls were up and we could safely buy Yerevan. Why Yerevan? It has sufficient growth potential, is close enough for foodships, and yet a Zulu uprising will not interfere with the trade route.

The second Merchant of Venice also had to wait a few turns before buying Antwerp, since they had only just made a Worker and had yet to connect the Gems. It won't be long before we get a third, from the Great Merchant points. Delayed Education for that reason.

We were able to bully some of the City States after our Warrior got promoted to Spearman. Together with the one exploring Trireme he was strong enough for a while. I don't think it would have been profitable to build more units for a second tour, since we want to ally with the City States quickly and the AI has plenty of money for loans.


Cities
1 Venice=26 (3 Pearls, Marble)
54 Yerevan=12 (Silk)
96 Antwerp=8 (Gems, Horses)

Religion
32 God of the Sea
94 Tithe, Swords into Plowshares
103 Religious Community, Religious Texts

Policies
16 Tradition
21 Liberty
30 Citizenship
45 Republic
68 Aristocracy
90 Collective Rule
106 Patronage
113 Philanthropy (Oracle)
123 Rationalism

Trade routes
69 Cargo Ship #1: Yerevan - Venice (7f)
85 Cargo Ship #2: Venice - Ulundi (8g, 1s)
95 Cargo Ship #1: Yerevan - Venice (8f)
97 Cargo Ship #3: Antwerp - Venice (8f)
108 Cargo Ship #2: Venice - Antwerp (8f)
110 Cargo Ship #4: Venice - Yerevan (8h)
115 Cargo Ship #5: Venice - Zurich (11g)
117 Cargo Ship #6: Venice - Ulundi (10g)
119 Cargo Ship #7: Venice - Malacca (10g)
121 Cargo Ship #1: Yerevan - Marrakech (16g)
123 Cargo Ship #8: Yerevan - Venice (9f)


Venice


Technology

I settled south to the hill, went for Aristocracy second, and built scout, monument, granary, Great Library, NC, Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Oracle, and 3 workboats.

My first MOV was a trade mission, with which I bought an archer and a trireme (later a market). I had to wait until t53 to steal a worker from Antwerp, and forgot to build a pantheon (...). That should be rectified with the Hagia Sophia, coming up soon.

Having met four civs (only one friend so far), I am shooting for more DoF's byEducation, then Astronomy.

Hi folks, I've been a bit of an on-and-off player of CiV since Vanilla and am trying to get back into regular play since picking up BNW. Following a recent breakthrough with my first Immortal success, I thought I'd celebrate by giving the GotM a go. It will become self-evident that I'm far from an 'optimum' player, and lean more toward the casual appraoch, but it can't hurt to learn a bit.

First time with Venice, and first time with BNW Diplo

Early actions:

Warrior moved north, quickly followed by Settler (middle northern hill) when I saw the sea resources. Warrior then heading south whilst Venice sets up.

BO: Scout, Monument, Shrine (with all those juicy sea resources), Warrior (to help with Shaka siege), W/Boat x2 (queue-jump Great Library in middle of 2nd one - switching to Prod focus when pop hits 4), Stonehenge, Lighthouse, NC, Colossus (free Cargo Ship starts shifting gold from Antwerp), Oracle, Cargo Ship, Granary

Tech: Pottery, Sailing, Writing, Calendar (to open Philo for GL), Mining, Masonry, bulb-Philo, Optics, BW, IW, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Beeline Edu (in progress as I hit T99)

SP: Trad Opener, Legalism, Landed Elite, Aristocracy, Monarchy, finish off Trad from Oracle on T98


T4: Meet Shaka (oh joy) and circle around him picking up a ruin en route

T9: Scout meets Antwerp before doubling back to follow Warrior. By now already sure that this is an islands map (or that I'm on a small island, at least)

T11: Warrior south of Shaka, Scout NE. DoW - not so much through fear, but because I want to get the hang of the early DoW/worker steal strategy.

Soon realise that his warrior-scout is stuck south of my warrior that is sieging the southern edge of his territory.

T27: Pantheon: God of the Seas (I want to build a strong religion, but expect to only spread through trade routes and occasional missionary to city states).

T30: Steal first worker from Shaka.

T51: Steal Shaka settler, heads up to Venice after chopping the trees to the south.

T61: Portugal wander by - presume they've popped a ruin as it's a spearman.

T63: Steal settler #2 and delete, don't see myself needing more than 2 workers early on, and in fact end up deleting down to one once Venice territory up and running.

T64: Optics MoV goes to scout a bit, meets Yerevan (T72) and Morocco (T78) before routing back to Antwerp, meeting Oda's scout on the way.

T94: Puppet Antwerp (Granary, Chariot Archer), and move Cargo Ship there to feed Venice.

T98: Oracle pops finishing Tradition

T99: Start second Cargo Ship running gold from Yerevan

T99 is last turn of first Golden Age, with following in effect

BPT: 36
GPT: 18
Religion likely to pop in a few turns, next SP due on T100

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?

No Barbs meant I left Archery for a while, and could freely allow my stolen workers to run back alone while I blockade Ulundi. Quick realisation that this looked like island(s), along with sea resources, lead me toward early religion as well as a plan to develop into a sea-trade superpower.

- What were your initial priorities?

Blockade Shaka to practice worker stealing etc. Not sure that I'll destroy him (probably, but wary of diplo hit). Also get tech moving and head for Education. In next 50 turns or so focus will be on getting out to explore more, and set up a massive trade network to roll in the cash.

- What tech path did you follow and why?

GL to Philosophy, early(ish) Ironwork for Colossus, left Optics a while as didn't want to nab city states too early. As mentioned in my intro though, I'm far from optimal in my play, as can be seen by lots of messing about picking up late research on things like Animal Husbandry (and Wheel, only as I started to beeline Edu)

- Were there any early wars and who started them?

A very 'peaceful' one when I DoWed Shaka and proceeded to blockade. Strategic next-steps unclear on that front, but I'm thinking I make try out Great Galleas' on city offence. I like the idea of a 3-city island (Venice, Antwerp, Ulundi) with 4 food trade routes; Venice feeding and being fed by both.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Tradition, really just because it's a habit I need to get into and have been working on. Now that's full, not sure yet. Patronage seems (too?) obvious. Maybe dump some into it but jump to Rationalism when it opens, to try and drive early tech lead.

- Did you notice any gameplay changes due to the patch?

Having not really played BNW much pre-patch, no.



NB: I'm conscious that, having decided to blockade Shaka with my Warrior & Scout (and later with 2nd Warrior) that I've been slow in scouting fully. Trireme is a high priority to start that process now, and hopefully open up a boatload (pun intended) of trade opportunities.

I did not go north with the warrior, but instead moved my settler twice south to get the extra wheat and salt. Not sure if that made a big difference, but what undoubtedly did make one is the fact that I settled on the east coast of my land mass instead of on the west coast. There were so many more trade routes available in the early game on the west coast and I couldn't get them.

tech: pottery / writing / mining / masonry / calendar / philosophy (free) / sailing / optics / archery / AH

BO: scout / granary / worker / GL / NC / cargo ship

SP: full tradition, then immediately into rationalism

ruins: scarcher / 70g / trapping / 30 faith (pantheon)

pantheon / religion: sun-god, tithe, religious community, choral music, religious texts

NC on T61 / Education T112 / Secularism at T130 / PP T177 (after pushing all the way up to scientific theory)

Stole 2 workers from zulus around T25 (to be honest, I was was very surprised to see he had them that early). Ran first cargo ship to Antwerp for cash, then bought Antwerp on T96 when that boat completed, and then immediately sent it back to Venice for food.