TSG109 Opening Action

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG109 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?
- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
- 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 and why?
- Has it been peaceful? Did anyone start a war?
- Did you go for early Faith to gain an advantage? If so, how?
 
I settled in place after moving my warrior to the SW hill. At turn 100 I have 3 cities, opened with Tradition and the 15% to wonders, then went through the Liberty tree (one policy to go on that). I took Fertility Rights for the pantheon and founded Secular Humanism in Stockholm (it is Sweden after all) and I took Tithe and Pagodas. I was able to build Hagia Sophia and with that prophet I took Itenerant Preachers and Religious Community, most of the other options were already taken. I managed to build the GL, Oracle, HS and Parthenon while wiping out a few barbarian camps and making friends with William. So far a decent start, but I need to ramp up the culture and religion at this point and I might have to wipe out Austria if they take over too many city states. A fourth city is in the works and I might add a another.
 
Rough start for me. Sticking it through to try and salvage it.

Settled in place, went tradition. Plan was to get 3 cities out, get the NC built, and jump start a religion, and then see where we were as far as the map, and civs and the plan for the next 100 turns.

Around turn 20 or so my warrior tried to go to war and steal workers from the Dutch, and then he got surrounded and killed. Oops. Then later my scout who I sent down to try and sneak a worker, got snuck up on by a barbarian spearmen while playing games with razing luxuries. Oops again. So now I'm down 2 troops, still didn't steal a worker, and the Dutch are just laughing at me.

And then at turn 36 my computer went all weird when I tabbed out of civ, and I couldn't tab back in, I'd pick Civ, and steam would jump to the front instead for some reason. Eventually force quit civ, reloaded the auto-save from the previous turn and tried to do the same thing I did before. So rough start for many reasons.

Turn 100 now, and I've built the oracle, and just finished the NC. My third city was slow to finish their library, which was another mistake on my part - for a large chunk of the time they weren't using their hammer squares. Oops yet again.

But hey, it's turn 100, I've got a nice religion, some good faith generation, my 3 cities are starting to grow nicely, and somewhere in their Wil and I became best buds, and I have someone to trade with. Time to try and get caught up.
 
My game approach was to focus first on science, try to delay war til I had metallurgy and rifling for Sweden's unique units and use refrigeration and radio at the end for big tourism gains. My opening build order was scout, monument, granary, shrine, library, worker, water mill, settler, temple, caravan. It's now turn 100.

My strategy was to get Sacred Sites so I took Piety right after opening Tradition for the culture. I found seven ruins, many more than usual, so that meant early animal husbandry and trapping.

I built Sigtuna by Uluru and also got 60 faith from a ruin but still missed Sacred Sites at turn 83 by one turn. I missed Temple of Artemis by three turns but I did get Oracle at 84. Petra went to an unknown civ at turn 93.

William can wipe me off the map. He hasn't but I'm going to start building up the army anyway.

Helsinki is on the south coast between citrus and 6 iron. Production there is almost nil because happiness has been around zero but trade with Brazil is helping the gold situation so with luck once Sweden gets to astronomy and a blue water navy it will be a whole new game.
 
Great GOTM! I love a culture game :)

Settled in place because it looked solid, and an early start never hurt.

Tried the "pro strat" with a double scout start, and it was refreshing to get a good view of the surrounding areas! I also beat William to a whole bunch of ancient ruins, which was great.
Scouting Yields:
1. +8:c5faith: from Jerusalem & Manila (?), opening a pantheon. Got Earth Mother for that faith production on my salt, copper, and iron.
2. Population from ruins
3. 20:c5culture: from ruins
4. Map from ruins
5. +30:c5gold: from Cape Town & Monaco.
6. 85g from ruins
7. Sailing from ruins

22: Got writing, opened Tradition. Seeing what it's like to run tradition without building a monument -- so far so good. Got Legalism in a reasonable amount of time, so I'm not really feeling the hurt, but I am on a more solid base of workers.

Built a worker to start mining some Salt and improving tiles, built a Library.

38: Stole a second worker from Cape Town, started building GL and researching Calendar for free philosophy tech.

44: Scooped on GL to far away civ (2 turns left), so I recoop my losses by starting my second city with a settler. Thinking that the river spot within range of the faith wonder would be a good spot to get my faith up.

66: With math researched, I go for HG, but I get scooped (5 turns left) on this wonder. Feeling pretty annoyed at AI! Decide to go for Oracle to make me feel better. Dealing with some NW barbs by this point, so I have to build a few troops (Chariot Archers, why not) to defend my land now that the lone warrior isn't cutting it.

85: Built oracle, finished Tradition tree, woop for free aqueducts! Time to build some more settlers because William is expanding like crazy. He swooped on a salt, so now I can't get his cocoa :mad:

100: Cities built, but happiness is hurting. Can't beeline to Education because I need to get my happiness in order with Colloseums and Circus Maximus... But I do have four cities in good spots! I planted a port city because the world is feeling pretty small with just me and William, and I'm looking to meet some people who want all my salt! Upgraded my religion with Feed the People (+1:c5food: for Shrine & Temple) and one of the :c5happy: founder beliefs (+1:c5happy: for every two cities folllowing religion)


Future plans: I need happiness, and I think that religion will help with this. I'm hoping to upgrade religion to get Itinerant Preachers since the island is pretty dense. Since this little island has two religions, I'm thinking that the other mainland will have lots of opportunities to spread religion and keep my happiness up!

I'm thinking that with four cities, I will have a solid base to grow tall. I'm going to need to start investing in tourism soon, so that I can get a good endgame tourism output. I want to make lots of friends to max out that great person generation. I'm planning to gift a few great folks to nearby CS to max out early alliances, but then start committing to the arts. Maybe these alliances will be enough to push an Arts Funding into the world congress!

My first post, hope you enjoy!
Fish
 
Turn 95, 3 cities so far, just got NC.

Here's what happened so far:

Turn
0 settled in place
5 scout, ruins: extra pop
6 ruins: upgrade warrior to spearman
8 scout
9 pottery
14 monument
17 tradition
18 shrine
20 writing, worker steal from William
26 granary, peace with William
27 DOF with William :)
28 worker steal from Manila; got 90 gold from ruin
29 Earth Mother pantheon
32 oligarchy
36 masonry
39 lost GL by 4 turns :(
44 ruins: 60 faith
45 library
46 legalism
49 BW
52 archery bought archer
53 settler
55 AH
60 caravan
62 founded Sigtuna on coast next to fish and 6 iron
65 settler, monarchy
68 founded Buddhism (pilgrimage, divine inspiration)
70 founded Helsinki on western river w/2wheat, 2salt, deer, iron
72 philo
76 sailing
80 trapping
82 oracle, finished tradition
84 optics
86 patronage
87 temple
95 NC

I was considering building a 4th city near the faith wonder, but there's a lot of toundra and not much food/lux resources over there, so the happiness is probably not worth it.
 
What appears to be an awesome start actually is a little deceiving - this is a tricky map, I think. Well done, GOTM folks.

The semi-isolated island subcontinent always seems to be the most challenging Civilization scenario to play well. I decided to play nice with Willem, mostly since Amsterdam would be a little challenging to reach with Chariots... now I slightly regret that decision since Mr. Orange hasn't done much for me. An early caravan would have been lovely.

Got my Religion rolling (~t55, Earth Mother, Tithe, Pagodas), 4 cities and NC in the mid 80s. Education should be around 108/109. Willem also founded a Religion -- I was hoping he'd not do that. :p

A 5th city would be nice. Maybe this Dutch peace won't last much longer.
 
I'm 100 turns in and it's going quite well actually. For now I have a total of 0 Immortal wins, so my hopes are slim for a win. Settled in place and went for a double scout opening who after getting a couple of ruins both got killed by some barbarians... Settled two more cities, one to the west and another between the wonder and the coast. William are settling like crazy though and beat me to a spot I wanted. He has 5 cities so far and I've seen at least two more settlers around. We are becoming best buds though through trading salt with cocoa and have a DoF. Though he was upset when I stole a worker of Manila under his protection, he got over it quite quickly.

Got my religion up and running early with Earth Mother, Tithe and Pagodas. Trying to spread it around since William don't have any religion yet. Though I got the Oracle, I got beat to Great Library by a few turns.

I have no idea how people get their science on so early, but I've just started on NC.

Might go for a 4th city after NC, but depends on where and when William settles.
 
Exploration: I did not build any scouts for exploration, figured it might be an island situation in which they wouldn't give me much and it paid off. My single worker picked up 5 or 6 ruins anyway. My opening was Monument, Worker, Shrine, GL, Water Mill, Pyramids I believe, which has worked out pretty well. After getting one more worker from barbarians I've got 4 which have covered pretty much every single tile with improvements and built all the roads I need.

Cities: Settled in place, like most it seems. Almost comical how similar some starts are. I might have exactly the same location for my cities as Kendon for instance.

I built Sigtuna by Uluru.

...

Helsinki is on the south coast between citrus and 6 iron.

I have also have Birka in the far SE corner of the island, and will settle a fifth city on the next turn on the East coast below Geneva. Further, a sixth settler may be in order for the NE. It could be a decent city if I manage to get ahold of the furs before Geneva.

Social Policies: Started with the liberty tree, thinking some quick expansion is always nice and having never tried a cultural victory in BNW yet, it's not like in standard Civ that it's easier with a smaller nation I think?

Religion: Started my religion fairly late compared to everyone else it seems. After choosing Pantheon God-King (because I didn't think there were any other good ones really) I got tithe and religious art which is hopefully good if I can rush the Hernitage asap.

Diplomacy: William is as quick to expand and as kind in mine as in everyone else's game it seems. DOF very early on and he's got 5 cities, with at least one more settler. I have also run into Pablo and Kasimir whom are also quite friendly and have DOFs with both of them too. They both have a religion of their own so we'll see how long those friendships last.

Wonders: On top of the GL and Pyramids. I built the Parthenon and Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Stockholm. Oracle done in 2 turns in Sigtuna and used my great engineer from liberty tree to finish Petra in Helsinki.

Military: On the military front I'm quite week, having only built two composite bowmen to accompany my now spearman. Hopefully my friendly neighbours remain of that nature for the time being.

City States: Have been clearing barbarian encampments to temporarily becomes friends with all the city states on the island, but none that have lasted and I'm struggling to get allies. Hopefully I can sort that out soon, not entirely sure how though. Have got two Great Writers but used them to create great works for the tourism rather than city states gifts.

P.S: Oh, and one more thing. Like XaW I'm also bewildered as to how everyone manages to an NC out so early. Always build more settlers so always missing a library it seems for me. With the lack of happiness which a couple others mentioned, I've also had to build colosseums in all cities as well and going to build circus of maximums any turn now. So NC still a ways away, but hopefully I can fix that soon. In demographics it does say I'm a few techs behind, but I am #1 on the scoreboard which is always reassuring.

Hope you all enjoyed this post, my first on and opening action thread as well. :)
 
As for NC, there's an easy answer: Build less settlers (at least before NC :))
It will also help with your happiness on Immortal.
 
Yea, could definitely have used the help with the happiness later in the game. I always find as soon as I start building national wonders that means no more settlers for me. I guess it's always difficult with new cities. So, I tend to make 4-5 cities and then play until I've built all national wonders and then maybe go for more cities. :p
 
I was glad to see an immortal-culture game as tsg. I settled on the starting location, because the warrior didn't find anything of interest in the south. Built scout-scout-monument-shrine-worker-granary-library-2x archer. William stole a couple of my ruins right under my nose, but I managed to get 5 or six eventually (gold x2, advanced weapons, culture, and 30 faith and a map, IIRC), plus I met all the CSs before him. I had no intention to steal any workers from anybody, but a Jerusalem worker popped up right in front of my scout t23, so I couldn't resist. Jerusalem was already protected by William, so I made peace immediately after taking the worker. Next turn William came and told me to leave Jerusalem be, to which I was glad to oblige. William was so happy that he wanted a DoF the next turn. I wasn't planning on attacking him anyway, so I accepted. Got a pantheon t28, took earth mother to get at least some faith. Other Civs were pretty quick to found pantheons, I think I was the fourth. William didn't seem to be interested in religion.

I bought my 1st settler t40 after selling William some salt (he didn't want horses). 1st satellite was to the south-west between Monaco and Cape Town to get some more salt. 2nd satellite, my current hometown Helsinki, was planted on top of the citrus on the coast, and the third just east of the spices on the eastern coast. I had a lot of fun blocking and delaying William's lone settler heading east with my archers and scout, so I managed to get the third city where I wanted it. At some point I told William not to settle close to me, and he didn't seem to mind, since we renewed the DoF a bit later.

I somehow forgot that the Hanging Gardens was my initial wonder-goal, and I messed up with my tech-path, so I built the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Stockholm, because there was nothing else useful to build at the time (waiting for math to finish). After the MoH, came a water-mill, Hanging Gardens t85 and Oracle t91. I finished the Oracle before NC because I had to use some money that was intended to be used for a library in the 3rd city to buy some tiles to block William's settler from claiming land that was destined to be mine. I got education somewhere around t110-t115, and now it's time to get some Xbows, since Will doesn't like me anymore (t126).

Too bad we weren't isolated till astronomy, Casimir showed up and sent a boatload of missionaries to our continent and converted my CSs and William. I've also met Brazil and Austria, which was an unpleasant surprise. My plan was not to attack anyone before artillery, but I guess William's current attitude changes that. Plus my XBows need experience.

I'm definitely not even trying a fast victory, but a cultural victory before t350 is my goal.
 
Looks like I did about the same as most of the folks here. Settled in place (river, mountain and hill start with salt!), went tradition, but kinda wished I had gone Liberty. William only built 3 cities, and I see spots for 5 or 6 cities.

I built 4 cities so far, one next to the faith wonder, one on the citrus (coastal) and another on the east near the spices (also coastal). Finished NC about T94 I think. I also got Oracle. I will build another city west next to the mountain, but in range of the copper.

I got a religion (tithe, pagodas) and will spread it to William. I used a trireme and found the other civs. Austria is growing very fast, snatching up city states and declaring war. I think she has like 8 cities. She is also the only other cultural threat so far. No other wars.

My plan is to get to my UUs and use them on Austria, maybe everyone else too. I will see how Autocracy is for culture victory.
 
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
- 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 and why?
- Has it been peaceful? Did anyone start a war?
- Did you go for early Faith to gain an advantage? If so, how?

I went scout, monument, scout, settler, GL and then a couple more settlers.

Settled in place, second city was to the west near more salt and maybe the copper. Third was by the oranges and spices. I was tempted to settle uluru, but it was a real awkward city no matter how I placed it, and the only plausible place was occupied by a barb which I hadn't destroyed yet.

There was a lot of ruins on this little island, only thing I didn't get was faith I believe. I did however get two archer upgrades, so I put some pressure on William thinking of trying to maybe take a city since it was so early (turn ~40). That was not in the cards, he had a few warriors and his cities weren't too shabby. I did manage to get a worker, then he offered up a city in a peace deal. I declined the city and asked for all his gold and gpt (~250g, 7gpt). I began building some archers figuring I may have to take him out as he was rexing like crazy.
The shoe dropped when he sent an unescorted settler east to grab the oranges or some such which I was in the process of settling. The peace deal was still in place, I had another salt for 7gpt deal running, and also DoF. Brazil showed up on the scene shortly after (which may be my downfall as I didn't expect any witnesses this early).

I spent some cash to buy a faith CS to get a religion. Earth Mother/Tithe/Pagodas.


Interesting start, some what strong, but hard to defend from barbs, no sight they just appear.
 
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