TSG6 - Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG6 Game in Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing. There are no reading or posting restrictions as such (apart from normal decency), although we encourage players 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.

Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG6 After Action Report thread.

TSG6 Notes

And so it begins... my first Civ V game playing as Russia. It Emperor level, so plan is just to try and survive, and pick a victory goal a bit later. I know, bad plan!

Move the Warrior 1 NE, doesn't reveal much except that water to the N is a Lake. I settle in place to be on the coast in this Archipelago map. And because of the map type, my initial research will be Pottery > Sailing. Initial build in Moscow is another Warrior.

T5/3800 BC: a potentially good site for a second city to the NE, lots of Wheat, plus Gems & Spices!

T7/3720 BC: Warrior enters Ancient Ruins NNE of Moscow, and I discover Pottery 4 turns early! On to Sailing.

T10/3600 BC: Moscow completes Warrior, and starts on a Settler.

T19/3240 BC: Sailing is discovered; Moscow could use some better production, so Mining is next. In addition to being able to build a Mine, it allows chopping, and I'm going to try for The Great Lighthouse early in this game.

T25/3000 BC: Moscow completes its Settler, and starts a Worker. The Settler heads NE to a coastal spot between the Gems and a Wheat. And, I've accumulated enough Culture to get my first Social Policy. No saving them in this game, so to keep options open for a Cultural victory, I'll have to pick one of the first three SP Branches as one to be completed! I'm not sure about fighting on this map type, so I'll pass on Honor (for now, anyway). I decide to go with Tradition, because your Capitol should be the best city in your empire! Tradition gives a +50% Growth bonus to Moscow, which will help it catch up some, since I built a Settler early.

T27/2920 BC: discover Mining; Moscow has 1 Fur & 2 Elephants that need Trapping to improve, so next research is Animal Husbandry > Trapping. AH will reveal Horses on the map.

T28/2880 BC: St. Pete is founded 6NE of Moscow, next to Gems & Wheat. Initial build is Worker, so I can improve those two resources.

T31/2760 BC: a Barbarian Brute show up near St. Pete! The city bombards him, but I get a stalemate estimate for the Warrior to attack him, so I'll wait for that. Next turn the Barb moves into the city limits on the hex 1SW; city bombs him again, and Warrior finishes him off, gaining 5 Experience Points (XP).

T33/2680 BC: discovered Animal Husbandry,

T40/2400 BC: Rats! the Great Lighthouse is built in a far away land. So much for that plan! Maybe I'll have to find the city that built it and make it a puppet state. Might have to do some waring after all.

T41/2360 BC: discovered Trapping, start researching Writing IOT build some Libraries.

T42/2320 BC: Moscow completes Worker, and just in time, as I have 1 unhappiness now. Worker goes to build camp for Fur Resource. Start Warrior in Moscow.

T45/2200 BC: The Great Library built IAFAL. Been getting lots of notices about unmet Players entering the Classical Age. Looks like I'm falling behind pretty early at this difficulty level!

T48/2080 BC: discover Writing, start research into Bronze Working. Barb Brute showed up near St. Pete last turn; he's taking same attack path as the last one, and I expect similar results. This turn, a Barb Trireme shows up near Moscow.

T49/2040 BC: Warrior at St. Pete earned a promo; I gave him Drill I since the wounded Barb Brute had moved onto the Gem hill, and the Warrior finished him off. St. Pete completed its Worker, who is building a Wheat Farm 1NE. Next build in St. Pete is a Monument, as it is not generating any culture.

T51/1960 BC: Moscow completes its Warrior, and starts building a Library. I purchase a Trireme in Moscow for 270 Gold!

T54/1840 BC: discovered Bronze Working, start research on Optics for Lighthouses and the ability to Embark units.

T57/1720 BC: I've found a Barb Camp NW of St. Pete; my Trireme is bombing it, and the 3rd Warrior is moving in to clear it.

T59/1640 BC: My Warrior kills the wounded Barb Brute in the Barb Camp, clearing it in the process and earning 25 Gold. Unfortunately, there is another healthy Barb Brute in the next hexagon.

T60/1600 BC: my Trireme has earned a promo, I take Targeting I for +20% Combat Strength vs. Naval Units. As it sails out of the cove NW of St. Pete, it spots another Ancient Ruins, and a Barb Galley, which it attacks, but does not sink. My third Warrior survived the attack from the Barb Brute, and has earned a promo as well. Unfortunately, I'll have to use this promo to Heal Instantly and kill off the Barb Brute (gain another 5 XP for finishing off the Brute). St. Pete completes its Monument this turn, and starts a Library.

T62/1520 BC: discover Optics, start research into Philosophy, IOT enter into research agreement if I ever meet another Civ.

T64/1440 BC: Moscow completes its Library, and starts building a Monument for extra Culture.

T66/1360 BC: Warrior enters Ancients Ruins N of St. Pete, and I receive 30 Culture. I had already gotten the the Adopt Policy notice at the beginning of this turn, so the next one will come a little sooner. The Piety SP Branch is available now, but I decide to stay in the Tradition branch and take Legalism, which reduces unhappiness in the Capitol due to population by 33%. As a result, unhappiness from population decreases from 8 to 6.35, which is apparently rounded down to 6, as I get a net +2 happiness by taking this SP.

T70/1360 BC: St. Pete has grown to size 4; I change it from Default focus to Production Focus, which moves a citizen from an unimproved grassland tile to the Gem Mine. This stagnates growth temperately (the Worker is building a Farm on a worked plains tile), but it knocks 3 turns off the build time for the Library. I check Moscow also. Changing to Production focus there reassigns two citizens, and causes the city to starve, so I change it back to Default Focus, and manually reassign a citizen from an unimproved grassland tile to a hill with a Mine. This also stagnates growth, but a Worker is building a Pasture on some Cows, so again, only a temporary situation.

T71/1160 BC: discover Philosophy, start research into Iron Working; need to find the Iron resources before any further expansion! The Worker at Moscow completed the Cow Pasture, which gave me another hammer, but not more food. So Worker moves to that grassland tile that the city governor wants to work, so he can build a Farm there. Hmmm... that is a Lakeside tile, which means fresh water; can I get a bonus from that yet?

T72/1120 BC: The Colossus is built IAFAL! If I want any Wonders this game, I may have to capture them. Worker at St. Pete finished Farm, and St. Pete is growing again at +1 Food. St. Pete has picked up another Wheat tile, so the Worker is off to build another Wheat Farm.

T73/1080 BC: Moscow completes its Monument, and I decide to take a chance at building The Oracle. I stop the Worker from building a Farm on a tile which wasn't being worked, and send him to chop some trees.

T75/1000 BC: St. Pete has completed its Library, and starts a Trireme, just in case. This is a good stopping point, saving game!

Started up Civ V to continue playing, and the game updated to ver. 1.0.1.167. Will this be a problem with submitting TSG6?

Going warmonger...going to do an experiment and never actually eliminate a civ, but take their best cities and capital and leave them with one terrible one. Hopefully this will stall the diplo hate long enough to be able to take on the whole world.

I'm at 0 AD and working on Japan as we speak...Tokyo should fall within 10 turns and then I will invade my next victim shortly after! 12 Iron and 4 triremes are pretty handy

Grifftavian said:

Started up Civ V to continue playing, and the game updated to ver. 1.0.1.167. Will this be a problem with submitting TSG6?

Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay. I have been looking for patch notes but cannot seem to find any?

I would say keep on going and let's see if anything breaks. Please post here if it does.

leif erikson said:

Sorry for the delay. I have been looking for patch notes but cannot seem to find any?

I would say keep on going and let's see if anything breaks. Please post here if it does.

Click to expand...

I saw a note in the 2K Forums about a January Hotfix, which was updated to say the hotfix would be released on the 19th, but haven't seen any patch notes either. I am endeavoring to persevere.

Staying peaceful in my game so far. I've only got 3 cities at 0 AD, have met two Civs (Research Agreement in place with one) and 1 City State, but I can see the borders of another CS. I've built The Oracle and National College in Moscow, which with the Fur and 2 Ivory is turning into a pretty nice Science City. I took Landed Elite as the free SP from The Oracle, which has a nice synergy with the Russian Krepost for expanding your cities borders.

TSG6 Notes - Part II

OK.. I'm not such a meticulous record keeper, but I jotted down my breakthroughs and events of note so far. I had a crash at the *very* (first 20 turns or so?) start so reloaded from a fresh save a played identically to how I did the first time round

My play...

Grifftavian said:

I saw a note in the 2K Forums about a January Hotfix, which was updated to say the hotfix would be released on the 19th, but haven't seen any patch notes either. I am endeavoring to persevere.

Click to expand...

What I'm hearing is that the hotfix was released to address some crash issues. So we should be OK, I hope.

Turn 73: golden age. Some nice trades w/ Alexander and Elizabeth got me 680 gold and 46 gpt currently. 4 cities [liberty], 5 turns to national college. Going to try to kill Alexander first with Longswordsmen. [Currently inventing Metal Casting. NC should speed things up once its done.] Decided to skip all wonders. Considering further expansion after national college (1 more city? 2? 3?). No research agreements- AIs ran out of gold after trading with me.

Still playing a peaceful game, finally doing a little more exploring, and meeting more Civs & City States. 4 cities with a Settler being built at 800 AD. I missed out on building Angkor Wat, but got 109 failure gold for the effort. As expected, I'm falling behind pretty quickly at this difficultly level, 7th out of 8 in score.

TSG6 Notes - Part III

Turn 80-something:

Lost settler to barb Galley. Vowed to guard embarked units more carefully.


Turn ~80 built stonehenge [since nobody else built it!], acquired cultural CS (gave them worker back + 500 gold)
Turn 102: Settled near Greece, 3 swordsmen there upgrade to longswords. 2 more 6 turns away
Turn 109: Captured Athens - No losses. It only took 3 longswords to defeat the entire Greek army and take Athens [used 2 insta-heals]. I should have lost one of them to a CC, but the tactical AI failed. I certainly would not have succeeded with only 3 longswords against a skilled player opponent that was using Greece's army. The tactical AI needed to flank better with CCs, and to move, then get out of the way, then attack from the same tile with other units rather than have them block eachother.

Current plan: Currently building 4x Collosseum, Waiting to settle 2 cities [#6 and #7] until I acquire Merchant Navy (~13 turns), then building a secondary force to either destroy Japan or Aztec [haven't decided yet]. Researching towards astronomy for much easier embarked movement/caravels to spot barbs. Will research to Rifling after astronomy and pump riflemen until domination vic. DoF with England to try to keep our nice deals going.

Year 1605, turn 230. After scoping out the island I figured I would try and stay peaceful and go for a science victory after finding a few city sites that would be great for production or science.

I just hit industrial era a few turns ago, but I'm waaay behind in score (3rd to last) with little military - about 7 or 8 riflemen.

Alex is just a freight train and has taken the entire center of the map with ICS. I no longer have a route around the world as it's either blocked off by him, or the Japan/Aztec island to the east.

I'm gonna keep plugging away (got screwed over on a few research agreements that slowed me down big time) but I'm thinking Alex might win out on this one. He keeps buying my CS allies away from me so I'm beginning to hurt on food from the maritimes.

leif erikson said:

What I'm hearing is that the hotfix was released to address some crash issues. So we should be OK, I hope.

Click to expand...

If you haven't already seen them, the patch notes for version 1.0.1.167 are here. I haven't checked to see if they're posted elsewhere in the Civ V forums.

Mostly crash fixes, although a couple of changes related to Golden Ages!

Grifftavian said:

If you haven't already seen them, the patch notes for version 1.0.1.167 are here. I haven't checked to see if they're posted elsewhere in the Civ V forums.

Mostly crash fixes, although a couple of changes related to Golden Ages!

Click to expand...

Thanks for link. That list is pretty comprehensive.

I did post the .167 patch notes in the announcement thread. Probably should have linked it to both this thread and the After Action thread.

Kind of going for an expansionist space victory. This sort of snaky-continents archipelago map seems tailor-made for the commerce tree. Though maybe I'll just switch to working trading posts and buy a diplo victory.

[Edit: AND....I just discovered that one needs a Harbor IN the capitol in order to create a trade route WITH the capital. Which would explain why my gpt has consistently been lower than expected in this game. This is not mentioned ANYWHERE in the game. Whoever edited the Civilopedia for this game is a brainless, venereally diseased, inbred monkey eunuch. I think I quit. Again. There is just too much wrong with Civ 5 to make it fun to play. Maybe I'll test it out again after the next patch. Meanwhile, I find myself tabbing out of CiV to play Windows Solitaire, which is dependably more fun than this PoS game.]

Alexander is once again the runaway AI despite Montie's tech lead. (And what the heck? Montezuma is the tech leader? Welcome to funkytime leader prefs...)

I have not seen much in the way of inter-AI wars. The way the archipelago map limits AI contact seems to default them to sitting back and growing super-cities on the back of the Emperor-level AI happiness bonus. In hindsight a modified ICS approach was probably not worth the effort for this, and I should have just built one city and gone for culture. However, my last game was the India 1-city culture win for the achievements, so I didn't want to repeat. Besides...Russia should be BIG. It's too bad the Civ series always pick Catherine or Peter as the Russian leader...potentially the least Russian of any great Russian rulers. (Stalin, of course, was not even from Russia.)

This appears to be a crappy map script. There appears to be no means by which the Bucharest Whales can be improved...they are trapped by the ice pack. I did not see this until after allying Bucharest so I feel cheated out of 1,000 game gold.

The wait time between each turn is excruciatingly slow. I reloaded one autosave when the in-between-turns period had not ended after 10 minutes of waiting. Like many others I habitually set autosaves for every turn. When we all EXPECT the game to crash isn't this kind of a sign of a serious problem?

I really enjoy these GOTM challenges but have not played much CiV since the last major patch and such issues as these are why. Thus far I have not seen any noticeable improvements despite numerous patches. Is the verdict in yet? 1UPT was a great idea but Firaxis failed in trying to implement it.

Still, when not moving around large armies dealing with 1UPT traffic, CiV requires a bit less thought than Civ 4 so is fun to play during the commercials while I watch THE PACKERS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a strategy note, I've tried to experiment this game with building the military units the advisors suggest. I detoured a little bit because the advisor seems to ALWAYS want me to build naval units...had I taken the advice 100% of the time I would only have a couple defenders for 9 cities.

I'm trying for a no-puppet culture victory. I know... that's not the way to get the fastest finish.

I was late finding the last two maritime CS, so my pop isn't all I'd like it to be. I've got plenty of WW, and most of the National wonders as well. Keeping the peace has not been a problem. First war I am involved with is in 1800's. Alex declared on Elizabeth while I was in a DP with her. I still have only 4 cities, btw, and do not plan to expand beyond that. I'm technologically more advanced or at least at parity with the competition. My navy has kept me safe, as well as generated plenty of XP for getting GG's (used for golden ages, pretty much). What's with the bombardment XP anyhow? I mean, I sit there bombarding an infantry with a frigate, I get 2XP, he heals next turn, I get 2XP, etc etc. Seems stupid.

I'm going towards telegraphs for the wonder that reduces policy costs 33%. Basically, winning this game now depends on getting that wonder, as I have like 8 policies left to get, though 3 of those will be "free". Tradition, Piety, Commerce (yuck), Rationalism, and the branch that gives all the CS bonuses (I forget what its called) are the 5 I'm aiming for.

I've allied with 2 maritime and 4 culture CS's. I'd rather have more maritimes, but I was slow to explore and thought there were only 2.

I've used a GE to build Sistines, 4 GA's who I was going to use for Golden Ages but instead built great works in my Hermitage city (I think that should be 8 culture after the multiplier, but my culture increased by +16 when I did it so I'm not real sure). Anyhow, better than a cultural CS.

I think I could get a diplo victory this way just as fast -- errr no slower--- (maybe faster because I'd focus more on gold and less on Policies).

Anyhow, I just have to get peace with Alex so I can outbid him for his maritime city states who are presently at war with me

But TBH, I may not have time to finish the game. Even with only 4 cities and a handful of units, the game pace is very slow. We'll see. I'd like to play it out just to complete the experiment, since I'm still unsure of victory at this point... I'm making about 400 culture per turn, but policies are costing about 4000 culture... so the end is far away, and who knows... I saw one Greek destroyer, so the jerk might actually build enough of a navy to invade me.

Question... if I gives a city to Alex for peace (yikes... 25% of my empire!), would my policy costs go down? I ask because about 75% of my culture comes from a single city. Might be worth doing in that case near the end, since I won't need to worry about technology at that point.

kcd_swede said:

Question... if I gives a city to Alex for peace (yikes... 25% of my empire!), would my policy costs go down? I ask because about 75% of my culture comes from a single city. Might be worth doing in that case near the end, since I won't need to worry about technology at that point.

Click to expand...

No, policy costs never go down. That was a fix designed to counter exactly what you are describing.

Not going quite to plan. Thought I would try for Dom win after Culture last time out: probably not the best choice for this game. Wasted 4 turns looking for a fishy spot before settling back at starting hex:- doh! Built SH and NC before second city to E for the nice plains and gems, then City 3 to NW for iron and gold. I decided I would try out some RA slingshots but made rather a mess of it:- didn’t realise you needed 25% beakers to block so ended up with Machinery / Physics rather than Astro / Navigation. Once I started to explore, I realised the AIs had been expanding like crazy. England had a mega-economy and almost all CS allied by around 500AD, Aztecs/USA not far behind and me bringing up the rear. I managed my GA better than the RA slingshots and have built a strong core by 1550:- 4 home cities (City 4 bridging capital with City 3 and taking the remaining seafood / irrigatable homeland tiles) plus Japan (4 cities, including GLighthouse and Pyramids) and a bite out of Greece (1 city to date). I have a strong navy and a late Dom win is still on the cards, plus I am beginning to prise the CS from England’s grasp. The AI are using RA fairly extensively and both England and Azteca are Industrial:- I should join them with Biology from an RA in 10 turns. England have a vast military (2.5X mine in raw score) but, unless they reach destroyers before me and turn nasty (and I turn out to have no oil), I should be able to secure a win of some sort (maybe Diplo rather than Dom).

This was a fun game...
I am just sharing what I did (I try to play differently than then normal NC start):

For this map, I decided to turtle up and max science as much as I can with little Military emphasis. Option to fight defensive war at midgame.

Part I GL CS + relatively early Patronage Line (Aesthetics + Philanthropy)

Part II Buying CS, booming "relative" tech rate