TSG2 Game in Progress

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG2 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. Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG2 After Action Report thread.
 
I've gotten beat to the Colossus and the Great Library by 3 turns each. Ugh.
 
Lemme guess, you went for the Colossus first amirite? You should always go for the GL first and besides the Colossus is useless unless you have 3+ water resources to work and it goes obsolete fairly quickly. Its just not worth it for the two Pearl tiles when you have hills and grasslands to mine and farm.
 
Man, this is still too easy. I just hit Turn 250 and decided to take a break. I've conquered the entire continent and am cruising at 400+ Beakers/Turn and rising. Have started researching flight and am about 6 Turns away from Rocketry.
 
Yikes, I just accidentally got a domination victory in 1390 when I took Darius' capital and completely missed the fact that Darius had taken Harun's capital.

I was cruising along pretty good though after I puppeted most of the starting continent and beakers were at around 330/turn. Might have to back up and go liberate Harun (is that allowed?) before I go back and take Darius' capital - he had some nice wonders in there :lol:
 
The plan – get pottery, calendar, masonry and writing and try for Stonehenge and the GL. Then backtrack on tech to fill in, particularly getting sailing. The build will be scout, worker, Stonehenge.

From the two local ruins to the north we only got culture. But this is a culture strategy and who’s complaining 

3520 – the scout is searching and the warrior is hurrying home. Calendar is underway and a worker is in the oven.

Local city states to the north can provide dyes and furs.

First opportunity to adopt a social policy was skipped. Waiting for the middle ages to go for patronage.

Met Monty in Monaco -- he’s high on something as per usual.

The warrior searched to the south until the worker showed up. The findings reveal that a strategy of casting pearls before these swine will work well to pay the bills for patronage.

3040 – Gandhi wants to cooperate, Monte wants to agree to wipe out Gandhi. Calendar finished. Worker pops -- we start Stonehenge. All the same turn 
Stonehenge is 25 turns with the default focus and 17 turns with the production focus.

2760 – mining

2400 – Stonehenge and masonry. Building the settler while writing is underway. Others had writing much earlier. Depressed about GL

2000 – exactly at the turn of the millennium we started the GL and philosophy. They are both 16 turns and if we get them the game is going to be fun  Thebes grew, pushing the build faster than the research so we switched to gold focus for a few turns. Memphis is down by the deer building a monument until we have time for sailing.

1480 – Classical Era

1320 – GL and Theo. Welcome to the Medieval Era !!

The capital is cranking out culture and we now can adopt patronage social policies and ally ourselves with all the City States the scout has found. We have to hook up pearls and sell them to pay for it. Should be fun for tomorrow.
 
Hey darkdefender, don't you have to have masonry to get the wonder bonus?
No. You don't gain the 5 happiness, or the ability to trade it, but you do get the 25% wonder boost.

Will be posting my progress in the morning.
 
man i totally wasted my time on this continent. I feel like a chump for overestimating the computers ability to fight and also the chariot archers ability to fight.

On the other hand, YAY LEARNING
 
as of 400AD, I've completely eliminated Elizabeth and Gandhi, and am preparing to take out Monty's 6 cities and Napoleon's 7 cities.

I've built three cities, annexed Delhi, and puppeted everything else.

My goal is to control my entire continent, trade with the other continent(s) after that, and then cruise to a science victory with my massive puppet population.
 
Picks up from the early game described above.

850 – Oracle, the free social policy will nearly complete the patronage path. Next social policy will be tradition to add to wonder production.

Monte payed 300 gold for pearls and we used the cash to ally with Almaty receiving a dose of dyes that pushed happiness to +7

Monte and Napoleon appear ready to duke it out. Couldn’t happen to a nicer pair of guys. The big risk to a peaceful strat is that Monte will take out Gandhi and proceed south 

Gandhi bought the second pearls for 12 gpt less 78 which totals 282

Almaty’s first gift is a needed spearman.

An earlier research agreement with Monte yields civil service. I think early agreements work well once you get the GL and jump into the middle ages. If I understand it right, you are betting a chance to get a tech like civil service against the likelihood that they will get something like iron working.

When the lighthouse is finished, Thebes goes on a gold focus to buy alliances. We will likely change some farms to trading posts once Thebes grows beyond 12 or so.

Gandhi is at the bottom of the pointy sticks list. We are just above him, although I’m pleased to see that Monte is also relatively low. He’s probably killing his units off.

For the third pearl sale, Napoleon was relatively broke but gave his all, 6gpt and 80 up front. Liz tried to screw us. I don’t think she likes me.

Liz the warmonger has just moved above us on score. Breaking things is always easier than building. Monte attacked Vienna and we gifted a couple of warriors to them to make it a little harder.

0 AD -- Researching steel hoping to get a few high quality unit gifts. The gifted warriors finally arrived in Vienna and killed a couple of archers.

Liz called my offer of pearls unacceptable but then paid nearly 300 for it on a gpt basis.

I’ve also sold the other two pearls and the marble. Question – after you sell the marble, does it still help your wonder builds?

Anyway, running an acceptable +66 gpt before markets and with mostly farms.

150AD – Vienna gifted a great engineer. A great scientist born in Thebes. Vienna held out and still exists to ally with.

350 AD – Angor Wat

400 AD – engineered Chichen Itza and researched steel. Thebes is running +3 great engineer points and +2 science points. Wish we had fresh water. Growth is a bit on the slow side. Third settler is going in north at the river’s mouth. But Liz has taken a city from Gandhi there and she may attack.

900 AD – gifted Duke Ellington, lol

1070 – Engineered Himeji Castle, Duke Ellington set off a culture bomb on the northern river, but was careful not to disturb Liz. All kinds of diplo is occurring and we have to pay attention each turn. Allied with all the CS now and in the Renaissance Era.
However, Monte just disappeared. Liz is winning the ground war and it looks bad for the long run unless we get a clear tech lead and crank out some superior units soon. Almaty finally gave us a decent unit – the longswordsman

1250 AD – Darius showed up and bought pearls. I’m finishing Astronomy as we speak. We’ve had a couple of more longswordsmen gifted and are building one. Miles Davis was just gifted. We must be big jazz fans.

Got navigation, found the arabs, sold some pearls. Allied with the Irish. I’m the world’s most wonderful person, but the English are eliminating the French.

Enough for Thursday morning.

Elizabeth killed Napoleon, waited a few turns, and then attacked us. This caused every CS I was allied with, including a few on the other continent at that point, to declare on Liz. However, she has muskets, which means she has a tech lead at least on the military side. IMO, that is enough to declare a loss for Egypt. I don't think I executed the strategy as well as it can be done. I should have interfered in the wars earlier and did a better job of maximizing gold and production, as well as trade. So, enough for this game. Enjoy, all you warmongers. I'm still better at killing than I am at building :(
 
To the posters above me question. Yes you still get the bonus if trade the marble (almost 100% positive on this).

My game thus far:

Looking at the start, I move the warrior first onto the northern hill. This allows me to see that while placing Thebes on the marble loses the cow 3 to the west, I will eventually gain use of the fish 3 to the north and thus the overall benefit is worth it.

Early exploring led me to meet the whole of the continent and to find their cities. Unfortunately I lost both my scout and warrior to bad luck with barbs (warrior attacked an estimated 5-5 battle, and then lost 8-3, scout I didn't move one square at a time). So I had to build a warrior and buy another.

Sadly it cost me stonehedge, but I had only put 2 turns into it so the 37 gold I got made it not that bad. I then wait for writing and once that completes the real story begins.

Rising to become the greatest civilization this world has seen:
Spoiler :
Once writing finishes, I immediately start the Great Library and begin researching Philosophy. I bribe the citizens of Thebes with 420 gold pieces to focus their attention and near instantly build a Library.

While the citizens of Thebes drive their own education into great directions, the warriors of Egypt defended two sieged city-states from mindless brutes, earning Egypt some friends in the world. Eventually one of the city-states would gift me a scout that would find its way to a barbarian camp guarded by a lone archer with a civilian chained underneath. Little did I realize it, but that camp had angered 2 other city-states and soon I had some mari-time friends.

The grand scientists of Thebes learn Philosophy and begin to tackle the mysteries of Theology. The local library hires a citizen [to bulb Acoustics with better timing] and the work on the Great Library halts just shy of completion in anticipation of Theology with still had 14 turns to learn. Thus the citizen of Thebes decided to make a large gamble and wait. In the mean time they would begin work on the National College.

14 nervous turns go by and many wonders of the world are built. At the end of turn 13 Thebes still seemed to have the lead on the Great Library, and while the National College was 1 turn away, the citizens of Thebes returned to finish the Great Library, apparently they had missed installing a door or something :rolleyes:

The world continues the daily drudge, and Thebes manages to finish the Great Library the same time it's great scientists fully understand Theology. All of the books of the Great Library lead to them finding a few on Education and its wonders:eek:. The twitchy citizens then complete the National College and the Egyptian society becomes a scientific engine. Very shortly after the grand science period, Sailing is discovered and a work boat is built almost out of thin air. Thebes births a great scientist who single-handedly discovered Acoustics! The new era began, and thus the Egyptians adopted Rationalism to further the science engine. This would be the area of social focus for a good portion of the Grand Egyptian Empire! Thus ends the rise to greatness, and begins the assertion of the strength of the Egyptian empire!


The empire expands and shows the world who is in charge:
Spoiler :
Using the work boat Thebes harvests Pearls and immediately sells them to a nation far away. France pays 300 gold for them, and another work boat nearly instantly is built! Shortly afterward, Monty also pays 300 for pearls. Thebes is nearing completion on it's first settling party, but after some haggling, the citizens agree to make a different settling party for 440 gold. A few turns later, Egypt triples it's number of cities. We welcome foreign visitors to our country as their leaders pay 50 gold. Except those weird English. They want us to pay. Egypt will not forget this. Another settling party is haggled for 440 gold (I really need to get better at haggling apparently) and Egypt expands to another luxury. The empire focuses on improvements while gaining military tech.

Monty apparently sees no need for city-state friends, but does like their land. He declares on 4 of them, and Rio de Janiero falls to the arrogant fire man. Gandhi comes asking for us to go to war. Having just hired 2 horseman and teaching some warriors to hold swords instead of clubs I agree. The first Aztec city is taken, and the turn later Egyptian scientists explain Chivalry. The horsemen are trained to be knights, and the Egyptian military goes from being ranked 6/8 to 2/8. The Aztecs quickly lose another 2 cities, and Monty comes begging for mercy. At a cost of all his gold, and all his cities, I agree. Rio is liberated! :goodjob:

Apparently my war with Monty was too short for Gandhi and he seems hostile. Lizzy declares war despite not having a single unit near the grand Egyptian empire. Then the real surprise comes...:eek:


Defending against a traitor:
Spoiler :
Gandhi declares he wants to expand, by using my cities! I have no army close, and Elephantine falls to the traitor. Goethe reveals that I am 6 steps of literacy above the rest of the world, 9 above the traitor Gandhi. My knights arrive at Gandhi's doorstep, my swordsmen learn to hold longer swords and arrive shortly after my knights raze the first Indian city. A lot of 'battles' happen where Gandhi tries to kill my people! The saddest day in Egyptian history is when a brave unit of long swordsman fall after defeating 3 (!!) Indian units. To avenge them, the brave warriors of Egypt fight on and retake Elephantine! Gandhi now has the weakest military, and has many troops marching on Delhi. Lizzy seeing what the Egyptian empire can do, asks for peace, which I grant for the time being. That is where I stand as king currently :king:


Thoughts, observations and progress
Spoiler :
I misplayed the beginning, and it likely cost me stonehedge. I need to be better about not losing my early exploring units to barbs.

The gamble of waiting to finish the great library payed off beautifully. As it's been I have been buying a lot of things, so I have only have 2 research agreements (one granting engineering, the other was metal casting). Waiting to expand until I had reached the renaisance (can't spell that one:blush:) seemed like a good choice, as I instantly got two policies in rationalism since they were still at the one city price.

Elizabeth is incredibly hostile. I have yet to play a game where see has been hostile to me.
 
To further expand upon my opening, I founded in place...I have yet to not do so in Civ V, and I rarely moved my starting settler in Civ IV as well.(for that matter, I don't believe I ever moved my starting settler in Civ I, II, or III either...but I digress)

I found a goody hut early on that gave me 30 culture, which I promptly used for half-cost settlers. This allowed me to quickly found Memphis and Heliopolis. I didn't take advantage of it after that, as I never founded any more cities, but I believe the quick expansion helped a lot. As I built Heliopolis near Delhi, in perfect position to grab the second marble and a source of iron.

I was asked by Elizabeth to declare war on Gandhi, which I did, with all of 3 spears and a warrior. Unfortunately, I failed to take Delhi with these troops, however Elizabeth's CS ally Vienna took over for me and captured it. By the time I had recovered my military, Elizabeth had taken Mumbai.

Monty apparently wanted Delhi also, as he declared war on Vienna and sent a huge party of jaguar warriors after it. I then sniped the city, by taking it with the only spear I had left after Monty had weakened it to nearly being taken over.

I then did the same to Vienna. I do not plan on attacking any more city states, as the culture and food from the city states should fuel a large portion of my growth this game. Unfortunately, Elizabeth declared war on me before I was ready, and almost took Delhi from me while it was still recovering from war.

I quickly rushed a swordsman there, and sent over the war chariots I had built, and managed to defend myself and press the attack. Her hordes of warriors were no match, and I quickly had two highly promoted swordsmen...all I could field at this time.

By the end of this war, I had taken Mumbai, York, and Nottingham...and Elizabeth gave me 3 other cities. I razed a tundra city she gave me, and then declared war on her after the peace treaty ran out, taking London and another tundra city she pushed out during that time. I razed it again, leaving me alone on the continent with a Napoleon who already had built 8 cities and Monty who had 6 cities.

So, at 500AD, I finally started building horsemen, and the rest is for the next spoiler :)

My plan from this point is to puppet my entire continent, and pray that the unhappiness doesn't overcome the science bonus I should get from having that much population.
 
At about 1000AD and I have 6 cities, two of them puppets ( Delhi and Kuala Lumpur )

Managed to rush great library, oracle, hagia sophia and the porcelain tower. Thebes is popping out great scientists nicely, used one to build an academy, another to bulb Theology. I have a really good setup in Thebes to toggle between strong production or strong science. Whatever is needed at any given time.

Took out Delhi early after getting a spearman upgrade from a ruins. I kept Ghandi alive as a buffer between Liz and I, which may have been a mistake in hindsight.

Social policies are all over the place...I have been way to reactionary with them, wish I had just focused on science and military 100%.

Politically it has been crazy. Non stop backstabbing and wars, all over the continent. It makes me wish I had finished the job with Ghandi and went on to eliminate all these nut jobs while I had a military advantage.

Elizabeth may be the new monty...she is psychotic. She built cities very aggressively towards monty and my borders. She seems to hate everyone, and at one point or another has been at war with every civ. I took out York which fit nicely into my empire, while bribing Monty to attack her other front but may have given him too much power. He is a force now and I am just barely fighting him off. He is wiping Napolean off the map and took a couple City states down. Also around this time Ghandi went for his revenge...he invaded with all he had and I trounced him, but it delayed my answer to Monty and now it may take ages to properly address the situation.

My plan for the next 1000 years is to go full defense on the Monty front, and try and gobble up the rest of Ghandi and Liz to at least stay on par with Monty in population and number of cities. Then its off to Alpha Centauri!
 
I settled on marble and started to develop the capital building only wonders and some National Wonders which are otherwise hard to get later on to boost the science (like National College) for the first 100 turns which was probably way too long. At around turn 110 I built 2 warriors, upgraded to swords and annexed Alma-Aty with the help of a catapult since I managed to lose one sword. Next moved to India to capture 2 more irons where Gandhi built Mumbai. To illustrate how glitchy and buggy the game is at its present pathetic state, one can look at this screenshot. As you can see, Mumbai is captured, I am still at war with India but... There is an Indian archer shown inside the city. What could he be doing there and whether the glitch is graphical or "real" is unclear but obviously, in its present condition, the game is essentially unplayable. I will try to continue may be... :lol:

I already have acoustics and will try to lightbulb Navigation and Astronomy with GS. Happiness is not a major problem but lack of production and culture to get some valuable civics. Probably it might be worth to try and puppet the rest of the continent in the near future but the AI is quite slow to settle the land.
 

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1400 AC. Peaceful game. 3 city empire. Monty is beating the hell out of everybody but city states and the rest of the continent AIs have started total war against Aztecs.

My high military rating is preventing anyone from having funny ideas regarding messing with Egypt.

On hindsight I should have founded 2 more cities and gotten at least 2 more CS allies. The other continent is also funny.
 
1690 and I was under attack by french arty! We have been at war for 40+ turns, I had taken a big city off them but as my mil was weak I was mainly just killing units - until the English joined in as well. The english were behind me in tech but had a hell of a lot of units so I needed to split my forces.

That was when the French opened up another front with their previously unseen arty took and rasied my 2nd city in two turns. A very well done attack actually.

The little frenchy then accepted peace - giving me 4000 gp in the process! Stuff winning by science - all that money is being used to upgrade and rush buy more units to wipe every single French city and unit off the map.

If they hadn't offered me all that money for peace I would be basically a dead civ walking but it was the first game I've seen that the AI was way ahead of time in teching.

There will be a bonfire of french hats.

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Settled on marble and began the construction and race for different wonders, meanwhile i met monty, elizbeth, french, gandhi and some city state on my continent. my 'initial idea' is to grab all of the continent for my self except city state and eventually fly away to alpha centuri.:scan:

monty wants french land while eliz wants indian lands, I , to keep them busy with them with what they want sign pact of secrecy with both of them. Allied with almaty for free units and built 3 other cities.

As was foretold by prophecy monty wants a co-war with french, eliz want a co-war with gandhi i honor my words and declare war on french and indians. monty eats all of french empire and i took delhi from indians while elize take mumbai and vijaynagar. indians dispatched.:king:

Eliz is 'pretty predictable' as now she wants a pact of secrecy against monty and i signed. My wish come true as i see monty had conquered the entire french civ and started to picking on city states.(my future allies)


I back-stab monty (it feels good against monty), me and eliz declare war on two front against monty, he couldn't resist and his empire was divided between both of us. I liberated two city state from him to gain two more allies. 'They love me' :cool:as the give me gifts too.

My only built frigate in the game searched for natural wonders and the other continent where i meet persia, arabia and america.:D


Now the 'pretty predictable' eliz wants my lands.(how predictable) she declares war. It was a tough war as she spam a lot of land unit. Taking all of monty treasure (cities), gandhi samadhi (cities) and two liberated city states whom become my allies to thanks me i accept peace.. 'They love me':cool: and give me gifts. Confiding eliz to her original land.:king:


On the other continnet america conqured arabia and thus i started to joined hands with persia. We traded open borders, a couple of reserch pacts, selling and exchanging goods.:mischief:


The initial idea of grabbing all the continent was scraped as i was having unhappiness problem and therefore i beelined for the space victory research technologies. There comes the great revelation that i can't built Apollo programe.(i think it might be a bug, a game breaking bug, dah):confused:

Here is my save file. If anyone could be kind enough and tell me is it a really bug or do Apollo programe have other pre-requisite i don't know. I even played a bit and researched railroads, up to combustion to see if i can built it but to no avail. It show up in the city build but is grayed.:sad:

View attachment TS2_Start7.Civ5Save
Here are some odd observation or wishful thinking.

# Settling on the top of marble give marble. It should require masonry.
# The invisible unit.
# The unit stop on the go to mode with out asking for another route if it was interrupted.
# Where can i find which city is producing the most great people point?
# If i accept peace with an AI, all of my allied city states should automatically accept peace too. Geneva continued to be at war even when i accepted peace with eliz.
# If i conquered an allied city state of another player in war i should have been given the option to in let them live and make peace while breaking all of connection with his former allay. ( I hate annexing or making puppet of city states)
# If i am allied to two city states they shouldn't ask me anymore to kill one of them.
 
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