TSG95 Opening Action

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG95 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.

- 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?
- Did you make a plan for how to achieve proceed towards Domination?
- Did you beeline Math for your UU?
- Did you use Faith to gain an advantage? If so, how?
 
Sort of curious about this GOTM as I have never had a Diety victory before. All in all, I would categorize my start as better than expected although I'm certain others will blow my start away.

Took Stone Circles to get the +2 Faith from quarries. Along with MoH and stoneworks, my 3 quarries around Assur are thriving. Conquered the Germans first followed up by the Pols. Next up are Mongols or Huns although I expect they'll put up more of a fight.
Spoiler :


Spoiler :

 
I had a feeling there would be some interesting opponents with the unusual number of civs in the game. Got off to an excellent start but I made the mistake of building up infrastructure too much instead of making units. This would have been such a nice map for a science victory type. Anyway stopped at T136... info in spoiler below.

Spoiler :

Got Mausoleum + Hanging Gardens in cap and Petra in my 3rd city (on T125 lol). In hindsight I don't think Mausoleum was worth it. It was nice to get Masonry early to connect marble, but at the end of the day I am getting 6 GPT from it which is equivalent to selling 3 iron. The +100 gold from GP expenditures is underpowered, especially when I have no early people to use. 4 archers, or 3 archers + caravan seems it would have given me a much better return on investment.

I war dec'd Poland early and took 2 workers on 1 turn with my goody hut Spearman which made early infrastructure a breeze. Assur is size 20 on T133 and I haven't been focusing on growth. Never made peace with Poland and ended up taking 3 techs + Warsaw on T99. Unfortunately one of them was Physics, bleh. No more Siege Towers. I wish I had built more.

This is where I screwed up. I decided to split my army in two and try to take out Germany + Mongolia at the same time. Germany was the natural choice to attack next, but I wanted to liberate a Mongol CS so I could get my trade deals back. Well, I paid for my greed. Bad terrain + Keshiks made me fall just barely short of liberating the CS. The failed attempt cost me several units including 2 of my last 3 siege towers. This forced me to make peace with Mongolia without taking anything.

I can still probably roll through Germany with CB, but after that this is looking like a long game. I will definitely need air support. It would be nice if the AI kills each other a bit to make it easier for me. I'm tempted to restart for fun but I'll play this out first and see if I can be smarter with future wars.
 
This is a cool map. Very powerful in some ways while still being challenging in others.

I don't really enjoy early domination, so I'm taking a slower strategy that mostly ignores Assyria's uniques. War will not start before Artillery. Strangely, the only part of the Assyrian package I'm using is the Royal Library. Since I'm not going to be building units until later, I'm going to try to really stack up XP buildings to instantly get a well-promoted army.

I've wanted to start writing up Civ (and other) games in a longer, more detailed format than may be appropriate for forum posts, so my full writeup is available on my blog, linked below. I've played up until turn 140. I hope that linking to this isn't a violation of whatever secrecy/spoiler rules are leading to the "no videos" restriction.

 
The start has been better than I expected, but I think I started rolling out the siege towers a few turns later than I should. Berlin fell fairly easily, and just after making peace with Germany, Poland and Attila declared war. Poland had forward settled on me, so I plan to capture that city and raze it and then move to Warsaw. I probably should have taken Munich also to eliminate Germany, but I was at 10 unhappiness after Berlin so I needed some time to regroup. Using Tradition/Honor policies and only have wonders that I captured in Berlin so far.
 
To t55

Spoiler :
I opened with scout/scout/shrine. That worked and I got a culture ruin and eventually Earth Mother. Straight to Monarchy, then I opened Honor. Pottery>Mining>Archery>AH>BW>Masonry>Writing. Pulled a worker steal from a CS. Started selling everything I could. Built a Caravan but the only route open was to a CS. Early BW popped 6 Iron right on the hill next to me, and I already had a mine going first. Sold Iron 1ea to anyone with any GPT.

I made a second city down south on the river to get the Wine and the Horses.

Attila asked me to go to war with Bismarck who was in settler mode. I said “Give me time to prepare”. I denounced Bismarck and shortly got denounced back. I bought up some archers and went after Bismarck’s closest city. It gave me Calendar when I captured it, but also a Major Warmonger hit.

I’ve met Germany, Poland, The Huns, Rome, Greece, the Mongols and Shaka. Charming group. I’m hoping Attila and I can be friends.

I have 2 cities, a puppet, 2 workers, 3 archers, a warrior, a spear and 2 scouts scouting. I’m making about 25 gpt. On to Berlin!


T93
Spoiler :
I made it to turn 93. Germany is history at the expense of my reputation. I am currently at war with Poland. He crept up on me with a large force while I was finishing Germany. Peace lasted long enough to shift my forces and engulf his army. I can now march into Poland and get two more cities with my 2 Towers. I bought of The Huns against Rome, but could not get a DoF with them. I have to get Poland fast and shift forces back up to the northern plains. Rome declared on me, so I guess I have a common foe bonus.

I just hit -1 happiness so that could be a problem. I do have my own religion, but FPT is low. No NC yet. Only two cities, and 3 puppets.

Assur is kinda lame, size 10 with Mausoleum. I just sent over a food caravan. HG is still open. Shaka built the Great Wall which is OK because by the time I get there it will be obsolete.
 
Giving it a try. Fantastic start, great map so far, fun, complex and powerful at the same time. Carefullly crafted, very clearly, even down to being overcrowded and full of powerful civs and warmongers. And I am at t150 and not dead yet!

So it started well with a culture ruin, and that was it for ruins. Got a pantheon at t40 (faith for quarries). Met Casimir and Bismarck early, hang out and DoW Casimir with a worker steal. Never made peace and by t60 I had stolen 4 workers already, with the first around t12-14.

Fantastic that I had chosen mining as second tech, as that allowed me to improve the salts asap. i bought land whenever necessary and focused on growth.

Never made peace and by current t150, Warsaw has fallen, but I have been focusing on tech and growth and I am playing a 3 cities Trad although I have planted a late 4th. I am going to do a peace deal with Casimir and turtle until until Dynamite.People don't seem to hate me too much and the guys that don't like me at are the other end of the continent. I have friends, among others Bismarck.

Pity I don't really know how to play domination, as I have no idea of the timings for attack. I always wait to long. I need to go to war asap now, I think I will get tech lead in 20 turns or so. This is going to be a reaaally long game (assuming that I win, absolutely not a certainty), it will be 350 turns or more. Hopefully below 400. We will see.

BO: scout, scout, shrine, settler, granary, library. Expo next to Grand Mesa early. Then expo in the coast south of cap. NC before Oracle, t76 I think?. Edu at 107, built Petra VERY late in expo at t107 too. Also built Mausoleum, really late, was not planning to, but Wonders were being built very slowly (for Deity) if at all by the rest of the guys. A lot of fun so far.

Pity is not a science game. If it was, I think I could do close to 220.
 
Couple of important things I forgot. The reason I took so long to really attack Casimir is that he has a wonderful religion with Jesuit Education that I want and I also wanted a nice peace deal before I took down his cap. I got both around t123 (peace 46gpt and 380 cash and religion spread to 2 cities) then attacked at t135. Felt I could not wait anymore.
 
Settled immediately. culture ruin T1 made me consider tradition opening, but I chose liberty as I prefer liberty CB/Xbows+UU rush, with UA and UU. I could steal 2 German workers early (like t10), but I lost my initial warrior. I stole a worker from Milan, but could not get more as it expanded its territory fast. Had pop 2->3 ruin and one more culture ruin later.

cap BO: scout - monument - granary - scout - shrine - 3 archers - settler - archer - stoneworks - mausoleum - caravan - etc - oracle borobudur later
2nd city: monument - granary - archer - stoneworks - etc
3rd city: monument - granary - CB - stable - etc - machu pichu and petra later

Poland went piety and built stonehenge - should be mine soon. I basically beelined to construction and upgraded 5 archers.

t58. Huns took Rome cap. Rome built pyramid very early - maybe that's why? I want pyramid to get 2 turn road building, but it's at the north corner...

My initial 5 CBs are taking out poland units & stacking XPs. Mathematics is up - time to get UUs!

Spoiler :




I realized that Poland had nice beliefs (monastery, mosque, and no fast religion spread), and other AIs ignored religion (no other pantheon for a long time). Which means if I get Poland fast then I can do something with faith. Poland entered medieval first (with CS) and built some pikes, but with UU and CBs I could take his cap and 2nd city easily. I didn't like terrain between poland cap and mongols, so I went for Germany. Meanwhile, I bribed Huns, Zulu, and Greece to fight their neighbors. my 8-9 CBs and 3-4 UUs killed Germany in less than 10 turns.

2 Poland cities gave philosophy and horseback riding; German cities gave iron working, drama and poetry, and maybe something (civil service is likely).

t95. Germany is out. I gave his 3rd city to huns so that he would burn it. I chose GS for liberty finisher - can get Xbows next turn. Given that I ignored spt for the whole game, this is very fast!

Spoiler :




I thought that going for piety makes sense in this game. Both poland cities had shrines and temples, and nobody else had a strong religion. Annexed poland cap immediately and bought monastery and mosque there, and bought pagoda at my own cap. After that, I used 2nd prophet to spread religion.

Religion choices: stone circles - initiation rites+pagoda.

t119. Huns cap with GW is mine. Meanwhile, Greece is building wonders nonstop, teching fast, and getting CS allies. Need to teach him a lesson asap. I got Optics and Chivalry from Huns cities.

Spoiler :




list of cities. fpt is nice... Built writer and artist guilds at the cap. 3rd city built Machu Pichu and it helps gpt a lot.

Spoiler :




t136: 'beeline' to greece cap. He is a tech runaway and built like 10+ wonders, and getting CS allies. Need to take him out asap. I got sandwiched by his CS allies, but Zulu will take one of them soon. Had to take 2 Roman cities on the way. I got logistics/range Xbows so it won't be too hard. I spammed roads all over, as usual.

he entered renaissance first, and I sent my spy to his cap right away. Spy got gunpowder (he built himeji castle so I knew that he teched it too) and I researched theology+education myself. I took reformation the next turn (t137) and chose jejuit education - bought universities with 240 faith each!

Spoiler :




t149. Athens falls. 9 wonders here. I have to completely wipe out greece so that I can have more CS allies. 2 Greek cities gave me acoustics and banking :lol:

I enhanced my religion with temple +2 happiness and itinerant preachers. Fpt is 99 and going up continuously.

Spoiler :


 
T118 and I am still in the game, which is surprising in itself at deity for someone that rarely succeeds beyond king. Poland is dead and, with machinery complete, I have just taken Berlin. I am trying to decide how many more German cities to take before peace. Rome has fallen, to Attila I think.

Greece is by far the most powerful and has done so peacefully - no-one has denounced him. He needs taking down a peg, but I may have to sort out Genghis first who is on the Polish border where I have one x-bow guarding two cities. He'll sniff a weakness soon and attack if I don't do something about it.

Research was a reasonably direct route to machinery with short diversions such as to philosophy for NC.

3 cities built. Settled in place, 2nd one south next to wine and third between the mountains by incense.

Failed to found a religion so I'll have to rely on Poland's. Took earth mother pantheon as stone circles had gone.

SP - took left side liberty plus citizenship and am now working my way through piety. I've no idea if this is the right choice. Time will tell. Mandate of heaven is definitely useful to buy with faith.

Army currently consists of 7 x-bows, 2 siege towers, and one each of swordsman, pike and horse. So far war has been easy, but I'll need to add and upgrade asap. I hope no-one goes for a naval assault. I've ignored that bit of the tech tree completely.
 
Had a great start (for deity).

Settled 1 SW, built scout, scout, shrine, granary, scout.

Stole a worker from Germany, killed 1 of their scouts, then peace deal.

Built some infrastructure, then army once I had barracks and library up. Too slowly however, as Poland DOWed me and almost took my capital. I fought him off however and destroyed him.

Then marched north to Germany, took 2 of their cities then failed to get Berlin and my ally it (forgot who it was - the guy to the east of Germany. Huns?).

Got the civ behind my ally to attack them for 3 gpt and was getting ready to backstab them. Then my laptop with the game on it got stolen :(

In hindsight maybe I should have built my army even faster, not even bothering with library until I get my first great work of writing (conquered, of course).

Anyway I never expected to do so good on a deity game :D

Gonna replay this now on my old laptop, hope it isn't too slow!
 
Then my laptop with the game on it got stolen :(
Have heard a lot of reason for having to replay turns over the years, but this one is too harsh! :eek:

Hope you get it back. That really stinks. :cry:
 
What a great map. I am still alive. This is my first game at level higher than king. And it goes well.

Settled in place, went scout, scout, shrine, scout, granary, archers, siege towers. found about 5 ruins, culture first on t2. went 4 in tradition and then honor. Took one worker from bismarck and another from barbs. techs ottery, mining, beeline construction, then mathematics.

The world is at war. everybody is fighting each other. All the time someone wants to join war, but usually from the other side of world. Huns ask me to attack bismark on t40, in 10 turns we started. Bismark defended twice - first he bought walls agains my archers, then completed terracota when i attacked with CBs. But after killing his units and adding siege towers 3 cities fell in t85. Now its poland or huns. Got writing, iron working and horseback riding from the uniq ability. Working on metal casting now.
 
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