TSG91 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG91 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 beeline Chivalry for Keshiks?
- How many wonders did you build and why?

Well, I feel like I just wasted 108 turns. But its fun experimenting.

One city settle in place, open Tradition > full Honor.

Terracotta Army:

scout
warrior
archer
chariot (for upgrade obviously)
comp
cat
X2

Kill Ethiopia. Now fighting everything while I work my way north. Terracotta Army, Mausoleum, Zeus and finally NC in cap since I don't need to make any troops. Gold was an issue, but its stable now.

Settled in place. Decided to go for diplo dom through a keshnik rush. Started full tradition one city, wanted to plant 2 but Haille decided to forward settle me, well i had stolen a worker from him so cannot blame the guy.

Pottery writing - GL - free teched philosophy ah mining archery beeline maths for HG then Oracle, I will now go for Chivalry maybe even before Edu.

Pantheon extra food from wheat, will go for HS to get a religion.

I am building 2-3 horsemen whenever I have any gaps. i am npt doing great but not bad either.

I settled 2 south on the river, i felt it was a central location and i was right got 4 wheat tiles in my city as well as marble salt gold and Ivory.

I opened with tradition, took the honor opener vs the barbs and I plan on going full honor and tradition for the War/Growth combo, Stole a worker off Ethiopia And went for a 3 city opening.

I took sun god as my pantheon, I considered earth mother as there is alot of salt around but I feel the food is more important from the wheat, (4 wheat alone in my cap) which i got from meeting the two religious city states first. Rushed out a settler to grab the salt coastal site near Ethiopia.

Its currently turn 85 just finished NC, have two caravans up, i was able to get tribute from one of the city states and Greece has denounced me, not a big deal I shall have Keshiks soon to deal with him. My plan from here is to go for Full Tradition then Honour and Commerce. Im going to wipe out Ethiopia and then go for Greece, both with Keshiks. Managed to get a DOF with Cartage which allowed me to get gold to buy a library in my third city near the truffles. I will post pics soon

Turn 150ish now.
settled in place. scout-warrior-worker-settler
Initial tech was AH-pottery, got mining from a ruin, then meandered my way to Philosophy through sailing and luxuries. After that, beeline Education, and then Astronomy.

Wasn't sure what my plan was going to be but after scouting the first 20 turns I opted for tradition, 4 cities before NC, in order to get a decent claim of land before Haille, and Alexander.

I left a unit blocking the path from the north, and then built 3 settlers, some troops, granaries, libraries, and shrines. I had a brief war with Haille because I didn't like where he dropped a city near my cap, and he left a worker undefended. The combination was too much of a temptation. He paid a little for peace after I burned the city that annoyed me. Also took a worker from one of the city states nearby, and asked for gold tribute twice in the early game.

Planted a city to the south, mountain, coastal, and bought the tiles to get Solomon's mine. Another city was mountain, coastal to the NE, in range of Gibraltar. The 4th was on the lake in the middle to claim as much of the interior as I could.

I was slow to NC because of the 4 cities, but still got Astronomy by about turn 130, and I feel like my science is starting to ramp up nicely now.

I was tempted to get distracted and go on a Keshik rampage, but I think at this point, that would just slow me down, so I'm settling in to beeline to the Info age.

Wonder wise, Didn't build much. Took a shot at Temple of Artemis and got it, and built Oracle in my second city. Got beat to HS, and CI. Otherwise, NC-NE-WG in the capital, and infrastructure to settle in for science and eventually gold.

I move warrior, look on that wheat and decided to settle in place, by some reason I like coast and I did not plan to go tradition, boring.

Build order war scout, scout, shrine, granary, scout, monument, archer, archer.

I am containing Ethiopia to one city, but he was such disappointment. He only produce 1 worker + 1 settler. So, only 2 his workers working my land. Have to build some workers hard way.

Social policies - 2 into piety 2 into liberty(do not plan to put any more), now I am 1 policy off reformation..

I was going for 5 happiness per city religion, but had to get only 4, some one else took +2 from temples. Mach depend on what reformation believe I can get.

So turn 148 discover education, on 5 cities.. Will see how it will go..

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Ivory around make me think about wide empire, as it practically guaranty 2 free(no gold cost) happiness per city.
- What were your initial priorities?
contain Ethiopia and expand
- What tech path did you follow and why?
Basically worker tech and I beeline embarkation, so I can explore more, trireme was one of my first units which was disappointment, but embarkation did give me 60 faith ruin.
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
piety and + in liberty(opening and 1 production per city), which may be was en error, as I did not get Jesuit education which is critical to overall strategy. But It is soo hurd to play with out border expand and 1 production per city helps a lot.
- Did you beeline Chivalry for Keshiks?

NOpe, did not wont to fight.
- How many wonders did you build and why?
No any, do not have production and early wanders are not essential to my plan, Stonehenge would have been nice if I had better production capital.

Settled across from the ivory, turned out to be an excellent choice. Capital built scout, worker, shrine, worker, monument, granary, 2 settlers. Took sun god, as we have 2 religious CS. My religion is happiness heavy: ceremonial burial, happiness from temples, and mosques. I don't see myself finishing rationalism unless I get lucky and the AI proposes worlds fair when I propose world religion. We'll see how it goes.

Took Liberty, as my plan is to annex everything and build universities, hoping to bulb to atomic. Man is Liberty's border growth SO SLOW. It's agonizing, especially with the brain dead border pop logic. No, I would not prefer salt number 2 over that marble. Thanks for the plains tile, don't worry about expanding to the gold over there.

Turn 105, I have 6 Keshiks and a horseman ready to kill 5 civs. Ethiopia then Greece then Dido, some of my favorite leaders to wipe out. I have only met 5, I am hoping the last 2 are on a different continent, so I can start the congress timer as late as possible. If not, I can't see the AI getting to PP before 160 or so.

My story is similar to Strake's, although I did not destoy an Ethiopian city. Instead I captured a settler that was dangerously close to claiming King Salomon's Mines. Thereopun I surrounded Addis Ababa, After a while, Haile gave me everything he had for peace and we have been good friends ever since. I have been blocking his other settlers but he does not seem to mind. The continent is effectively mine. I have four nice cities and a good religion running so I thought I should try the peaceful approach.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
> I settled on the starting spot and built a worker first, assuming I was on a small island. The other three cities are coastal too.
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
> The nice city spots near the natural wonders made me prioritize settlers
- What were your initial priorities?
> Claiming land
- What tech path did you follow and why?
> Nothing special. Technologies for resources first, then Philosophy and Education
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Tradition, followed by Patronage
- Did you beeline Chivalry for Keshiks?
No, I don't think I'll need them
- How many wonders did you build and why?
Wonders built: Petra (yes, a surprise), Borobudur, Hagia Sophia, Oracle, Temple of Artemis.

As for how to progress: As ever I am clueless on how to time the diplomatic transitions. I will jusst try to tech up as fast as possible. Maybe found a new city if I find a good spot.

Currently at T95. This is the victory type about which I know least and at a level one above my safety zone so it could get interesting (aka slow). A good start, I think. Settled 2 tiles south with 2nd city NE of KS Mines and 3rd city blocking off the north on the truffles. My 4th planned for the east ivory was snaffled by Ethiopia, but he is going to die under a keshik onslaught before too long. I am 2 turns from chivalry with an array of horses and money to burn.

GL at T38, NC at 52 and Oracle at 80'ish that finished tradition. And now 2 into patronage.

I am not sure if I should be pursuing religion on this map. I stumbled on the 2 faith CS's very early and was first to a pantheon, but nothing since. I chose sun god and my capital growth with this and a granary is huge.

I have discovered all but one of the AI, but my trireme can get no further and I had to wait for civil service to get open borders with Morocco who was blocking the way for my scout.After Ethiopia I will probably go on a killing spree leaving a couple of AI alive if they treat me nice. It would be so easy to win by domination from here. Greece will probably be next before he gets ideas of his own. Maybe Dido can help with that.

From here on it gets to the stage where I start to struggle for a fast win by diplomacy. I never know how best to proceed. I am looking forward to reading how others fared in "After actions".

I generally play very peaceful, diplomatic games, and decided to not do that this time. I decided I would kill off anyone on my continent I could, and then beeline the atomic age to set up a victory vote.
Thus, at the beginning, I moved my settler down 2, near the river, so that it would encompass all of those wheat and the gold and founded my capital there. Started out with two scouts and a worker, hoping to get as many ruins and first CS bonuses as I could.
I got enough faith from the two CS's there to start my pantheon, which I set as God-King for the extra everything. I wanted the culture from pastures one, but Ethiopia took that one turn before I could have. I built my second city next to King Solomon's Mines for the massive production boost, and explored and met most of the civs above the isthmus, then blocked it off so they couldn't expand toward me.
After that, I teched up to Horseback Riding and built a small army of Chariot Archers and Horsemen to take over the two city states along the east coast. I realized that city-state bonus mixed with the Honor tree was quite powerful, and I was able to take over both of them fairly easily without losing any troops. However, while I was doing that, Ethiopia got angry and also settled a few cities around me. So I turned on him and conquered him just as my economy completely crashed and I had to take a detour through the tech tree to learn currency and disband my less experienced troops to gain the treasury load to keep my science up.

Around turn 100, I've got a solid hold on the south and plan on settling my third non-puppet city near the Rock of Gibraltar after my economy recovers, and then try to spread some discord amongst the northern civilizations to distract them while I build up a Keshik blitz force.

glory7 said:

Spoiler :

while the map type is small continents, it seems that all civs are connected like pangaea - I guess astro was not required to meet all civs (but probably required to meet other CS)

tradition 3 cities. wanted salts+wheat+etc spot SE of cap, but ethiopia took it first I could not find a good enough 4th city spot, so went for 3 cities and will add other caps later. Ethiopia made me angry from the beginning, so I won't let him alive. at t4(5?) when I was about to take a ruin he "stole" it and his scout became an archer...

cap BO: 2 scouts - granary - GL (t45?) - NC (bought one settler) - settler - caravan/chariot - market/watermill/writer's guild - HS (univ bought) - circus - CI

2nd city (+6 hammer NW): granary - library (mistake...should have built caravan first) - caravan - stable - 3 chariots - horseman - univ - obs

3rd city (2f 5g NW): granary - trireme - library (univ bought)

timed culture production and oracle so that I could open secularism at the same turn I enter renaissance

happiness will be a problem, so not sure how fast I should kill other civs.

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

It looks like Tradition 3/4 cities is a killer strategy for whichever map/civ/victory type, or did you see anything here that made you choose it?

Went 3 cities, Tradition core (Legalism/Landed Elite/Monarchy) and a couple of points in Piety and Patronage.
My scout waited next to the CSs but did not see any workers coming so had to build them myself, probably did not wait long enough
BO basically granaries shrines librairies and NC, then 5 keshiks and i'm ready to annex Haile's cities.
I took Papal Primary for my religion and hope to combine it with bonus resting points from Aesthetics to be friends with all civs following my religion.
Haile is pushing his religion hard though, will have to fight it. Gives me potential 3 faith buildings in each city though : pagodas/monasteries/mosques, good snowballing to be first in faith, which gives you automatic quests from CSs.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
Settled on the starting point and went scout monument worker granary
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Only 3 good sites, bot beaten by Haile to Solomon so settled on the coast
- What were your initial priorities?
Get a religion for the bonuses with CSs
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Did you beeline Chivalry for Keshiks?
Yes
- How many wonders did you build and why?
None

I'm at turn 127 now. Have had wars with Ethiopia and Greece and settled for cities in peace deals each time so Ethiopia is down to its capital and I have a staging point north of Athens (Sparta) for my next war against Greece.

Isabella and I are essentially "in a relationship". Our first date was in Greece at her request and she asked me out again for Morocco but I had to turn her down. She asked to be my friend too (I accepted, of course). I'm hoping she's up for a tumble with Dido once I've taken care of business with Ethiopia.

I have religion but so does Ethiopia so he has to die soon.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?

Settled on coast between gold and ivory (yes, not next to the river)... Built settlers, a bit of infrastructure and troops.

First settler next to mountain and mines and second near the choke point within reach of the Rock. (Pantheon was one with nature).

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

- What were your initial priorities?

Manage Ethiopia, block Greece then tech and war. I want to kill all but two and, once I discovered Greece, knew Alex was not going to be one of the two.

- What tech path did you follow and why?

Pottery, Comp bow rush then Education beeline. After that I'll head for machinery for crossbow upgrades - I'm going to need them soon.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Tradition and Commerce opener to help with gold issue. Will put one in patronage. I'm not founding more than 3 or 4 cities.

- Did you beeline Chivalry for Keshiks?

No. I wanted to so some earlier capture. Never used then before so am hoping my path unlocks them soon so I can try them out.

- How many wonders did you build and why?

Got ToA for comp bow production. Tried for Oracle but missed. Now trying for Chichen Iza for some happiness. Will attempt Forbidden Palace.

Settled near the 4 wheat + gold area, seemed obvious.

Ruins: Map, Mining, Gold, Upgrade, Pop, Map

BO: Scout, Monument granary archer worker settlerx3 ToA Library Cargo NC
Tradition

Met 2 quick CS and grabbed Sun God Pantheon.
Quickly met 5 civ so it means I can wipe them off my continent and reach atomic.
Grab workers from ethiopia (3) and kathmandu (1)

Used spearman and archer to block Ethiopia

Used first GG to grab copper in south.

Particular events:
T2 Karakorum founded
T42 Beshbalik founded (ivory area)
T47 Turfan founded (salt area)
T48 GL built far away (Morrocco)
T51 Hsia founded (KSM)
T59 ToA built
T76 NC built, pretty impressed for a 4city NC on tradition
T88 HG built, MoH built
T91 Tradition finished
T93 Colossus built
T100 4 chariot archers built, time to kill Ethiopia
T104 Addis abbaba is captured
T107 Ethiopia is eliminated
T108 Education
T111 First Great Prophet (Tithe, Divine Inspiration)
T116 Renaissance and Oracle built
T121 Chichen Itza Built, Addis Ababa Annexed
T122 First Golden Age

SS


Money is through the roof, happiness is temporarily fixed and science is strong. Next step is to kill everyone else. I wonder if I should wait to explore in order to not get warmonger penality while I kill the only civs I know.

Dang, Acken, how did you get all those populations so high so fast(not to mention the science and gold per turn)?!? By that point, I had barely gotten Karakorum to 7 or 8 pop and only had 2 natively built cities!

Also, what's the UI you're using? It seems to give a lot more info than the default and seems like it would be useful.

Thrallia said:

Dang, Acken, how did you get all those populations so high so fast(not to mention the science and gold per turn)?!? By that point, I had barely gotten Karakorum to 7 or 8 pop and only had 2 natively built cities!

Also, what's the UI you're using? It seems to give a lot more info than the default and seems like it would be useful.

Click to expand...

The mod is the Enhanced UI mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=512263), but I'd like to know the answer to your other questions as well. That is crazy for T122!!

Sun God helps a lot, it's 4 food in capital, 1 in Beshbalik and 2 in Turfan.

All cities were founded early, 4 cities at T51 is usually more a Liberty thing. But the insane food of capital made it easy to make 1 settler every 6/7 turns. The earlier your cities the higher they are at a specific time.

Rush bought a granary in Turfan, Hsiao can easily build its own and while I would have liked to rush it in Beshbalik I didn't have the money at the time. Rushing granaries is better than rushing Libraries (unless you really need the Library right away for NC).

Beshbalik and Capital are feeding each other through cargos (and later in the game Turfan and Addis ababa are doing the same).

Never in unhappiness allows for constant growth (make sure to build circus, colloseum and ally a mercantile CS).

For gold I'm a little surprised myself. It's mostly due to road connections (which is a function of population), Colossus + 1 trade cargo to marrakech, Monarchy and Beshbalik is crazy on gold with 5 luxury camps. Add a market to the biggest gold cities.

And finally Temple of Artemis is a very strong growth wonder.


Overall that map is rather incredible, I think I'm at 30 pop around T165 lol.

So, Acken, does that mean that the number one priority should tend to be food over anything and everything else early on?

I confess that I pretty much never get my cities to the size of your Karakorum at 175AD in any game until well into the Atomic Age. It's not something you necessarily wanted to do, or even could do, in prior Civilization games until late game, and I suppose I've been playing as if the same overarching strategy I used to use would work just as well here.

Thrallia said:

So, Acken, does that mean that the number one priority should tend to be food over anything and everything else early on?

I confess that I pretty much never get my cities to the size of your Karakorum at 175AD in any game until well into the Atomic Age. It's not something you necessarily wanted to do, or even could do, in prior Civilization games until late game, and I suppose I've been playing as if the same overarching strategy I used to use would work just as well here.

Click to expand...

Yes growth is king in Civ5 due to how happiness and science works.

More population directly translate to more science, more local hammers (and on plains you don't have to really think about hammers they come naturally), more gold (through tiles worked and road connections are a direct function of population size).

Global happiness mechanics from civ5 means that as long as you have a flow of happiness somewhere you're free to grow everywhere. Contrary to civ4 where everything was managed locally. This means that productive cities in civ5 can build happiness buildings allowing food cities to freely grow.

Another argument: A new citizen is a better long term investment than anything the game allows you to build. Most buildings don't produce even more than a single tile... a new citizen can work that tile and increase science in the process.