TSG90 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG90 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. We are going to try something new and limit your game description in this thread to the first 100 turns. Anything after that should be posted in the After Action thread once you have completed your game.

- 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?
- How did the game options impact your strategy?

Jumped into the game right after work. After some exploration i didn't wanna go for ICS or anything risky. Land is very rish in term of a 2 cities approach. The idea was to settle near the desert east of capital(settled in place) and work on getting HG and Petra but only after the NC(king after all) so the risk is minimal.

I even tried the GL but lost it far away from goal i lost only a few turn(gone turn 50). I did lose a caravan to barbs unfortunately. My luck came from multiple quests that gave me 3 cultural cs allied around the turn 50 for a huge boost. Eventually allied the 5 ones

NC around 80 but built Stoneworks in both cities before too. Clinched Tradition and opened Patronnage. Got Scholasticism around the turn 100 with Oracle and earned an instant 25% research boost.

Finally got a religion around the turn 100(Tithe, plowshare) and will try Borodurur and something that boost ''per city'' bonus(cs, Morroco's land). Next step is Astro and Secularism.

Made a mess of the start. I had decided to go for SS and DF, and despite of a map that did not lend itself to it, I lacked the flexibility to change my plan.

Settled in place. Built GL t40 (free teched philosophy) and Stonehedge around t60 (no faith at that point). Liberty to free settler - expoed to the north, had no workers so settled on copper lux, a mistake, would have been better to go south to the incense. Allied a couple of cultural CSs, so quick culture.

Very late pantheon, around t65, chose DF, did not make a lot of sense as I had very little desert. Religion around t100, 2 gold per city + Pagodas. NC on 102. Then piety to reformation (SS), which I got before second round of religion due to poor fpt. When follower belief t120 came all faith building had gone, so truing to decide what to get, probably 2 happiness from temples and Religious Texts.

I am wonder spamming as plan B (GL, SH, Oracle, Pyramids), but I am doing poorly on tech. SS will help a little with tourism but no real option as my very friendly neighbors are not pushovers for conquest, specially Haille, so cleaning my continent would be tough. Well, let's see what I can make out of this but early turn win is not an option any more. I need to tech hard now.

I settled in place and went 2 city Liberty. I built GL>NC>Oracle to finish Liberty in the 80s for a Great Admiral.

Growth was so bad, it took me forever to finish this game.

I settled in place and went tradition. I'm up to turn 134 with 4 cities. Sparta is on the northern riverside coast next to the bananas, 3rd city went to the NW on the coastal marsh near Hong Kong and the 4th city went on the southern desert next to the iron so it could work both irons, copper, cows and incense. I got HG in the 3rd city and Petra in the 4th city. GL, Oracle, Borobudur, Artemis and working on Great Mosque in the capital.

I was beat to HS by a couple turns. On this turn someone else took sacred sites, so I think I'm going to stop pushing Peity and start pushing Aesthetics instead. I think if I had pushed Piety before finishing Tradition I wouldn't have been screwed out of SS. Of course I also only got monasteries, so it would have only been 2 tourism per city instead of 4. Since I didn't get a 2nd building I went with culture from temples to help push the polices.

Religion
Earth Mother for the faith from copper, iron and salt.
Tithe
Monasteries
Culture from Temples
Cheaper Prophets

The reason for the cheaper prophets is to make a bunch of holy sites for the gold and culture from finishing Piety. That culture would convert to tourism with the hotels and airports as well as help push policies.

Edit: Two turns later Ethiopia screwed me as well by taking the reformation belief that allows buying any great person.

Settle in place, went tradition+ Honor opening (helps a lot in clearing up camps, do barbarian quests and for my plan of continent clean up.
Settle second city on incense. Make a mess stupidly build caravan with out granary in capital lol, had to use if for gold.

Settle third city in perfect petra location near Morocco. ( 3 oasis, 4 quarries, 2 golds and practically all ties desert).
Build order was 3 scouts-shrine-settler- caravan ???- granary - settler - caravan.
Got stone pantheon. Got religion pretty early.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
I am somewhat consider SS approach, but consider it too risky. There was possibility of spamming lots of cities with desert folklore for huge amount of fault.
- What were your initial priorities?
Scouting
- What tech path did you follow and why?
Pottery-animal husbandry- calendar(so I can settle on incence for instant happiness)-mining-masonry-sailing(for second trade route)
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Tradition + honor opening.
- How did the game options impact your strategy?

Astro t135.
Cfpital bo: 2 scouts, 2 settlers, worker, granary, caravan, archer, stone works and then wonderbuilding. AI built Oracle on 118t.
Full tradition and 3 in patronage.
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I think I tried too many different things at the same time, and fell short of the opening I was hoping for. Oh, well.

Scout -> Scout -> Shrine -> Worker. I had bad luck with Ruins, popping maps, barbs, cash, upgrades. No culture.

Went full Tradition and aimed for only 4 cities (both out of my comfort zone ).

The problems starting with too long a shopping list, things I want:

- Early religion (success, via stone circles, t79)
- 4 cities (success, but slow. All on the southern peninsula)
- ToA (failure, missed by 1 stinking turn )
- Petra (success, but not a fabulous city - in the SE, just in range of Incense)
- Colossus (success, but a very costly detour!)
- Notre Dame (failure, missed by 3 turns)

Too many tech deviations leads to a very slow NC (post t100), slow Astro, and generally slow development. Not looking great. I think fewer Ancient/Medieval wonders is a better approach.

From here the plan is: beeline Refrigeration, build all the Wonders, and then drip feed my synth music and denim wear across the sea. First WF proposal will be +culture from wonders. There is no way this will be faster than a militaristic CV (at least for my game).

I need about 3x the hammers I have available

Decided to go for 2 city Tradition with Sparta being placed a hair north-east of where Tabarnak put it. Prioritised getting HG/Petra first but this led to quite a slow NC at turn 100, so I've fallen quite far behind Tabarnak already. Will settle a third city somewhat north when I get Astronomy so I can get a Caravel and start sailing.

Founded a religion with Stone Circles - Tithe - Divine Inspiration. With all this Wonder spamming this should be able to get me some Great Musicians late game.

Debated settling by that lake in the desert up North to try and get Petra there, but thought it was too risky, being conditioned to Emperor. -_-

I picked up BNW on the Steam sale and wasn't sure which of the new Civs to try after Venice. Games with new France, Polynesia, and new Germany showed me how much my early game needs work. I've been playing on King, and I am loving the new culture game (finally got the Bollywood achievement, glad I waited).

With Alex I want to try a little early warmongering. I don't have enough feel for early warmongering to try to clear a standard sized continent before artillery. I also wanted to play it safe. I can still lose on King with bad starts...even though this turned out to be a better start than I initially thought it would be. Since I had so much trouble with a Liberty start my last game, I went Trad.
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Opening Actions:

I settled in place, sent the warrior to the cows ENE, started a monument and researched mining for the copper. From reading others that seemed unnecessary, and about 240 turns in, I haven't had any happiness problems like I did when I tried Liberty.

Capital build order: Monument -> Scout -> Warrior (lost opening warrior since I fought barbs on bad ground) -> Shrine -> Settler (started at Turn 38)

GL went to AI on turn 67, the same turn I got HG.

Science order: Mining -> beeline Math (figured HG more important than GL for this map...am I wrong?) -> Masonry (for the Marble...was that wrong?) -> Writing -> Beeline for Philo -> Drama & Poetry
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Moderator Action: Moved the After Action part ot the After Action thread.

@flp_ndrox: I think you accidentally included your after actions in this post, giving spoiler info in it.

As for my first attempt at an actual, full Civilization game in at least 3 years, I decided to settle in place and had planned to attempt to conquer my continent before anyone could meet anyone on a different landmass. After that I would tech up while building my culture and learning just how you even win by culture in Civilization V.

After 80-100 turns, my plan is pretty much shot. Morocco is the top civilization in the game in most categories, so I'm certainly not going to conquer anything. That said, Ethiopia, Morocco and I are all on extremely friendly terms, so I'm not worried about being conquered, and I've managed to found cities in all the best places all the way up to Morocco's borders and got enough city-state events that I've got all of the 6 closest ones allied to me, which has given me a massive culture boost thus far. I've almost entirely adopted the entirety of the first two culture policies(I don't recall their names...), and have also created a pantheon that gives me +1 faith for stone and copper deposits, of which I've settled near over a dozen.

In synopsis, my lack of knowledge of all these new mechanics or of how to do a culture game means I find it likely I'll be among the slowest games, but I feel enough things went well so far that I'm pretty safely going to be able to win it.