TSG 140 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG140 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 Actions thread once you have completed your game.

- Where did you settle your cities?
- Did you plan to use the UA/UU/UB early? How so?
- After some scouting have you settled on a CV strategy? How did you conclude on the strategy?
- What pantheon/religion (if any) did you get?
- Did you play a practice game before release to get a feel for these settings?

Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.

Well, I don't usually play on immortal (my only win there was the Ramkamhaeng TSG) but I gave this one a try. Settled riverside coastal location with crab and silver, took honor, found Pedro and tried to worker steal from him and that's when it all went dowhill. Lost my jaguar and the worker and decided that's probably not the best strategy to begin a higher difficulty with. Decided to restart and try again instead of slog through what was likely an exercise in futility.

Second time around I tried to keep everything the same. My scouting was a little more efficient (yeah, I know...) but other than that, almost identical strategy. I was successful in stealing from Pedro this time, and I got another one from a city state to the east. Played about 130 turns, took the right hand side of honor, switched to Piety to grab a pantheon, took desert folklore because my second city was in the desert patch and I was planning to attack Morocco. Instead, I missed out on religion, had no real direction with my economy, was far behind Morocco in military and probably can't economically sustain the war I started.

I think I need to spend a bit more time getting acclimated to Immortal.

Pretty bad start here, went 5-city Liberty, didn't get a religion because I delayed my expansion a bit to secure Pyramids, got backstabbed by Morocco for being a reckless expander and Brazil wouldn't renew a DoF either. Bribed Ahmad to attack Pedro, then DoWed to break the deal and killed a ton of Moroccan units. Doubt I'll get a good peace deal out of this unless I build more troops though.

Here are the questions going through my mind at turn 100:

Was going 5 city liberty, with a splash of honor a good idea?

There is only one religion left...will I get it or will my shrine constructions be in vain?

I am bankrupt and in the red with the science penalty. Will I be able to get back in the black before I am hopelessly behind?

Fortunately I have a strong enough military and plenty of workers. We will see what happens.

I settled my cap near desert because I didn't want a horrible capital inside jungle. I thought I could get petra but.... newp. That promising desert hill turned out to be all alone :,(
Then I rushed to get Mines city out, crapped on Morocco by stealing a worker and generally annoying him. He eventually peaced out by giving me 390 gold. Thanks. Later Brazil tried to sneak a settler through my borders. I made washington DoW him and his city-state stole the settler thanks to my blocking it from escaping lol.

The production is very bad in my 4 tradition cities. Liberty might have been better for jungle... But I didn't want to settle more than 4 cities due to lack of luxuries and trading partners. Turned out to have been the correct decision as my cities grew crazy fast after civil service and 5 cities would have just been a hindrance most likely.

I got education around turn 115, bought university in capital and just tried to make it in other cities. Didn't get a religion but as luck would have it washington got sacred sites from his religion and spammed it to me, so I have +8 free early tourism from that. Pedro is the culture leader with a pathetic 6k at turn 200, he will be crushed easily. My only problem is figuring out how to do it as fast as possible. My cities have such low production that it makes me cry. I'm close to buying a hotel in capital though, I doubt this game will need to reach Internet so I might just try to plan around that. I would just kill Brazil to make it faster, but Arabia is sort of a contender as well and he's too far away to kill easily.

Soon I'm voting for world religion in the first congress and America will support it. We will definitely pass it.
I picked Freedom to keep growing my monster science cities. I also built sistine and uffizi and there's no shortage of sites to fill all of this and more. I have to gauge whether or not the other wonders are worth building as they cost so many damn hammers... I'll probably make Eiffel somewhere at least.

Anyway, I can't tell if I'm doing well or not. I am crushing the AI in science at least, so it does seem like jungle is slowing them down massively as well as slowing me...

I moved my jaguar south along the river before settling and saw the coast and all those bananas, so I moved my settler there instead of settling on the silver like I intended. Opened Honor and went barb hunting, and straight Tradition after that. Build order: jag, jag, granary, jag, settler, jag, not sure what was next (maybe a library.) I got a free spearman and a catapult from a CS; that was nice.

I stole a worker from Morocco. He killed my jag but the worker got away and was escorted home by another jag. White peace afte about 10 turns. I tried unsuccessfully to block Morocco from settling near KSM. I sent my settler that direction anyway and settled on the bananas next to the lake (I wanted to be able to work the gold to the NE) I also hoped to buy KSM before Rabat expanded that far, but Ahmad must have been thinking the same thing and he bought it. Next thing I know, Rabat builds Terracotta Army, and a few turns later the Great Wall. I will have to capture that city eventually, but probably not until dynamite.

My third city is on the coast to the west, just within reach of the marble and iron and a small lake.

The AI's are building wonders right and left. I didn't even try to found a religion because the pantheon was going to cost 35 faith, and I needed those hammers for building granaries, floating gardens, and libraries.

My cities are growing rapidly, and I'm catching up in science, but I still don't see any path to victory. I need to get Brazil and Morocco fighting each other, but right now they are best friends and probably plotting to backstab me soon.

I didn't feel like a long traditional culture game, so I decided to risk going SS after all.

t1 settled on the silver hill for maximum production. Figured I'd have to emphasize faith for a good chance at an early religion on immortal. Built Monument -> Shrine. Didn't take note which turn I got my pantheon, took faith from silver & gold as there were lots of those around. Worked silver hills even without mines. Silver hills with jungles and my pantheon make for some pretty good tiles: 2 1 3 1 1 or something like that - pretty awesome for an unimproved tile!

Went 2 into piety for fast temples, then collective rule. Settled 1st expo on gold near solomon's mines, next two expos claimed the silver tiles east and south.

t67 got 2nd religion (Pagodas & Init rites)
t76 pyramids (beat Pedro to it)
t98 enhanced (mosques, it. preachers)
t110 SS

so far so good...
now need to find all the other civs. i just have one trireme so far, hopefully it will find the other continent. if I have to go for astro things will get complicated.