TSG1 Game in Progress

Started off by settling in place, starting location looked very nice.
Since the main goal was a domination victory, i decided to try and be aggressive from the get go, and went down the honour tree first, while clearing out nearby barb encampments and scouting around.

I quickly found Budapest to the west, and Venice to the north. I also met Bismark, but i only found his capital some time later as he was quite a way away.

The lay of the land, and the only civ i had met so far being so far away meant that being aggressive early was hard, but after finding horses next to Rome i beelined for Horseback riding and sent a settler to establish my second city right next to Bismark (coastline west of Berlin).

My settler got captured by barbs on the way but i managed to recover him using my, by now veteran, barb killing warrior/scout combo + the great general from the second honour policy, and send him back on his way.
I got somewhat lucky with the timing after this. I finished Horseback riding just as my pasture over the horses next to Rome was done. In addition, Antium had just been established near Berlin, and of course Bismark shouted at me for settling next to him.
I promptly told him to shut it however, bought a quick horseman from Antium and declared War.

He had some defences but i prevailed, capturing Berlin and taking Bismark out of the game around 1000 something BC.

Right after, Venice asked me to take out Budapest, which i did and got a fourth city + a lot of food from my new ally, Venice.

At this point i had a solid footing, but my empire was cut in half with a lot of land i couldn't afford to colonise in between.

It's about 800 AD now and i've settled 2 more cities in the gap between Rome and Berlin, and just generally developed my cities. Also met Darius, and spotted some more good land east of Berlin which i will also settle as soon as possible.

Turn 7:

A few things you can see from this picture I decided to settle on the starting spot. I met budapest really quickly and found a dead-end to the south. So maybe I'm in a pretty sleepy corner of the continent, who knows. I started with pottery for reasons I'm not 100% sure of but decided to go for fishing boats to take advantage of the two fish next to my capital.

Turn 17:

Oh hello Bismark! Want to cooperate with me? okay, yeah, sure, whatever. Looks like I have a pretty close neighbor, but at least I think I'll be able to defend myself. Meanwhile, I have little idea of what I'm doing at this point. I'm looking for places to settle and I'm thinking of spreading out to take advantage of not having too many people around me. Yet my policy choices were in the wrong direction. This game is going to be full of mistakes!

Turn 50:

If you squint a little further, you can tell a few things. I have some cities! Hooray! I decided to put my second city in the choke point and I'm keeping a unit far to the north to hold an area near a Great Barrier Reef! As an added bonus, I can plop a city next to where Germany is trying to expand, so I can try and back fill.

I've only gotten a few extra tiles. I'm not exactly sure whether I should let my cities expand with culture or try and plunk early excess cash for land grabs. I went ahead and expanded my borders to block a scouting german warrior in my lands! As you can guess, Bismark was not entirely pleased. I also have an exploring boat, but so far have met nobody.

Turn 69:

With all of my cities on the coast and me popping a golden age due to very happy citizens (helps to have two luxuries next to the starting point) I put my production and wood chopping towards an early wonder. I mean, Colossus isn't the sexiest wonder in the world, but I'm certainly happy to build it. Hooray first Civ 5 wonder!

I still feel like a noob though. I built it totally because of the opportunity and not because of of some late game strategy.

Turn 100:

So far so quiet. The most excitement I've gotten is from barbs and Venice asking me to blow up Budapest. Umm...maybe not yet. Actually, Budapest was very nice to me after I cleared some barbs for them and they gave me a scout. I don't know how far I'll get into German lands, but what can you do?

Meanwhile, I scouted with a boat and learned it is locked in because of frozen artic and the bend of the land. So who knows what wonders wait on the other side. I'll build a boat to explore the other coast hopefully with more success. At least I met Japan?

I have four cities now. I'm not sure if I need any more at the moment or if I need to consolidate for an early game push into German lands. He already doesn't like me (he canceled the cooperation pact awhile ago), and maybe I can draw Japan in against him somehow. I have a feeling with the right troop and seige combo I can take him out early. I just need to hook up the two iron places near my lands. That means I might need to build a fifth city close to Budapest.

Overall, I'm happy with my position, but I have a feeling the next 100 turns will be far more interesting than the first 100. But at least I have a good hold of lands up and down the peninsula. And I have a road that is just about to connect my northernmost city with Rome.

As I get a handle of what's going on in Civ V, I'll write better posts and have better questions to ask. For now, I'm just kind of stumbling through and hoping I don't screw up too badly.

I settled in place, and built a worker first. I decided to research mining as it is the first step on the way to the legions.

3840 BC - Hello Budapest

3720 BC - Found some ruins and Barbarians. From the ruins I got Pottery, and after two turns of attack, killed the barbarians.

I got nervous about focusing on iron working, since I got pottery from the ruins, I'll go ahead and get sailing. This map is looking weird.

3400 BC - met a German scout, my warrior is still healing

3360 BC - Worker done, starting warrior. Moved worker to forested hill to clear it. Started exploring again with my first warrior, he is healed only to 7, but I need more info.

3280 BC - Got sailing, and met Venice. Started on Bronze Working.

3200 BC - cleared a forest, production went into a warrior. Started on a workboat, and adopted honor.

3040 BC - met barbs in the north a few turns ago, so warrior completed his healing so he could take them out.

3000 BC - Workboat done.. oh, it adds gold.. gotta look at these changes . Started Settler, seems like a late start.

2920 BC - Found out where Berlin is. Bronze Working done, going for Iron Working... 22 turns. Don't know if it is a good idea or not.

2840 BC - Germany offers open borders. His scout already had moved past me and explored, so it helps me as I can move my warrior though his territory, so I accepted.

2640 BC - Settler done, and going to do something a bit crazy. Plan to settle him way north up by the German border. I need more military to do this, so I buy a Spearman.

2360 BC - My Spearman and Settler, ran into an unprotected German Settler. The opportunity is too good to pass up, I declare war and take it out. I had a bit of a problem with one spearman trying to protect my settler and my new worker, but with a few turns of maneuvering I manage to kill his scout. It did slow the founding of Antium a 3 turns or so at least.

Because of my weird tech order, my worker in Rome doesn't have anything to do, I'll use him to fog bust

2240 BC - Antium finally founded. I'll try to see if I can get a picture, but its pretty far north near the German border.

2080 BC - Iron working done, started on Animal Husbandry. Iron by Germany, between Antium and Rome, by Budapest and south on the snow.

1720 BC - A Trireme, the warrior who went though Germany and back tracked, and the Spearman that I had bought, together take down Berlin. I used insta-heal on the spearman once. The same turn I killed a barb encampment in the south that made Budapest like me. I had to make a puppet of Berlin as happiness is an issue. I have another settler in production who will settle between Antium and Rome for the iron.

Need to figure out how I'm going to take care of the happiness problem, and find the rest of the civilizations. Hopefully I can produce Legions soon enough to take down one or two of them.

I'll post a picture of the current situation before I continue. Gotta figure out how to do it.

Short summary - founded Antium west of Berlin in the resource-rich area. Took out Germany and Budapest, annexed the cities.

- My scouting off the bat was pretty weak. I knew I was near the south pole, but didn't think to explore down there until late. Didn't realize how much land there actually was south of the capital. I also didn't think to get open borders with Germany, so I wasn't able to scout east of Berlin until after I had taken them out.

- Research is all over the place After going for Calendar to hook up my luxury resources, I went horseback riding to take advantage of the horses near the start. Looking back I think I should have put more focus into iron working earlier, to unlock the UUs.

- Trying to focus on military production in my Northern cities near Berlin left me unsure of what to do in my capital. I've churned out a few wonders (failed on the Civil Service slingshot that I read about in a post ) and unlocked a few free techs so I think I eventually made out OK. I would build more buildings to make better use of the UA but I'm worried about maintenance.

- No idea what I'm doing on policies. Went Honor first, in keeping with the domination victory condition, but I also got Tradition to speed up construction of wonders.

- I've read a lot of posts saying to build trading posts as often as possible, and only build farms on river tiles/mines on hills away from water. I've been sticking to this pretty well, but I've got improvements on all my tiles now (captured workers from Budapest and Berlin) and not sure of what to build next? Roads connecting my cities seem like they would be a huge maintenance drain since there's such a long distance between them. Would establishing another city reduce the cost of the road? Not sure how that gameplay concept works quite yet.

Settled in place; initial build Monument, researching Mining.
T3/3880 BC - meet Budapest, a Militaristic City State.
T9/3640 BC - Ancient Ruins give me Bronze Working, which I was already researching! Lucky break On to Iron Working
T15/2400 BC - contact w/German Scout, he came from the North.
T16/3360 BC - Take Honor as 1st Social Policy.
T19/3200 BC - Bismarck asks for Pact of Coop.; agree, for now!
T26/2960 BC - meet Venice, a Maritime City State
T27/2920 BC - Warrior Code Social Policy & free Great General!
T31/2760 BC - Barb Brute captures a Roman Worker, who was building a Mine near Rome.
T33/2680 BC - Iron Working complete! Iron 6W of Rome, near Budapest.
T41/2360 BC - Roman Warrior finds Berlin far up North!
T48/2080 BC - Roman Spearman clear Barb Camp on Southern Ice Pack & reclaims Roman Worker!
T52/1920 BC - Policy added: Military Tradition.
T55/1800 BC - Gift 500 Gold to Budapest, they are allies of Rome!
T56/1760 BC - Roman citizen initiate Golden Age!
T57/1720 BC - Budapest requests take out Barb Camp north of Rome!
T60/1600 BC - 1st Roman Settler built.
T61/1560 BC - Roman Spearman & Warrior take out Barb Camp north of Rome!! Influence with Budapest increases to 119/60 = Allies!
T63/1480 BC - Mathematics finished! Wanted to put second city near Iron by Budapest, but their borders have already claimed it. Heading for Iron north of Rome, near where Barb Camp was just cleared.
T65/1400 BC - Budapest gives Rome a Scout!
T66/1360 BC - Golden Age ends.
T67/1320 BC - Antium founded next to Iron north of Rome, and just South of Munich.
T70/1200 BC - Budapest gives Rome Iron Resource!
T73/1080 BC - Warrior upgraded to Legion! Bismarck asks for Open Borders, lets see what he has!
T74/1040 BC - Scout sees Munich has no Garrison Unit! Later he sees that Berlin & Hamburg also have no garrison units.
T81/850 BC - Bismarck cancels Pact of Co-op due to troop build up near Munich!
T87/700 BC - DOW on Bismarck after he refuses to give up Munich!
T88/675 BC - Munich captured, 41 Gold pillaged; made Puppet State of Rome!
T93/550 BC - with Roman units on outskirts of Berlin, Bismarck asks for Peace & offers...

• 87 Gold
• Open Borders
• City of Hamburg!
• Make Peace with Budapest
• Luxury Resource = Whales!

I accept, Hamburg made Puppet State of Rome!
T98/425 BC - Make Peace with former German ally Venice.
T99/400 BC - Scout meets Japan far to the east. Designate them as next target, need to take them out before they can build Samurai!
T100/375 BC - Budapest gives Rome a Spearman!
T104/275 BC - Peace Treaty with Bismarck expires, DOW again! Berlin captured and annexed! Berlin has The Great Lighthouse! German Civilization destroyed, 5 AI Civ Capitols remain to be taken. Give 250 Gold to Budapest to boost influence to 111/60! Spend 50 Gold to buy Iron Hex 2SE of Berlin! Victorious Roman troops begin long march toward Japan!
T106/225 BC - Kyoto builds Oracle before Rome has completed it! It will be mine soon enough!
T109/150 BC - Budapest grants Rome Ivory Resource!
T111/100 BC - Barb Camp E of Hamburg cleared, Worker captured (he must have been German). Worker sent to Hamburg for improvements there.
T112/75 BC - Roman Horse Chariot meets Tyre, a Militaristic City State!
T115/ 0 AD - Status: 1 Capitol captured, 5 to go. Roman Empire has 5 cities; 2 founded, 1 Annexed (Berlin), and 2 Puppet States (Munich & Hamburg)

Turn 120:
After taking a few turns to build some legions and a ballista (thanks Budapest for giving me 2 extra iron!) I decided the time was now to strike at Germany. They had been shuffling troops near my borders for whatever reason, but they were all warriors. I feel like I have the advantage.

I also grabbed a few horse archers. Their mobility might be limited by the hills and forest, but I have horses and are not using them. So why not?

Three turns later...

Well, it looks like Germany only had one city. After all this time, just one? Did their other city get sacked by barbs? Is Germany just that backwards?

Turn 129

Free social policy? Sure, why not? Do I even really know what's optimal just yet? No, but I'll figure it out in time. I don't have any rhyme or direction. Meanwhile, I also accidentally (okay, not accidentally) declared war on Japan even though I had no idea where they were located or how much of an army they had. But their score was a lot lower than me and apparently my military is much larger than them. I saw one unit just after taking over Germany but crushed it when I declared war.

However, as I wandered east I found a ton of city states but no Japan. No nobody. I mean, I bumped into Darius and Monty eventually (leaving 1 civ left to discover) but had no indication of where Japan was. Well, I must have been getting close with my horse archers and legions because this came out of the blue...

Free money for declaring war and only destroying one unit? Oookay!

Turns out I wouldn't find Japan for awhile until they started attacking Monaco.

Tuns 140-152
Did I tell you I'd be jumping around a bit? I pushed further east and discovered the landmass east of where I started is devoid of anybody except barbs and city states. Looks like I'm free to colonize it whenever. However, as I started to squish my forces easy around Singapore (who I was still trying to amass enough $ to friend) I got a cry for help from Monaco. They were totally surrounded by Japan. Amazingly, my Legions, Horse Archers, and Balistas totally outclasses their army, which was a collection of spearmen archers and warriors. No swordmen. Certainly no Samarui.

And I would have crushed them except for signing a 10 turn peace treaty with them on turn 136. Just before I could save it, Monaco fell. So what did I do?

I took Monaco and gave it right back to them. I figured I'd rather have a city state ally than trying to hold onto more land. I like that I have the option. The battle was ridiculously easy, especially with a Great General. I'll add to the chorus of much preferring 1UPT to Stack of Death. And, most importantly, I could see Japan's borders to the north.

Turn 171
After teching to gunpowder to try and overwhelm whoever I face in the future, I made it to another age!

As I pushed north, Tokyo stood between me and the capital. All I pushed with was two Legions that I upgraded to Longswordmen, my great general, and a Ballista. All Japan threw at me? Piddling bombardments and one Swordman. I almost feel like I got more resistance from Helsinki to the south (who I would have spared, except they aligned themselves with Japan). At least they managed to pick off a few of my archers.

The difference? Helsinki is located in an open flat area, while Japan's cities are on a narrow corridor heading up to Kyoto. I could push up with my two units and my bombardment in the back. It was only a matter of time -- upgrading both my units to Medic certainly helped mitigate any bombardment damage.

Turn 175
The push was no contest. Another capital down.

At least Japan managed to build more than 0 cities, but Osaka is convenient to get to because of all the road. I'm going to take over all of Japan completely. I need some kind of presence in the East I think, and the added research is very nice.

I did stay with puppet cities for everywhere except Berlin, who would not develop a whale tile on it's own and would not buy some very nice adjacent tiles. There's also an awesome city location east of the choke of Berlin surrounded by sugar, marble, livestock, and iron. A prime settling location, but I need to settle way more. There's so much land and all of my units have a looong way to march to make it to the future battle fronts.



I should have taken some screenshots, but I'm currently allied with Budapest, Singapore, and Warsaw. I'm friendly with Venice. I need to consolidate my winnings and connect the western part of the world to the east -- especially with Helsinki. My next target is probably going to be Darius (or whoever I find I guess) but with such a long trek for all of my units to make across the world I need to also be sending out some more settlers.

I know this isn't Civ 4 where you settle and settle and settle. But I at least need to connect my empire and have a road going across for faster access.

Beyond

I played a few more turns after 175 and the mop up of Japan is almost complete. Still haven't ran into one civ, but I'm in dominant position and the result of the game is only a matter of time.

I also have a lot of unused iron and horses. Guess I could make a ton of knights just for kicks. On a higher difficulty I obviously wouldn't be blowing through the world so fast, but that's how it goes. I'm also finding myself with too many workers and unsure of what to spend my $ on. But I'm finding keeping city states happy to be a pretty significant $ sink. But the extra resources and units are GREAT.

Captured Japanese Capitol of Kyoto, but lost Ballista & the free Great General from Warrior Code in the Process.

LESSON LEARNED: Keep your Great Generals with one of your strongest Melee Units, not a Siege Unit or a Ranged Attack Unit that doesn't have good melee defense!

Oda N. asked for Peace after the fall of Kyoto, and since I only need to capture and hold all the Capitols for a Domination Victory, I agree. Two Roman Legions are on Alert inside Kyoto city limits. A few turns later, Oda N. asks for a Research Treaty, and I agree to that as well.

The victories over Germany and Kyoto have generated another Great General for Rome, and he is marching east with the second Roman Expeditionary Force. Tyre, another Militaristic City State, is having problems with Singapore, and requests any major empire to take them out.

Just so happens that most of my new forces are near Singapore. I wasn't planning on fooling with any of the City States, but the opportunity to make an ally of another Militaristic City State is too good to pass up. After positioning my troops, I DOW on Singapore, attacking with 1 Legion, 2 Horsemen, 2 Spearmen, all under the guidance of the Great General. Two turns of attacking, and Singapore is mine! I annex the city so that I'll be able to build units someplace closer to the front lines. Tyre is so happy, they become an Ally of Rome, and I gift them 250 Gold to boost my influence.

So that part of my plan is working very well, as I'm now allies with two Militaristic City States, having made an ally of Budapest early in the game.

As my units are healing inside Singapore city limits, China DOWs on Aztec. I move as Scout over to keep an eye on things, and send a quickly healed Horseman from Singapore toward Aztec territory. Monte only had two cities, and my Scout watches China capture the non-capitol. As my Horseman reaches the border of Aztec territory, China is attacking the Aztec Capitol. When my Horseman is ready to move again, China as reduced the city defenses down to next to nothing, so I DOW on Monte, and attack and capture Tenochtitlan with my 1 Horseman. Aztec Civilization eliminated, and I make Tenochtitlan a Puppet State.

Only two Capitols remain to be taken, Persia and China; Persia is my next target.

Roman Empire at 1000 AD, eight cities...

• 2 founded (Rome & Antium)
• 4 annexed (Munich, Berlin, Kyoto & Singapore)
• 2 Puppet States (Hamburg & Tenochtitlan)

It's turn 201, I had a peace treaty with the one remaining civ (Darius) set to expire on turn 192. I got the notification that it had expired, but I'm still unable to declare war. I've had my troops staged outside his borders for several turns but unable to do anything. There are no deals/trades in progress.