TSG11 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG11 Game in Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing. There are no reading or posting restrictions as such (apart from normal decency), although we encourage players 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.

Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG11 After Action Report thread.

started yesterday allready, hell of a map, but as others have stated - this makes a very interesting game.
Got screwed twice by aztec declaring war - 1. time I got slowed in buildup, 2nd time a RA agreeement was broken few turns before end - even bought 1 pike so that I look stronger - and atzec was superfriendly to me (friendly happy status all game even gifted a worker from barbs) - and still it tries to attack even when its pointless.

Apart that nothing special happened - got a sp 1 or 2 turns before ren, whats been bit sucky.
And well now (around turn 150) I d like to have settled close to mountain ..
At least after astro game started rolling a bit - museums and stuff cost hell lot of hammers - and have to decide whether to rush sistine or louvre soon.

Btw wonder why no gen poped out yet - have killed at least 10 aztec units + about 10+barbs ones - isnt that enough?

At Emperor, the one VC that I miss is Cultural, so I'm thankful for this opportunity.
I studied the strat forums and layed out my gameplan:
One city only, peaceful game.
Sell Open Borders for cash (just learned about it and did it in my previous game)
Sell luxuries for cash
Purse lots of Research Agreements (RA's for the others like me who spend more time finding the acronyms than getting the point)
Focus on the necessary wonders only: Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, Sistine Chapel, Louvre, Cristo Redentor; perhaps Oracle
Get the Policies right: Tradition, Liberty -> Representation, Piety -> Mandate of Heaven, Freedom -> Free speech, Patronage

In practice, not everything is going according to plans...
Few neighbours so not many RA's
So much for peace, Montezuma declares war on me early. I make friends with a SC to get iron and (I hope) whales. Upgrade some warriors to swordmen and its enough to discourage Monte from attacking (interresting, he just pulled back when he saw them.. did the AI stopped to suicide on my cities?) And I didn't get the whales.. it takes time before sea ressources get improved :-(
I went for a second city up north. Part to get more production, part to get the luxuries, part to be within radius of some natural wonder, part to get sea access. Fail: while I do get the lux, the production is lagging (my Capital has to wait to build some National wonders), and I mistakenly placed the city four tiles away from the wonder so I don't even get the benefits. At least it's coastal so I could get a Caravel and explore. Lastly I didn't realy want to expand and delayed so much to build it..
Oh I got a nice Eldorado cash bonus but I bought a worker first, the settler much later. If I knew I'd build the second city before hand I guess I should have got the settler first?

Some things went right:
Monte lauched a second (massive) attack but my catapult/archer/swordsman/horseman/Camel Archer teared him in pieces. I now have an option to counter-attack Monte and puppet a city or two. Shoud I go for it?
I just finished Le Louvre, and got the other wonders of my list done. No Oracle; Is it possible to get both StoneHenge and Oracle?
I got my policies right (I think).
Must beeline R&D til Cristo Redentor, I hope not to get beaten by Egypt who's quite ahead (and build wonders fast).

@tommynt there is a progress bar for the gen in Military Overview I think

I learned that I really can't play at this level. I was thinking I was doing really well and then he declared war early on.

I didn't have enough military but managed to survive and scare him off - I think I played so badly that I confused the computer. Did you know if you suicide units you can make the AI chase you around in circles and not attack your city? It would have been a great strategy if I had done it on purpose instead of accidentally leaving them in the open. After buying a couple more warriors I fought him off and he went home.

So then I tried to catch up but I fell a whole tier behind in science so when the bad guys declared the second time I just quit out. I usually play on King at epic speed and emp with the AI teching so far ahead of me unexpectedly fast wasn't really something I knew how to deal with.

I miss the having different levels in the GOTMs. I'll never be a person who can really compete with a chance at winning but I liked playing along.

Monty is a jackwagon.

Why Monty why? Is my cotton worth less than culture to you?

You will pay, you two bit cannibal...

Monty broke another RA agreement - this time he didnt really attack, just declared war, even when we were at friendly happy status. Really anoying, if I could play this again I d just get 3 units and puppet him

It was pretty evil to tell us to play for a culture victory, give us marble, and then isolate us with Monte. I realized (after the first DOW by Monte) that playing peaceful just won't cut it. Monte is never happy unless at war, and we are the only choice of target.

His first force of Jags outnumbered my units by about 5:1. However, I was able to get my spearman (upgraded scout from huts) and use some of my remaining El Dorado cash for rush-buying. After killing/chasing away his army, he settles peace for peace.
But now I know better, and set on a war footing myself. he declares war on me two more times after that, but all the fighting happens on his end of the court.

Of course, my policies are all wrong for warring, and it really hurts to take 3 into Honor, but that's what I do. With swords and horses and a pike or two, I have finally captured my first Aztec city. The year is 1020AD. Man I suck at this game!

Not sure if I'll take peace to heal/reload, or press my advantage now that his (quite substantial) armies are decimated. I've already roaded my way down there, since I had so many workers with nothing to do (have since deleted most). I think I settled 3 cities... one for iron and one for horse. Aztecs will be puppeted. Some day. Then I'll eventually learn how backwards I am compared to somone who will kill me. Sounds like fun.

I didn't have a large enough military to discourage Monty from attacking, but I did get built up enough to drive him back. Of course he kept insisting I give him the farm when he'd ask for peace, so I kept refusing. Eventually I managed to take his coastal city nearest my capital to the east. Then I took a break for the day at turn 200.

The next day I pushed towards his next city which was just to the SW of the one I already took. Meanwhile Alex had also declared on Monty and took the city he Monty had just south of my capital on that coast and was pressing his main cities.

I annexed the one coastal city I took from Monty when I had the cast to buy the courthouse. I then built a caravel to go find everyone else.

Pretty soon Monty asked me for peace again and offered me most of his remaining cities, resources, gold, etc. Probably just to keep Alex from getting them. This is when I finally got around to building my first settler and building a city up near El Dorado.

Things were going great for a while. I had Tradition, Piety and Freedom all filled in and was just starting on Order when Alex War dec'd me with his artillery and Infantry to my Cannon and a few Riflemen. I held him off as long as I could, losing all the southern cities Monty gave me.

When Alex took my capital with his horde of infantry, artillery and a tank, I gave up and quit. So I won't be submitting this month's game.

Looking back now, I think I should have built a total of 3 cities early on and focused more on the culture and troops. In fact I'll probably replay this map to get some more practice in before the next GOTM.

It's worse for me, as I decided on playing a zero-conquest game... the Aztecs keep sending wave after wave (jaguars first, then archers and horses, then pikes and catapults). Each time they're all friendly again after making peace. I had to ally with Cape Town to reduce my borders to something manageable.

What also didn't help was that I ran into a familiar bug again: a city state (Monaco) giving no recognition for removing the barbarians from their doorstep!

Nonetheless, still going strong. The capital popped a Great Artist, Great Scientist and a Great Engineer on the same turn. Will try to manage that a second time.

And yes, we have Observatories. No RA's gives just enough time to build them, heh.

Status at turn 100 ... Sci +25, Gold +9, Hap +11, Cult +30. Army = 3 Swords, 1 Spear, 1 Archer ((+3 workers, one captured). Founded only one city to NE on coast (hard decision as to whether to put it in range of El Dorado for future culture benefit). Tempted to found one to NW for whales, decided not to. Lucky to find El Dorado first as I went the "wrong" way with warrior at start. Probably should have gone for Writing earlier and rushed Library/NC ... wanted to get marble and cotton developed though.

Two allies (one cultural, one maritime as needed his iron). Been attacked twice by Aztecs. First time before turn 50, no fights, he quickly offered peace. About 25-30 turns later he attacked again and I took out 3 Jags and 2 Archers with no losses (I had Swords by then).

Not doing RAs. SH is only general wonder built. Explored with trireme from second city and found Greece and a couple CS, began trade.

Will attack Aztecs when upgraded to Long Swords and Catapult built. Will start working research toward Astronomy, which will clearly be needed. Generally feeling like I am off to a slow start.

Farrapo said:

Generally feeling like I am off to a slow start.

Click to expand...

I think everyone will feel that way with this map.

From what I've seen/read:

MadDjinn said:

I think everyone will feel that way with this map.

Click to expand...

I actually got off to a fast start, and when Monty declared war I whooped him but good, choosing not to conquer his capital to leave him as a buffer state between me and Alex.

Alex is the real problem here. He had already expanded onto "my" continent during the Classical age and just as quickly picked up all the CS as his friends.

Since this is my first of these challenges I wasn't interested in optimizing for high score or early completion, I just wanted to fulfill the conditions - so I had a much larger army than I would have otherwise. Didn't matter, Alex just rolled over Monty during the Renaissance era and continued on to obliterate me.

So I played like 270 turns in one session. I haven't done any of these but I was definitely on track for the win, but around turn 240 or 250 I noticed that Egypt was 4/5 policies done. Montezuma had a massive carpet of units on my southern border, but I kind of said MEH I'll risk it and proceeded to send my entire army across the globe to try to mess with egypt (which failed, because he had a carpet of units). I while my units were over there walking like egyptians, montezuma declared war on me and steamrolled me. My oversea army wouldn't of been enough anyways haha.

I'm going to replay the last 40 turns and see if I can't just beat Egypt to the cultural and see if Montezuma still unleashes hell on me when my army is facing him. Too bad I can't submit the game but I want to get a baseline score to compare to what more experienced TSG'ers end up with.

This just was not fair
While defending Montes first attack and recovering from that I watch messages of wonders build elsewhere passing by. Later, Alex replaces Monte on the southern part of our island and on one turn he allies all CS surrounding me (which were my allies before) and next turn he starts to roll his infantry and better over my poor little cities. All the while Ramses (or whoever it was) finishes policy branch after branch. That's just cruel

Shouldn't even have started this emperor thing, it just makes me feel sad

May I give some advice to u guys stuggeling that bad?

Dont go for military! all you have to do is defending your cap early on DEFENDING A CAP IS NOT HARD! basicly 2 units is more then enough to do - 1 archer or so in either cap or some clever hill (behind other hills/forest) and a 2nd unit (warri or so) will just smash attacking units 1 by 1, if u get atatcked in meddival age - 1 pike is all you need (in addition to the other units) - just dont move away from your city center - let the tropps come to you - fortify - kill 1 by 1 with ranged.

Tech clever! its a water map! So u need to get to astro asap possible to be able to trade (trade = money = RA agreements = tech = win).

Every recource/turn you put into stuff not helping your reasearc towards astro is a lost turn - other civs are trading/RAing allready!

at 100 AD Turn 119, feel like I'm off to a slow start too, but I'm a civ5 newbie. I have a question about the Library. I built it in my Capital, but it doesn't seem to have given me the ability to assign citizens to be Scientist specialists. I'm sure this was the way it worked in previous games I played. Anyone know why the Library wouldn't give me the Scientist ability?

at Turn 119 I have three cities, Sci +22 , Gold +11, Happy +5, Cult +27. built stonehenge, got friendly with Florence, was attacked once by Montezuma, but wiped out four or five units of his with no losses, no pillaging on his part. I just entered a Research Agreement with him. Not sure if that's a good idea or not since I'm ahead of him on the tech tree.

I guess the Research Agreement was a bad idea. a couple of turns later he declared war on me. I didn't get any techs. I guess they fixed that bug? Now I'm out the 250 gold it cost me for the RA

Arnold_T said:

I have a question about the Library. I built it in my Capital, but it doesn't seem to have given me the ability to assign citizens to be Scientist specialists.

Click to expand...

Libraries don't allow specialists anymore. First buildings you can use them now are universities.

thanks Tabarnak! I thought maybe that last patch might have done it. I wonder why they did that?