TSG13 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG13 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.

Please use this thread to discuss your goals for the game and your opening moves through about the first 80 to 100 turns.

Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG13 After Action Report thread.

I settled NW1 on the grass between the gems and cow. This worked out great in the beginning. I followed this with 3 additional cities. The next policy after all 4 cities had their temples built was Legalism for the free Wats.

I'm currently at turn 300 and only need the next GS to pop to get Rocketry. However, I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this one. First I had Rome DoW fairly early on, which slowed me down some. Eventually I got them to give me a white peace. Then, just before I finished Scientific Theory, Washington DoW's with his horde of Minutemen. I held them off just fine and am still doing so. Lastly, Arabia DoW'd me on the turn our RA was supposed to complete, thus canceling it. That would have given me Steam Power. I'm still in that war too. The most irritating parts of this two front war is I was sitting at rank 4-5 military and in score for most of the game, which is usually enough to keep the AI's fighting each other and leaving me alone, and I was friends with both Arabia and America when they back-stabbed me. They didn't even denounce me nor turn hostile, just suddenly, we were at war.

Luckily Ramesses didn't decide to jump in on this war as well, so the RA with him, that was signed on the same turn as the RA with Arabia, did complete and give me Steam power. I then used a GS to grab Replaceable Parts and built an infantry to help with the two front war. As soon as this unit finish building I started on the Statue of Liberty, which I did manage to complete.

The other reason I may not finish this one, or will likely be overrun and lose, is Arabia allied all but 1 of the CSs before he started the war. I never had enough cash at one time to gain alliances with any of them. I also wasn't getting SP's fast enough to put any into the Patronage tree.

One last thing about this game that's been irritating me is that Caesar has 4 or 5 whales locations but only improved 1 of them and has been too broke to trade one of my excess spices to him.

I was kind of surprised that this Fractal map actually put lots of the same luxuries near each other instead of scattered all over like it usually does.

I have a lot of trouble with money and happiness, the whole game long. Research progresses fine though. I only built 2 cities myself, though i wanted a few more, but as i said.. happiness is an issue. Also i went into patronage, while never havin enough money to actually befriend much.

Got dow from china and rome at the same time, managed to fight both of them off, went to get rome and they gave me one of their cities for peace. shouldn't have taken that one i think, lots of pop but no luxuries.

Well, i had a few units, so i went on to america who seemed the weakest target. I took one of their cities due to the stupid ai. They wer bustling with troops. Their whole area was FILLED, and after i killed half of it it filled up again! While all the time they didn't have ANY money. You know.. cheating AI, if they weren't so stupid when it comes to battle id consider it unfair.

Made peace for 2 more cities (they still have the rest of their lands FULL while i have 2 elephants and 2 crossbows) and now moving to perhaps take romes capital. But not sure if that'll work out, think i need some siege units for it.

Hm.. just lost my second city to egypt, who actually decided to attack the city. Seems the AI didn't like my rants abozt them being stupid.

Arabia attacked at the other side of the continent, so my troops were there, no money to buy any either :/

Bummer I'm thinking, I just lost my gpt and luxury peace treaty gifts from China because they Dow'ed again. Not realizing what was actually going on I was thinking it seemed like a good idea on their part. Wonderful way to avoid paying their taxes. And I wasn't in a position to take another city for some time. At this point I needed a little break. So I got up from the game for a moment and it hit me. How do you Dow 1 turn into a peace treaty ?

MinutiaRules said:

Bummer I'm thinking, I just lost my gpt and luxury peace treaty gifts from China because they Dow'ed again. Not realizing what was actually going on I was thinking it seemed like a good idea on their part. Wonderful way to avoid paying their taxes. And I wasn't in a position to take another city for some time. At this point I needed a little break. So I got up from the game for a moment and it hit me. How do you Dow 1 turn into a peace treaty ?

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The same way the AI can attack with multiple units from the same tile, but if I try to attack with a land unit from my city while a sea unit is also in the city, I can't, which is just pure bs. In other words, the AI doesn't have to follow any of the rules.

Just thought I'd do a quick mid game pointer. Started out goint Liberty->Collective->Legalism. Managed to get three temples and one monument from legalism, did not want to wait that long until I got Legalism, then went down left side in commerce(all my cities are coastal, will help building the spaceship later).
Played 170 turns now, going pretty well, had some happiness & money problems earlier, but solved the money ones and am relying on CS for happy now, which gives the added benefit of extra food and culture. Got a late NC because I expanded to four cities early. But think thats paying off now in the midgame with four strong cities.
Got DoWed by America and Rome within ten turns of eachother at about t150, beat off the american units and got a equivocal peace offer then marched in and took Rome. Cesar seems to have had huge problems this game, he had one 22def city, took me two turns to take with Narusian Elephants, Triremes and cats. I have to say I LOVE those elephants. I just started marching towards America and met his army halfway, so I'm setting up for battle now.

First I got some real life calling, my belly is growling.

I can't take screen shots b/c I'm a moron who uses a macbook to run windows7. So I'm taking detailed notes.

In brief, I'm trying the Legalism Abuse Strategy. Even if I screw it up, it has already forced me to micromanage like never before. Here are my first 80 turns. Please feel free to comment or advise.

Turn 1

Turn 10

Turn 20

Turn 30

Turn 40

Turn 50

Turn 60

Turn 70

Turn 80


Any advice or criticism would be greatly appreciated. Obviously I'm no record breaker. I do love playing Siam tho, almost as much as Ghandi.

Settled on the gem.

Started out with standard opening Writing -> mining -> philo and build LIB + NC in capital.

Then I decided to try this legaism thingey but after NC.

Policys was Lib -> Citicen -> collective -> tradition -> [patronage (temples not ready)] -> legaism (turn 93)

I expanded 3 cities, one to the west onto the spice and 2 towards the east. One on gem nextto coast and other up 2 tiles from the marble on a hill. All cities are pop 3-4 and manged to build temples by legaism.

I signed 5 quite early RA, t45, t47, t52, t59, t59. However, messed up 2 RA quite bad and since block on commerce was only 80% complete i was unlucky and got Commerce and Chivalry instead of Navigation and Archeology which I intended.

Now im sitting around with 4 cities and 4 Wats. Ok tech i guess. I have 1300 gold but my empire is REALLY SAAAAD (-4 happy) and when i work all the WATS = 89 sci) I have -19 gold per turn .... ) and only 1 active RA (t88)

Not quite sure what my next move is, but honestly I really doubt the merits of the WAT strategy. Rome and china are upset that I settle so many cities and Ive spend many gold that I coulda used for RA. Hoping to keep the game peaceful

Hopefully I will be able to spawn more GS I guess....

Question remains, Should i invest money for CS and schoitism or would it be better to go for RA and screw the city states.

Settled NW.

Tech order was Pottery -> Writing -> Calendar, and I got Mining from a ruin on turn 20.
Build order was Scout -> Monument -> Library -> NC -> Meritocracy GL (for Civil Service) on turn 50 -> Settlers.

One city went SE of the Marble to the NE, one city went on the hill just E of capital, and another went SW of the Spices to the W of capital.

I stole two workers, one from Bucharest and one from Seoul. The second was likely a mistake as (a) Seoul permawarred me and (b) the diplo hit helped screw up my luxury sales.

Signed only one early RA (with Rome on turn 42), which gave me Education in 1080 BC. I was a little late getting my Settlers so had to buy two Temples to exploit insta-Wats in all four cities on turn 97. At that point I was #1 in tech (26%, average 13%), with 7 unhappy (lux sales funded the Temples). I had also snuck in Stonehenge on turn 82 and would get the Oracle on turn 126.

Astro was researched on turn 115 and now I have met everybody, so the RAs are starting to get purchased.

this one seems not to work out well...

I settled one tile NW. very beginning was OK, I got two more cities, one east where there are a lot of spices, one nw south of rome to get wales. then rome DOWed me in turn 55, giving me a hard time. I produced war units all the time, used money from China to buy units. I fought off cesar who only had rome and thought Im gonna take rome as my fourth city and then follow the legalism abuse strategy with it.

did not turn out as thought. money and happiness problems slowed production rates, I didnt manage to take rome in 1st attempt, while china dowed me on the other side. china didnt seem strong so didnt move army there. mistake. I killed cesar aqcuiring rome, but wu took my spice city. took me long time to get it back, same time I got 2 free wats and one temple in rome. took chinese city near marble and other one just west of beijing.

No RAs in first 120 turns. my first trireme got off rome in turn 188!!! this is so bad. I thought the continent ended a few tiles west of rome. Now that I am in war with america i know better.

I am behind in tech, having had huge money problems but OK (plus 35) since I got wats and met Arabia and Ramses and Japan. Ally with 2 CS now. why do I get -1.5 for irrational CS in friendly mode and only -1.12 rate for CS with hostile attribute in allied mode?

I doubt I ever will get my tech up to speed again, lets hope for a wonder

social policies> collective rule, rest of liberty with stopover for legalism in between, start patronage, start freedom.
I managed to build GL from metriocracy and oracle in capital.

still dont know the whole continent and did not get to see the rest of the map at around turn 230. bad I know, but others are not unbelievable far ahead, let see whats possible for me.

One small note for the 'free wat' strategy... If you aren't playing culturally, you might want to sell the temples to get rid of their maintenance costs.

MadDjinn said:

One small note for the 'free wat' strategy... If you aren't playing culturally, you might want to sell the temples to get rid of their maintenance costs.

Click to expand...

Depends on strategy though. It's feasible if only build <3 Wats and/or wants to leverage Social Policies mid/late game. Doesn't Wat provide 50% science bonus as well? They just loose the jungle bonus compare to the normal university right?

Edit: oh..Temples...hmm. my bad

MadDjinn said:

One small note for the 'free wat' strategy... If you aren't playing culturally, you might want to sell the temples to get rid of their maintenance costs.

Click to expand...

I don't know about that. I really feel like this game depended on some good Culture to get all the crucial SPs for maximizing tech research.

MadDjinn said:

One small note for the 'free wat' strategy... If you aren't playing culturally, you might want to sell the temples to get rid of their maintenance costs.

Click to expand...

I sold my temples. I think it is definentely a good idea, 8 gold per turn is alot.

UPDATE: My game is not going very well. I have China, Rome and America DoWing me. Had to build a few military units to drive them off, but they keep sending hordes of outdated units and breaking RAs.

I am convinced that I could have had a easier game had I settled new cities less agressivly and likely skipped legaism -> wat

ssjos said:

I sold my temples. I think it is definitely a good idea, 8 gold per turn is a lot.

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I know that in my game, I used Scholasticism early (City-States give you 33% of the Research), Scientific Revolution (2 free techs), and Meritocracy (1 free Great Person of your choice which for me was a GS to bulb a needed tech).

I do agree that 8gpt is a ton, but I felt that throughout the game, I was in a really good financial position just by selling Luxuries. Granted, I never approached Harun's near 200gpt status, but I felt good about where I was.

PS: If you can sell the Temples and Ally a Cultural City-State as a result, you may very well come out ahead given Siam's 50% bonus in this regard. So I don't want to sound like my way is better, only that Culture really mattered in my game and that I do not know which trade-offs would have worked best.

Assuming you have 3 cities (since most of us could not build that 4th), that means getting back 6 gpt if you sell all 3 Temples. That's 9 cpt (3 per Temple) that you are giving up. Depending on the Era, I think a Cultural Ally will give you about 12 cpt (Note: Need to fact check this since it is probably at the core of the math). Depending on (too many) factors, 6gpt would take 83t to reach the 500g needed to Ally a new City-State. It's way too late for me to do the math, but I have a hard time believing that selling comes out ahead on any non-super-long-term time-line. And of course, the Culture will have very valuable benefits that are hard to calculate before this time-line plays out.

As much as I hate being lazy on the Math, I am really unconvinced about this path and I wonder if anyone tried it.

Edit: I think I approached the Math from a wrong angle. Assuming that Cultural civs are available to Ally (which is true early on and possibly false as the game progresses), what gives you the most Cultural bang for your hard earned Gold?

I'm 160+ turns in right now, and I didn't have a problem settling four cities. I *did* have to buy the temple in my fourth city, but otherwise it wasn't a huge issue. Second city was to the east on the river surrounded by 4 spices + gems, third was north directly on the marble (since it was a desert tile, I would have never worked it anyway), and the last one I founded west of my capital, south of Bucharest, along the shoreline so I'd have a coastal city. That fourth city will never be a production city, but should be a good source of gold and science.

In my game, America, China, and Rome have all been friendly with me the entire game, though when I founded my fourth city, I took a diplo hit from China and Rome for 20-30 turns. Arabia and Gandhi have been the moneybags this game, though Harun is starting to offer less than 300 per lux.

Haven't found the last civ yet, but since I haven't gotten "An Unknown Player has entered the Medieval Era!" message yet, I can only assume they are waaay behind in tech.

MadDjinn said:

One small note for the 'free wat' strategy... If you aren't playing culturally, you might want to sell the temples to get rid of their maintenance costs.

Click to expand...

Neuro said:

I'm 160+ turns in right now, and I didn't have a problem settling four cities. I *did* have to buy the temple in my fourth city, but otherwise it wasn't a huge issue. Second city was to the east on the river surrounded by 4 spices + gems, third was north directly on the marble (since it was a desert tile, I would have never worked it anyway), and the last one I founded west of my capital, south of Bucharest, along the shoreline so I'd have a coastal city. That fourth city will never be a production city, but should be a good source of gold and science.

In my game, America, China, and Rome have all been friendly with me the entire game, though when I founded my fourth city, I took a diplo hit from China and Rome for 20-30 turns. Arabia and Gandhi have been the moneybags this game, though Harun is starting to offer less than 300 per lux.

Haven't found the last civ yet, but since I haven't gotten "An Unknown Player has entered the Medieval Era!" message yet, I can only assume they are waaay behind in tech.

Click to expand...

Where did you settle your cities?

Sounds like you have a great game going if you mange to stay peaceful. I settled 4 quite early cities and tried to take care not to settle to far away. However around turn 95 china DoW, turn 100 Rome DoW and turn 110 America DoW.

:s

My comment on selling the temples was in reference to some peoples issues with managing gpt.

of course, if you settle in the right places, you won't be needing to worry.

ssjos said:

Where did you settle your cities?

Sounds like you have a great game going if you mange to stay peaceful. I settled 4 quite early cities and tried to take care not to settle to far away. However around turn 95 china DoW, turn 100 Rome DoW and turn 110 America DoW.

:s

Click to expand...

My capital was settled 1NW of starting spot, where I'm sure everyone else founded it as well. =)

My second city I founded quite a bit to the east. I was originally going to settle on the coast, but the game kept suggesting I settle on the river, so I dropped this city on a hill on the river (hill for more early production). It has four spices, one gems, three cows, and a wheat all within 3 tiles (also some iron which I didn't know about, but it was a nice bonus).

My third city I dropped right on the marble on the eastern shore of the inland sea, just west of Venice. I wanted the 2 whales and marble, plus it had cow and fish right next to it. I ended up buying two tiles for this city because it wasn't expanding the way I wanted.

My fourth and final city was founded west of my capital, south of Bucharest on the coast. I simply wanted a coastal city, plus it gave me another spice and some horses. This one was founded late, and I had to buy a temple for it, it would have taken another 30 turns to finish it otherwise.

As for diplomacy, I haven't been in a single war yet. America has always liked me, China and Rome have been friendly since meeting, though both of them had a negative comment about "They thing you are expanding too quickly!". I made an RA with China and America, but never Rome. I saw they were going Honor as their social policies, which means they were focusing on war, so I kept expecting a DoW from them, but it never came. For some reason, every 30-40 turns Rome and America declare on each other. They've had three wars so far, never very long, but it keeps them occupied.

Time to try and finish this game today. This game has been a lot of fun, but it's been much slower going for me; I'm accustomed to building 1-2 cities and then puppeting my neighbors, so this is new having to manage four of my own cities.