TSG14 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG14 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. How did your planning change for OCC?

Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG14 After Action Report thread.

Ah didn't realize I'd be the first posting....

Well, I think I saved on turn 101 after my first session had to come to an end. I have only recently hooked my iron and upgraded six warriors to swords. First target: Turfan, settled by the Mongols literally on my borders--I realized it was going to plant the next turn and nearly bought the spices out from under him, but balked at the cost; then realized I could just destroy it soon enough.

Soon after Brussels wanted Seoul destroyed, as did another CS, so this has just been accomplished. Earlier, when I had only two warriors, Rome DoWed me. Once I upgraded, he sued for peace. Mongolia has also sued for peace, both giving me some extra cash-flow.

I settled in place, and I'm glad I did. Lots of food and money around. Policies I went to Landed Elite and Monarchy. Thinking about the +3 production boost for commerce...will have to see about that, it's a long way off.

Tech path has been to go to Civil Service nearly ASAP--stopped off for mining/masonry/calendar/etc. Currently heading to Engineering for the aqueduct. I don't think I've ever had a city grow so fast--granary was my 3rd or 4th build (bought the library) then did Nat College. Also put up a water mill. Grassland bananas are sweet, +6 food. Steel is yet to come...hopefully i'll have some targets left by the time I can upgrade to Samurai.

I've played a fair few OCCs before, including in MP games. I like them, they're a fast-paced game and you can play through the whole sweep of history. Population growth for science is key, hence the civil service opener.

I'm liking my game so far and enjoying the challenge. So far no RA's--perhaps soon. Was guarding my cash for upgrades. My route is almost certainly not the fastest...but I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the different setup, Leif.

hm 80-100 turns, don't know where i am right know, probably a bit later.

Also settled in place, and its an okay position, the iron is a bit far away and rome declared war and swarmed my lands with warriors before i could take it. I went for national college, policies were the +20% wonder and later the food and happiness upgrade. After that i was debating on what to take, i went for the +10% combat first, then for freedom. Maybe patronage would have been better overall, i had some money after taking out rome and mongolia with 4 samurai and 2 archer/crossbowmen, and if i think a bit further, some places to upgrad units othe than at home might come in very handy.

Next target would be France, but i'm not sure if thats a wise decision, they have a huge amount of units, knights and musketeers. I will soon have cannons though and am debating on trying it anyway with a bit of siege in addition to my earlier forces.

I am also quite surprised how few policies i actually get, it's not really any different from a 3-4 city play i usually do.

Damn, when did 'friendly territory' come to mean only at HOME?? I parked all my samurai and a trebuchet in Singapore, waiting to upgrade to rifles (used Oxford and a GS to bulb to it)...and I can't upgrade--apparently my allied CS's land is not 'friendly territory'. So I sign OB with France to try it there--same deal, no luck.

Then starts the mass retreat, back home to re-equip. Is this buggy or is this a recent patch? If this is the correct state of things, it's going to make taking out the further capitals quite difficult.

Rome and Mongols have lost their capitals. Also took out Sydney as it was supplying France with iron. This made a couple off-continent CS's declare war on me. Also it turned out to be a bit pointless, since France already has musketeers and cannon. At turn 176 now, troops are all home and upgraded to rifles, and France is next, though they will put up some decent resistance I expect. Building Ironworks, teching fertilizer to bulb artillery with another GS.

This game is going to take a fair bit longer than expected.

Onan said:

Damn, when did 'friendly territory' come to mean only at HOME??

Click to expand...

It's changed at the patch. More vital considering OCC, where you cannot upgrade in cities conquered.

This I wish I knew. Might have to do a replay on this one....

Started the war against France.. wish i hadn't, then again, i don't think the tech and military relation will look any better in the future. Also as a Tip: you might want to keep conquered civs alive to not have to deal with so many barbs ...

Caesar tried to warrior rush me early on, which I thwarted fairly easily. This made him my first target. However, I accepted a peace deal with him until I started upgrading. By the time I was ready, he was at war with Khan and had his troops at Turfan, which was built next to the spices NE of my capital. I finished Steel right about the same time Caesar captured Turfan, so I for him for all his cash to have enough funds to get a samurai or two, then DoW'd him and took Turfan. Then I pushed towards his next city when he gave me a lucrative peace deal that I took.

I took out Caesar and Khan then pushed towards France. These were all mistakes. I should have just taken Rome and the Mongol capital and accepted peace so I could have had them as trading partners. I lost all but 1 Samurai at Paris because I had waited too long to start that war and he had several longswords and musketeers. Shortly after I reached Paris, he had cannons.

My biggest mistake was not to bee-line steel as soon as I finished Writing. My second biggest mistake was to not build enough troops. Third biggest mistake was not just going after the the enemy capital and ignoring all their other cities. Had I done this, I wouldn't have lost my best samurai to a barbarian galley when trying to get around to the other side of the last Mongol city.

I ended up saving around turn 279 and still had only taken out the Romans and Mongols. At this point I Honor to the 50% upgrade costs and have built the Pentagon. As soon as I got both of these I upgraded all my Samurai to Infantry.

When I do eventually pull off this win I'm sure I'll have one of the latest win dates submitted. I believe this is because I tend to be a builder instead of a warmonger.

I thought OCC meant one-city for every player. Instead Rome had built a second city..
Maybe i shouldn't have conquered it. Now I've one less trading partner (assuming they forgive me).

Monthar said:

Spoiler :

I was quite surprised to find we have a single aluminum spot that has 42 aluminum. So I bulbed rocketry to start producing rocket artillery.

Click to expand...

Must have hit the wrong key and missed it?

Merry early Christmas...

xerex said:

I thought OCC meant one-city for every player. Instead Rome had built a second city..
Maybe i shouldn't have conquered it. Now I've one less trading partner (assuming they forgive me).

Click to expand...

OCC is just for the human player(s) in the game, not the AI.

leif erikson said:

Must have hit the wrong key and missed it?

Merry early Christmas...

Click to expand...

I figured as much, which is why I pointed this out. It would have been nice to have oil in the ocean near the starting point to give 1 more seas resource to work, as well as being able to actually build some Zeroes.

Onan said:

Tech path has been to go to Civil Service nearly ASAP--

Click to expand...

i understand this gives more food from farms near river - do you have any farms near the river? after working all of the local resources, i'm only just getting round to clearing the marshes. i was certainly not in any rush to get civil service.

am i missing something?

cheers

I do have many farms along the river...but that's just my approach for growth=science in a OCC.

Turn 235 and Paris has fallen. My initial invasion force (woefully under-gunned 7 rifles and 2 cannon) was whittled down to 2 rifles 2 cannon. They'd gone into defensive mode long before, holing up in the mountains near the coast. We invaded from the sea and Hanoi and razed Tours. Tried to march right on to Paris, but got stalled. After reinforcments arrived, we also destroyed Orleans before moving on to flatten Paris.

I wonder if those beelining steel will have more success. I can't imagine I'm on the fast track here.... Still a long way to go. One civ I've yet to meet even.

Onan said:

I do have many farms along the river...but that's just my approach for growth=science in a OCC.

Click to expand...

yeah - i don't think i'm being aggressive enough targetting growth. thanks for incite with the OCC thing

i did snap up the maritime CS v.early though which was probably a good move as it also gave me iron early too. and also took the sp that gives +food in capital. (cant remember what it's called)

and another good move I hope was just taking the roman capital and letting them live. (thought of that all by myself!). what's a good way diplomatically of getting them back on side? they're obviously a bit upset and they still covet my land. will i ever be able to trade with them?

i'm thinking next step is to upgrade my 5 swordsman and send them with a couple of catapults down to france before they get bigger.

mongolia look a bit backward so can probably wait a bit.

(turn 100 I think I'm at).
Rome neutral, declared war on me and is now ashes. (has 1 city still)
Mongolia friendly and a bit backward. (only has 2 cities or maybe even just the one!)
France neutral with 3 cities.

Haven't had any research agreements yet - noone has the cash or is unfriendly.
No-one is buying my extras either - mongolia is skint and the others hate me.

After steel, I'll head for some caravels and find everyone else. or maybe go to civil service first for +food.
Are trireme's useless on this kind of map? I'm never sure if it's worthwhile pushing one out to explore or not.
still haven't made any wonders. apart from heroic epic and national college.

leif erikson said:

Must have hit the wrong key and missed it?

Merry early Christmas...

Click to expand...

Not that we'll ever use it on any units you know....

Played first 117 turns so far. Going very well. Plz don't read if you have not discovered astronomy yet.

Fun GOTM...here's my start:

Settled in place
National College
Great Lighthouse ( Naval stats should come in handy later )
Buddies/RA's with Mongolia, take out Caesar easily
Samurai upgrade x6
Porcelain tower using a great engineer ( going to go for a huge science push once mongols are down, want to rush frigates )
Currently taking out the Mongols, Just met Napolean with a scouting trireme
Plan is to become a naval giant boosted by great lighthouse and naval social policies and just tear through the planet civ by civ.

I also found out the hard way about not being able to upgrade in a friendly CS tile...that's going to hurt. Might have to plan a zig zag pattern with home base as an upgrade pit stop

This has not been the most disciplined game. Last GOTM I micromanaged like crazy. This game I pulled nuggets from Maltz's Bushido thread.

OCC, has messed with me a couple of times. I did not expect the AI to have so much money, and I was surprised at having no trouble selling resources early. Cash and happiness have been outstanding, but when I field over 18 military units I get a production penalty in my city. This is the first time I ever came across this.

I remained at peace until my Samurai rush was ready. I still used Meritocracy to catch a GS for steel, but I was about 10 turns too slow. I had a couple chariot archers in support thanks to a friendly militaristic CS. It turns out I've picked up a lot of CSs to keep my science coming so I've taken patronage and tradition policies over military ones and relied on my tech advantage and superior units to do the rest. I'm about 220 turns into it now, and about to launch wars on the last two civs with capitals. Starting to get the feeling that everyone might attack me tho. They world has had about enough of me and I hate going back to my capital to upgrade....

Nice quick game tho.

No RA, no stealing

Settling on the coast seems best, for the all-important fast food, also known as Sid's Sushi.

So, that's where Kyoto is, settled in place!

Even without RA's this will be a quick game, but we need to build up before we can make an army. Most importantly, we need two Workers asap. That means Liberty before Tradition, and a Scout to find those city states and rivals, so we can buy one of the needed Workers.

The early game plan worked out well enough, as we were able to lend from Rome and France (yes, our Warrior checked for land behind Sydney - the Scout took care of the east, after all) and buy our first Worker on turn 15. On turn 25, we bought the Deer tile for 165g. Turn 26 had the game give +1 food to both Bananas and Deer.

That meant no gold left to buy the Library, but instead we chopped some forests.

Bad news arrived on turn 43, when Kyoto announced that it wanted Gems. None was around...

When Meritiocracy arrived on turn 47, we picked a Great Engineer and sent it to put a Manufactory on the Bananas. +4 Production on a tile that will always be worked, useful for around 70 turns, plus multipliers, is better than to save it for the Great Library, which we still hope to build by hand.

It is currently turn 64, and since the AI hasn't built it yet we'll give the thing a try, timing for it to give Civil Service.

We are somewhat short on cash, mainly because we bought a Water Mill and both Seoul (culture) and Sydney (food) are our allies.

In the west we noticed a lot of extra coastal tiles behind Sydney early on, so Optics was made a priority. Our Scout just found the Iroquois on what seems to be another continent. They have Gems, but refuse to trade.

Kyoto is currently size 9. There is a 6 Iron tile nearby which is next in line, and Sydney has Iron as well, so it looks like some Samurai will eventually see the light of day!


Kyoto
9 Monument
15 Worker 310g
25 Worker (policy)
26 Granary
30 Library
44 NATIONAL COLLEGE
47 Great Engineer (policy)
49 Warrior
53 Work Boat
58 Lighthouse
64 Stable

Policies
14 Liberty
25 Citizenship
47 Meritocracy

Technology
9 Mining
16 Pottery
26 Writing
30 Animal Husbandry
36 Trapping
41 The Wheel
45 Masonry
48 Calendar
50 Sailing
53 Optics
57 Horseback Riding
59 Bronze Working
64 Iron Working

It is now turn 107 (200bc). The good news is, that we just discovered Navigation!

How did we do that without RA's?

Well, first of all, the Great Library gave us Civil Service. Finally a game where we succeeded in building it!

After the arrival of Education, we bought a University, set two scientists to work and started on Oxford, which gave us Steel, while researching Compass by hand. Then, last turn, Kyoto popped both a Great Scientist and a Great Engineer, which yielded Astronomy and the Porcelain Tower respectively.

The bad news is that we have no Samurai yet. The first is only about to appear. However, we sent 5 Swordsmen (two of them upgraded Warriors) north to take out Rome, which succeeded last turn with one casualty. Rome had bankrupted itself early on by making too many units and was completely stuck, smallish and with no cashflow to afford a Settler. So now they're out of the game entirely.

The remaining Swordsmen will heal up and go west (Iroquois) or east (unknown), I haven't decided yet. There is not enough gold coming in to make it worthwhile bringing them home for upgrades, so they'll just have to do.

Kyoto is currently size 15 and we are in a Golden Age, for choosing Representation as our latest social policy. Looking forward to the endgame!


Kyoto
73 Workshop 580g
76 THE GREAT LIBRARY
79 Forge
83 NATIONAL EPIC
85 Barracks
89 HEROIC EPIC
91 Garden
93 Swordsman
95 Swordsman
98 Swordsman, University 780g
103 OXFORD UNIVERSITY
106 Great Engineer, Great Scientist
107 THE PORCELAIN TOWER -> Great Scientist

Policies
67 Tradition
77 Legalism
87 Landed Elite
105 Representation

Technology
73 Metal Casting
76 Philosophy; Civil Service (Great Library)
85 Theology
98 Education
103 Steel (Oxford University)
104 Compass
105 Archery
106 Mathematics; Astronomy (Great Scientist)
107 Navigation (Great Scientist)