TSG20 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG20 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.
- Were there any early wars and did you start them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- What tech path did you follow?
- Did you build any wonders?
- How did you handle diplomacy with your neighbors?

Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG20 After Action Report thread.

After moving my warrior SW 2 tiles I noticed the coast very close. When I moved the settler on top of the gold next to the mountain I saw if I lost a 2nd turn I could settle on the coastal hill next to the mountain between the 2 gold deposits. So I moved the settler to that hill and continued moving the warrior SW where I found the first ruins.

On the 3rd turn I settled my capital then moved the warrior to the ruins and got Pottery. Then I started researching writing.

My initial build order was scout, warrior, scout. The 2nd scout was mainly because it would finish on the same turn I finished researching writing.As soon as writing was done, I started building the GL and researched mining with the goal of having the GL get me Philosophy and the free library so I could build the NC.

While the GL was building I was out scouting and clearing nearby barb camps. I continued my research path to iron working. Upon completion of IW I was pleasantly surprised to find 2 iron deposits of 6 each, both in the capital's borders. If I had settled in place the SW deposit would have required another city to work it.

When I took a break to deal with some issues with my DSL service I was at turn 143. At this point I'm 1st in score, 3rd or 4th in military and 1st in literacy. I have built 6 cities, 3 can have observatories and only 1 (SW corner 1 NE of the stone) didn't give me luxuries. The 6th city is on the coast north and slightly east of the capital on the river to get those 2 horses and ivory.

I did run into 1 bug with this game. My one city without luxuries can't build the stoneworks even though it has 2 stones both with quarries in it's radius. 1 of them in it's 1st circle. The city due east of the capital and the city next to the marble were both able to build the stoneworks. The marble city can share one of the stones with the non-luxury city.

I finished the Liberty tree while building Machu Picchu. I took a GE, which I used to build Hagia Sophi in 1 turn. When it finished I took a 2nd GE that I used to build Chichen Itza in 1 turn mainly to boost my happiness. Shortly thereafter I earned a GG from killing barbs that I used for a nice 12 turn GA. I finished Machu Picchu 1 turn before the GA ended.

After iron working I grabbed calender, beelined currency, followed by roads, then started towards Astronomy. When I only had Astronomy left to research I shifted focus to work towards my camel archers since my first GS was coming up soon.

My first GS popped on the same turn I got my next policy. So I bulbed Astronomy then took the first policy in Rationalism.

I currently have 1 active RA and will finish building the Porcelain Tower 10 turns before the RA finishes.

Here's a screenshot of my lands at this point.

Turn 105 :

Settled on gold. Built scout-scout-monument-granary then partially the GL. At pop. 4 i built a settler. Went Liberty for a 3 cities set-up. I wanted to put Damascus 1 tile east from where he stands but 2 barbs were ready to kill my warrior and steal my settler at that time. Rush buyed a worker when i had 310 gold. Hard builded libraries then rush buyed 2 granaries in both cities. Finished the GL to get Civil Service. My 2 scouts survived and i could met everyone before turn 70.

Finished NC around turn 70 as well. Partially built HG. Researched Currency before theo for extra copies of luxs and money. Finished HG right after then researched Education. Liberty finisher for free PT. Signed 4 RAS turn 93-94-95-96. I will get full RAs from PT and rationalism. Oracle will pop-up freedom and natural culture will pop rationalism in time for RAs later. I will use the free GE from HS to build ND because my 3 cities are growing very fast and they scream for happiness.

Culture rate is very good, i managed to ally both cultural cs around me with help of barb quests. I picked the first policy of Patronnage. Signed a 5th RA around turn 102. All 5 RA needed extra 100 gold that i recuperated from extra copies of luxs. It will be my pattern for all RAs i guess.

Picture of land :

Settled on gold (didn't think about coast+gold+mountain but never mind) and went for GL. But got REALLY mashed by barbs - no one else suffer this? They were proper raging, hourds of the buggers. Just wasn't expected.

Didn't lose any units, but had to buy a warrior (and later an archer), growth was very stunted, mine on other gold got pillaged twice, plus scout was bottled up in the south next to CS down there (Katmandu?).

At about 1400BC capital is still only at 3 pop I think due to bard incursions! Archer+cout+2xwarrior now taking out camps but suspect will be WAY behind by now.

turn 306. science. me.

its just a breeze.


i suppose i could shorten the time. build less wonders, i got them all bar the great wall, lighthouse and the other early water based one.. build more cities. or conquer. i just went tall with three mountain cities and i puppeted one russian city.

oh aye, i settled on the gold SW.


im going back to 19, i aint done with it yet, Leif... i just cannie get to england/london quick enough before those damn longbows appear.

trueblue said:

im going back to 19, i aint done with it yet, Leif... i just cannie get to england/london quick enough before those damn longbows appear.

Click to expand...

Good Luck. You'll need it.

Turn 150 :

Scientific method turn 142. Cities are pretty nice right now and i tightly sell extra luxs and pay extra cash for immediate RAs. Found coal south of me and i settled on the coal with a 4th city. Good news, marble is right there so it will not cripple my happiness. This city only need a library and a university in time for the last techs because i already built Ironworks and National Treasury.

I allied Vienna for another cultural cs from barb quests again. 3 total now! I can take few more policies than the standard Liberty-Rationalism route. 2 more in freedom let my scientists rate grow fast enough(with a garden in cap) and half-slow down growth of cities and one in Patronnage. I may finish under 200 turns here.


Land


Policies

Going ok, when all goes well at turn 109 I will have 3 universities, PT, ND, Oracle, HS, Renaissance, and 3 sequential RA’s coming up. A little luck, because I signed my 3 RA’s at turn 78 because 2 civs were close to a possible RA.



Settled on the gold, and founded 2 other cities up north, 1 next to mountain for a possible observatory.

Popped 4 huts in the early phase, sequence was map, pop, upgrade and mining. The last one being very nice as I traded my gold at around t20 (for less than 240) for an early (bought) worker.
Because of the early upgrade I immediately could clear a barb camp north of me, the one to the west took longer and I just cleared the one south of me. Raging barbs are a nuisance, I guess my warrior and spearman could have been fully decorated already easily, but still have only 30 promotion points.

Build sequence was scout, warrior, monument, granary, Glib (at size 4 a settler in between), NC. My scout had a couple of near death experiences but managed eventually to even find the CS in the middle of Ghandi, Siam and Rome 1st!!! and two additional barb camps in that area (reveal barb and 20 cult). I also freed up a worker that I used for additional scouting.

Medina build a lib, monument, granary, started oracle, in between a circus, a mill and a uni,

Happiness is tight, had to toggle the “avoid growth” button several times. I already invested 750 gold in an ally. CS quests suck, till now I only received “kill CS” quests, 7 are currently pending

Money is tight, I hope I can raise enough for my RA’s and allying. I guess my extra ND happiness will be used for an extra city in the south linking up the marble.

My aim for this TSG is to play an old-fashioned Civilization game:- a peaceful Technological / Space race. Went 2-city NC route after GL in capital. Completed Liberty then started Rationalism after bulbing Astronomy. So far have built 5 cities (image hopefully attached). The immediate neighbours are grumpy but I have 5 RA ready to mature and a growing stock of GS. The barbs were a bit of a pest early on, but I prioritised Wheel after Writing and Chariot Archers dealt with them. 4 of my 5 cities are next to mountains, so I am looking forward to seeing how effective Observatories are.

No detailed progress report this time, just played for kicks. I thought I'd try to play a wide game for once, to take advantage of Arabias one good UA. Just started the mass expand after doing an NC start on three cities. Plenty of gold from trading bazar duplicate luxes, snagged a lot of wonders including Hanging Gardens, Angkor Wat, Haga Sophia, Porclean Tower and the oracle(in second city). Gone down Liberty and am now going through Peity, next tree ought to be rationalism.
The cash is doing well for RA and soon starting off with allying CS.

"am now going through Peity, next tree ought to be rationalism."

I would think about this

All worked out fine around turn 110 (see above). Got ScTh at turn 133. Fought a phoney war with Oda (no RA), and till now signed 9 RA's. Have still no luck with barb quests, 10 o/o 14 are kill CS quests. Two kill-barb-quests are on the other side of the continent, 1 connect-silver-quest just opened. Happiness is scarce, money is scarce. Alex is on negative money already whole game, I guess I sold him open borders only twice for 1gpt and some cash. Oda is also broke, also here only OB's and some resources I was able to sell. Siam is the "runaway" (if one can say so at this level), he's plastered his side of the continent with cities. I need to crank up my culture, to be able to finish closely after t200, which still looks possible..


But here's a question:

should I open Freedom to have 1, maybe 2 extra GS's in the end game or should I go for the 1science per TP +17%science from Free Thought or vice versa??? I expect to finish around turn 200/210-ish.

in 6 & 11 turns I will have 3 PubSchools running, together with 3 unis ad 2 observatories. My Pop is 10, 12 & 13 and will grow another 3 I'd guess...

I'm trying to do the math, but it's difficult to calc the influence of RA's results, going faster through the tree with Free Thought.

What's wise, any experience? I tend to open Freedom....

I open freedom only if i'm sure to get 2 free techs in time from left side of rationalism. You need 100 gpp for an extra gs, freedom will get you 1 more in a range of 50 turns assuming that you can get 2 extra gpp. You are around turn 150 and you expect to finish around 205, so i guess that freedom will gives you more likely 1 extra gs, not more. If you don't think you can reach the 2 free techs from rationalism in time, i don't think that opening freedom will be a good idea.

When i'm sure to not have more gs in time in a said city, i stop(after popping the gs) gs production and allocate citizens for other stuffs(extra gold?).

Good luck!

Tx Tabarnak,

here's the dilemma, two more SP's will pop at 25 and 30 turns from now, so still in time for an early 200 turns win and the 2 free techs. But what strat is better now, Freedom now, or Free thought. What is better for the next 25 turns. I have RA's popping roughly every 5-6 turns?? And expect (hope!?) still to sign 5-6 ones till turn 165 or so...

decided for Freedom: 1 GS at the end is worth >6000sc and a couple of turns, so Free Thought should bring me 100 scpt for the next 60 turns, which to my calcs isn't happening.

Till now signed 12 RA's, hope 3 to 4 will still possible till t170

Already have schools in all cities. After getting the NatTreas in 10 turns or so I will found a city on the coal to get myself the factories. Still aiming for 200 turns....

Hey all, new GOTMer here.

I've been having an amusing go with this game, about to lightbulb Scientific Theory somewhere in the 150s, and I'm definitely seeing daylight for the endgame.

There were a few peculiarities about this game that I wanted to weigh in on with the larger community:

1) Raging barbarians are pretty insane, and I was majorly pinned down in my first city for longer than I wanted to be because of the onslaught. I picked up the Honor opener and Oligarchy to combat this and it eventually worked, but this prevented me from finishing Liberty (which it looks like I might pay for in the long term). I hit Renaissance and opened Rationalism at turn 140 because of this slow start, which I felt was pretty late. How does that compare to your games?

2) I had someone beat me to the Great Library at something like turn 44, which made me curse and restart. Is that as weird as I think it is?

3) Literally everyone here has founded a city NE of Mecca, by the mountain and the bananas. Is there any reason for this besides "good site for a 3rd city, with high science potential"? In my game, I'm just getting out there now (T-150ish), because Mecca has been doing everyone I want all on its own so far. Talk about a great capital site, especially once you put up a Bazaar...

4) At what point have you all been getting rich? I've been selling luxuries and generally sticking to what I think are good practices, but between buying units and signing as many RAs as I can, I've just now (again, T-150ish) gotten to the point where I have 500ish in the bank and nothing urgent to spend it on. When I had a budget deficit as Arabia a few dozen turns ago I really felt like I was doing something wrong.

Thanks, everyone!

Welcome GreyWithAnE

to your point 3)
-we're playing for a science win, so a city next to a mountain is able to build an Observatory.
-3 cities will help you in the end speeding up building the SpaceShip ASAP, you then can build 2 parts per city.

point 4)
On the lower levels, getting rich is difficult. You need the money for RA's, but typically you start paying the RA penalties soon, as you are speeding away in Tech. In my game I managed an RA every 5-6 turns as of turn 80.
Settle your cities at least at 2 luxes. Arabia with Bazaars then help you to get money! Also sell all your unnecessary strategic resources, you can get 45 gold for each of them....

Have fun, and welcome!

Ah, thank you for that 45g number, killerloop. That was one I didn't know.

I did end up abandoning that particular playthrough last night because I really stalled around T-200 and it just wasn't fun. But especially reading your after-action report in the other thread, it looks like my philosophy was much the same as yours, but I just had a terrible start and strayed from Liberty too early. I'll give it another shot someday and settle on the bananas a bit earlier.