TSG30 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG30 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 60 to 80 turns.

- Any early wars and who started them?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Did you prioritize any Wonders?

When you've completed your game, please post your victory, or defeat, in the TSG30 After Action thread.

I ended up getting the gl stone henge and the oracle since this is warlord. After that I transitioned straight to 5-6 hoplites since darius decided to mass expand with 4 cities. I now own all of the island and darius is gone . All pupets except 1 because obviously I needed a coastal city .

Hi. I am trying this game and was hoping to use some of Dave's tactics from the previous game.

I settled in place and decided this was an archipelego map. My build order was scout, monument. I started research for sailing. I went looking for ruins hoping for a culture ruin. I managed to get 3 ruins on the small island. The first one gave me mining. The second one upgraded my scout to archer and the third one increased my population.
By the time the monument finished I had pottery researched so I built a granary. I took the Tradition opener as my first policy and the Liberty opener as the second policy.

My first dilemma was what to research after sailing. One choice was Optics to enable embarking. the other option was to enable the resources on the island. The third option was to go bronze and iron for a military showdown with Persia. Persia is friendly at the moment, but they probably won't stay that way when I settle my next city.

Optics seems like a good choice since there is little potential for making money through trade until one gets off the island. I could just build trireme then go for Great Lighthouse for exploration, but embarkation allows one to gather up ruins likely scattered on other islands. The build order would proceed trireme, scout, Great Lighthouse.

If I enabled resources with Masonry then Calendar, I could explore with trireme but there would be no purpose for a scout. I would get another policy in a few turns so would have access to either a worker or a settler. There seemed no purpose to a 2nd city without a worker and there would be little or no options to rush a worker given the lack of river and lack of trade options.

I chose to go Masonry then Calendar and build trireme then Great Lighthouse. I have found two city states and Egypt with my trireme. I took the worker for my next policy. My worker has finished the gold mine. I sold the gold to Persia for his 95 cash + 4 per turn (I found Egypt later, but they are neutral). This seemed like a good deal since Persia will get gold soon anyway. I am curious what others think of the Optics option and explore with embarked scouts.

I will get another policy in 2 turns and plan to take the Settler. I will settle East of Athens on the spice. I will have Calendar by that time. This give me access to 1(2) more gold, another spice and at least 1 sugar south of Persia. The other option for settling would be West of Persia to take in sugar and 3 fish. Either option will likely upset Darius. I am curious what other decided for city #2.

My next dilemma is what to build after Great Lighthouse. I am leaning Stonehenge then Great Library with a plan to slingshot to Theology rather than Civil Service. I am curious how others are opening this game.

These games are a great idea and a great way for people to discover how others play. I found Dave's video from Game #29 to be fascinating.

Balibar

I am not exactly the most experienced player, and I’m certainly not the sharpest tool in the CIV shed, so the following report of my early game exploits may not be for the weak of stomach.

Build order was monument scout worker settler

tech was mine, writing, fishing (buy trimate)

started out with getting 3 citites down to east and north cornering darius and grabbing lux. new cities built liberies and capital got GL around turn 55?. Then I started nat collage in capital and other citites built 1 hopilite each.

I DoW darius around turn 50 and steal two workers.

Found some other civs with my trimate and sold them lux. Signed 3 RA at turn 76 without much further planning (i really need to put more effort into that). Dunno if they are to early or too late and Im not sure which median I will be able to reach.

On turn 80 my 4 hopilites + warrior took darius capital (slight overkill tbh). Fortunently, I let his settler by some ten turns earlier so he could expand and not be wiped away. I made peace with darius for all gold he had.

And now its bed time

Am I the only one who settled Athens two hexes to the WEST, on the hill? On the opening move I sent my warrior two hexes to its west, into the spice on the peninsula, just to see what was there. Lo and behold, I found two fishies lurking off the coast (and later, a whale). So I sent my settler west instead of east.

I don't regret that decision. I regret pretty much everything else about my still unfinished attempt, however.

Sprenk, you will seriously lack production when you send your settler over that way. Fishing starts are just not very good in CiV5. Fishing boats are uber expensive, same cost as worker(more or less) but they can only improve one tile.

The viable settling options was 1 to SE or 2 E on hill imo.

Im starting to think 2 E on hill might have been stronger so I sortof regret settling one SE, but 1 SE is fine also.

ssjos said:

Sprenk, you will seriously lack production when you send your settler over that way. Fishing starts are just not very good in CiV5. Fishing boats are uber expensive, same cost as worker(more or less) but they can only improve one tile.

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Well, methinks you're right! Shows my inexperience. To make matters worse, I set Athens on production focus to speed some early wonders--and forget to switch back for about 50 turns?!

Sparta has been a production powerhouse, however.

there is one sweet fishing boat city spot but thats not it.

Sprenk said:

I set Athens on production focus to speed some early wonders--and forget to switch back for about 50 turns?!

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If you get in the habit of locking down tiles you want the citizens working, that wouldn't be a problem. I usually leave all my cities on production focus, just so I get some bonus production when it grows. Then I lock down the food, landmark, etc I need them to work.

Monthar said:

If you get in the habit of locking down tiles you want the citizens working, that wouldn't be a problem. I usually leave all my cities on production focus, just so I get some bonus production when it grows. Then I lock down the food, landmark, etc I need them to work.

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I actually lock down tiles too. Sometimes. Only I forgot to bring some food tiles back into the mix after I rushed produced the Oracle. Slowed my growth to a crawl for quite some time

Right, this is my first attempt at GOTM (and only my 4th or so game of CiV after playing a lot of cIV and struggling to make the transition). I'm currently approaching the 100 turn mark and things are going well so far. My lack of familiarity with certain game concepts is hurting me a bit, but I have read up on lots of stuff to try and help.

I started by running the warrior to the left and then settling Athens on the tile it starts on. I've seen mentioned that a lot of people settled one tile SE but I didn't see the advantage in that. Maybe it's my noobishness.
Anyway, Athens worked on a monument while my warrior explored a little way south and then circled round the island anti-clockwise. After the monument I built a scout, and my opening social policy was liberty followed by the free settler one (I also found a culture ruin). Things went really well for a while after this. Through a combination of timing and a bit of luck I settled Sparta on the opposite coast SE of Athens, the other side of the lake, trapping a Persian Immortal (The sole Persian combat unit) below my borders and refusing Open Borders whenever he asked. As the whole island was uncovered I moved my warrior to the hill outside Darius' land so I could keep an eye on him.
A few turns later a settler appeared outside his lands so to stop him expanding I DoW'd and picked it off with my warrior. I then cornered and captured both of his workers (giving me 3 total captured, I lost my warrior to city bombard doing this, but decided it was a worthwhile sacrifice) and ran them back to my lands while Sparta kept bombarding the Immortal, who seemed content to sit fortified and heal. Social policy I switched to tradition and then the increased food in capital one.
Athens at this point had built the GL and then the Oracle.
Tech-wise I started by beelining towards philosophy (but then forgot to build the NC cos I'm lame) then picked up calendar and mining so I could improve the gold and spices with my stolen workers.

After that things started to go awry. Nothing bad has happened but I think my inexperience has led to a few wrong decisions. I settled a 3rd city on the far NW coast of the island near the fish, and I'm currently in my second war with Darius and should finish him off this time. Last tech I got was sailing so I could meet the city states around the island. Should have got that earlier really.

Last few turns I've puppeted darius second city (maybe shoud have razed) and am moving in on his capital, I've just started on the piety policies, and I just got education with a Great Scientist. Working towards Acoustics now.

misterjoshua said:

Right, this is my first attempt at GOTM (and only my 4th or so game of CiV after playing a lot of cIV and struggling to make the transition).

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Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Keep up the good work.

After a couple of years break I am back to GOTM and to the forums, hooray!

I participated in some of the Civ 4 GOTMs and played around with some of the older Civ5 ones, but this is the first Civ5 TSG that I actually plan to submit.

I settled 1W to make up for the food-poor location and get the fish in the 3rd ring. Improved all the grasslands with farms for faster growth. Went for Hoplites early and as soon as I had 4 of them plus 2 archers, they took out Persia's 3 cities and puppeted them to stock up my gold and to have the island for myself. The war went quite well although I lost some units as Persia had an archer garrisoned in each city, and they defended quite well... but not well enough

I then quickly settled two more cities, one on the sheep in the hills to the south (with access to deers, 2 gold, 2 fish and loooots of hills for huge production later in the game), and one in the 3 northwestern parts of the island with access to 3 fish + whales + horses + stone + some forests.

Then built a caravel which circled around the island to find my neighbours, met Egypt and France and a lot of city states which I bribed for culture...

Game's going well so far, hoping to complete it before Thursday and submit my first official Civ5 TSG!!

sebtanic said:

After a couple of years break I am back to GOTM and to the forums, hooray!

Game's going well so far, hoping to complete it before Thursday and submit my first official Civ5 TSG!!

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Welcome back and good luck.