News: TSG31 Announcement

Welcome to the thirty-first game in the GOTM V Training Series! There are plenty of new features in Civilization 5 to explore and the Training Series games will allow new and old GOTM fans to try out these new features in a friendly environment. You are all encouraged to post your questions, stories, advice, tricks and failures in the dedicated game threads described below. You can read more about the GOTM and Training Series concept in this thread. Before going into the details of this game, we would like to ask you to abide to our most sacred rule: don’t replay any turns. If you make a mistake, accept it and try to recover. It's better to do the bad moves in the Training Series instead of in the actual GOTM competition, once it starts.

In this game, the designated VC is Domination. You may win by any VC you wish, as all VC's are enabled, but the results will be posted with fastest finish by Domination victory and then all other VC listed below by fastest time.

In this game you will play as Bismarck and lead the German civilization to victory. It's a standard-sized mystery map played at Immortal difficulty and at standard pace. Domination victory is the designated VC for this game, all victory conditions are enabled. You will have until April 1st to complete the game and submit.

Very happy to have out Mac players back with us, hope you enjoy the game.

Please note that you are only allowed to build Oxford University one time.

Civ V - TSG31 Game Settings:
Playable Civ: Bismarck - German
Number of AI Opponents: 7
Number of City-States: 16
Map type: Mystery
Map Size: Standard
Difficulty Level: Immortal
Game pace: Standard
Game options: Raging Barbarians and Promotion Saving are enabled. Quick Combat is disabled (You can enable it by following instructions in this link.)
Game Version: This game was created in Civ5 version 1.0.1.511

In this game, you will be playing as Bismarck, you possess Furor Teutonicus. When you defeat a Barbarian unit inside an encampment, you earn 25 Gold and have a +25% chance they will join your side. You also pay 25% less for land unit maintenance.

You can train the Landsknecht, which replaces the Pikeman. The Landsknecht is as powerful as a Pikeman unit but it costs only half as much to produce and it is deadly against mounted units like Knights. You must discover the technology of Civil Service and you do not need a resource to build it.

You can also train Panzer, which replaces the Tank. The Panzer is both stronger and faster than the Tank it replaces. The Panzer gets a combat penalty when attacking cities however it can move after combat allowing it to blow holes in enemy lines and then barrel through before the enemy can repair the breach. You must discover the technology of Combustion and you need the Oil resource to build it.

This is where you will start:



Information about threads associated with TSG
TSG Announcement thread (this one). This thread is used to announce the game and clarify the settings and rules (don’t be afraid to ask questions). It’s also used to discuss the game before you start, and post problems with opening the save. Please don’t post any information from a game you have started. Instead use the next thread.

Game In Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once it's on the way. 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.

After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state (preferably in the post title) your victory date and score, as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory! , We will create a separate thread with the results at the end of the two week period (sorted by date and score). Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences. The game will not be closed as such, but after two weeks, the results will be compiled, and will not necessarily be updated with reports coming in after the finish date.

File Upload System
We now have a game file upload system you can find here. Please use it to upload your completed first attempt by saving the game on the turn after your victory or defeat. (by using the "lemme play one more turn" feature)

This game runs for four weeks and ends Sunday, 1 April 2012.

The Save can be found here.

sounds pretty tough to me.

I guess I would almost settle in place, mountains to the south good for defense.

Do I remember correctly mystery map -> 1 continent?

How do you guys start off with raging barbs at immortal? without 2-3 warriors plus scout to move along I guess its like committing suicide...

From previous domination games I know that 1st capital should be taken down with warriors/bow men and then the second/third eventually 4th with rushed units and the later ones should be less problematic then - by teching ahead or just building more units

The warrior is in an awful position to scout the tiles for the initial city placement. I'll probably send him 2 tiles down SE on the hill for 'normal' scouting and settle Berlin right on, as the spot seems good enough to me. Maybe one tile to the west though would also be good...may give that a try as well, not sure. But anyway - the first turn in a game is always the most interesting to me

I'd move the warrior SE to the desert hill. I'd settle in place to have the wheat for faster early growth and to keep the sheep in the 3rd ring.

Settling in place is best, the only other option would be settling 1E, but then you'd be on plains and wouldn't be able to build Stone Works.

Guess I'll give this one a try once I finish slogging through GotM30.

I'm gonna give it a shot...but does sound tough. This is my first GOTM... the only domination victory I had was back on prince. Should be a good learning experience.

The great advantage of being Bismarck, is it means that none of the AIs will be Bismarck. Should be fun.

Repeated blunt-force trauma has taught me to prefer defense to growth on Immortal, so my instinct is to settle on the hill 1W of the present position. Need to buy that Wheat hex ASAP, tho.

Maybe that grassland next to the wheat /oasis. Puts lots of goodies in thd second ring. Send the warrior to the gems or sheep for scouting before settling.

I just hope that the landsnecht are just as indestructible for me as they were against me in that recent GOTM deity game.

I will give it a shot. 4 cities swords rush strategy here i come. If pangea, i'm going for Steel and Machinery straight away without any science buildings. If i conquer a big island and have to wait for astro, i will go for astro before Steel and will build at least the PT with maybe the NC. I'm gonna youtube this.

This will be my first game as Germany. First try at Immortal.
Man I'm just hoping for a win

Warrior to SE hill; most likely to settle in place.

Im thinking I'll concentrate on military ; capturing wonders instead of building them, unless a wild GE appears.

Not only is Germany my least favorite civ to play but I'm still working out the kinks on Emperor, so clearly I'm going to try this and see how long until I fail ;p

Barbs are usually more problematic for AI than the player in my experience, so raging barbs could work well. I wish regular barbs could be converted, not just barb camps (because raging barbs doesn't add more camps, just increases the spawn from them).

I think my plan will be to open Honor to farm culture from barbs and go to Military Caste before then opening/finishing Liberty and see how that goes for GE. Since the pike is so cheap I could use them as cheap garrisons for happiness then probably work my way to Professional Army for the puppets I hope to have by then.

I ended up taking the hill to the left after I saw that it was a river tile. Having said that, the grassland is still looking like a decent spot.

I was about to say that if the hill to the west is on a river it looks like a good spot and according to the above poster it is (I can't quite tell from the picture). I'd be tempted to move the warrior to the east and if no luxury tiles are within 3 of the settler move it west.

The trouble with the sheep is there is only one. It's easier to decide on building things like stables when there is more than one tile benefiting. Stoneworks and Granary at least give you additional early benefits.

The gems to the SE actually makes it look like there may be a potentially good city spot down there, assuming another luxury nearby it.

Since gems looks like the dominant luxury the west spot should bring more hills under control of the city and lead to a greater chance of more gems.

Been running practices with Germany on Immortal. Couple of discoveries: Landsnechts are really, REALLY cheap. And it's a good thing, because I'm using a lot of cannon fodder. And I hope that there are some choke points, because if we're just in the middle of a big continent then we're sitting ducks.

You are the aggressor with the massive, cheap army. You don't want choke points.

My first GOTM since Civ3, I'll give it try.

Don't expect me to win though, rather a long, prolonged death for me.

DaveMcW said:

You are the aggressor with the massive, cheap army. You don't want choke points.

Click to expand...

Ouch, okay, fair point. No choke points works great for DaveMcW; I guess that my goal is just to survive to the end and lose in a respectable Diplomatic Victory instead of getting my butt conquered.

this will be interesting. ill be curious as to how many barbs i convert and if they'll be useful. plus i need to get germany out of the way. im with most of these players, i hate playing against germany. Thresian made a good point, haha.

and i definitely want to watch an LP, Tabarnak. it shows me where my mistakes are. there have been a few easier diffs since that awful TSG28 (or was it 27) but its nice to see a higher diff. (even though i might not get to actually submit a win for the 1st try).

edit: my prediction? the fastest time will definitely be with stealth bombers. captain obvious strikes again, haha.
edit again: i couldnt have been more wrong, wow.