TSG35 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG35 Game in Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing. There are no 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.

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed at least 80 to 100 turns in your game.

Please use this thread to discuss your goals for the game and your opening moves through about the first 60 to 80 turns.

- Did you head for the coast to settle or did you settle inland?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow?
- Any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Did you prioritize any Wonders?

Turn 186 now - razed japan, china, america - currently working on suleiman - but he has Janissary already - anyway.. build GL but lost 8 turns because i researched calendar instead of trapping - so i took a risk and delayed it until trapping to get the correct tech to chiv.
Didn't explore further than china, japan, suleiman - so i have no idea what the map looks like - the other civ's found me with caravels though - so i will presume it's a continents map.
Terrain is inexplicably though - hills and rivers don't help the horses travel faster and this annoys me terribly. And there's the fact that i need to use the water because of that choke point.
Also, because i didn't scout as i should have i have had no Ra's yet - at least i finished astro...

I think i will not win this one...but it's not a big deal - i don't play OCC... so i don't have any....ambitions... with this one.

played until turn 107 - used snarzberry's strategy for Mongolia/Songhai http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=433159 but because of low science on OCC I was only able to bulb chivalry on turn 96 instead of 85.
Anyway, my 7 Mandekalu went to Beijing, according initial plan.
Arrived there, I noticed China is the weakest in terms of military and already in war with Japan and Ottomans, so I attacked Washington instead, which built Great Wall and seemed more dangerous.
Took his capital in turn 107 and saved game. Unfortunately he didn't accept peace, as I hoped.
In the same turn 107 finished GL (unbelievable!) and bulbed Education.
Ottomans DOWed me one turn ago I think, no worries.
Japan almost conquered Beijing so less work for me I guess
One issue however: I did not scout all map, but most of it and still didn't meet 3 opponents, which is quite strange. I am affraid, like numaru7 said, that it is a continents map which would be quite unfair because, as OCC, I cannot build any coast cities, so no ships for the entire game ???

nea*Nicu said:

One issue however: I did not scout all map, but most of it and still didn't meet 3 opponents, which is quite strange. I am affraid, like numaru7 said, that it is a continents map which would be quite unfair because, as OCC, I cannot build any coast cities, so no ships for the entire game ???

Click to expand...

Think about the Songhai's special ability, River Warlord.

Ok i've not played until 80 to 100 turns but i explored enough i think to not be biaised of anything else. Played until 61.

I found an early culture ruin. Hmm. Wondered what is best route for OCC? Liberty free worker was an idea, but at emperor some cs can get out workers pretty fast. Was hoping for a 2nd one later too. But i didn't go that route. Tradition? But it's domination! I need the best of my units. So i went horror...oops honor Let's start the honor show!

Capital built : monument-scout-warrior. When i saw that i started in a sort of peninsula exploring north, i went south for further exploring. I discovered another culture ruin and 1 free pop . So far so good. When i discovered 3 other civs in less than 3 turns, i tought that it would be a good idea to wipe one very early to let most free land as possible to circulate properly later.

I rush-buyed a warrior and sent 3 of them south to reach America.



After a granary, capital started the GL for free Philosophy later. A scout is guarding the fort. I effectively found a 2nd worker and bringing him back home.



Thanks to 2 very early culture ruins, i could reach 3 policies in less than 30 turns.



Time to attack Washington :



There you go :



He's not completely dead, diplomacy can stay a bit normal for the future. For easier tasks, i allied Sidon. He asked me to burn a barb camp so i went west of America. Foreigns scouts moving paths tell me that they probably sitting west of this map.



I crossed China's land to reach the barb camp. Meanwhile, Japan is attacking China. Good. Very good.



He's about to capture Shangai. Hola wait a minute buddy. I don't want you to be stronger. I immediately attacked China and burned that city right away.





Gao is working for the NC now. Teching iron working.



I will definitively destroy Beijing soon. After that, i will try to find Suleiman fast enough and maybe capture his capital with 4-5 warriors if it's possible. They are too far away to come back them at home. I suspect another continent somewhere with remaining civs. The plan will surely be to keep most as warriors as possible and upgrade them if i can get some iron. It depends what i will see. If i don't see any other civs, i will beeline astro instead of chivalry and keep Japan for the end.

From 61 to 151 :

As planified i destroyed Beijing. Bye bye China.



Now i'm going to see Suleiman and see if i can capture his capital with warriors. Well not really... in fact not at all. I really have to upgrade them. Let's go back home then. Capital is building HS.



I decided to choose a gs for free and fast Education. Bought a university right after. Time to tech compass for free Astro with another gs some turns later. Swordmen are going for Suleiman's capital.



Time to build the PT.



Gs is born, Astro is discovered at turn 102. Swordmen army is very close from Istanbul.





1 swordman and 1 scout are heading west from Japan right after Astro. 3 turns later i find Mongolia.



Istanbul is dead. 4 to go now.



I sent that army east of there to join the other continent.



Chivalry finally discovered, i made a 2nd army of Mandekalus and went straight for Japan...look at his army...great i will have all the space needed for an attack



Boom! 3 to go. Easy one.



Some turns later, after some healing, i surrounded Rome who was busy at fighting the Aztecs. Bye bye Rome. 2 to go.



I reached Karakorum with some UUs. I travel through Aztec's land who is full friendly with me. That's my Monty boy!



Nice peace deal from Roman. I can now bring my swordmen in peace near Aztec's capital.





Mongols are hurt. 1 to go...



Some pikemen appeared around my cav's and he managed to kill 3 of them..i sitll have 2 of them alive that i'm bringing slowly with the other army. Fortunately some other units are freshly coming from my capital, crossing the ocean.



Pressure is higher...



Really higher...



2 turns later, the army is steamrolling Aztec's capital. At turn 150, his capital was at 1 hp left to fall... Had to wait 1 extra turn.



And that's it. At highest peak i had 6 swordmen, 5 cav's, 1 HA, 1 horsman, 3 pikemen and 1 catapult around turn 140. I completed the Honor tree around turn 130.

I made some mistakes early on, so a fast time is not in the cards. In particular, I went for Chivalry first before starting my warmongering, and various circumstances (mainly DoWs cancelling my RA's) delayed getting that tech until T113 or so. I also got side-tracked a bit building both HG and the Oracle (both nice but probably unecessary). I didn't get Astronomy until the 130's (the hazards of not knowing the map type from the start and not beelining right for it), which delayed my conquest of the second continent until after the ideal window for M. cavs. So instead of a fast time I am trying for a win where I completely eliminate ALL other civs from the map.

I used an initial army of 8 M. cavs to conquer my primary continent (order: America, Ottomans, Japan - China had been eliminated by Japan). After researching Astronomy (bulbed with the GS from the PT) I sent a second army of 7 M. cavs over to the second continent. They had no problem wiping out Rome, but started running into issues with Monty, who had both the Great Wall and cannons by that time. I eventually sent my first battalion over to re-inforce after bringing them back to my territory to gain embarkation plus upgrade to regular cavs (a mistake, since unknown to me they don't retain their bonus against cities after upgrading, making regular cavs actually worse than M. cavs).

I eventually finished off Monty but am now slowly trying to conquer the final civ (Mongolia) with a horde of horse units, which is painful as he has a few mid-40's strength cities. So it's slow going and I'm not sure if the horses are up to the task. If I can pull it off I will have achieved total world domination with only horse units.

Edit: The one thing nice about total domination plus the Songhai UA is that cash has not been an issue. I am allied with every CS on the map!

Can someone explain to me how Mongolia can have a Rifleman with 100% bonus to mounted units? This thing HURTS and, unfortunately, is likely going to force me to abandon the game.

RedRover57 said:

Can someone explain to me how Mongolia can have a Rifleman with 100% bonus to mounted units? This thing HURTS and, unfortunately, is likely going to force me to abandon the game.

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

Prob an upgrade from Pikemen...

I upgrade from pikemen so infrequently that I never noticed that. Pretty crazy if that is the case. After this game though my new nomination for worst unit in the game is the regular cavalry - they even get owned by lancers (I had to try to pillage all of Mongolia's horse tiles to stop this).

My game did not begin as nicely as Tabarnak's. No early culture and no survivors from ruins, just an upgrade (Warrrior to Spearman) and a little gold.

The Spearman gave us a small combat edge though in the early battles against America and China. Their capitals went down easily, but Japan and Ottomans both have large armies already, so we need better weapons.

Gao was founded 1SE on the river hill. It is now turn 72. We have just discovered Iron Working and it appears we have some iron nearby! Thanks to the Mud Pyramid Mosque, both iron tiles will soon be inside the city borders. Also, the National College was completed this turn, and so begins the race for Astronomy and Chivalry.

Gao is currently 8 pop large.

Went with the honor tree, although liberty may be better. Perhaps I'll try again.


Cities
1 Gao (marble, 2x sugar, 2x 2 horses, 2x 2 iron)

Allies
59 Monaco (gold, 4 horses)

Capitals destroyed
43 Washington
59 Beijing

Policies
14 Honor
20 Warrior Code
38 Military Tradition
61 Discipline
69 Military Caste

Gao
8 Monument
18 Granary
19 Worker 310g
20 Great General (policy)
22 Warrior
26 Warrior
30 Warrior
37 Water Mill
58 GREAT LIBRARY
60 Mud Pyramid Mosque
72 NATIONAL COLLEGE

Technology
10 Pottery
18 Animal Husbandry
29 The Wheel
37 Writing
52 Philosophy
58 Trapping; Civil Service (wonder)
60 Mining
63 Masonry
66 Bronze Working
72 Iron Working

Well, I decided to go off to explore, I flipped a coin for my "official game." South it was. I settled the coastal spot between the horses. turn 100 I have knocked over America and Ottomans, but America is still gobbling up cities. I have plenty of gold and good CS allies. I am worried about hitting the other continent with too weak troops. Someone is building military wonders and isn't too far behind in techs.

I don't expect this continent to be any issue, unless America starts recovering before the end of game. I am running into supply limits on my army.

My unofficial game, played after I explore (I determine where I will go and wait until official game goes there) is running behind on conquest, but well ahead on tech. I settled the stone coastal spot next to the mountain.

I took tradition, but probably should have selected honor.

I played through a few starts on practice games to see what might be the best way to get to early (pre T90) Chivalry M-Cavs without using the Liberty tree. Though I never actually achieved that in a practice game, I did learn a lot, and figured one way would be to mix Social Policy tress and prioritize science, defense, then production (in that order) and try for a GLib build to get Civ-Serv by T60, and then hard tech and get a few RAs to get to Chivalry by T90. I was getting tired of practice games though, so I decided to go with this strategy live in this game without furthur testing.
It almost worked!

I deciced to not wander too much, and settled 1NW to pick up the wheat and cows.
My initial priority was scouting, I built two scouts, but lost one to barbs. I teched Pottery, Writing, AH, Calendar, Mining, Masonry, then set up for a GLib attempt at CivServ.
In test games I found that the GL sometimes went very early (T45) and sometimes very late (T100+), so not wanting to take any chances I took a very non-optimal path just in case the Glib went early. I built a regular Library early, then NC, and at around turn 40 started on the GLib to see if I could still get it for CivServ. In the meantime I stayed peaceful with the neighbours that I had encountered (Oda, Wu, Wash) - mostly because I was having so much Barb trouble at home. But also because I wanted to set up some early RAs to get to Chivalry. I set up one with Oda at T52, one with Wu at T54 and one with Wash at T56. Unfortunately the RA with Wu got cancelled because of Barb pillaging. (Note to self - do NOT include resources in RAs!). If that RA hadn't been cancelled I would have reached Chivalry at T87. But T94 is not bad.

My general strategy was wait with war and build population at home to support a large military later. In general the Tradition tree looks the most useful for this strategy and OCC. But there are some other useful social policies I wanted, so
I took SPs across the trees in this order: Trad, Hon (for the anti-barb), Lib, Citizen (for free worker), Arist (for wonder-building), Legal.
I also managed to get Monaco as an ally with the anti-barb work and returned worker. So I'm at +26 culture now and close to my next SP which I think will be Discipline since I will be on the warpath now.

I ended up getting GLib for Civ Serv at T59. and also got HangingGardens at T89, so pop is at 10 now and will be growing pop fast to support my growing forces.

Seeing as I have met very few neighbours, I'm assuming that there will be some water to cross. Hopefully I can find the other continent quickly and those civs aren't at gunpowder by the time I get there.

My opening looks like a nice set up for an OCC Culture or Science win. Not sure if I can sustain the momentum for an OCC Dom win though.

Currently at turn 160 and still quite a way to go. China, Japan USA and Monty have lost their capital, but the other three are looking powerful, especially Genghis. One half of my army is on his borders, but it is only 4 longswords plus my wandering scout and he has keshiks. I suspect I need more troops and may have to stop my south east army heading to Sully and divert to the other continent leaving Sully until last. He has just declared war on me - cheeky so and so - he'll regret doing that eventually. And one of those 3 has just built Hemeji Castle. At least I assume it is one those 3. There is an outside chance it is one of the others.

I have not been keeping notes, but it was more or less a push for iron working and then steel. Later efforts went on navigational stuff when it was obvious there was another continent. Gettting the Oxford GS on the same turn that astronomy became available helped enormously. That was one of those rare occasions when I planned ahead!! Eventually I worked through to chivalry for Mandy cavalry. They may be just what I need to counter keshiks. I also have loads of cash so I may rush buy some pikes.

Allied Genoa and Monaco for iron and horses respectively.

Reading the other comments in this thread suggests I may be one of the few that opened with Tradition as my starting SP. Those 3 culture for 200+ turns I think are vital. But I did get lucky and find 2 culture ruins in the 4 that I found. That way it did not take me long to complete the honor tree.

I'll finish this another day.

Settled on the hill 1SE:- lovely spot! I have de-capped the 4 Civs on my continent (America / China gone totally). Bulbed Astro and 2 armies of Man Cav and Longswords sailing West. Have met the 3 Civs on other landmass with my scout, all friendly. Bribed Monty vs Genghis. Starting N and progressing S looks the safest bet:- I don't want to split my forces although this would probably be the quickest option.

Things I discovered this game:-
1. OCC is fun, OCC domination is a pain with all the marching back home to upgrade and heal. If my armies fail in their invasion, not sure I have the patience to rebuild and try again!
2. I am still fairly clueless at ancient/classical warfare. Going Honour helps, but I still spend more time healing than fighting.
3. Man Cav are not Keshiks! They take damage and do not have Khans to heal them quickly.

You don't have to march back home to heal! And if you give a unit the medic promotion, your army even heals 2HP/turn in the open.

If need be, you can also use up their promotions to fully heal them in one turn.

Sorry I wasn't very clear there. I did do these things but in this game it turned out quicker for me to move wounded units back home and heal after upgrading because of the relative pace of tech progress and conquests. I saw the game through to a turn 199 conquest win but didn't submit as I was so far behind the pack.