TSG38 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG38 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.

- 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?

Goodness me, it takes a long time to get all those water resources developed. Settled in place, initial builds: monument, worker, Pyramids. Techs: mining, masonry, animal husbandry, pottery, sailing. Settled to block Bismarck, on the hill between the mountain and the sea, which seemed a nice defensible location, then filled in the rest of the continent. 5 cities in all. Bismarck declared, but just flailed uselessly at my southernmost city, and eventually paid me for peace. Meanwhile I built the GL and HS, teched education and popped PT and ND with the 2 GEs from the liberty finisher and HS. I sold some monuments so that the 7th policy was delayed until the turn that PT completed, and bulbed astro so I could take rationalism.

Over all, it's felt very buildy so far. I've got an enormous amount of food, but very little production, so I'm not sure what my end game will be. Probably take out Bismarck then tech to stealth, then own the board, which will end up as a pretty poor time.

Settle in place.
Ruin 1 > Map
Ruin 2 > Oh Biz snatched it out from under me.

turn 216
Thought Id check in to see who had already beaten this thing..
Owned 4 times trying to build wonders. sigh
I now have Machu Pichu and Taj

took Berlin on our second war, he declared again later, so took the next German city, left him with one on the edge of the island.

Then some building up, recently got astronomy to explore the other half of the world I haven't seen yet. Especially looking for Greece, Alex has been taunting me all game. Mecca looks quite takeable though for a next target - He has a carpet of Pikes and camels, but I only have to deal
with what's on the one island.
Currently have 3 Xbows, 3 Samurai, 1 treb, and 2 GGs (incl Yamamoto hurray, the other will bust for GA in a few turns) but about to build a corps of muskets. 2 Triremes , 1 caravel (and a couple more of those to build for slaughtering camels at sea.)

Liberty complete (GE for Taj), Honor 4/5 Im thinking Rationalism next but freedom, commerce are all attractive too.

Allied with Vienna and Florence.

Built 2 cities south of me: 1 at the isthmus; 1 NE of Mt Fuji.
recently established the 4th on the double silver island to the North.

France, China are the only friendlies, and no one had enough $ to make RAs when I did. That should change soon though, Wu is starting to get rich, so I will save for that.

Of course I realized right away the bit about muskets was dumb, same strength as Sams and -2 promotions.
Nothing went as planned.
Greece kept flipping my 2 CS, so I declared on him. Eventually even found him and killed a bit here and plundered a bit there. Yeah he had the rest of the CS on his side. I puppeted CapeTown as a nice launch point for a later invasion of Arabia.

70 turns later he asked for a straight up peace, I say OK Meantime set 5 RAs

t305

Arabia and Germany DoW together. Mongolia, Egypt chime in the next 2 turns. Only 1 of these broke an RA.

Built Brandenburg. Converted all my Samurais to Rifles starting them to infantry very soon.

Russia and France friendly, Greece guarded, the rest at war. Mostly its sea battles, Khan armies still sitting at home, though I have few caravels waiting to swamp invaders. Razed 2 Arabian minor cities near Capetown.

Liberty, Honor complete. Rationalism, Autocracy opened.

Russia is ahead by about 4 techs and that's my biggest worry, we shall see. This is quite a challenging task!

Settled in place and went for the Great Library. Build order was scout -> monument -> granary -> GL and took philosophy as the free tech. Somehow I managed to lost both my warrior and scout to barbs which made Bismarck turn hostile and denounce me around turn 30

Build my second city south of capital next to fish. Bismarck already took Mount Fuji with Munich.

After after GL I build couple of warriors and archers to defend Bismarck's inevitable attack. He came for me just about when I got my iron improved which made defending easy. Made peace and decided that 2 swords aren't enough and allying Vienna is too expensive so I'd have to capture Vienna. 2 swords, 2 archers and trireme took it without casualties. That gave me total 4 swords and Munich went down with those. Berlin seemed harder so stopped to wait for steel, which I bulbed with Hagia Sopfia GS (or liberty GS). After that my 4 samurai and 2 archers took Berlin with relative ease. Decided to leave Bismarck alone and concentrate on Napoleon. Might be a mistake 'cos Bisse is now massing landsknechts.

Scouted Napoleon with trireme and he had his island full of archers and pikes -> invasion seemed difficult. Decided to build a navy which required iron so i settled a city on the island with 6 iron north from main island. Settled also a city on the small island to get the Great Barrier Reefs (probably not very beneficial).

Now its about turn 170-180 and Paris is down. Gathered XP for my 6 frigates with Napoleon army, rather bombarding than running over embarked units. Task force of 3 samurai and an archer arrived from the hills SE of paris and took it after frigate bombardment. Lost one samurai which released iron for seventh frigate. Next up is Orleans for those tradable luxuries.

No RA's and almost no exploring. Research is kind of weak without RA's and narrow islands made it hard for my samurais to get a around, wonder how they did it back in Feudal Japan
Now that I have 7 frigates and remember that using an embarked unit is the way to go when capturing coastal cities, future seems bright...

And whats up with those missing unit banners. Extremely annoying and makes it hard to spot all the units. Is it my computer or the recent patch?

Build a second city below towards Germany, can reach the sugar and the pearls and ships can sail through. Was beaten to Stonehenge, wanted it to get full honor and full trad. Was then beaten by one turn to the great lighthouse, same unknown Civ that got me before, an infographic told me.

Got the Oracle and Germany decced me, wasn't quite ready. Defended with 2 archers and settled third city up north on the island with Iron and Silver. Managed to get Nat College and Heroic Epic while getting ready for steel.

Attacked Germany with 2 samurai, 2 archers, a General and a siege unit, 2 more samurai joined in. His first city fell, but his pikemen were all over the sea, and assaulted and archer and my siege unit which I lost. Berlin ended up holding me back, I had to deal with his Landsknechts, and when that was done, the hilly terrain and the river turned out to be hurting, had some back and forth before Berlin fell.

Set sail for France, was met by a carpet of hilly terrain doom. Decided to attack from opposite direction, coming in on the plains East of Paris. Had build another Siege unit. I landed over two turns, lost a march Samurai who was also my medic to a trireme that got past my caravels. Lost my Siege unit gaining foothold. Lost another Samurai and an Archer before Paris fell. Second Capital to hold me back in stubbornes. Defended with 2 Samurai left doing short work of pikemen and archers.

Decided for Frigates to bombard, reinforced with 2 new Samurai. Landed on Arabias coast and took Medina then Mecca rather easily.

Am at turn 235, in the Year 1625. Invasion force is 4 Samurai and a General, 3 Frigates, 2 Caravels. Germany, France and Arabia have fallen. Egypt looks to be next, not sure if I should aim for Riflemen or try to keep pushing. Have Scientific theory and have been sticking to the top of the techtree. Can rather quickly get new military techs. Happines is -12, I lack 2 honor Social Policies and new cities keep setting that back. Samurai are meeting Knights, so I might fix my stuff and then push again with Riflemen.

I thought I was rolling over this map with 8 iron connected by turn 80 and just taking over 2 more from Vienna on my way to trash Nappy, that wonderwhore. Pyramids, GW and 2 more early wonders. Landed 7 SM on both sides of Paris and in the hills. South of it. Got it down to 1 hp but had no one to take it. Lost 5 SM in process and had to settle for peace to save last two SM. Bismarck declared in meantime and is pushing his carpet of LKs towards Osaka located on the chokepoint between two pearls. Defended by 1 samurai.

What a mess, if I only waited 5 more turns I would have been invading with samurai not SM. I was greedy for fast finish and now am at least 30 turns behind. It will make it interesting, especially as most Ai hate me now for warmongering. Good thing ingot NC built and am ready for HS ND combo and astro slingshot. I grabbed t50 Gl for optics as it was pricey not bc I had a plan, everything else was only 7 turns as I did not prepare the techtree well. It might go to infAntry and destroyers before it's all said and done here. Wish me luck

Slow going for me here too. At t216 I only have three capitals down. I figured it would be a slower game, so I put some focus on science (GL, NC, PT, RAs) and have a good tech lead, first to cannons and rifles, but definately slows the game down. I wonder how quick the experts with swordsmen rush can do this one?

T184 with 2 caps to go: Cathy and Alex . Just dowed him to get my navy across to Moscow coast and found cathy's frigates there. It is going to be a tough one as I am relying on amphibious assaults of my rifles up graded from samurai, with other troops providing distraction on the ground. I don't have a big navy and what I have is split with half up north dealing with Wu. Her cap just fell. I Beelined rifles -2GS and navigation -hardtech. When I got rifles after taking nappy and harun it was much easier. Almost lost my army in Paris again, lost 4 out of 8 samurai. Damn GW

Postman still hasn't delivered G&K so I remain a vanilla player! At turn 205 I have taken 4 capitals and am hoping to finish sub-260 turns:- slower than I would have predicted for King but it seems a difficult set-up (at least to me). Few opportunities for RA and the usual issues with Germany. I have Rifles and should be in a position to bulb for Arty in 5 turns. I seem to have most of the iron available (which isn't much). The only problem I foresee is that most opponents (and CS) have caravels (a couple have frigates also) so it's a softly-softly approach from island to island.

Did the patch change AI play at all? I missed out on the GL for the first time in ages (turn 43 IIRC) and Bismarck had a particularly large and surprisingly well-ordered horde of Landsnekht very early in the game. Interesting call on whether to focus on melee, ranged or sea units:- I beelined for steel, which in hindsight was a poor choice on this map.

I had a freeze-frame issue around turn 70 but the biggest problem (noted here and elsewhere by others) is a random loss of unit insignia from turn to turn:- this makes warfare rather tricky, e.g. when you can't see the unmarked enemy units hidden on coastal forest tiles. Hopefully this is just a patch-related issue.

Turns 0-60

Germany declared on us two turns ago. They didn't like us much for settling our second city on the hill at Mt. Fuji (for the so essential culture), thereby confining them to the tundra.

This gives us the chance to level up some Triremes!

Kyoto was settled in place and we went Monument, Worker before Granary for a change. Mostly because on what looked like an archipelago map, there would not be much early cash to buy a Worker, and we wanted a second city asap.

One exploring Trireme went around France and quickly met first China (a swimming Spearman in the far north) and then Egypt. We've found Arabia as well, but three civs are still missing. However, while the west is blocked by ocean, we can still continue in the east!

Last turn we finished the Great Library (doesn't the AI want it anymore?) and chose Compass. We will now be looking for iron and create new settlements where we find it.

Kyoto just jumped to size 9 thanks to a survivor on one of the islands. A good thing, too, because it demands Cotton which is nowhere to be found.


Cities
0 Kyoto
28 Osaka

Policies
13 Liberty
21 Collective Rule
30 Citizenship
45 Republic

Kyoto
8 Monument
18 Worker
21 Settler (collective rule)
24 Workboat 240g
26 Granary
30 Worker (citizenship)
32 Workboat
36 Workboat
42 Trireme
47 Water Mill
58 Stone Works 320g
59 GREAT LIBRARY

Technology
9 Animal Husbandry
16 Pottery
24 Sailing
29 Mining
36 Masonry
42 The Wheel
47 Writing
54 Optics
58 Calendar
59 Compass (Great Library)

Turns 61-117
We settled 3 cities on the islands, claiming 12 Iron, Dyes, and 3 Silver, and our sixth and last city south of Kyoto to connect the waters west and east, also gaining Sugar and two more Pearls. Altogether we now have 5 surplus luxuries, which should suffice to support most of our campaign.

The war with Germany ran for 40 turns until they finally offered a favourable peace (we get gold and Furs). That won't last, of course.

On turn 117 the Great Scientist from the Porcalain Tower gave us Navigation and we immediately upgrade two Triremes to Frigates. That's half of our task force, the other two Triremes have to wait a bit until we find more cash. Our Great General (thank you, Germany) plunged into the water heading for Arabia, where our original Warrior is already hanging out.

Of course by now we've met everyone (except for a few city states) and the deals are good; except for Germany and Arabia they are all friendly.

We are currently having a Golden Age, and combined with the +3 hammers in each of our cities from Merchant Navy that puts us far ahead in production.

Key on this map will be the speed and power of our navy, not so much the Samurai which we will need only to conquer Germany.

So, basically, all preparation is done, what remains is our campaign!


Cities
88 Tokyo (Dyes, 6 Iron)
89 Satsuma (2 Silver, 6 Iron, 4 Horses)
89 Kagoshima (Silver, 2x Great Barrier Reef)
92 Nara (Sugar, 2 Pearls)

Allies
77 Florence (cultural, Gems)
92 Geneva (cultural, Incense)

Polices
61 Commerce
80 Meritocracy
99 Naval Tradition
101 Merchant Navy
115 Representation

Kyoto
63 Lighthouse
69 Harbor
72 Settler
75 Worker
77 Settler
80 Worker
83 Settler
88 NATIONAL COLLEGE
91 Settler
94 Workshop
101 ORACLE
104 Stable
107 Forge
110 University 660g
115 HAGIA SOPHIA, Great Scientist (points), Great Engineer (HS), Great Engineer (liberty tree)
116 NOTRE DAME (GE)
117 PORCELAIN TOWER (GE), Great Scientist (PT)

Technology
61 Bronze Working
66 Iron Working
71 Philosophy
75 Construction; Archery (ruins)
87 Metal Casting
88 Trapping
94 Civil Service
95 Horseback Riding
101 Theology
110 Education
112 Mathematics
115 Engineering; Astronomy (GS)
117 Navigation (GS)

Masterful turn 115 Kyoto stack, wow, you do have this game down to smallest detail

I just started playing through these GOTM challenges in an attempt to learn some new tactics and strategies. I haven't played Civ in a good while and only recently started taking it up again. I started with TGOM39 in which I felt I did a decent job. And then I watched DaveMcW's video on youtube and learned a whole bunch from that.

This one, I'm struggling though. I founded Kyoto in place and Osaka neat Mt Fuji for the culture, locking up Germany. I made it to the top spot pronto and figured I could take Germany out. The German city near Mt Fuji was easily taken and razed, but I bungled a siege of Berlin. I have only 2 iron, so tried to accompany swordsmen / Samurai with a swarm of archers but don't seem to make much headway despite building a road to his door. Vienna also has 2 iron, but it seemed a bit overkill going for Vienna first just to get the iron.

Now I'm at turn 138 and still haven't taken Berlin. So I decided to take a look here to see how others were doing. I then see people report 8, 10 or even 12 iron. Is it possible there's something wrong with my map? Did I miss something essential? Or is that iron buried under Germany? I can see only part of his land and haven't spotted any iron yet. But how to take Germany with only 2 iron?

DaveMcW didn't post a video for GOTM38 yet, I'd be curious to see how he handled it. I might move down the list to other GOTMs. This one is frustrating and starting again feels like cheating. But I would if I think I can learn something from it.

I did manage to build both Pyramids and Colossus in Kyoto, which gave me a nice boost. But I obviously had no clue how to handle it after that.

If you don't see all of Germany yet, you may need to do more exploring in general.

Restart would only be cheating if you submitted that as your entry, since the competition would then be on uneven start. Just to enjoy and/or learn new things is absolutely fine. This particular GOTM is probably excellent for that purpose.

Since the results have been announced, I don't think there's any risk of Tesuji submitting a replay!

It appears that DaveMcW did not play this game, so unfortunately you will be unable to learn from him (although in general I agree that watching his videos after playing the board is good way to learn).

Any way, there's nothing wrong with your save! There are only 2 iron near the start position (plus the ones that Vienna has). People who have settled more iron have (if you will excuse my bluntness) scouted better.

It's somewhat academic now, as everything's changed, but you're right that 2 iron is not enough to take out Germany. For classical-era conquest in vanilla, you mostly needed to have iron. So you have 3 choices: (i) acquire some iron (by settling it, purchasing it or allying a CS), (ii) leave Bismarck alone or (iii) wait until you discover gunpowder.