TSG40 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG40 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?
- How did you organize and improve your chosen city site?
- What is different in your G&K start versus what you would have done in vanilla?
- Did you find any other civs and when did you meet them?

I'm currently at turn 129 and just conquered Helsinki on this same turn. Currently researching Education.

Settled Edinburgh E-NE I think, next to the river at turn 2. Rushed a settler when I found Sri Pada and was able to steal it from Geneva. Between that, the UA and barb hunting with a couple of Pictish warriors I managed to get my religion enhanced by 550 BC.

I'm currently at 4 cities (plus the new puppet), one at the east of Geneva with two jungle tiles and plenty of fish and the other one next to a mountain and river. Finished Liberty and going Tradition next for free amphiteatres (+ from belief) and acueducts. Maybe I shoud have waited for free Celidh Halls and so much faith is overkill (also have Geneva and La Venta as allies), but I plan to breed a missionary horde (got Djenne from the free GE) to make the best of Interfaith Dialogue.

Gustavus refused to make a DoF when I asked so when Dido came looking for a partner to rough him up I couldn't refuse. She also coveted Dublin since the first time she saw it, but after we both DoW'ed Sweden she came asking for friendship, then Attila a few turns later, who was her buddy from some far away tundra.

Looks like it's going to be a fun game. Love Boudicca's war theme also, only second to Dido's IMHO.

I ended up skipping a couple turns before settling, because I noticed those tiles to the north were on a river. I settles on one of the flood plains that ensured I wouldn't have any coastal tiles in the capital.

I decided to take Tradition, Liberty and Rationalism for this game. I'm currently at turn 245 and have Liberty completed, Rationalism left side for the RA boost and I'm a few turns from finishing Tradition. I help off on Legalism until I had my 4 cities all with an amphitheater to ensure I got the UB as my free culture building. When the policy selection came up I had 2 or 3 turns left on Acoustics. However my first 3 cities had their amphitheater completed and I was able to trade for the case to buy one in the 4th city. The reason I held off for the UB to be the free building is because in G&K free buildings aren't just instantly built, they also have no maintenance costs. So the more expensive the building you can get free with this policy, the better off you are.

My religion was the Zoo... icon renamed to Pastafarianism.
Pantheon - Desert Folklore (1 faith from desert tiles)
Founder - Tithe (1 gold for every 4 followers)
Follower 1 - Pagodas (2 happiness, 2 faith, 2 culture)
Follower 2 - Religious Community (+1% production per follower with max of +15%)
Enhancer - Religious Texts (+34% spread +68% with Printing Press)

Wonders
Capital - Great Library, Oracle, Petra, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Porcelain Tower. In a few turns I'll be building Hubble Space telescope.
Dublin - Colossus only because a CS asked for it.

At this point I have 5 or 6 more RA's coming due soon and should be able to finish off the techs I need between those, Oxford, Rationalism finisher, the 2 free GS from Hubble and at least 1 or 2 more GS's grown and 1 bought with faith. I have 6 academies with a bpt between 600 and 700. I still need 3 more research labs. I don't have any observatories.

I'm at turn 100 and just about to enhance my religion. I could have had it earlier but chose to ignore shrines so far. When I got my pantheon I chose goddess of the hunt. For my religion I chose tithe and religious community.

I settled in place and am now up to 4 cities where I will most likely stay for the rest of the game.

I had a rocky science start as I put off the great library for too long and missed it by 5 turns. This threw off my national college by a bit but I think I'm not doing too bad. I may still be able to get rationalism as my 6th policy but it will be very close.

Edit: I forgot to mention I went tradition.

Here's a picture of where I settled my cities.

Turn 100 complete in my first ever Civ game!


Moderator Action: I placed your screen shot in spoiler tags in case someone opens the thread by accident and had not yet seen the lay of the land.
Good luck and keep up the good work.

Warrior found nothing to the west, so I settled where I started. My opening was Scout > Worker > Shrine > Granary. My scout got an upgrade from ruins, which has been a real boon on such a heavily forested map. He's currently trapising around on the other side of the Carthage/Sweden island.

I opened Pottery, got Archery from ruins, built to Trapping, then Writing and Mining. My inexperience is really obvious even to me at this stage, as I didn't found Dublin until turn 58. It's a good start location for me though - no other civs on my island, and both city-states are religious. Their current quests are a road and religious majority. I'm not sure how to do the latter short of great prophet bombing - any help? I'm a few turns away from National College after getting beat to both Stonehenge and Great Lighthouse. and have the full Traditional tree. I'm trying to focus on religion and science, and see what happens from there.

Carthage has triple the military score of anyone and has been friends with me from the start, so I'm happy for that. Sweden's in on that love too, and Attila is on the other side of Carthage thankfully.

kargano said:

Their current quests are a road and religious majority. I'm not sure how to do the latter short of great prophet bombing - any help?

Click to expand...

You can either let it naturally convert (I recommend Religious Texts for enhancer) or you can send a missionary. I don't recommend sending a great profit as it will be a waste of faith.

Played to 0 AD. Settled in place, capital built units and worker until 4 then started 3 settlers. Rushed 1 worker when i got 320 . No traders around, it seems that the Celts are isolated.

When i found them, everything snowballed. Selling all luxs available and still over in . Some allied cs allow me this. Went for workshops before Education to build a market between these buildings as well to fund more cs and RAs later.

Edit : Picked all Tradition and 1 Patronnage(Oracle).

Game crashed for me around turn 12. Odd, I think this is the first time a Civ5 game has crashed on this computer.

To 1000 AD. Built some wonders like ND, Pisa and PT. I missed HG by 3 turns and CI by 2. Trying to finance RAs as most as possible. Now i'm 2 era ahead making new RAs pretty expensive. 7 DoFed civs. This game is a lovefest.

I looked forward to play a SDM with G&K and the Celts, but as suspected when I read "King" and realised that we play on islands the game became a little bit boring after meeting the others.
Strategicial seen "King" and the "lonely island" make it more difficult to earn the money for the RAs and it is improbably that your spies find anything to steal, perhaps if you try to research with big gaps...did not try that.
But on King the others are perhaps a little bit to friendly and weak.
The foreign affairs are also much more forgiving, they stay my firends even if I have treaties with their enemys.
The main question is if I should risk to betray a weak rich one and if the others are still friendly then.
And if I should build/conquer many cities to have a large research-output or to stay small
and get the right policies earlierer.
I first tried to grow fast to get into the right age for rationalism early and to maximise the effect of the "Research-Relegion", and wait now for the bonus for RAs via late rationalism.
My basic strategy stands, but mainly this means now next turn, next turn, next turn...

Tabarnak said:

To 1000 AD. Built some wonders like ND, Pisa and PT. I missed HG by 3 turns and CI by 2. Trying to finance RAs as most as possible. Now i'm 2 era ahead making new RAs pretty expensive. 7 DoFed civs. This game is a lovefest.

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

I'm guessing the Mayans decided to give you a visit with a great profit as well? I decided to take out the profit but I took a big hit diplomatically and now carthage and maya want my complete capitulation. :/

It's annoying because they will probably never set foot on my soil and I have that plus 15% growth when at peace. Luckily every one else has my back and I'm signing RA's with the rest of them.

Hey, I decided to join you at this GOTM as well, don't expect to much I am still frankly new to Civ. So lets share some expierence and maybe I become better.

After watching the files closely I noticed the river at the north and decided to delay my city, so I can enjoy the river. With the first city in place it was time to make a plan. I guess it wasn't the most brilliant one and I already run into trouble several times, but I will stick with it until the bitter end.

Basically my plan contains three steps.
1. Rushing the Great Library (Philosophy) and a National College on one city.
2. Going wide with Messager of the Gods (+2 from traderoutes).
3. Getting a tall capital and one or two more semitall - tall cities with enough hammers for getting the spaceship parts fast.

Due to my UU I decided to ignore faith more or less, still confident I will get one eventually. My UB shall help me to get enough happinies to support my wide empire (at least I am hoping for that).

I went for liberty, since it seemed to be the most logical social politcs and rationalism will be the next one.

Unfortunatally I already went into quite some problems.

My city didn't have enough hammers to get GL in a reasonable amount of time, but still I went for it and got it. Furthermore I decided to get HG, mainly because of the extra food, since I want to grow it as fast as possible.

Then I ran into serious happiness problems. Only three different luxurys on three cities was just not enough. Barbs helped me to ally one of the CS, but I did a huge mistake with the other one, allowing Gustavus to get the killing blow on the barbcamp with a scout, instantly allieing it (barb and barbcamp kill quest).

So I rushed for chitzen itza, and while I got it my capitol again suffered growth. On the plus side I finished it before getting the golden age from liberty. An open border agreement with Gustavus allowed me to find Haile, finally a person who was willing to trade a luxury. Furthermore I got some gold selling those Furs, which I used to get two RA.

And here I am:



Plan for the next turns:

I just got a couple of crossbows to attack Dido. She started an early war with Gustavus and seems to be weak. Furthermore she is sitting on three dyes and one whale and I really need more luxury.

A mercantile CS gave me the quest to add iron. Time to get another city (add iron) and ally him.

Adding more culture buildings and get my UB as soon as I am able to do so to get more happiness.

This should allow my to continue with my plan and settle more cities.

Lets see what happens, have a nice time.

Well I'm working on my first GOTM, and I'm enjoying it. I usually play emperor difficulty, but it's been a long time since I went for a science victory so it's been somewhat of a challenge. The real challenge is trying to accomplish it as quickly as possible.

Like a lot of people apparently, I'm trying to do this with only four cities. I didn't care for any of the city locations very much when I settled them (especially Truro on tundra) but they've all turned out pretty good.

My wonders so far are Great Library, Oracle, Notre Dame, Tower of Pisa, and Porcelain Tower. My social policies are all tradition, right side of liberty, and I'm halfway through rationalism. My pantheon is fertility rates (10% food incr), and by beliefs are ceremonial burial (+1 happy from following cities), pagodas, asceticism (shrines = +1 happy), and religious texts (religions spreads faster).

Anyway, at turn 239 I'm first in literacy but second to last in military so I've got to rectify that as soon as the public schools have finished. In any case, the other civs are overly friendly, to the point of being annoying. So, maybe I can avoid war the entire game. The real challenge at this point is to raise money quickly enough to keep signing RAs with my neighbors.

Absolute lovefest. 1200 AD, 9 RAswaiting to be matured. I managed to get the next policy(50% RA boost from rationalism) in 9 turns. First RA matures in 8, and others start in 10 turns and later. It gonna blow

I have not researched Astro yet...

Settled in place, played to turn 100. 3 cities, dublin next to the mountain and cardiff on the coast next to the salt. 11 turns to education.

So far it is a peaceful game for me. I built my first university on turn 129. Currently 4 cities on my island and friends with everyone. Just signed my first RA with Spain, so just need cash to sign a bunch more RAs.

I settled in place and am using the 3 forest advantage in all my cities. I was first to a pantheon and took the +1 food for camps. I also was first to a religion and first to enhance, so I have interfaith dialog, pagodas, mosques, and the missionary discount. Currently building my pagodas and mosques for the happiness.

I'm number 1 in population, land area, and tech. The only war that has occurred was between Dido and Attilla.

Tradition is complete and I just took the commerce opener, so my cities are growing pretty fast. Making it hard to stay in happiness.

The only bad thing was a Barb took my first settler, but I was able to get it back with an pictish. Turned out to be a quest that La Venta wanted, so I have them allied. Currently putting out 34 faith/turn.

Once I get my mosques and pagodas built, I'll be building missionaries to visit everyone else and get some science boosts.

Turn 200 and I'm pausing for the night. I just finished the PT and I have a GE and 5 GSs. Starting to buy the GSs through religion (next one is 1500 faith). Public schools are built and I have all my science specialists assigned.

I just signed 3 new RAs and am starting the dash toward research labs. Looks like about 7 techs to get there.

And I have yet to fight anyone except barbarians.

So far the last turns went as planned.

I suicided a crossbow into an elephant, but managed to kill it in exchange. The last three crossbows managed to bring Carthago down (used healpromotions and march). It took some time but now it is mine.

With some quests I managed to ally two mercantile CS. Furthermore I got Notre Dame, even though I had to delay the LToP. So I got enough happiness to continue with my plan to go for a wide empire.

I am still unsure at what pop my cities are supposed to stop growing, so they just get bigger and bigger, consuming my happiness. But I am happy with my 18 pop capital, so I can finish the spaceship parts in a reasonable amount of time.



Plan for the next turns:

I still didn't meet everyone, so I just send out three scouts (two by water, one by land).

I need more happiness to support more cities...

My culture isn't to hot, have to improve it as well. I think the opener in order would be great. Not only that it gives quite some happiness, also getting a GE for faith to get Hubble might be worth it. I doubt I will get a GE otherwise, since I will use the GE from LToP to get the Porcelain Tower.
Maybe allieing a culture CS will be a good idea.

leif erikson said:

- 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?
- How did you organize and improve your chosen city site?
- What is different in your G&K start versus what you would have done in vanilla?
- Did you find any other civs and when did you meet them?

Click to expand...

My initial priority was to get a religion up and running. I wanted first dibs at the selections so I could get a high faith output and use Interfaith Dialog for the research bonus. I would say that getting the faith up and running went well, but Interfaith Dialog has been less than useful due to the island nature of the map. Something with a happiness bonus would have been a better choice.

I started using Tab's Tradition Opener, seeing all the fur I went for AH - Pottery - Trapping. When I realized I was alone on the island, I went for Optics before Writing. In fact I ended up taking Writing as my 8th or 9th tech. This was probably a mistake, since I didn't need Optics, a trireme would have sufficed for finding the other civs. However, I got an unexpected bonus. Because my scout was sailing the world, I was able to ally 3 CSs by taking out camps and returning workers.

No early wars. No wars at all. I think some of the other civs have fought a few times, and I've been asked to join a couple, but I've declined. For the most part, everyone is friends with DOFs active. I have an army sitting on hills and garrisoned, but they don't do anything other than take out Barbs.

I went for the Tradition opener because my strategy was for a 4 city tall empire. I'm trying to grow as much as possible. So far it is working well, with cities at 15,14,13, and 9 on turn 200. I have opened the Commerce tree because I wasn't eligible for Rationalism yet. Rationalism is open and I have the first policy selected. My next priority is to build the Cel Halls to bring my culture/turn up, it is a little low.

All cities sites were selected to get the +2 faith bonus. I needed sites that could keep 3 undeveloped forests next to the city. I made a mistake with the capital and accidentally put a road in one of the forests, so that one is only getting +1 faith. The strategy worked though, I was able to hard build my way to the first pantheon, first religion, and first enhanced religion using just faith. Right now I'm in the process of building lumber mills in all the forests and mining the coal near the capital and aluminum near my second city. Once I have some key buildings built, I will be changing some of the lumber mills into trade posts. I have mostly trade posts along the central river on the island.

I went for the Tradition opener. If this had been Vanilla I would have used Liberty.

I started running into the other civs around turn 40 or 50. I needed to get a Trireme built first. Mayans were first, then Carthage found me. It was enough to give me someone to trade with. I still haven't found the Byzantines, though I know they are out there because of the CS messages.

I settled in place. Very slow start - I met Dido and Pacal early on, and they promptly both declared on me - it seems they thought I was expanding too quickly. Because of the war, I didn't get my triremes out south and east, so it took ages before I met everyone else (except Gustav). With no traders and only 3 distinct luxuries, happiness was a bit of an issue, which slowed down early expansion.

Now, however, everybody loves me - I have DoFs (and RAs) with all but one civ. Happiness is something ludicrous like +35, because I have ceremonial burial, and since I founded my religion so early, it's got about a lot. There are only 5 religions in the game (neither Isabella nor Haile Selasse managed to found one, oddly enough, so I've generously given them mine). I also have a whole bunch of city states.

Full tradition, patronage opener, now going down rationalism. 4 cities, finally all growing like mad. Fertility rites, swords into plough-shares, religious community, ceremonial burial, itinerant preachers. I'll save all my faith from now on to buy GSs.