First 100 Turns in Civilization V Gods & Kings?

ZooBooBooZoo

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
55
Hi all, I know such threads have been posted before, but not one about Gods & Kings.

Obviously your actions and goals changes around what victory you're going for, whave civ are you playing, your surrounding etc. but I thought it would be nice to have a BASIC forumla of maximizing your Civilizationing power over the 1st 100 turns or so which determines most of the game IMHO,

So... You are all welcome to post your thoughts.

Moderator Action: Moved to G&K.
 
only works well on higher difficulties, but:

scout first. focus on getting lux techs, pottery, and archery. usually build worker after scout to get lux connected fast. Sell lux off asap. Buy settler. Around pop 5 train a settler. usually about the time hes done I buy a 4th. If i have enough luxes to sell ill hard buy a worker, if not ill capture one from a CS. Build archer in each city then go for libraries/NC. if one of the city sucks for production ill sometimes buy the library for it to get NC up.

Usually construction > civil service > education after that
 
my first 100 turns tend to follow the same process. This is for King diffulty or lower:

found captial - have warrior scout out surrounding area - build monument - research pottery, calender, mining then go for iron working as target - once warrior has found site for my next city, put to explore - after monument build shrine, stone henge, walls (if met other civ and they are close) or granary (if no close rival civ) - social policies are liberty until have free settler then tradition or honour - once i have free settler build archer to escort and found 2nd city and follow same build process but with wonder to match location (G.Lighthouse/collossus if coast, g.library/pyraminds if not coastal) - found parthenon - keep faith for g.prophet - found religion

I build settlers in my capital only and rarely use gold to buy them as i play epic speed and the early gold cost is 1160g. Usually after captial has monument, shrine, library & granary I will go wonder - military - settler (if site for city found) - building - wonder - repeat
 
This is a very religious tactic.

The problem is most strategy work up to 5/king difficulty, since it's not that difficult(although obviously it takes time to learn the game and understand basic tactics to win King difficultly).

I think that if you're going for a science victory for example this strategy is not very viable.

The choice between tradition and liberty though is very interesting for me, I always figured that unless one is going for an extreme spread-like-a-plague strategy, tradition is a better choice, but I'm quite a noob so maybe I'm wrong :)
 
to be fair I do not decide on the best tactic to win the game until well after turn 100, and you wanted a first 100 turns strategy. On epic games, especially for me as I put max turns to 999, 100 turns is a small fraction of the game. Around the time that tradition and liberty trees are full I will decide culture or science depending on which victory is looking more viable and go for Piety or Rationality.

By not spending gold on anything other than emergency military units if i am swarmed, it does allow me to buy universities to catch up on science if needed.

I don't have a strategy that is as set in stone for King+ levels. Everything depends on what resources I get early, the defensiveness of my cities and borders and the aggressiveness of the AI's that could invade. Giving a strategy for that would include too many viables that would influence what I did in the opening 100 moves
 
I always build 2 scouts, not on Immortal, but up to that difficulty it's good to have the area around you checked out.

Basically I just let my first city grow for a few turns, grabbing a shrine and monument.

After that, it all depends on the map. With a warlike civ close, better to invest in some warriors or archers, but I still invest points in Liberty to get that worker and settler out faster.

On Prince/King I just expand as I want to, but Emp is another story.

Expand to 3-4 cities, luxes spots are prime, but also defensive cities towards a future enemy is good. I try to make my cap the science/gold/wonder-city, my next 2 grabbing luxes or other resources. 4th might be a silly city, but it's usually the closest to the AI and I make it hard to get, this will most likely also be my unit-builder. Plop it down on a hill is all it takes, more hills around and one food, you're set.
 
Prince-Emperor levels:

It really does vary a lot by which civ I'm playing, as well as the map settings. Assuming a civ without a huge early bonus (i.e., Babylon) & a Pangaea or Continents map...

Agree that a scout is pretty much always the first build, and I'll generally follow that up with a monument, then a second combat unit (archer if I've popped the tech, warrior if not). Then it gets pretty fuzzy depending on exact game dynamics: how likely I feel that I am to be fighting early wars, how far I think I can expand (and how quickly I need to), etc. I'll try to keep my capital's population below 5 for most/all of the first 100 turns, in order to maintain enough happiness to found new cities.

Tech-wise I've traditionally gone Pottery > Writing > Luxury techs, but lately I've been experimenting with a more militaristic tech start & I like that as well. I'd also mostly tried to grab the Great Library in past games & use that as a springboard to the Oracle, but in more recent games I've been experimenting with bypassing the ancient wonders completely & focusing more on building up my military & cities.

For buildings, I'll generally want to get monuments in each city first, followed by libraries. Then food buildings, money ones, happiness, and production...unless I have a nearby early warmonger, then walls get priority along with barracks in my capital & any other high production cities. I've been forgoing shrines recently, unless I see that none of the religious-themed civs are in the game (no pantheon founded in 3600 BC (standard time) = no Celts, Ethiopia comes right after that if they're in the game); if the pantheons don't start flying off the shelf right after that 3600 time frame then I have a decent shot at getting a good religion, so I'll get a shrine or two built.
 
my first 100 turns tend to follow the same process. This is for King diffulty or lower:

found captial - have warrior scout out surrounding area - build monument - research pottery, calender, mining then go for iron working as target - once warrior has found site for my next city, put to explore - after monument build shrine, stone henge, walls (if met other civ and they are close) or granary (if no close rival civ) - social policies are liberty until have free settler then tradition or honour - once i have free settler build archer to escort and found 2nd city and follow same build process but with wonder to match location (G.Lighthouse/collossus if coast, g.library/pyraminds if not coastal) - found parthenon - keep faith for g.prophet - found religion

I build settlers in my capital only and rarely use gold to buy them as i play epic speed and the early gold cost is 1160g. Usually after captial has monument, shrine, library & granary I will go wonder - military - settler (if site for city found) - building - wonder - repeat

If I try anything like this on King (epic speed) I have 8 units attacking my capital on turn 80. I have to sadly put aside any hopes at early growth in favor of an early military, unless I am on an island by myself.
 
I've only ever won the game on King and below, and I've won at King once, although I'm almost certainly going to win in my current game.

Here's what I've figured out so far. You can breeze through the easy difficulties without any kind of serious military and without ever going to war. War is unavoidable at King and, I'd assume, above. Getting wonders is really hard.

My first 100 turns essentially go like this as far as build:
* Scout
* Monument
* Scout or Warrior/Archer
* Shrine or Worker

Research:
* Pottery
* Luxury Tech or Writing
* Construction

My goal is to have 4-5 archers build with enough bank to upgrade them all once I hit construction, because if war were not already declared by then, it soon will be. I also get to get down 3-5 cities, and I usually make my second city my "science" city. My first city is usually production/military and second is usually science, third is money, fourth is a mix. I don't usually do a culture or faith-centric city at all.

For faith, I approach it once of these ways:
* Play a faith civ, mainly the Celts and restart unless I can get the +2 faith bonus
* Find a faith wonder and build a city near it
* Find a faith CS and barbslaughter my way into their good graces
* Build Stonehenge

If I can't do one of these, I wait until I have 4 cities and put shrines in all of them and found a late religion. I try to get 1 shrine up in my cap early so I have a shot at a decent pantheon bonus (I almost always take +10% growth unless the situation makes something else more appealing). I basically use religion for happiness and little else.

I'm usually REALLY late to get libarries and national college up, I tend to expand quickly and build up a military and usually don't do library/college until after my first war, which puts me about 3-4 techs behind the AI. I usually close that gap by turn 200. I'm sure that won't work at higher difficulty levels.

For social policies, I usually open with liberty for the settler and worker and use the GP to pop an engineer and use that to build Notre Dame if I can get to it in time (50/50 chance) or pop NC if my science city has lousy production (it usually does) just to get that going quickly.

One thing I have noticed is that if I'm not balls-out trying to get wonders, the AI usally isn't either. I've got a game in the 19th century and nobody has build the Pyramids yet.

If I get Stonehenge, it'll be in my capital and that usually means a second engineer, which I use situationally. If I do get SH, I'll usually try to pick up one more +Eng wonder, like Pyramids or Artemis. I like Artemis because the archer build bonus dovetails with my archerspam defensive strategy. With a few roads and 5 compound bowmen you can hold off basically anybody.

I also like honor, and go down the right side first. I use the garrison bonus to get +hap and +culture and I spam walls and castles and everything else - they are 0 maintenance, so it's free happiness, and I need them anyway. I usually go rational next and the game is almost always over before I finish it.

What I'm learning is that an early war is critical. I basically wait for the DOW, move units it, beat back the opponent, and then take their capital, which usually has 2-3 wonders by then, then recover, build up cities for research, my goal is usually to have NC built before the second war (rarely happens), universities before the third, then get to public schools, etc, etc.

I kind of fall apart as far as direction after I get education. I usually head for rifles and cannons and then flight and build a ton of bombers but I kind of lose focus after that and just do whatever. Victory is inevitable at that point usually.
 
After the first 100 turns you should have an army that can at least deter attack, preferably its capable of defeating your first neighbor if you haven't already and you should be almost 15-20 turns away from Education.
 
I've only ever won the game on King and below, and I've won at King once, although I'm almost certainly going to win in my current game.

Here's what I've figured out so far. You can breeze through the easy difficulties without any kind of serious military and without ever going to war. War is unavoidable at King and, I'd assume, above. Getting wonders is really hard.

My first 100 turns essentially go like this as far as build:
* Scout
* Monument
* Scout or Warrior/Archer
* Shrine or Worker

Research:
* Pottery
* Luxury Tech or Writing
* Construction

My goal is to have 4-5 archers build with enough bank to upgrade them all once I hit construction, because if war were not already declared by then, it soon will be. I also get to get down 3-5 cities, and I usually make my second city my "science" city. My first city is usually production/military and second is usually science, third is money, fourth is a mix. I don't usually do a culture or faith-centric city at all.

For faith, I approach it once of these ways:
* Play a faith civ, mainly the Celts and restart unless I can get the +2 faith bonus
* Find a faith wonder and build a city near it
* Find a faith CS and barbslaughter my way into their good graces
* Build Stonehenge

If I can't do one of these, I wait until I have 4 cities and put shrines in all of them and found a late religion. I try to get 1 shrine up in my cap early so I have a shot at a decent pantheon bonus (I almost always take +10% growth unless the situation makes something else more appealing). I basically use religion for happiness and little else.

I'm usually REALLY late to get libarries and national college up, I tend to expand quickly and build up a military and usually don't do library/college until after my first war, which puts me about 3-4 techs behind the AI. I usually close that gap by turn 200. I'm sure that won't work at higher difficulty levels.

For social policies, I usually open with liberty for the settler and worker and use the GP to pop an engineer and use that to build Notre Dame if I can get to it in time (50/50 chance) or pop NC if my science city has lousy production (it usually does) just to get that going quickly.

One thing I have noticed is that if I'm not balls-out trying to get wonders, the AI usally isn't either. I've got a game in the 19th century and nobody has build the Pyramids yet.

If I get Stonehenge, it'll be in my capital and that usually means a second engineer, which I use situationally. If I do get SH, I'll usually try to pick up one more +Eng wonder, like Pyramids or Artemis. I like Artemis because the archer build bonus dovetails with my archerspam defensive strategy. With a few roads and 5 compound bowmen you can hold off basically anybody.

I also like honor, and go down the right side first. I use the garrison bonus to get +hap and +culture and I spam walls and castles and everything else - they are 0 maintenance, so it's free happiness, and I need them anyway. I usually go rational next and the game is almost always over before I finish it.

What I'm learning is that an early war is critical. I basically wait for the DOW, move units it, beat back the opponent, and then take their capital, which usually has 2-3 wonders by then, then recover, build up cities for research, my goal is usually to have NC built before the second war (rarely happens), universities before the third, then get to public schools, etc, etc.

I kind of fall apart as far as direction after I get education. I usually head for rifles and cannons and then flight and build a ton of bombers but I kind of lose focus after that and just do whatever. Victory is inevitable at that point usually.

I would say this is not there yet to win emperor/immortal, but I guess you are well aware.

* I get the impression you are founding 4-5 cities max. If so, why go for Liberty? In my opinion Liberty is only a better option then Tradition if you are spamming cities.
Also, the reason why you can't finish rationalism and start order to get factories science bonus I think is because you are slower with science and thus open up rationalism too slow. The only way I've found to be succesful grabbing both honer + trad/liberty while not missing out on the later trees is to focus a lot on culture and science.
* Faith - a Faith based pantheon could do that job for you if available (early shrine), and if it is I think the best option is to pick it and avoid building SH or spending gold on CS. A natural wonder is a game changer though, but be careful on immortal! Settling on wonders usually results is very early DOWs.
* National college should take priority. It will propel you ahead to the front of the pack, as opposed to have you lagging behind. The sooner you get the NC, the sooner you get Civil Service, education, etc. I now try to finish it before turn 80, but usually get it before that.

A tip that I haven't seen before here is to build a Granary IF you have 2 or more sources of wheat/deer/bananas (which happens fairly often). This will give you +4food and it's worth waiting those 10 +/- turns with +4food while building a worker as your capital will grow lots (especially if you go for landed elite asap).

My 100 turn usually go something like this:

Build order:
Scout->Granary->Worker->Shrine->Archer->Library->Archer->Settler->NC

Science:
Pottery->Production/lux tech->Production/lux tech->Writing->Production/lux tech->Construction OR Philosophy.

I usually buy my first settler turn 20-30 and immediately hard build a library in that city.
Around turn 40-50 I have built 2nd settler and will have the gold to buy a library in 3rd city.

I sell all overflow of luxes and strategic resources to fund it. Any DOW can usually be managed with 4-5 archers/CBs, so having around 3 and then buying a few if attacked should work.
 
I would recommend watching some of the Let's Play videos - it doesn't take too long to watch the first 100 turns.

You will see how they focus on city growth, selling luxuries/resources, building/buying libraries so you can get your national college up ASAP as well as building archers and upgrading to composites for protection and/or going to war.

Also taking your closest neighbor's (or 2) capital by turn 100 is recommended, especially if it wasn't built on a hill and you want to do it before they build walls.

Getting a few early puppets (gold/lux) and extra living space and not have to worry about a neighbor is nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMiI7rIKWC4
 
First 100 turns:

Techs:
1. Pottery
2. Literature
3. Worker Tech(s) needed for Luxuries
4. Archery
5. Philosophy
6. Worker Tech(s) needed for other resources already within cultural borders.
7. The Wheel
8. Other worker techs
9. Beeline to Construction
10. Beeline to the tech allowing Circuses
11. Beeline to Currency
12. Start the Beeline to Iron Working (probably won't complete until after turn 100)

Social Policies:
1. Tradition opener
2. Legalism
3. Monarchy
4. Landed Elite
5. remaining Tradition policies

Normally hand build a settler right after building the Archer; build a second one while researching Philosophy; (cash rush a Library in that second city); cash rush a settler when NC is almost complete and found shortly after it does.
(If unimproved production is really good, you can try the Great Library gambit in lieu of regular one; which would be a 1 city NC with the first settler cash rushed and most likely the next one hand built. Conversely if unimproved production is really bad [say you need 4 work boats + God of the Sea] that is also going to be a 1 city NC with a regular library.)

First buildings in capital: First Shrine to found a pantheon, next Library (skip Monument; that's provided by Legalism), National College.

First units: Scout (unless on a heavy water map), worker, then Archers. (At some point you'll probably want more workers and also build needed worker boats)

Pantheon choice is highly dependent upon local terrain. If more than one suitable, I prefer ones providing faith (in tiles that will be worked early; which excludes the Tundra non-forest one). If no suitable ones found, then Fertility Rites.

Embassies: Don't open them until you've completed your first ring of cities as it gives visibility to some very good tiles to the AI. (And alternative is to build some extra units and give it in the hopes that the AI will send unescorted settlers for you to steal and convert to free workers.)
 
12. Start the Beeline to Iron Working (probably won't complete until after turn 100)

I'm guessing you meant Education?

If not, I think you should have. :)

Education comes anywhere from the 90s to 120s depending on how good early game tech is.
 
It's kinda disappointing how on Deity and Immortal the optimal strategy is so much better than others, unless you have a UU like the Chu-Ko-Nu in the lower part of the tech tree. They should nerf the National College and give the bottom part of the tree something appealing tech-speed-wise, so that there's more choice involved on the higher diffs.

Edit: Also, Liberty is almost useless on Deity because the AIs SPAM their cities... Even on Immortal picking it over Tradition is questionable in most situations. Only if you have an empty continent to yourself does it make sense to go Liberty imo. Honor is a joke in its current state, but then some people argue that it's meant as a second tree, never a first (maybe with Aztecs). I think it'd be more fun to have three equally (but differently) powerful trees; I'm not sure how to do it though. Perhaps Liberty should also give some combat bonuses so that you could easily capture some AI cities to add to the throng... And Honor needs more bonuses like the +1 Happiness/2 culture per garrison one. Perhaps an ability to add enemy workers as population points to your cities could work, simulating slave raids into opposing empires.
 
I would say this is not there yet to win emperor/immortal, but I guess you are well aware.

* I get the impression you are founding 4-5 cities max. If so, why go for Liberty? In my opinion Liberty is only a better option then Tradition if you are spamming cities.
Also, the reason why you can't finish rationalism and start order to get factories science bonus I think is because you are slower with science and thus open up rationalism too slow. The only way I've found to be succesful grabbing both honer + trad/liberty while not missing out on the later trees is to focus a lot on culture and science.
* Faith - a Faith based pantheon could do that job for you if available (early shrine), and if it is I think the best option is to pick it and avoid building SH or spending gold on CS. A natural wonder is a game changer though, but be careful on immortal! Settling on wonders usually results is very early DOWs.
* National college should take priority. It will propel you ahead to the front of the pack, as opposed to have you lagging behind. The sooner you get the NC, the sooner you get Civil Service, education, etc. I now try to finish it before turn 80, but usually get it before that.

A tip that I haven't seen before here is to build a Granary IF you have 2 or more sources of wheat/deer/bananas (which happens fairly often). This will give you +4food and it's worth waiting those 10 +/- turns with +4food while building a worker as your capital will grow lots (especially if you go for landed elite asap).

My 100 turn usually go something like this:

Build order:
Scout->Granary->Worker->Shrine->Archer->Library->Archer->Settler->NC

Science:
Pottery->Production/lux tech->Production/lux tech->Writing->Production/lux tech->Construction OR Philosophy.

I usually buy my first settler turn 20-30 and immediately hard build a library in that city.
Around turn 40-50 I have built 2nd settler and will have the gold to buy a library in 3rd city.

I sell all overflow of luxes and strategic resources to fund it. Any DOW can usually be managed with 4-5 archers/CBs, so having around 3 and then buying a few if attacked should work.


How do you get pottery in time to build the granary after the scout? You should have 5 turns of production to burn, do you start the worker then switch to granary?
 
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