TSG44 Game In Progress

Welcome to the TSG44 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?
- Who did you decide to attack first?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

I settled in place to be able to have the garden, watermill and windmill (extra specialist slot for more science).

I'm up to turn 117, will be in Renaissance in a few turns, completed Tradition, 3 policies in Piety and to Aesthetics in Patronage. I've met every civ and have several CS allies. I've built, in order, Temple of Artemis, Pyramids, Great Library, Hagia Sophia, Great Mosque of Djenne (with GE generated from the first 2) and Chichen Itza. I missed Hanging Gardens. I'll be buying the university in a couple more turns.

Religion
God of the Sea
World Church
Cathedrals
Pagodas
Religious Texts

I've already bought the Cathedral and as soon as I buy the Pagoda I'll probably save for another Prophet to go convert some CS's then use some missionaries on others once I complete Piety.

Made a lot more mistakes than I would like to have, Open peity before closing trad, somehow oversaw Oligarchy so my free aqueducts and extra growth got delayed. Focused a lot on wonders, which I usually don't do. Just lost terracotta army to Egypt with one turn left(Grr). Thought it would be a archipellago type map, found out pretty quick that it wasn't but never built a scout. Been exploring with a trireme instead, still got three to meet, been able to sell four lux, AI is broke.

Overview at Turn 112
Events:
Tech Order:
Religion:

Social Policies:

Build Order:

Settled in place. Looking at the map, it seemed North was the way to go exploring, but I decided to spend one turn going South, fully expecting to find nothing but water. Obviously, the right decision in hindsight. Rush bought a shrine on turn 13, but a few turns later, the cultural border expanded and I discovered Mt. Sinai. Well, that was 250 gold I wasn't getting back. Forced a citizen to work Sinai, and Pizzaism was established on turn 48.

SP: Tradition (usually I will take the honour opener with raging barbs, but given the VC of culture, I really didn't want to have fill in the whole honour tree). Taken the Patronage opener and will get Aesthetics next (to get me up to friends with all the CS), after that not sure.

Pizzaism:
God of the Sea
Papal Primacy
Cathedrals

Wonders
Great Library
National College
Oracle
working on Terracotta Army currently
(Eygpt beat me to Hanging Gardens )

Being able to sell all those lux's is undeniable helpful.

Turn114

Settled in place, sent warrior south. Found all but one civs, lots of CSs still left to find. No wars yet, 1st pantheon, goddes of the hunt as I could see 4 sea Rez and 4 camps when I had to make my decision and went with food on account of bigger cap, figuring all those hill will provide production later. Not sure if it was wise, especially seeing how many workboats there are.

Filled Trad 1st, while opening Honor, now working on piety. Have 2culture and 2 merc allies plus one military. Currently in 2nd GA wo CI. It's next on my list. Got beat to HG finished GL, NC, TA, Oracle, NE and HS in that order. I am buying most buildings.

Up to turn 120 :

Started with scout-worker. Then rush bought every buildings needed excepted a temple. Worked on wonders. The AI built Pyramids and Zeus. Got Artemis, HG, GL(then NC), Terracotta, CI. Maybe i'm missing 1 or 2(not really taking notes). I need Oracle soon before it will be gone.

I've sent quite a bunch of units killing barb camps. I allied 4 cultural cs. I'm done with Piety in 7 turns, Tradition completed. Acoustics in 2 turns, will hard build SC. I will raise 2 ge for Louvre and another one.

Turn 80 :



Turn 100 :



Turn 120 :

I moved and settled on the hill. Took God of the Sea and IW from GL for the Colossues, and Great Light House. Missed TOA and HG. Bought a maritime CS.

Fumbled along until about t118 and saved for the night.

I am basically pumping food and con to buy CS allies to fuel science. But, i dont hink it will end up all that fast.

OK, I totally missed that we were supposed to be palying for culture. oh well.

I see Tabarnak has got two WLTKDs in two of his screens. I managed to get citrus and none connected it until late game. Attila wanted 720 for it and I could not justify the expense. I see my cap lagging behind already

Yes WLTK is very luck dependent. In this game It was cotton for me, I had to wait Attila a lot to get it.

It was a very hard choice at the beginning to get a panteon. Ended up with +1Prod on fishing boats. I am not sure it is better than +1food on Camps now.

Arilian said:

Yes WLTK is very luck dependent. In this game It was cotton for me, I had to wait Attila a lot to get it.

It was a very hard choice at the beginning to get a panteon. Ended up with +1Prod on fishing boats. I am not sure it is better than +1food on Camps now.

Click to expand...

Now I got cotton, and it seems only Attila has it, so no luck for me again. I have Dowed him recently. To solve my cash-flow problems, and as I play by HOF rules, I won't be getting that cotton anytime soon. Unless I manage to help my friends liberate it. He must have really pissed everyone off as soon after I Dowed him, he was at peace with everyone, literally every civ has dog piled him. I have seen his two trebs retreating from Egypt towards his cap, but have not seen any of his cities taking damage yet. I only have one knight in the area as I sold almost all of my gifted units and need my two newest additions, treb and gatling to make it to the front to make a difference.

decided to settle in place, why quibble with awesome?
no need to find an awesomer spot

my test games showed that I would get extremely frustrated if I didn't find a culture ruin quickly and I had no Monument, so I had to build a Monument first. (it also doubled my pleasure later when I got the free ampitheatre later).
went south with the warrior, used cash to buy scout. scout went north. first two ruins found were population increase (Yay!) and free tech (animal husbandry-Yay!), third ruin, found by the scout,was Culture - not as crucial at that point since I had my Monument, but Yay! anyway - we are playing for a Cultural Victory afterall. All other ruins found after that point were either Maps or Barb Camps. Boo! and Double Boo!!

other builds so far have been a Granary, then Wonders

bought loads of boats, a few tiles, Lighthouse, and Watermill, and Trireme

Wonders built are : ToA, GLib, NC, HG, and TerraCotta is on track for T89 completion

focused on growth quite a bit, so city is at 14 now and will hit 15 at T84.

science is rocking at +48bpt, working on Currency now, and Education should be done around T100.

Culture is doing OK I guess, at +28/turn, but could be better. completed Tradition and have opened Piety.
I think I need to shift all focus to culture now. Only have 1 Cultural CS Ally. I still haven't met a few AIs too. gotta buy more scouts?

I kinda ignored Religion for a while, but picked up a Pantheon when I had some fishing boats going, and took God of the Sea for the Hammers. At current faith rate I should get a religion in a few turns. I'll think I'll call my religion Hammer-Sushi-ism.
Stonehenge is a wonder that would help with faith, but not sure it makes sense when there are other wonders that are higher priority.

the AI has only built one wonder so far (Statue to Zeus). I don't even know what that Wonder does - hope I didn't need it!

I'm anticipating a pretty easy time for the rest of this game, which means I probably can't screw it up too badly from here, but I'll probably find some new and innovative ways to do so

I think the key to the quickest finish in this game is finding the right formula for balancing growth, science, culture, and shifting focus at the right times. I have no idea what that formula is though, and will be relying completely on luck

On Wednesday night, after having a few beers at a friend’s place, I decided that 20 euros to be able to play one GOTM wasn’t too much after all. Played about 50 turns on Wednesday and played to turn 160 yesterday.

This is where I am at, at turn 166:






My warrior went SE and found some fish, so I decided to move my settler to the hill before settling, with the map knowledge I have now, it may not have been the best choice.

Built Scout, Worker, Granary (bought shrine while building granary), Scout and Warrior. From that point on I only built wonders (except for one work boat while waiting for writing to finish), and bought everything else.

Decided right away to go for a very big city, so I went straight for optics after researching trapping, and took the Pantheon that gives you extra food from camps.

Build order for wonders:
Stonehenge (got calendar from ruins, and a lot of CS wanted Stonehenge)
GL
NC
Hanging Gardens
The Oracle

Then I just built the wonders that were in my research path. Got lucky and got the Colossus really late (around turn 150). I waited until after I researched Acoustics to start to “lower part” of the tech tree, since Workshop was the only thing I really needed there.

I started with tradition, then cleared piety and have just finished patronage. Will start with Freedom now and will probably finish with Commerce.

When founding my religion I took tithe and +15% production, then I enhanced it with extra culture from Hermitage and the “cities spread religion farther away” belief.

I just used a GE (from leaning tower) to finish the Louvre, and will start getting a lot of Artists know. Not sure when to stop building monuments and start using them for GA:s.

Been a good game so far, got lucky and got culture from ruins early, also got +1 pop when city was at 2 population. Had a lot of units early (got some warriors from befriending two military CS when building Stonehenge). So it was easy to find new city states and killing barbs for them.

This annoys me to no end. An invisible barbarian spearman took one of my Great Artists. Not only does he not have a visible barbarian unit icon, but apparently my Swordsman who is on alert in the nearby hill didn't see him either. Ahhh!!!!

In case you have trouble seeing him too, he is on the hill next to my two units where I had moved a Great Artist the turn before to create another Landmark. This BS loss of a GA will likely cost me 1,000 or more through the rest of the game and prolong my finish date by 4-5 turns.

re: "An invisible barbarian spearman took one of my Great Artists. Not only does he not have a visible barbarian unit icon".

I've had weird stuff happen like that too. sometimes icons are misplaced on the wrong hexes too, while the unit remains hidden invisible in another hex. Usually a while later the game crashes or hangs on me. Now when I start to see wierdness happening in the graphics I take a save, reboot, and reload.

budweiser said:

OK, I totally missed that we were supposed to be palying for culture. oh well.

Click to expand...

Ditto. I didn't realize it until T90 or so. So I had 2 in commerce before I opened Piety...my tech path was also not the best. Looking at some peoples Seoul, I clearly am not growing the city fast enough, though I missed ToA.