TSG50 Game In Progress

Welcome to the TSG50 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 did you do with the extra space?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow?
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?

Turn 100 update :

I moved my settler and settled on the gold mine. Started with a scout, i rapidly discovered enough spots for a standard 4 cities Tradition opening when i also sold the gold to Ghandi as soon as turn 10. I bought a settler with some loan at turn 21 and sent it north near Tyre to get horses before they do with a nice 2 unique luxs spot. I stole a worker from Quebec(sorry but it's not the real life, i will never hurt my beloved city for real!!! ) After 2 scouts the capital built a worker, a shrine then a settler. Rushed another settler so i can get my 4 cities as fast as i can. Graz is a great spot for Machu Picchu, one of my favourite wonders.



Turn 57 : I obviously picked desrt folklore for my pantheon. Capital built another worker and rushed 1 as well for a total of 5 of them. Time to build these libraries to get NC up as fast as possible. Problem is low gpt due to massive loans and low military count. I pray to not be dogpiled too soon.



Turn 72 : I managed to get friendly with Tyre for a moment and allied Florence but not for too long. England bullied the cultural cs and i turned immediately friendly. But it helped to finish Tradition sooner. NC is started in capital. I researched Optics for a lighthouse in Linz but also to explore farther than the main landmass and hope to see more civilizations pre-Astro. I only has surplus of gold(rest are unique luxs) and only Oda can buy me some. He turned weird and i think he will DoW me soon.



Turn 85 : As i expected, Japs DoWed me but not alone. They bring England with them and i need a defensive army for now. I rushed an archer in Graz. NC is almost finished. Salzburg built a settler and the 5th city will go near the marble spot SE of Quebec.



Turn 93 : Spearmen are tough against archers and i got lucky to kill all melee units before they got too close from Graz...phew! More archers are coming and will be upgraded to CBS a bit later. I'm researching Guilds for Machu before Education. Religion is up, i picked Tithe and +1 from shrines and temples.



Turn 100 : With some extra exploration to the west i found Isabella and got some extra money for my CBs. To the east there is only little islands but found a ruin(gold). The army is ready to visit London and hoping for a 6th city very soon. I lost my alllies during last turns so i retreive myself with not even a friendly one. I got unlucky so far, barbs never captured a single of their workers or simply telling me to kill a camp for them. Well there is 2 of them that they asked to be killed but they are too far away and too close from Japan. I hope for some luck later and start allying a bunch of them after the war.



I think i'm doing ok so far though i will probably need to hard build universities in almost all cities. Petra will be started soon in capital that will be good for the 2nd half of the game for sure.

I made the dumb mistake of settling 1 tile NE (coastal river hill) and then not being able to build Petra in my capital. I forgot you have to be adjacent to desert, not just in your cultural border. I built Petra in city 2 though (NW coastal city with 4 fish and mountain, etc. - crazy good city - I also built Colossus here). Third city settled to the east next to the river, mountain, marble, gems, etc. - another great city. Fourth city up north on the coast with whales. I will probably just stay with 4. Lost out on GL, HG and CI in my capital (not surprising since I didn't beeline), but got the Oracle.

Got early religion because of Desert Folklore and took Tithe, Pagodas, +1 food from shrines/temples, Religious Texts. Currently spreading with missionaries before the other civs can get a foothold.

Gandhi dowed me early, one turn after we made a DoF! I held him off easily with comp bows. We now have a DoF again (Gandhi the Psycho!). England dowed me a bit later but was easily repelled. I also have a DoF with Japan.

Went full Tradition, then a few Patronage policies. Rationalism next. Remainder of the game will probably be pretty boring. I probably won't marry into any CS either - better to just ally them all.

I also had to go back one autosave due to a bug. I didn't get the full amount from Japan for a trade and it was fixed after replaying (the only thing replayed was the trade). I realize that sometimes the trade screen is strange and resets to default cash (30 gold), but I had made sure that this wasn't the case, so it must have been bugged. I'm never in the running for fastest time anyway, so doesn't really matter.

This is my first GOTM and my first attempt at a diplomatic victory. My strategy is aggressive expansion, befriend/protect CS, get to patronage ASAP.

Settled on the NE hill, first built a scout. He popped a weapons upgrade, which helped a lot later on. Met Ghandi early on and coveted his capital's location. Thus I bee lined construction, built 3 archers, saved money (sold my gold to japan) and upgraded to CB when available. My initial warrior and scout sat on the northern border of India, harassing his settlers, capturing one as a worker until my CB were ready. One of his settlers escaped and built his second city on the west coast (just south of the dye). This actually helped me, as I took it with my 3 CB and warrior. I was able to upgrade my scout to a CB in the one turn before it burned to the ground, saving me 6 turns.

My forces then assaulted the Indian capital, taking it in three turns (turn 75). About the same time I opened the free settler and settled just west of the mountain (near the dye and gold).

From then on I consolidated, building a courthouse and colesseums to get back to happiness. I did build the terra cotta army and the oracle in Vienna. I think I will try to wipe out Japan and England, as both seem to be bullying the CS frequently and to grow as wide as possible.

To answer the questions:
1. I chose religious settlements and went for culture improvements to try to grab as much land as possible. I haven't done anything in the empty tiles yet, maybe trading posts when they are available.
2. Priorities where to expand, crush Ghandi. Now to consolidate before my next attacks.
3. Pottery, mining, writing then beeline to construction
4. Me vs. India, started by me
5. Took the tradition opener then took all of liberty. Just popped a GE, going to save him for Machu Picchu in my coastal city.
6. Haven't built any Hussars, yet.

I guess I should say, that I am trying to expand as much as possible by warmongering before I meet too many other civs given the VC. England and Japan have given me the warmongering penalty, so I think I will have to completely wipe them out before any other civs are meet. Given that there are so few civs in this game, my military expansion maybe be up soon. My other hope is to foment hatred between England and Japan, hope one of the capitals gets conquered and then free it.

Its t250 and I still ahvent won yet.


- What did you do with the extra space? What extra space?

- What were your initial priorities? Desert Folklore of course.

- What tech path did you follow? AH>writing etc.

- Were there any early wars and who started them? Eliz almost caught me napping.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Libert/Tradition mix then Patronage.

- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's? Nope. I have not harmed any AI in this game. Yet.

started this tonight aswell.
went for 4 very fast cities - got all 3 settlers before building/buying a single worker - they all planted before turn 45.

Think thats the way to go and it worked out kinda well i think.

Beelined into ren era at like turn 103 or so - had oracle rdy but forgot to finish it for 3 turns or so

So BO been kind of
scout
Monument
(buy warri)
shrine
(buy settler)
granny
settler
(buy settler)
GL
watermill
stables
NC
petra
Oracle
University
Wonders

My 2nd City (on cost at luxuhill)
started with
granny
Stonehenge

With Cities up benng so fast I could build a granny before Librarys and they grow decently fast

I am still a bit undicded for reli choises in noncult games
I allways go Pagodas 1. - but then?
Did go for feed the world this time - but the 15% Production seems mathematicly kind of same good - same with the reli thing - went for Pressure this time and think its been ok choise - I went over to other continent with 1 missionar and reli is spreading there aswell a bit

Welcome to GotM, Marathoner! Glad to have new faces and have fun.

Used standard tradition 4 city opening. religion: dessert forklore and tithe, pagoda, religious community, 30% far away.

Cap BO: scout - monu - shrine - granary - t59 GL - t76 Petra (popped currency with GL) - t87 HG - t96 NC. expos: granary - library - etc

I forgot to build NC as I was building too many other wonders.. and this slowed my sci a lot for sure. And I forgot to delay oracle and had to use it to open patro, instead of opening rationalism. I had to choose one more pat before I choose rat and again, this delayed my sci a lot.

t102 edu, t110 ren with acoustics. spt was around 150 at t110. opened rationalism at t123 and spt was around 200.

Not sure I should annex/puppet CS. (I have about 6 allied CS)

- What did you do with the extra space?

didn't know that there were extra space. I built 4 cities and that was pretty much all the space.

- What were your initial priorities?

Get 4 cities up and get key wonders (GL, petra, HG)

- What tech path did you follow?

Popped currency with GL and hard-researched poetry and phil to theology.

- Were there any early wars and who started them?

I had several wars but not really significant. Will get Delhi soon.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Tradition, as usual. Had to spend 2 sp on pat as my sci was slow, but hope it's worth it...

- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?

N/A yet.

Decided to try a strategy I've never tried before, and the win was going to be GLORIOUS!

Plan: Train zero settlers, zero combat units. Abuse King difficulty, and grab as many wonders as possible in super capital. Use only only merchant specialists, plant all. Marry a city-state any time I had excess happiness, keep as puppet. Work my way up to UN.

I peaked at 1,250 gold per turn, had over 30k gold once I reached UN.

The finale: Once UN finished, I burned all 30k gold on bombers and nukes. I dropped 24 nukes within 3 turns, liberated Spain, Maya, and England. Rome and Japan completed wasted. The two city-states left on map couldn't be flipped (was at war with the other Civs).

The vote comes up and... WTF?!? Apparently I've forgotten about the minimum number of votes needed; I thought you just needed majority. I had 6 out of 10, no way to get all 10 unless everyone voted for me. My GLORIOUS win backfired. I wasn't going to go for domination after giving 3 Civs back their capitals, and didn't feel like waiting the 20 turns or so for spaceship, so I just quit the game.

I can see why Austria is overpowered. 600 gold each time you want to expand/conquer another city. No population loss, no diplo hit, and you get combat units thrown in on the deal. Capital hit 42 pop, overall 2,500 beakers per turn. Got tons of GP throughout the game. ~11 planted merchants, 4 GA's spawned naturally and used on golden ages, plus all the additional GP from wonders.

In case anyone was wondering, the idea was to get rid of the city-state votes all together, and rely on the guaranteed liberated votes. If I had known about the minimum votes, I would have just kept a few more city-states up and dropped the 30k gold on that instead.

- What did you do with the extra space? - I got off slow with the settling, got 4 total up before Japan and India started dominating the Map.
- What were your initial priorities?- Desert Folklore and Money
- Were there any early wars and who started them?- Conquered London with the help of Oda
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?- I went hard for the Liberty tree early and got a bunch of the Tradition tree later. Also, I finished the ORDER tree.
- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?- I took over Qcity to the north and Jerusalem on the other continent as a landing base for intercontinent invasion. That's about it.

I am now at turn 200. Things are going well, but slow. I settled four cities, one on the other continent in elephant country. Vienna was build on a gold hill and is doing very well with desert folklore and Petra. The other cities are lagging. One of the mistakes I made was to forget about the observatory needing a mountain close. I just took Mumbai from England. It has a mountain (and Machu Picchu too) so now I have an observatory. Still too few. I liberated two city states from Japan. Most city states are allies now. I saw no compelling reason for diplomatic marriages, but perhaps I am missing something. Does such a marriage influence the culture needed for social policies? Has anyone had a succesful marriage this game?

Alphons Rodulfo said:

I am now at turn 200. Things are going well, but slow. I settled four cities, one on the other continent in elephant country. Vienna was build on a gold hill and is doing very well with desert folklore and Petra. The other cities are lagging. One of the mistakes I made was to forget about the observatory needing a mountain close. I just took Mumbai from England. It has a mountain (and Machu Picchu too) so now I have an observatory. Still too few. I liberated two city states from Japan. Most city states are allies now. I saw no compelling reason for diplomatic marriages, but perhaps I am missing something. Does such a marriage influence the culture needed for social policies? Has anyone had a succesful marriage this game?

Click to expand...

I married most of the city states that were next to me. You want them because they will spped up your scince game, You have to do a lot of research in this game. Then I bought all the other CS on th eother shore so they voted for me.

I'm not sure how hard this would be, but the best play would be count on all AI but one to vote for you, then marry all the CS, but save enough so they vote for you too.

So, like have 5 AI vote for you and 6 CS vote for you, marry 10 of them.

budweiser said:

I married most of the city states that were next to me. You want them because they will spped up your scince game, You have to do a lot of research in this game.

Click to expand...

Yes, from the start I realized that this would be a science race. But I wonder if diplomatic marriage really helps there. I don't know if it is correct, but I assume that a married city state will become like a regular city: increasing the culture that is needed for social policies. And those social policies, especially the rationalism policies, are also important to boost science. So doesn't diplomatic marriage hurt science in the long run?

Alphons Rodulfo said:

I am now at turn 200. Things are going well, but slow. I settled four cities, one on the other continent in elephant country. Vienna was build on a gold hill and is doing very well with desert folklore and Petra. The other cities are lagging. One of the mistakes I made was to forget about the observatory needing a mountain close. I just took Mumbai from England. It has a mountain (and Machu Picchu too) so now I have an observatory. Still too few. I liberated two city states from Japan. Most city states are allies now. I saw no compelling reason for diplomatic marriages, but perhaps I am missing something. Does such a marriage influence the culture needed for social policies? Has anyone had a succesful marriage this game?

Click to expand...

When you marry a CS you are given the option to annex or puppet. If you annex it will add to SP costs but if you puppet it doesnt. As far as I know that is how it works for SP costs.

Hammer Rabbi said:

When you marry a CS you are given the option to annex or puppet. If you annex it will add to SP costs but if you puppet it doesnt. As far as I know that is how it works for SP costs.

Click to expand...

Thanks. That makes an interesting question for those that did mass marry in this game: Was it better to annex or to puppet?

Annexing will give you more science because you are in control, but it will slow down policy progression.

Puppeting primarily gets you more money, right? That money can be spend on science buildings, so there is an indirect science profit.

One other factor is that you will get less science from the science policy in the Patronage tree. That bonus only counts for non-married city stated, I presume.

If diplomatic marriage is worth it pobably depends on the timing too. I can see now that an early acquistion of a city state with a good location can help early empire building. It would be like founding a new city the easy way.

I always annex. I do not yet have a feel for when to puppet when playing as Austria. I make 3 or 4 cities, get up good GPT and then start.

You cant annex too early or you wont be able to absorb the happiness hit. I usually wait until late medieval or renaissance to start. Then I buy up a bunch over a short period of time. I always get the ones that border my civ to make my lands bigger. I don’t worry about the policies too much, I just prioritize the culture buildings that they are missing. I figure they come complete with so much other stuff, its worth it. The UB helps you make culture by giving more great people so its not much of a concern. I had a lot of policies this game.

So, after I start a game as Austria, I reveal the map to see where all the CS are. Then I plan my cities to fill up the space between us and envision my future borders as if they include the neighboring CS. Once that is achieved, you are so big, victory is assured.

Update turn 150 :

Turn 114 : The army of CBs approached London and waited for a spearman to enter and capture the city. Some turns later i made peace with Oda with a favorable peace deal and free luxuries. Pretty good boost overall!



Turn 122 : At 1 turn from completion, Machu Picchu is built in a far away land(Ghandi) . Even with a beeline to Guilds i couldn't get that wonder. That's really a shame. I used the fail gold to accelerate cs alliances.



Turn 134 : While exploring the other continent, my scout stomped on a camp that the Mayans tried to kill. What a coincidence! Sydney told me to destroy that camp too





What my empire looks like at that time :



Turn 150 : Science is maxed with 6 cities and still growing. Oda captured last England's city and now we are down to 7 civs. I will likely stay peaceful until victory, upgrading CBs to crossbowmen just in case and stay at par military. I have a DoF with Ghandi since turn 20 and it's still the case. Also DoFed Rome and Spain as well. If i keep them friendly i will surely sign a wave of RAs 32-35 turns before Globalization.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- What did you do with the extra space?

Click to expand...

There seems to be some uncertainty about which space is meant. I for one don’t get it. Could someone explain? Hammer?