TSG51 Opening Actions thread

Welcome to the TSG51 Opening Actions thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing through your first 100 turns. 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 the first 100 turns. We are going to try something new and limit your game description in this thread to the first 100 turns. Anything after that should be posted in the After Action thread once you have completed your game.

- How did your Deity start go?
- 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 find your UU and UB useful?

I hate Deity. It's far above my skill level :\

Lost my cap to the Mongols t115.

Stupidly did not build up enough units; instead was trying to build up cities/infrastructure.
I was so far behind in tech though that it wouldn't likely have mattered though really, and i knew i was going to be effed eventually anyway.

He attacked with Keshiks, Trebs, Longswords and i had just gotten to Composite Bows and discovered Iron (went toward Education first, with disastrous results).

Genghis entered Renaissance t104 LOL...

Good luck to those of you who don't suck like me, it's a good map with lots of space to settle until the AI decides they need your lands because their 15 cities isn't enough.

Update turn 100 :

Settled in place. Started with monument, scout, shrine,(2x workboat rush buys), workboat. So by turn 28 i had 3 crabs thanks to 2 gold ruins. I sold them all the time since then. After some exploration i decided to go OCC for this special deity event. Stole a worker from Monaco. I bought a warrior and a bowman to chase barbs around. I picked God of Seas.



Turn 60 : Bought a 2nd worker and library is finished so i can start on the NC. 2 cultural allies have been allied which is great. Finishing Tradition early is crucial here.



Turn 82 : Upgraded to CBs just in case...tried HS with a Theology beeline and hoping for a religion soon. Tradition is finished early.



Turn 90 : I successfully got HS and picked Tithe and Holy Warriors. I'm naturally getting enough faith to enhance my religion very soon. Capital is growing fast.



Turn 100 : Meanwhile, i DoFed Harun and Gustavus. Mongols are still friendly and warring Spain and Harun. They are getting big...but as long as Harun cans urvive i will be ok. My tech rate is very good, I even sold a monument to time Rationalism in 7 turns(Oracle is already built). Then i will go for Machinery and get some powerful crossbowmen. I enhanced my religion during that turn and i picked Swords into Plowshare(hoping for less war possible) and Defender of the Faith...so if one is not good the other will take the relay





With some RAs later it will be interesting to see if i can tech fast enough to intercept any threats, if they appear. A science victory is the easiest way to win now and i need a pre 250 turns finish or i might lose ot another AI.

Played up to turn 81 so far, so good.

Settled in place, and also trying OCC route.

BO was scout, monument, shine, workboat (bought another 2). Rescued worker from barbarian camp north and decided to keep it Stole another from a CS (cant recall who).

Got lots of faith from 2 ruins and got my Pantheon early, which was nice, and took God of the Seas. Weird popping a GS so early, but I was that shocked that I wasted it lol, clicked wrong button and popped 'sailing' lmao!!! Oh dear, never mind, I needed it anyway. Culture from another ruin, and an advance tech from another (cant recall what it was)

Sold crabs off immediately to Harun and Mongols and bought a couple of Bowmen, produced 2 more. Harun and Gustavus DoF'd me, so that's fine, everyone else is friendly so far.

Tradition one away from being finished and I am 7 turns from Oracle ATM.

I am at turn 100 and just got DOWed by Mongolia... It will be interesting to see if I can survive that war. Will probably post some screens tomorrow.

I just stopped at turn 105. Arabia just declared war on me and Mongolia is moving in. I had hoped they would attack each other first.. I haven't got much units, so I think I will quickly build the wall of babylon.

summary so far:

5: scout ready
7: bought second scout
19: bought schrine
24: lost scout to barbarians (he got trapped)
26: captured two Mongolian workers with a scout
31: Pantheon founded: gods of the sea
49: Allies with Vatican City
51: Philosophy
52: Made peace with the Mongols, for 8 gold
??: Second city founded, Northwest of Babylon, near fish, crab and pigs.
83: Disco founded (tithe + mosques)
90: Hagia Sophia finished, Disco enhanced (religious text, religious community)
99: Spy recruted, placed in Mongolian capital
103: Signed research agreement with Spain
105: Probably about to be wiped off the map

Good Luck to all of you.

And a to all our GOTM'ers!

Here is a screen shot from my game:



I moved inlands before settling, was hoping to find some nice land, but it was only ok. Settled there anyway.

I built NC before settling any cities, then built 3 cities as quickly as I could. I discovered education at turn 89, and also founded Judaism the same turn, but now a foreign prophet has moved in and converted my cap to some kind of bird religion.

Mongolia has just DOWed me, and I have to little money to upgrade to CBs. Just spent all my money on a university in cap. Whish I could have bought it earlier, but I have been short on money the entire game.

I will try to convince Mongolia's ancient enemy Spain to DOW them, maybe that can save me from their hordes. I am currently researching towards machinery, and will soon have some Iron connected, just need to survive a few turns and gather enough money to upgrade my units.

Settled in place. Built monument, scout, popped archery from a hut.. Built some archers, settled 1 city with liberty, built walls, scouted a bit. Kept 4 workers from various barbs. Settled 3 more cities. One NW near the truffles, another NE, one east of cap and another south by the silk(?). Freed another 2 workers and used them until i had no more tiles to improve then deleted them.

DOF with Spain and Arabia and Sweden. RAs pretty quickly with each.

Mistimes rationalism by 2 turns. I put my spy in one of the culture CS which ultimately screwed me. . Ugh. I have zero CS allies and almost no influence as my culture is abysmal.

DOW from Mongolia and have been in that war for about 25 turns. He has a nearly 5:1 military unit advantage and I keep killing wave after wave of his attacks on Akkad. Killed 2 GG trying to pop citadels in my world. Working on using one of my workers to build a little road out of my city into the jungle so I can use my second GG to plant a citadel. This is unlikely but worth a try as I keep stealing his idiotic wandering workers.

Biggest problem for me is lack of funding. Only 3/4 of my composites are upgraded and while I keep killing his cats now trebs now cannons survival seems unlikely. Teching that part of tree now and if I survive another 5 turns ill go full military production, sell off resources and go into double red unhappiness to take the fight to him a bit more.

Spain is being a B tho and if nobody keeps them occupied they will DOW. This will end me as the terrain in that area is not so easy to defend without triple the units I currently own.

Here are a pic of the current situation:



Got a DOW from Spain on Mongolia as intended. That probably help me survive their attack.



Spain has went from hostile to friendly, but my two old friends Persia and Arabia have both DOWed me. Mongolia has settled for an even peace, so at the moment I only have two wars.

I have a strong defensive position against Persia and have just conquered and sold Khurasan, which will hopefully slow down the arabs a bit.

Me biggest problem right now is how to get away with a win. I can probably get a diplo vote at turn 230 or something like that. The problem is that all my enemies kill my CS allies and Spain has started allying anybody they are not at war with. So science might be a safer path, but then I probably wont achieve victory in time...

screenshot (turn 106):

Went with a tradition 3 city opening.

Settled on the second river below starting location. 2nd city on the river desert hill to the east of cap. 3rd city above cap on the water near the truffles.

Warrior scouted south and looped round the mountains, scout headed north to discover vatican city.

Got quite lucky with ruins, 1 culture and 2 population, 2 tech.

Tech path: Writing first, great scientist on the cows. archery, luxuries, Construction (although I saved it with 1 turn left until my bowmen finished training), philosophy, petra tech, civil service, education... currently teching up to machinery for xbows.

1st city went scout, worker, shrine, bowman, grainery, workboats, library, NC (maybe slightly different order)
2nd city went bowman, bowman, library, petra
3rd city, bowman, library

Managed to complete petra around turn 95, very lucky no one else grabbed it.

got 4th city about turn 100 with settler built in 3rd city. Just about to finish settler in 2nd city for 5th city.

I blocked off AI settlers with units so I've got the whole top section of the map to settle in.

Finished university tech around turn 90 ish and rush bought the university in capital.

Went with Desert folklore, tithe and cathedrals for religion, trained two missionaries so far but haven't enhanced yet, this strat might backfire if someone grabs the good enhancers.

AIs relatively peaceful, I had quite a few bowmen/composites early so they might have been scared to attack, Spain is currently the runaway and is ganging up on Mongolia with Persia. Mongolia has just got Keshiks though so I'm hoping they can put up a decent fight and not just give spain all their land.

Looking forward to playing the rest of this one out, still in last place but with petra, a decent capital with a university and lots of space to settle in I'm hoping that I can get enough specialists to win on tech. Might have to attack spain at some point though because they're getting way too powerful.

ense7en said:

Genghis entered Renaissance t104 LOL...

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I normally don't play Babylon very much, so I was surprised by how much that early Academy helps. It more than doubled my early science output!

I was actually able to reach the Renaissance in less than 100 turns but that was with intense beelining. The only detour I took was for Sailing, so you could theoretically shave 5-7 turns off if you ignored it. If you're lucky with ruins (getting expensive Ancient era tech like Calendar/Trapping/Wheel), you could potentially take off another 5-10 turns off. I imagine if Babylon popped an early Writing ruins, you could take an added 10-15 turns or more off.

Tabarnak said:

Turn 100 : Meanwhile, i DoFed Harun and Gustavus. Mongols are still friendly and warring Spain and Harun. They are getting big...but as long as Harun cans urvive i will be ok. My tech rate is very good, I even sold a monument to time Rationalism in 7 turns(Oracle is already built).

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I was in a similar situation.

In normal (non-Babylon) games, I typically have to take one or two policies (after finishing Tradition or Liberty) before I can open Rationalism. But I was able to go straight into Rationalism after Tradition, due to Babylon's early science boost.

In my case, my next social policy was going to happen one turn before entering the Renaissance. I considered selling my Monument (would have had to do it 3 turns before the SP came based on my calculations). Instead, I opted to rush a settler and settle an extra city, though that actually meant that my SP came a couple of turns after the Renaissance. I know you mentioned you were doing OCC so settling an extra city wasn't really an option for you!

Wargizmo said:

Settled on the second river below starting location. 2nd city on the river desert hill to the east of cap. 3rd city above cap on the water near the truffles.

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Interesting capital location! Risky but I like it!

I settled in place even though I did move my warrior SE and saw your location. I figured that with the 3 crabs + silk + 2 stone + river/coast, it wasn't going to get much better (but you proved me wrong!).

In the short run, moving south to get away from all those marshes might have been worth it. It would only take an extra turn. You would be giving up a stone and the stoneworks. On the other hand, you do get access to potentially more resources (and in this case it's 2 fish and a horse) so in the long run you might be much better off with this location. But it's always hard to say in the beginning whether to risk venturing out into unknown territory. (I guess that's how the early historic settlers felt!).

Managed to complete petra around turn 95, very lucky no one else grabbed it.

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I'm impressed. In my game, Harun completed Petra on turn 77 in Damascus (settled near the river wheat/sugar to the east).

I decided to completely give up on the middle and lower tech branches and go straight for Theology, followed by Education (through Civil Service) but it took me awhile to get Currency.

I blocked off AI settlers with units so I've got the whole top section of the map to settle in.

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Yes, I did this as well. I used a combination of:

1. Use units to block settlers

2. Use cultural borders to block settlers (strategically buying tiles if necessary)

3. Also, with the "cities must be 4 or more tiles away), if you carefully space your cities and place units at a few key locations, you can prevent the AI from settling right in the middle of your territory.

Halcyan2 said:

The only detour I took was for Sailing, so you could theoretically shave 5-7 turns off if you ignored it.

Click to expand...

Not really how you should calculate this, by the turn 100 you can tech sailing in 1 or 2 turns only. Not a big deal.

I almost finished my game but the result is predictable. Darius will win around 240 and will launch a spaceship. He entered the Ren. era on turn 91 and always got into further eras 10-15 turns before anyone else. I lost Pisa by 2 turns around the turn 136. If i had teched Printing Press before Acoustics i would have got that wonder and then PT later. That wonder has been built by Persia 1 turn after i researched Architecture. He also finished Taj some turns after. I think he entered the info era by turn 215 and already built Hubble by 220

I'm currently around 225 and just started Apollo First war ever against Spain some turns ago. At least i will probably the only one that stayed friendly with Ghengis all the time The biggest threat isn't Ghengis, Spain or Harun. It's definitively Darius. This guy techs so fast that you need to stop him before he win.

Wargizmo seems to have the best start so far.

OCC is too painful in a science game...best bpt i got is 580 beakers. Really not enough. You need a mountain start and desert to do a deity OCC here.

Tabarnak said:

Not really how you should calculate this, by the turn 100 you can tech sailing in 1 or 2 turns only. Not a big deal.

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Hmmm, you're right. I guess I was focusing on how many turns it took to research it at the time (instead of by the end).

However, if someone actually manages to ancient ruins Writing, that should be a big bump. It will save you around 10-15 turns of actually researching Writing and more importantly, it means you get that Academy 10-15 turns earlier....

I almost finished my game but the result is predictable. Darius will win around 240 and will launch a spaceship. He entered the Ren. era on turn 91 and always got into further eras 10-15 turns before anyone else. I lost Pisa by 2 turns around the turn 136. If i had teched Printing Press before Acoustics i would have got that wonder and then PT later. That wonder has been built by Persia 1 turn after i researched Architecture. He also finished Taj some turns after. I think he entered the info era by turn 215 and already built Hubble by 220

Click to expand...

In my game, Darius had a strong start and built Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and the Great Lighthouse. After that he stalled for awhile. He hard built Hagia Sophia (grrrr!) and used a GE for Angkor Wat. But then he dropped out of contention for a long time (until he surprised me with Manhattan / Apollo / Pentagon, though the last might be from a GE).

I spent most of the game worrying about the massive empires and military might of Temujin and Isabella, but it was actually the stealth technological leaps of Persia and Arabia that surprised me the most. Arabia came out of nowhere in the Renaissance / Industrial era and Persia gained a lot of steam near the end. Darius (and then Harun) were the first to build the Manhattan Project and Apollo. After centuries of stalemated wars, Darius was finally able to breakthrough Swedish territory and take several of their cities.

Compared to your game, it looks like my Darius had a stunted midgame. In my case it was because he didn't expand much. Initially he built towards Sweden but it took a long time for him to expand out (especially to the vast expanse to the north).

OCC is too painful in a science game...best bpt i got is 580 beakers. Really not enough. You need a mountain start and desert to do a deity OCC here.

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Actually, 500 ain't that bad.

I had 5 cities and ended the game at around 500 beakers. I had no research labs and half of my cities didn't have public schools. I think it was giant Research Agreements that propelled me to the needed techs at the end. However, I went for Diplomacy rather than Science.

Tabarnak said:

The biggest threat isn't Ghengis, Spain or Harun. It's definitively Darius. This guy techs so fast that you need to stop him before he win.

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Indeed. He has the best starting position compare to others. I've play two times defeated by him with science n diplo VC, even though I've tried to bribe DoW from Sweden & Mongol but still these 2 can't do any sh1t to Persian. On top of that his capital is damn so far away from yours, blocked by couple of city states n hills, it'll took 10 turns ++ to reach. The only possible things to do is that you'll have to crush mongol 1st then go for Persian. Btw is good things to let Arab grow, he is like the guy who'll help your defense against spain. Oh one more thing, don't let mongol took over Genoa it's the game changer.

Clause said:

Indeed. He has the best starting position compare to others. I've play two times defeated by him with science n diplo VC, even though I've tried to bribe DoW from Sweden & Mongol but still these 2 can't do any sh1t to Persian. On top of that his capital is damn so far away from yours, blocked by couple of city states n hills, it'll took 10 turns ++ to reach. The only possible things to do is that you'll have to crush mongol 1st then go for Persian.

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In theory, I think Sweden has a really nice corner position.

Darius is sandwiched between Sweden and Mongolia, both of which are eager to attack Persia. Unfortunately, the terrain just makes it hard to do it effectively.

Sweden and Persia are connected by a very thin strip of land, so it's hard for them to make headway. (If the AI was smarter, Sweden would do a pincer attack, with half the forces landing on the shore and coming from the north).

Mongolia is very aggressive, but the hilly and mountainous terrain makes it hard for him to invade (though you would think that mounted units have the mobility to do so).

In addition, Darius has lots of room to expand. He does well in the beginning, however, his capital doesn't actually have that much production. In the mid-game, some of the other civs can easily outproduce Persepolis.

I wonder if maybe the best option (for Domination) is to quickly take out Persia first? Send a settler (Tommy style) and settle near Persepolis and try to take out Persia before he can get going? He does seem to focus on building wonders early on, so he might have a weaker defense and then you can steal some wonders.

Btw is good things to let Arab grow, he is like the guy who'll help your defense against spain.

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Arabia also has a corner position (like Sweden) but it has much worse terrain (tundra and desert). If he can get a good Petra city that's a game changer.

Otherwise, he's probably going to get beaten up by the aggressive Isabella.

Oh one more thing, don't let mongol took over Genoa it's the game changer.

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Yeah, this was annoying.

In my game, he DoW'ed Genoa early (around turn 45-50) and conquered it by turn 59.

I wasn't able to stop it (my units were too far away). However, I was able to ward off Mongolia's settlers with my own units, so that made it harder for Temujin to set up his forces to attack me.

Initially, I didn't think the conquest of Genoa was too bad of a thing since it seemed imminent that Mongolia would eventually attack me and then I could liberate Genoa. But it just never happened.

It seems like a lot of the city states are poorly positioned and can't defend themselves well. The city states that made it to the end were either isolated (like the Vatican) or had geographical defenses that make it difficult to take (Tyre and Monaco). I guess that makes sense.

Halcyan2 said:

I wonder if maybe the best option (for Domination) is to quickly take out Persia first? Send a settler (Tommy style) and settle near Persepolis and try to take out Persia before he can get going?

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You may try it on lower difficulty, not in deity. You'll need a lot of investment for defense structure and army on that city. You were right on Persian's land being protected by hills. In this game I saw Genghis barely expanding to west.

In my last domination game I've 3 satellite cities west, north, northwest of genoa. West part well protected with 2-3 Cbs, 3 Pike, walled. After mongol DoW me waves of keshik comes in, about 10 turns i manage to hold them but still can't hold their military purchase from genoa on several turns onward, finally surrender on this game after he capture all three of that. At least if Genoa still there it could reduce mongols mobility.

Clause said:

In my last domination game I've 3 satellite cities west, north, northwest of genoa. West part well protected with 2-3 Cbs, 3 Pike, walled. After mongol DoW me waves of keshik comes in, about 10 turns i manage to hold them but still can't hold their military purchase from genoa on several turns onward, finally surrender on this game after he capture all three of that. At least if Genoa still there it could reduce mongols mobility.

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Wow. At least Genoa lasted until the Medieval Era. In my game it got taken by just Warriors and Archers....

Ideally, Mongolia will waste most of its military on Spain and Persia before you do anything. In my peaceful Diplomatic game, Spain was actually getting the upper hand on Mongolia in the end.

Hmmm, did you think about building the Great Wall? That can help a lot against Mongolia.

I've still been thinking about the Persian Problem. I'm thinking that maybe an early three pronged war effort (Babylon + Sweden + Mongolia) is the best option against Persia. Then you can sic Mongolia and Spain on each other while you take out Sweden. Also, if you joint war against Persia with Mongolia, you might be able to DoF Temujin. Mongolia tends to be a fairly stalwart ally, so then you don't have to worry about him going crazy on you.

I wish Gengis would have made some wars against Isabella. Instead Isabella DoWed on Harun and Gengis took all the CS in the center-bottom of the map.
DoWed me around turn 100. That was the time most civs entered Renaissance. He attacked with a couple catapults, a couple swords and dozens of Keshiks. I was able to last for some time, but he eventually managed to kill all my CBs (save the one in my city) my pikes.
Now, even with Walls of Babylon, my city closest to him couldn't resist. Surrounded by Keshiks, he needed only one Sword to take it and i couldn't kill them fast enough.
My last CB was in that city so i don't have any military left. With Babylon's poor production, by the time i have my next unit ready, the city will be down.

Bob Morane said:

I wish Gengis would have made some wars against Isabella. Instead Isabella DoWed on Harun and Gengis took all the CS in the center-bottom of the map.

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If they don't declare war on each other naturally, the trick is to convince them to do it (by paying them gold).

Genghis tends to be hated by the other civs (probably because of his aggression towards city states). So it's fairly easy to convince him to attack others (or for others to attack him).

DoWed me around turn 100. That was the time most civs entered Renaissance. He attacked with a couple catapults, a couple swords and dozens of Keshiks. I was able to last for some time, but he eventually managed to kill all my CBs (save the one in my city) my pikes.
Now, even with Walls of Babylon, my city closest to him couldn't resist.

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The Walls of Babylon are helpful early on but you'll probably going to need more by the time you face Keshiks. Keshiks are Medieval units and the Walls are Ancient era tech....

Did you consider building a GREAT Wall of Babylon?