TSG53 Opening Actions Thread

Welcome to the TSG53 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.

- 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?

This is a near perfect map for cultural. The only thing that would make it perfect would be a mountain adjacent to the capital (i.e., river/hill/mountain), but I can't complain. It will be very interesting to see what strategy is best for a fast time.

I played to T100. I settled on the hill to the SW and after some exploring decided to go for 4 cities. SP's so far: Tradition, Liberty, Citizenship, Aristocracy, Republic, Collective Rule, Representation. I will start down the Piety tree next and probably save Legalism for free museums or maybe even BT's since growth is good in my cities already. I have 4 good city sites:

City #2: North on the river near the faith mountain. Rush bought a settler for this as soon as I had the gold. Currently almost finished building Petra. No lux resources, but will be a really good growth/faith city.

City #3: West on the river/hill adjacent to a mountain and near the copper. Free settler from Collective Rule for this one. Currently building the Oracle here. This will be a good production and growth (2 deer eventually, plus river farms) city.

City #4: A late comer to the NE on the river by the additional incense/gold and south of the mercantile CS. This will also be a good growth city. I will likely rush a wonder here with my first GE (maybe CI or one of the faith wonders).

So far in my capital I have built (in order): SH, GL (free Philo), HG and the Pyramids. Slacking in science (no libraries in other cities and no NC yet), but still in the tech lead. Also slacking in culture (no amphitheaters yet), but this will explode in the mid-game. I opted for city improvement/wonder building and growth first.

Founded and enhanced my religion early: Goddess of Festivals pantheon, Tithe, Cathedrals, Monasteries, Religious Texts. I plan to crank out a few quick missionaries first, then start on the buildings.

Allied with one cultural CS so far. Since there are a bunch of cultural (several are hostile) and mercantile CS I went Tithe (cash is king) and will eventually go for the Patronage tree as well.

DoFs with India, Russia, Sweden and America. Everyone hates the Iroquois who took out Russia's capital already. I am friendly with Hiawatha now, but will likely have to deal with him at some point. I want to get my religion spread over there first though. When I denounce him later this will cement my other friendships. I may go for some late puppets over there for the fun of it.

I settled on the hill and did pottery>writing>mining>calendar>D&P. Built scout>monument>granary>library>Great Library. Free worker from Liberty. Philosophy from GL. Opened Piety asap. This all worked pretty well for a start.

Festivals
Cermonial Burial
Monestaries
Cathedrals
Religious texts.

100 turns played.

Settled Edinburgh SW on hill, Dublin north next to Mt (whatever its called) Lots of Barbs on this map, so lost my Scout pretty early on, PITA!! The couple of CS I have met are Cultured, so I will Ally them soon.

GL, SH, NC and Oracle all under my belt so far, so not bad

Took Festivals, Tithe and Monasteries, and am about to enhance on next turn.

Hoping I can grab Petra for Dublin as I had to settle it a little lower, as India had plans to grab that site I think, due to fortifying 2 units, thus denying me where I wanted to settle.

Tradition finished and going to open up Piety next.

Build order was Scout, Monument, Worker, Shrine (buy Settler), Archer

Took Philosophy from GL.

DoF's with India and USA, rest are all friendly.

Good game so far

Well this is fun because I have not actually tried for a cultural victory since before gk, but i play on emperor normally so I reckon I have a lil leeway



I settled one the the east and maintained by +2 faith bonus, I ended up with a pantheon before I had uncovered very much but I saw more incense so I went with festivals.

Ive been doing liberty and tradition though that might be questionable we will learn and see. My initial build was scout, monument, worker, archer and I got a free worker from liberty and also a barb worker when I went east and found india.

Greece decided to roll out a hostile attitude right off so I ended up friends with his enemies but pissed off india to make friendly with the ottomans.

As you can see in attached pictures by turn 71 I had dropped a city by Sinai and went for the copper also. Maybe not the optimal choice, but I used my liberty gp as a general and used him to grab the marble behind me because I did not feel like having a city there, and I will be heading for the silk up north and use the city states along my northern borders to wall up my kingdom for the future

I forgot to take notes on earlier actions (I wrote down some numbers after industrial era to compare this game with gotm 49).

After looking at the result of the gotm 49, I decided to use tommynt's strategy. more than 50 turns difference... even if I had played my best game with my own playstyle, I might have saved 15 turns at most. And it's still t266 (mine was t281, which was not a bad result, but compared with tommy's, well...).

In particular, I followed his sp order, AI gold milking, etc. And this time it is prince level.. only problem could be AIs would not have enough gold for me to extract.

sp order: full tradition, liberty until reduced sp costs, and piety.

cap BO: scout - monument (bought worker with golds from "loans" and ruins)- granary - GL - NC - HG - HS - etc.

2nd city: waited 1 turn so that I could finish NC. near sinai. granary - etc. Rushed Taj mahal around t130 here so that I could have at least 1 world wonder.
3rd city: E hill of cap (mountain, cow, horse, stone 1 ring, cotton 3 ring). granary, etc. built sistine and terracotta army.
4th city: north of 2nd city, next to the mountain hill (2 silk 3rd ring). close to america. Machu pichu here.

religion: goddess of festival - tithe, cathedral - pagoda, 30% further.

popped phil as usual with GL, and after math beelined for edu. opened renaissance with acoustics (to build UB) and went for civil service and chivarly (alhambra!). after that, printing press for pisa and architecture and archaelogy with oxford (t156).

After I settled 4th city 4 AIs DoWed me in 2 turns - I had to buy/upgrade some units, so it costed me some turns. Well, they paid some money in the end for peace, but I would rather not have those wars...

After the Sweden Cultural GotM I was pretty keen on going with only one city, as last time it really slowed me down having four of them. I got up on the hill and saw another mountain ridge, which made to want to check out the gold hill also. Went there with the warrior, saw nothing nice, so Edinburgh was settled quite late. I was quite happy about the view I saw in the announcement, but it back trickier (which is always more fun than steamrolling).

Did get the religion going fast though, and went for Great Library, National College, Hanging Gardens.

I got lucky with barbarians (oh, were they plenty) sacking my incense so I got to sell a few more, but most of the AIs are lacking money. Wasn't pretty discovering my favorite city spammer (Hi Hiawatha), but he's far away at the moment and already in a war with Alex. I'm quite friendly with everyone though (I'm trying to keep good relations with the Swede for Great Person bonus).

I got to mention religion: only one other Pantheon at the moment, in Sweden, and I'm currently forcing Hagia Sophia in order to enhance my religion (I think it was that after 1st enhanced religion no other could be done, right? If that's the case if will be a huge boost later on). The Pictish Warriors are quite great at sacking barbarians and getting extra faith, so I have a couple of them running around (I hope their bonus gets carried though promotions, so that I may buy a few more soon).
Speaking of which, I got Cathedrals and Papal Primacy (the 1st one is clear, the 2nd I got just for kicks as I want the steam achievement). The Pantheon was the one giving extra faith for the Incense tiles (forgot the name). I'm curious what I'll pick next, depending on getting the only religion or not.

Discovered that I can't trade away resources I get from a trade (as I got Horses from Sweden given that he didn't have that much money, and he was the richest around).

I didn't get to Construction yet (aiming at Civil Cervice atm), and I only have 1 archer (and he's somewhere in the corner of the continent fighting some barbarians for 1 ruin).

I managed to keep my Scout alive (no more blindly advancing 2 hexes) so I discovered almost the whole continent (and severely lacking on CS discovery so I may need to get the sailing tree going).

What worries me is the demographics page (army for example ranks me dead last so I'm just wondering who will be the 1st backstabber - I have my money on everyone's peacekeeper), and the various popups gave me fewest adopted policies (almost finished tradition) and already worst science (at least I had no problem with current world wonders).

I'm also slacking on allying city states, so I should pick up with that, but I've used all my cash so far for building as Edinburgh is doing only wonders since quite some time now. Got plenty of food tiles, and growing quite okay (with two specialists in place already) but I didn't improve the gold yet; or the cows for the matter as I've been busy with the Incense but that did prove helpful with cash).

Keeping my fingers crossed for my next round, for no other religion to appear, and hopefully some more barbarians to sack my luxuries. I think I also would like someone to DoW me now, as the Pictish Warriors would make fine faith generators and with all the forests and rivers, anyone coming in would make for a pretty slaughter fest.

Thanks for the game! Was quite fun, keeping me up late last evening.

edit: read around the War Academy and all my hopes for the religion have now gone; oh well

I think I'm playing the same game as Streams above: voluntary OCC; incense pantheon; Cathedrals and Papal Primacy for religion.

Religion is super easy in this game - I spread my religion to virtually all the city states, so that with Patronage my resting influence is 45. The network effects of religious pressure mean that virtually every AI city is my religion as well, since I founded dozens of turns ahead of anyone else and spammed missionaries. (I should have taken advantage by choosing one of those beliefs that gives me gold per city).

Prince is far too tempting for a builder like me. By about T190 I had Great Library, Oracle, Great Wall, Chichen Itza, Hagia Sophia, Sistine Chapel, Mosque of Djenne, Alhambra, Terracotta Army, Leaning Tower, Hanging Gardens, Porcelain Tower, plus all the National Wonders ...

Going to leverage CSes and Research Agreements to rocket ahead in science. When do you stop teching in a cultural game, by the way?

One flaw: forgot that Rationalism and Piety are mutually exclusive. I went Piety but I think this was a mistake. Is it worth it to switch to Rationalism? A closed Piety tree counts as completed for Utopia, right?

I settled one tile to the east, and see two incense. So I decide to go festivals. I am totally regretting this now as I scouted Mt. Sinai +8 faith surrounded by desert. DOH!

Every civilization that I meet I declare war with them immediately. I only accept a peace if they give me something very favorable, like a bunch of luxuries when I'm unhappy, or a city, or a good chuck of gold. I then declare war on them 10 turns later.

I will be at war with everyone I meet the entire game until I kill them all.

I have about 6 Pics and 4 Composite Bowman. I went honor so the culture and faith are flowing quite nicely with every kill. Festivals does provide culture though, so that's pretty good.

Turn 75 Delhi conquered.
Turn 75-105 I settled Dublin on the river next to Sinai. Bought it for the 8 faith. Waiting until I have 3 pop and will work it with the cows and wheat (both already improved). 10 Turns away from completing Honor (Although I'm about to get a lot of honor from slaughtering Suleiman's army).

War Front: I captured 1 of Suleiman's cities he was expanding a lot while I was dispatching India. Will puppet the non capitals and will annex the capitals for the rest of the game. Turn 106 peace treaty expires, I have all my troops at his boarders but he has a sizable army, will be a glorious culture and faith battle, and hopefully I have enough army left to take his cities. I'll go into unhappy since he asked for peace with 2 luxuries and I will lose those. But I'm about to mine my gold and can build happy +5 happy in capital (Honor and Horses and Construction). Washington got so scared he offered New York for a peace at turn 103. What a sap! I didn't even have to kill one of his army.

Religion Front: Turn 105 Enhanced my Religion.
+2 Faith Per City
Holy Warriors
Asceticism (+1 Happy per Shrine)
Religion Spread 13 Tiles (Delhi is 12 tiles away)

As I have complete and total religion dominance I will attempt to spread it to every city possible to buy troops from faith. Will go piety for extra faith and cheaper unit purchases.

Hah, I really enjoyed KGPurrs' beginning. Pictish Warriors, Honor and Religion gives it the feel of some holy war. I'll want to try this out in a different game at some point (going Domination would also be something new for me).

Closed my notepad doc (with notes) and forgot to save it...so winging it here. I think the opening is pretty cookie cutter from reading above. Being Prince difficulty, I found myself giving into the temptation of wonders. I built SH, Oracle, Chicken Itza, GE'ed NC and built the national treasury in my second city (to prep for the one Piety policy).

Main difference from what I am reading above is that I got 'wonder-blinded' and didnt spread as quickly as I should have, so I settled main city on the south hill (like many others and build my second city on the southern coast right on the horses (next to river and coast with one fish). Also allowed me to grab the marble to the west.

Ghandi sent some remote settlers to my west (he is on the east of course), so I have decided to stay with 2 cities.

I had to wrap my capital in x-bowmen (upgraded from comp arch) to prevent Catherine from 'propheting' my cap. So far I have dropped two holy sites and one landmark.

For policies, I opened tradition (for the +3 culture and border expand) and then went liberty for worker then settler. I am now working through Piety.

For tech, I was all over the place. I started Pottery/Calendar to get SH and plantations, then jumped to mining/BW to mine the gold and get the UU. I then hopped around targeting wonders for a bit.

As for religeon, went goddess of festivals, tithe, religeous art/texts.

As for future approach, just going to ride it out as is...I have plenty of incense to sell/trade and should probably put more dedication in allying the CS to my SE.

KGPurrs said:

I settled one tile to the east, and see two incense. So I decide to go festivals. I am totally regretting this now as I scouted Mt. Sinai +8 faith surrounded by desert. DOH!

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Glad you decided to join us and best of luck in future.

I have started very peaceful, with tradition and piety.
I took festivals, monastries, cathedrals, and religous texts.
I also took World Religion and I think it will be a monster culture bomb. It is matching my cs allies and religion is still spreading.
I messed up and did not select a coastal area.
Petra/science city will be up near Sinai. I am planning to nc there once petra finishes.

leif erikson said:

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Glad you decided to join us and best of luck in future.

Click to expand...

Long time viewer of this forum, first time GOTM though.

Considering this is a month long game, I would highly recommend slowing down the game speed.

I was only able to enjoy my Pics after conquering Suleiman, technology outpaces them very quickly and you can't really enjoy them as much. Slower game speed is more appropriate for other victory conditions, IMHO.

As an immortal marathon player, this game was quite a change of pace for me.

I paused playing at turn 130 or thereabouts. In my last few games, I started with Tradition. I decided to start differently for a change, so Liberty. I have finished the tree now. That finishing had a nice effect. I got to choose a free great person. I picked an Engineer, which got me an allied city state and an instant wonder (hanging gardens, I believe it was). Strangely enough, I have only founded two cities up till now. Dublin was founded near mt. Sinai and has built Petra. I've got two nice cities and each turn I am doubting whether to found one more. I really have no idea if this will help getting the victory sooner or not. Meanwhile I did conquer India, which gave me two puppet cities. Russia is now begging to be taught a lesson, so I am tempted to try two cities and lots of puppets.

My religion is spreading like wildfire. I now finally picked Tithe as one of the beliefs! Should have done that in earlier games too.

I have picked Piety as my second tree. I have great doubts about the wisdom of that in the long term, too.

This is my first GoTM in a long time due to the delay of the Mac patch. I settled SE on the hill, like many and founded the pantheon of Festivals. Built scout, monument and worker and stole two more workers from CSs. With all the resources it was tempting to build lots of cities. The one North on the river to capture Mt. Sinai and build Petra seemed a no-brainer. Then I also built one E-NE, below the CS and one South to capture the marble.

Since this is Prince I didn't bother to build more than a one unit per city. And you get to build pretty much any wonder you like. With the GL I chose Amphitheatres. Hanging gardens and Petra (for Dublin up North of course), timed Chitzen Itza for a 30 turn golden age.

I spent some gold on allying all the cultural CSs. I struggled with happiness early on and this helped with that. Plus influence is cheaper early on. Better spend some money and keep them ally than get half the benefit while they're friends. I pretty much ignore the others.

For religion I focused on culture but social policies I found to be a dilemma. I went for full tradition and then Piety. But then what? Maybe I should have done Liberty until it reduces culture needed but went Patronage instead. This is the main area where I have doubts. Also I didn't focus very much on science, so while being far ahead in tech, I'm wondering if it's fast enough still.

I didn't get a single DoW and everybody is Friendly with me and everyone is happy me being friendly with everyone. It's a love fest. I expect not to draw a single drop of AI blood.

Finally, got the Mac patch!

I often play with the wine/incense thing on cultural but usually regret it as they are weak spaces to be spending citizen time on. But hard to pass up on this map.

At any rate, did my standard cultural start. Three cities, mix of tradition and liberty, then jumped to piety when accessible. Got a couple artist+ wonders, GL was built by Russia before I even considered starting it, not a high priority to me on cultural although nice.
All the AIs are flat broke, and not connecting luxuries so had some happiness problems early on, also did my initial 3 city settling early.

Went with the +2 gold per city and monstaries founding my religion, and the winery bonus for my pantheon. Strangely, not sure if this is a bug or not but my pantheon was not enabled in any of my other cities. Not that it mattered much as I wasnt working those spaces yet, but didnt see the bonus on incense until after the cities had the full religion. (One of my cities pop 2, 1 following the pantheon one following the religion, no bonus on incense?)

Nothing else of note going on, just grinding culture, will stay at 3 cities, and do no warring whatsoever. I've tried going tradition on cultural, but I prefer to pop the free culture buildings later in game, with the UB of the celts will be trying for that.

I am currently on Turn 100, the Terracotta Army is 10 turns away, and my next culture policy will be ready in 10 turns. Theology will be completed in 11 Turns.

I am producing around +24 science, +13 gold, +3 happiness, +31 culture and +5 faith.

How I got here:

I settled SW on the hill and got the +2 faith per turn from Boudicca's UA, and received the Goddess of the Festivals pantheon.

Revealed some barb camps from two ruins. Finally I got good ruins like Animal Husbandry near Mount Sanai, and I believe a culture ruin, since I remembered and Policy coming some turn earlier then I figured it was. I should change the setting on my pop up notifications.

The Great Library on Turn 52, and picked Peotry and Drama to get the free Amphitheater. Decided to not focus hard on religion at first, although I would have liked to have built Stone Henge since it is attributed to the Celts. But meh. I would end up getting Christianity two turns later.

Christianity received World church and Monasteries. I am hoping, by how much later the other pantheons are taking, I can get Cathedrals with my enhancement at, by the looks of it so far turn 117. I have not tried World Church. I am hoping it will help a little, and hopefully letting tithe go will not help my expenses.

Tradition closer on turn 69.

Founded Dublin on turn 69 with a bought settler, south of Mt. Sanai. Hoping for quick growth at first and then attempt Petra. I have 24 turns left. Not sure I can make it.

Received my first Golden Era on turn 77.

Complete the oracle on turn 80, picked the Piety opener.

Received my First Great Artist on Turn 86, and plopped him down turn 88, but forgot to work the tile until Turn 90 when I found it not being worked.

Hiawatha declared war on Catherine on turn 87. St. Petersburg is overtaken, and on turn 100 Moscow has just under 2/3rd HP.

Cardiff founded on turn 91 with a bough settler. It is south of Moscow adjacent to the Gold and Sheep on the river.

Hanging Gardens Built on turn 91.

From the onset, I prioritized getting faith and beelining to a religion. So I moved my settler to the hill over the river and settled Edinburgh, allowing me to earn two faith per turn instead of one. I took Pottery, then Calendar, and built Stonehenge in Edinburgh. I was the first to found a pantheon, and I took Ancestor Worship so that shrines could act like monuments and I could build them first in my new cities. I founded Dublin near Mt. Sinai so I could really start pumping out faith. I founded Christianity and chose tithe and cathedrals to start things off, then got holy warriors and religious texts for my enhancer. I got my enhancer very quickly, which means that Christianity could easily become the most powerful religion in the game and rake in some serious dough for me.

I've also been considering my military, even though no wars have broke out yet. I would like to turn India into puppets (though I have been making Declarations of Friendship with them, I may change my position given the right time). So I've been building up an army. Holy warriors makes for a great place to spend my faith points once they really start to be raked in. I'm also building the Great Wall to defend my territory; as this is a culture game, I doubt I'll have the most powerful military, and I fear someone stabbing me. I made a line for Bronze Working, and sought after Mathematics, giving me the military tech I need, but after that I've been simply picking whatever fancies me in the tech tree.

I went for the Tradition and Liberty branches, first picking Aristocracy and Oligarchy, then going for Liberty opener, Republic, and Collective Rule (my settler is on his way, settling near Antwerp). I plan to later go for Piety and Freedom, and I'm still deciding on the fifth one (Commerce?).

I have only used Pictish warriors a few times fending off barbarians, and while the faith bonuses have been nice, I've been producing so much faith I haven't noticed a significant difference. I have yet to unlock Ceilidh Hall, so that has yet to be of use to me.

I suppose I've been less focused than most of the other folks here, who have been either going for serious wonder grabs and neglecting the military or going on great military rampages that have thrown off the AI significantly. The only wonder I've built so far has been Stonehenge, which tends to form a central part of my faith-based strategy. I'm more likely to get involved in a medieval war; I usually can't arm myself quick enough for an early war, as I tend to be a mix between a builder and a mauler these days (though mostly a builder). This is my first GOTM, though, and I'm hoping to make GOTM a habit so that I can improve my game. I am stellar at Prince, but have won only one king game after many months of playing (it was a domination victory with the Carthaginians on a water map). So here's to my future with GOTM!

Screenshots ahoy!

I have decided to go to "FULL Culture" meaning, at every choice I choose the one that immediately gives more culture. It is not really a good idea. This was excepted, but I do not like to play under Emperor, so I thought I try something new.

Settled on hill, went 3 scout, shrine, settler, Goddess of festivals. Settler near Faith hill.
Stayed on 2 CC, built GL and NC.
Chosen Cathedrals for faith for extra cult and +1cult/5 citizen for even more.

After turn 150 I still have 3 tree left, I am far from the industrial age, and freedom.

It just confirmed me that even if you go for culture, you really need to play a full science game until Louvre.