TSG57 Opening Actions Thread

Welcome to the TSG57 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?

I decided to go with 3 cities each next to a mountain. 1 more city and some puppets later.
Mining>Philo>Const>Astro
No war for me.
5/6 trad for growth then 2 Commerce for the admiral.
UU no, UA yes.

unless king AI can swipe petra before t100.

i went for one city NC open, got it t52, settled 2nd city same turn.

Dowed Oda early to get his gold, took white peace later.

Expanded to 4 cities but plan to take few more from him, and settle few more. First three next to mountains, next two will not be. I will decide what to do with Byz, all AI are broke so it might be worth more as a city then RA partner.

Education will come t 95, then i can pump few slingers and finally get terrace farms. Then will deal with Oda who has three cities of his own and took one of George's,



Tradition open of course, and then 1 in patronage.
1st religion, desert, ceremonial and swords.

Turn 105

completed liberty tree
4 cities, NC build, Petra build (city north desert near the mountains, but build it on the incense)
no wars so far, even though Japan is pretty hostile
i am not unhappy, but seem to fall a bit behind maxym

will get civil service next turn and will beeline for education then

very nice map.

cap: settled at river coast.
2nd city: crazy petra + terrace farm + river hill position.
3rd city: uluru + terrace farm.
4th city: east of cap. 2 salt, 2 wheat, crab, etc. (hard built settler)

cap BO: scout - monument - (worker bought) - scout - granary - (shrine bought) - GL - NC - settler - pyramid - HG - HS - wonders.

2nd city: monument - granary - petra - etc
3rd city: monument - granary - library - etc
4th city: same as 3rd.

I did not have money to rush buy univ when I hit edu - nub mistake. Also, miscalculated sci and got acoustics earlier than my culture and oracle timing - I opened rati and secularism at t108 and it should have been 2 turns earlier.

religion: desert forklore - ceremonial burial - swords into plowshares (wanted to test out this one) - pagoda - 30% further spread.

There are at least two good spots for expo, but I will take other caps for next cities.

t138, next turn sci theory. spt 377 atm.

On turn 52, I discover that the slinger's special ability can mean a stolen worker.

Update at Turn 100:

Still only have two cities, the first settled on the deer SW of the starting position, and the other in the gap in the mountain range near Uluru. More would be optimal, but I've been focused elsewhere and haven't found anywhere on the map that's really attracted me (apart from the river west of Oda, but I was too slow and he's already settled right on my desired spot. Oda DOW'd me on Turn 75, but Tiwanaku is in such a nice position defensively that there isn't much he can do at the moment. He's just started to allow peace treaties, but he wants Tiwanaku. No chance.

Tech order: Pottery (but got by ruin Turn 2), Writing, Mining, Calendar, Animal Husbandry, Archery, Philosophy (GL reward), Mathematics, Drama and Poetry, Theology, Trapping, Horse Riding, Currency, Civil Service, Education (6 turns left).

kirbdog said:

On turn 52, I discover that the slinger's special ability can mean a stolen worker.

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haha, worst. escorts. evar. i learned that several times, even as upgraded bows.

Turn 70 - Finish National College, 2 cities, bought settler and library to get the second.

Turn 135 - Finish Observatory, 4 cities, sizes 16, 11, 6, and 6. At 197 bpt. Still need another two observatories and one university. Also, no research agreements. Won't be setting records for sure.

I let the Great Library go to someone else on turn 70 or something. I should have assumed it was available for taking. However, after that mistake, I have done some wonder-hogging and picked up Hanging Gardens, the Pyramids, and Chichen Itza. The Petra city is humming nicely and built the Oracle.

The biggest mistake is gold management and spending it on silly stuff instead of rushing science buildings and paying for RA's.

Japan started out with a fine military, but lost it all after declaring war on me. They gave me one of their cities (Osaka, east of Kyoto) in a peace deal after Washington declared on them. I made it a puppet and plan to put trading-post spam around it. They are now being attacked by Byzantium.

I built the 3rd and 4th cities at Uluru and on top of the gems in the jungle towards Japan. Right now I have 2 policies in rationalism, but after filling the left side, there are at least 3 city sites (the ones the AI ignored because they are behind city states) on which I may found additional cities. The natural site with two wheat to my east has been claimed by the Byzantines, who are currently my only friend.

My tech path involved picking up writing and archery on the way to Philosophy, then picking up Construction on the way to Education, and then getting Astronomy. The unique improvement is very nice for making cities near mountains (i.e. observatory) with lots of food. The slinger is meh.

As social policies, I took Tradition for growth and the free happiness, while I took rationalism for obvious reasons. Because of the number of cultural city states and their quests, I decided to shoot for taking Aesthetics before completing rationalism, so I did not worry about conserving on culture at the start. Instead I used Oracle to get two policies quickly after Astronomy.

FIRST POST! Built Cuzco on the river plains for all those river and mountain bonuses. Nabbed GL, HG, MP, and Stonehenge. Built Tiwanaku on that northern desert pass, on the coast. Petra just built, does wonders for the site. Machu out on the eastern half of the start peninsula, Ollantaytambo two tiles west of Uluru. Had to buy the tile to beat Japan to that 6 faith (for GS faith purchases later). Corihuayrachina founded between Tiwanaku and Ollantaytambo. Still no National College/Epic yet

Founded Christianity about turn 100, only religion out there. Restricted to Cuzco, however. Got a GS, he built an Academy, so by endgame I'll have +20 science a turn PER ACADEMY. Finished Liberty about turn 80, started Commerce until Rationalism unlocks in the Renaissance. Friendly with all leaders, but mistrustful of Oda... All Ancient, Classical techs save Iron Working and the Sailing branch. Researching education for some universities, after that prob Iron Working and maybe Theology?

Slinger is OK, works well for defeating barbs but obsolete EARLY. Terrace Farm is AMAZING for hill/mountain cities and with the Observatories I can build all over later the mountain works well for Pachacuti. Also love his UA for exploring and later some war.

Stonecutter9 said:

FIRST POST!

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Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Glad you joined us and best wishes for luck and victories in future.

Originally posted by leif erikson
Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Click to expand...

Thank you! Oda gave me a welcome of his own... But it's all good now.

Glad it's not me...

Stonecutter9 said:

Glad it's not me...

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I can't get him to do it in my game

I paid him, he has tech advantage and GW, sold him iron, Byz has only warriors and the capital, and he is not taking it!

I want it, but don't want to DOW a friend.

t126 free thought, i couldnt avoid getting a cultural cs ally early (he wanted HG) which i really didnt want at that point. so i had to put one policy into patronage, meanwhile my hostile cult cs friends decayed in influence so free thought was really slow..

major fail was placing my 4th city, i lost a warrior to freshly spawned barb archer because i wasn't being cautious, delayed city by about 10 turns, then i realized i don't wanna settle one the hill anyways so it was all in vain...

went tradition, was thinking about liberty, there are so many good spots around, it might be worth it.

religion is desert/tithe/pagodas, enhanced late with texts and.. peace gardens

happiness is really tight.

pkf said:

happiness is really tight.

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I had the same problem. Once you meet the other continent's civs they have lots of luxuries. If you settle enough you have PLENTY of Salt to trade around.

Well after finally buying a computer that can handle Civ V and practicing for the last month on previous GOTM, I'm finally ready to play a live game!

What were your initial priorities?

My goal for the first 100 turns was to get at least one enemy capital, get to Education and have a strong capital.

- What tech path did you follow?

Traditional path to Education, though I had to get Construction earlier than normal for two reasons:

To upgrade my UU to Crossbowman and to use the special farms, which are incredible.

This detour will cost me Education by turn 100. It looks like it's going to come on turn 110 or so.

- Were there any early wars and who started them? I started wars with everyone to get money and workers, and I was able to get Japan's capital around turn 90. Currently at peace with everyone though I'm eyeing Byzantine's capital. I think it might be smart to settle for peace, and build up strong cities.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Tradition and Commerce opener. Ready to go to rationalism at first opportunity.

- Did you do find your UU and UB useful?

Incredibly. Upgrading the UU to crossbowman is a deadly combo. You can surround a city and there is a very good chance that when the crossbowman get attacked, they get away safely and take minimal damage.

I love the Terrace farms. Some of these 3 food/2 production tiles should allow for some amazingly productive cities. At this point, I have gotten every wonder I wanted, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- 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?

Click to expand...

Been a while since i got into a GOTM, but i saw Inca, my favorite civ, and couldn't resist.

Initial priorities were my usual easier difficulties guilty pleasure...spamming wonders.
Grabbed GL and then National College.
Finally settled a second city after NC.

Tech path + social policies worked out well.
I managed to enter Renaissance via Acoustics on the same turn the Oracle finished, so i went all Tradition then opened Rationalism (though unhappy at the time sadly).

AI is no challenge at King generally, so i decided to take on Japan, and took out their first two cities, leaving them with one left.
Later on i took out Byzantine's cap once our Friendship had expired.

Slingers aren't so great. I actually never built one; just got a Scout-slinger from ruins.
I built CBs for attacking later as i needed Construction sooner than usual for the glorious Terrace Farms.
Inca has no UB

As i have no coastal cities i've not met the other continent(s) neighbors yet, so as soon as i can annex Byzantine's cap i will send out a Caravel.

I won't be posting very good times in this game, but it's fun.

t110

<rant>
But it seems pretty much impossible to keep a real tech advantage like this, your one newby spy to defend won't catch anything most of the time, and even if he does, having plenty of enemies means having a spying event about 1/turn. It's annoying in this game (I'd have been able to roll Japan but they stole all my military tech, pretty fast too), but i did a OCC science race in another game and nearly lost because of how easy it is to lose your techs. Only building the firewall really got rid of that, but thats a rather late thing. It seems to me it completely cancels out any profit from focusing science.

Theres really nothing to put a stop to it, sure you can ask them to stop, but if they don't what you gonna do? Declare war? That won't stop it either unless you completely wipe them and that means no more RAs.

Theres just nothing good about it in my opinion. Well it's easier to keep city states friendly, but mostly i don't care about city states.
</rant>

Moderator Action: Moved to the Opening Action thread. Once you have opened the save, please do not post in the Announcement thread because you may reveal spoilers, as you did in this post.

I was wondering how much ahead glory is, so i decided to benchmark at t 138 like him.

342 beakers and still nine turn away from free thought

As soon as i settled that deer on turn 2 and did not see the extra food i expected (tested on grass in some random game) i knew i will regret it and it shows up already. i was hoping that aestethics would make up with more culture from CS, i guess it still has time to kick in

Oda is getting to be a bit of a beast as much as king AI can be, he has his samurai for a while and gobbled most of USA and got himself a GW so my plan or rushing him with CB or XB is out of the window. i am hoping for some decent gifts from military CS to nab a few cities but i am not willing to spend any of my cash on upgrades, still running with slingers