TSG58 Opening Actions thread

Welcome to the TSG58 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 the terrain affect your early decisions?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Did you save any policies, why?
- How did the lack of Ancient Ruins affect your play?

Settled in place on hill
GL T39, got Philo,
Build Order >> Monument > Scout > Granary > Shrine pre > GL > Shrine finished > Oracle
Bought settler
T49 >> Pantheon >> Goddess of Hunt, figured with Ivory nice combo, nothing there which culture wise rocked my boat, so I figured, take growth
T 62 >> Oracle & settled on marsh south of Vienna >> build Granary, bought shrine
T74 >> Allied Wittenberg & Geneva, kept worker in barb camp
T85 >> Religion founded, took pilgrimage & Pagodas (Cathedral gone, sigh)
T 105 >> HS build, enhanced religion (Mosques & Spread Religion)
will go for 2 city, Petra gone, still see merit in the awesome spot in the desert w of Vienna, bought Market in Salzburg, Amphitheater in both, specialist working in both
Vienna 11 pop, Salzburg 6

I feel quite good, but will be probably quite bad compared to the usual superstars

How did the terrain affect your early decisions? >> not much, settled in place
- What were your initial priorities? >> see above
- What tech path did you follow and why? teched for GL / Philo than for trapping to get ivory, then beelined Terracotta
- Were there any early wars and who started them? >> all quiet ftm
- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Did you save any policies, why? >> finished tradition, started (1 in) piety
- How did the lack of Ancient Ruins affect your play? >> feels less luck driven, but game will be slower, no early archer to hunt barbs, no culture boost ....

Slow start as can be expected without ruins, i debated if scout or monument for opening and went with monument. Scout might have been better as I would have found the 2nd religious CS and got early religion. As it was got beat to two pantheons, but still snagged DF.

Settled on desert hill, as i was planning to get DF, and Petra. Just lost Petra to Egypt ;(
But i needed CI more and i think that was a safe choice. Production is poor in cap and nonexistent in 2nd city. I planned to settle 4, with tradition open, but got distracted building wonders, and figured with Hiawatha so close and Alex being a tool (hostile and denouncing me all the time) I will just take their caps. One problem with that plan, neither is building any wonders

Rammy is and so is Liz and Byz. But they are far away and paying full price for elephant meat and i need all buyers i can get. But i think i will have to pay Rammy a visit, i just need more cash to buy a city with an army somewhere that is not a cultural CS. I need one with at least 4 CBs as my army is made up of one archer and one warri. Lost one to barbs in a most stooopid way

I am friends with Theodora, but it looked like Liz was going to double up on her wonders...



She is still there on t101, not doing anyhting, waiting for her army to obsolete i guess? Or did our DOF dissuade her, who know the way of the AIs (Halcyan maybe )

Here is what it looks like at t101. Just got Edu and rushbought 2 unis. Definitely not setting the world on fire with this game...



SP wise: Opened Trad, then Lib, then filled tradition, going to get 10% per city reduction as next policy and will switch to piety until Freedom.

Religion: DF, tithe, cathedral wiil try for 15% production and IP.

I've played 200 turns. I didn't take advantage of the policy savings. The terrain affected my decision to just food focus grow the cap and scout the map. Initial priorities were scouts and an archer/warrior team to clear camps. I did archery>pottery>calendar>wheel>philo>currency. Failed to get Petra. I opened with Honor (mistake LOL), then Tradition. The lack of Ancient Ruins made me want to look for Religious CS, which I found two and was able to choose Desert Folklore. The DF faith alone was enough for me to get the first religion: Cathedrals, Papal Primacy, chorus, spread fast to CS friends.

To finish this off, I am going to do an Autocracy conquest while allying and puppeting and see if it brings me enough culture. It wont be fast though, around 300 turns I hope.

I settled 2 tiles to the north-east of starting point, which worked out nicely, as I can reach extra wheat tiles. Vienna fast growing with reasonable production.

Wanted to have 3 cities, went for 1 Liberty-5 Tradition to get a nice start on my cities.

2nd settled east of cap, next to river with 2*cattle and 3*elephants.
3rd was a complete mess-up: stpidly let my settler get caught by barbarians, which allowed the Iroquis to settle near where I wanted - so bought catapult and declared war with the aim to take and raze their city and settle my 3rd according to plan.

Got Pyramids, Oracle.

Overall I think I can win the game, but it won't be fast in any way...

Hiawatha attacked me early, forcing me into a war focus which ended up making me a military superpower...He is wiped out and I am currently on the march into Greek lands and should own the entire east continent soon.

Also, my religion is dominant, my economy is booming and city states are lining up to be friends and allies. I am pumping out the most culture just barely, but feel I am behind due to the wars.

The bad news: I have lost out on almost every wonder to the AI...Petra ( which was devastating as I settled my third city just to take advantage of it ), Oracle, HS, Great Mosque...

I do have terracotta army and inherited the great wall from Hiawatha.

So, I am feeling good, except about the fact that I have to spin this into a culture win

Pizzaspy said:

Hiawatha attacked me early, forcing me into a war focus which ended up making me a military superpower...He is wiped out and I am currently on the march into Greek lands and should own the entire east continent soon.

Also, my religion is dominant, my economy is booming and city states are lining up to be friends and allies. I am pumping out the most culture just barely, but feel I am behind due to the wars.

The bad news: I have lost out on almost every wonder to the AI...Petra ( which was devastating as I settled my third city just to take advantage of it ), Oracle, HS, Great Mosque...

I do have terracotta army and inherited the great wall from Hiawatha.

So, I am feeling good, except about the fact that I have to spin this into a culture win

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In my game Hiawatha tried to send a settler over to my side so I DOWed and killed it. Later built the Great Wall. He sent great prophets, so I DOWed and took them. Alex attacks him every so often and has whittled him down for me. Basically the AIs keep fighting each other and none can gain an advantage expect England who has no one to attack but me.

the fun part begun with t112 DoW from Hiawatha, but i think Alex was just wainting for that and Dowed him same turn, despite being my enemy, and took a city of him. I killed three or four mohawks with 3 CB (i felt it coming so built two more archers and upgraed), then teched to XBs, upgraded and took his closes city in the mountain gap. When i crossed over to take another and cap (with the smallest invasion force i have yet to employ, i used to play very light on units, but i never went conquering with just 3 XB and SM) he offered me a peace deal i could not refuse.

Rammy came next with two prophets and 10 CA plus asorted melee just as i was moving my 3 XB to take him on, so it saved my reputation and I got both while fending off his CAs. Now my new prophets can't settle down as I need them in my 8 unit fence to fend off Alex's and Hiaw's prophets (four in total). I like my religion, especially the15% bonus to hammers so I keep them away. I have inquisitor but i am afraid if they cant convert my cap they will wonder off and waste themselves on perfectly good catholic cities and i will want to capture them at some point.



I have only two SP saved at t 166 industrial. So I am not doing great on that front either. I decided to take policies in piety for the 33% bonus. Finally filled fredom at t 188, and burned a GA to start perma G Age.

I was not insane going after him with 3 XB, i had a faith quest completing in few turns and with 250 to bump it to ally status with Budapest and another 780 for the wedding costs i was getting an insta army of 4 CB, 2 trebs, 1 horse, 2 pikes and a warrior. I was only going to get started on his units with my own army and wait for the wedding date to grab his cities and the prize: Thebes with 6 wonders, inluding Petra and Terracota.



Liz had other plans and DoWed me and came with a swarm of warriors just before i got my CS, she was in for a surprise, lost her army quickly and i marched for London, but Byz were quicker Dowing her and blocking the way. I could have tried to sneak in few units and snipe it but I turned back and went for Thebes. It was worth it, it is my 2nd best culture city now after annex and all buildings rushed.



It cost me dearly but it was mostly paid by Theodora, who is growing uncomfortably big, and grabbing some wonders too, so here there the REAL FUN starts. I got my army next to her, but now the tables are revesed, my units are obsolete, she has muskets at least and GW and i dont know if i can take her on, and dont want to build, or by any more units or tech in the bottom of the tree, i need my broadcast towers. On the plus side, i fed her so much Gpt, that it will a boon to my economy to stop paying her usurious interest, and if i can grab her city it might even be worth annexing and buying all buildings, that i if i ever find the cash.



It seems like AI is doing some thinking, i have seen at least 4 wars started to exploit neighbour`s weakness. As soon as I had Rammy`s forces wiped out, Nappy (sitting on one city i think coz Darius relieved him of the other one) comes charging and grabs two egyptian ones. Then Darius goes after him, and takes one of them. ALex keeps DoWing Hiaw, but recently without any luck, he even lost a city he took during the first war, but i apllaud him for persistence

Okay well the most notable thing in my game has been the big "screw you" from Byzantium, who snagged DESERT FOLKLORE, PILGRIMAGE, CATHEDRALS, RELIGIOUS ART, and PAGODAS. Hiawatha also got religion before me, but nothing of note. Still, I have a plan!

I settled 2 east of the starting position for the quadruple wheat and Petra.

Turn 22 - Met Hiawatha and traded GPT for a worker.
Unlocked Tradition and Aristocracy.

Turn 53 - Great Library built somewhere, but I don't care. My build order is Monument, start on Warrior, Granary, finish Warrior, Library, start on Stonehenge, National College, finish Stonehenge.

Turn 56 - Remember to take my saved policies, get Mandate of Heaven.

Turn 60 - Finish National College.

Turn 67 - Clear a camp, get friends with 2 cultural CS.

Turn 68 - Buy an archer, finish Stonehenge, start shrine.

Turn 70 - Finish shrine, start Petra.

Turn 72 - My choice of 1 hammer, 1 culture, or 3 food. Take Goddess of the Hunt.

Turn 77 - Pyramids built somewhere, don't really care.

Turn 84 - Hanging Gardens go, not good but could be worse.

Turn 85 - Finish Petra. Thank god, needed the hammers and food. Start on Oracle.

Turn 90 - Get Civil Service. Start a Golden Age with Reformation, which I've been saving to ensure I get Chichen Itza. Sell ivory to rush a water mill. Start building Chichen Itza.

Turn 97 - Can't really afford to miss Terra Cotta, and composites are nice, finish research on Construction, despite delaying Education.

Turn 101 - Finish Chichen Itza, go back to Oracle.

Turn 106 - Finish Oracle, use it to buy Religious Tolerance. Start on Terra Cotta. Then I buy Legalism normally and plan to finish Tradition. I plan on going with 1 capital city, possibly with some city state puppets run for science and gold. I plan to save policies after finishing Tradition and spend it all on Freedom when I get to Industrial.

For religion, I plan to play possum. I don't want to spread my religion around, and I secretly hope that at some point Byzantium sends a great prophet to convert my city so that I can buy their sexy buildings with faith. I am actually rather fond of this playstyle for cultural victories, lately, anyway (not spreading out religion much, instead trying to use faith as much as possible on great artists).

So I haven't gotten my picks yet, but I really hope I can get Interfaith Dialogue (get to Industrial faster - have some use of faith before then without spawning Great Prophets), Religious Community (15% faster everything is possibly the best belief here - and I need the wonders to pump the next), Divine Inspiration (since Desert Folklore and Pilgrimage and Cathedrals got sniped), and finally Reliquary (more/faster great artists from faith).

leif erikson said:

How did the terrain affect your early decisions?

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With the desert tiles close to start position, i moved my settler 2 tiles east to settle adjacent to desert for Desert Folklore and possibly Petra. Lost the settling on hill bonus, but you can't have everything i guess. Could have settled on desert hill T3 but settled there T2

What were your initial priorities?

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Get a pantheon so i could take Desert Folklore and get first religion to secure Cathedrals. I was planning my usual religious opening that works even on immortal (most of the time) Scout → start Monument → Shrine → finish Monument but the proximity of 2 religious CS (one of them i got first contact) resulted in free Pantheon at T10 so i skipped early shrine and built a Granary.
After that, i went for Great Library → National College → Expend

What tech path did you follow and why?

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1. Head to writing for GL than research Calendar for the Cotton and free Philosophy once GL finished.
2. Trapping for Ivory
3. Currency for Petra
4. Civil Service for Chitchen Itza
5. Education (with Theology on the way) but i switched to Construction after Napoleon offered me a joint DoW on Ramses who planted 2 cities where i wanted to build mine, and was at that time the most powerful Civ.

Were there any early wars and who started them?

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Alexander DoWed Hiwatha twice, Napoleon DoWed Ramses once, then there was our attack. I took 2 of Ramses' cities, burnt one to build my 4th city there and kept the other one as a puppet. Then i offered peace and he offered me gold and Lux.
Shortly after Hiwatha attacked me so i sent my CBs back to Vienna and started chicken hunting his feathery Mohawks . He managed to kill one of my CBs because of a Chariot Archer i didn't see in time, but in the end he still offered me gold for peace when Alex DoWed him for the 3rd time . Didn't try to push into his land cause he has the Great Wall.
Lisa DoWed Theodora and i know better then get involved in girls fight so i stayed out of their way

What Social Policies did you choose and why? Did you save any policies, why?

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1. Opened Tradition for faster borders and free Culture
2. Opened Liberty up to free worker and settler (worker first as i was still building NC when i got my 4th SP).
3. Opened Religion for faster Shrines/Temples. Hiwatha settled near Uluru and was cranking out faith pretty fast. I will use religion anyway, i already have one (or more) World Wonders in 3 of my 4 cities so Reformation will be sweet.
4. Took Aristocracy for Wonder Spamming efficiency
5. Saved a policy for 2 turns so i would take Representation after my first happiness GA started (30 turns GA is sweet)
6. Hope i will be able to take Reformation before this GA is over. I plan to finish Liberty after that for a Great Engineer so i can plant a wonder in my 4th city (i built it later than planned because of Ramses expansion). Then i'll get Legalism hopefully in time for Opera Houses.

How did the lack of Ancient Ruins affect your play?

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I guess it makes the game less luck dependent. Avoids the frustration of "wasting" a ruin on barbarian activity. Hard to tell if it affected my play at all. I guess i had a little less early gold but Liberty opening is less gold dependent than Tradition anyway.

I'm right around turn 100. I think this is going to be tough for me to win, but I never play cultural. My plan was to build 3 cities and go tradition. I plopped my first city north of the cap by the copper. Then I sent my next settler east along the river... to discover Hiawatha already put a city in the mountain pass there. So I sent my settler back and headed for the south by the silk. The west river was tempting but I did not think there would be enough (any) production there. In retrospect, I think I should have just settled there and had a big, gold-producing city. Especially considering I had desert folklore... stupid. Oh well.

So I settle city #3 to the south, get philosophy, rush buy a library and start on the NC. And then I see Hiawatha plop a useless city in position to steal city #3's wine. At this point, I decide enough is enough. I send my 5 archers over and rush buy a warrior (had no melees) and raze his size 2 city. He still demands one of my cities in any peace deal though. So I march my archers over towards his city I originally wanted, and upgrade to CB's along the way. I blast that down to 0 and send my warrior in ... and he kills it in one turn. I buy a scout, send it over, and this time I make sure there are no ranged units hiding somewhere to help bombard. I blast the city down to 0, send in the scout ... and he kills it in one turn. Finally, I regroup and heal, build 2 warriors, and send them both in and we take the city. Not exactly the work of a military genius, but it did let me upgrade some of the units highly, 2 or 3 have march and cover 1 or 2 so they can sit outside a city forever. He still won't make peace without getting one of my cities though.

Just after turn 100, I built 3 cities and have 1 puppet, and I completed Tradition. The puppet is about 4 tiles away from Hiawatha's capital. I'm considering dropping a citadel near his cap and then he is screwed, but I don't want to give up my only GG. Since he won't make peace though, guess I need to take his cap. I don't have any wonders, only the NC. I got a religion, but I don't know how great it is. Have desert folklore, tithe and 1 other thing, forget what. Anyway, probably the other civs will spam me with prophets and missionaries soon enough. I think my next steps will be to take the Iroquis capital and then turtle up building culture, running artist specialists, and using my money to ally cultural CS. Not sure if that will work though.

Update:

Lost Chichen Itza for 4 turns, Hiawatha declared on me with some half assed attack. He lost his army, got favourable peace deal out of it (all his money basically)
Puppeted Wittenberg & Zanzibar, still unsure about the UU, i did because i could, someone has an input at optimal strategy for this?
T150 Sistine Chapel (is that actually good?) >> 90 cpt >> not terrible i think
T160 finished piety T167 started liberty
2nd war with Iroquois, again pointless, loses his army, pillages a bit, gives me all his money for peace treaty.
I do not generate enough prod in the cities…, science seems a bit too slow too
Generate a lot of money per turn

Will be a over 300 turn finish i feel, the others seem to be slow too

Waiting for Tabernak/Tommynt/AE to see how they fare

While I am having fun with my game there is no way its going to be a good culture game. I took Rammy's cap which had about 10 wonders in it and got 400 culture for me. Autocracy is no good for culture. I spent the next few hours in duel with England, Arty + Hussar vs Arty Great War Infantry. I beat down the worlds #1 army. It 1808 and I still need 1 whole tree plus some extras. Flight is a few turns away and then more cities will fall.

Priority: early culture!

-Built monument first and then scout to meet the city-states, got ally with the cultural ones fairly early.
-Did fine with religion as well with desert folklore and religious city-states, then Tithe and converted almost the whole world for lots of money!
-Managed to build Oracle, Great Mosque and later Sistine Chapel, Hermitage etc.. all the good culture wonders. Lost Petra to Egypt, though.
-Built 2 cities in total, one in starting position and the other near the flood plains to the west. Annexed Budapest quite early with diplomatic marriage, which gave me a nice army for the bargain.
- Best friends with the Iroquois since the beginning. Attacked by the English across the water and able to fend them off easily. Now attacked by Egypt: I think I will try to annex another city-state and take his capital (and all the wonders!) with the army.
- Decent science, I keep up well with the AI and have several research agreements going. My best spy got killed in London (after successfully stealing a few techs).
- Policies: tradition, liberty, pity, patronage: got a few policies in each without finishing any.

Nice start overall, I am sure I will win, but no idea about how good the score will be.

100, I have juet picked up Stonehenge and have collected most of the others. The +15% makes a huge difference. I need science and military. Second city is in Hiawatha's lap and he doesn't like that.

8 policies so far, split between liberty, tradition and piety.

Consider this my after action report as well.

Settled in place and went Monument -> Scout. Sent warrior east to scout and found first religious CS. When scout was done, sent him west and met another religious CS.
I was facing a turn 13 pantheon without knowing what any of my surroundings were ( I hadn't seen all of the other ivory yet), so I took the bonus to Ancient/Classical wonders for kicks.
Got the GL around turn 37, also picked up the Oracle and Terracotta Army.
Settled to the south on the jungle hill next to the single mountain as Haiwatha had planted his third and fourth cities (I think, may have been 4th and 5th) on my side of the mountains.
Roughly around turn 90 he decides he wants what I have and DOWs me. I have never seen so many units on the screen at one time. It was a massacre.
To top it all off, the jerk didn't even finish me off. Left me alone after taking all but 1 city and offered peace around turn 120.
I guess I'll try again, but get some archers up sooner to keep him from settling west of the mountains.

Typically play on King and have a couple Emperor victories, but dang...this was painful.

I am struggling in my game. I lost some key wonders, and some of them were almost finished. Lost both Stonehenge and hanging gardens early on, both only turns from completion. Egypt decided to go for a cultural victory so they built the oracle and the +20% culture wonder. I also missed HS by some turns.

I am currently at turn 170 and have just entered the industrial era. Some turns ago I conquered the Egyptian capital to stop them from building my wonders. I have also conquered the Iroquois capital, which happened sometime before turn 100.

I don't think I will get a very good finish time. For some reason I can't find a nice tactics for cultural games.

I'm into the 340s and still need about 5 policies. I've been rocking -60 to -30 happiness ever since England gave up and gave me all her cities for peace. Six rebel AA guns just spawned near my cap.

- How did the terrain affect your early decisions?
The hardest part of a civ game, is choosing where to put your capital settling in place would work, but I saw desert tiles to the east with the warrior so I tried to nab that, maybe get Petra or Desert Folklore. Terrain probably influenced me for the worse, as I got greedy and tried to settle a city to the west on the river on the edge of the desert there. No production ended up with Petra being built by Egypt :\ Really should have anticipated that.

- What were your initial priorities?
Hanging Gardens was a wonder I wanted to go for early, followed by growth for my capital. In the last GOTM I suffered from poor growth all around. Salzburg to the West wasn't a good use of this lesson, but my capital certainly grew healthily.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
I aimed to get certain wonders early, my four main targets were Hanging Gardens, Petra, Chichen Itza and Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately this meant I overlooked getting composite bows until England attacked me ~t90. However I did nab all except Petra

- Were there any early wars and who started them?
I was asked to declare war on Greece early-ish by my staunch ally Hiawatha, who I'm glad is my friend as he is getting very big in the east. Theodora dow'd Hong Kong, my ally, and so I gifted an archer and they were able to pull off a miracle save. The next major war was when liz dow'd myself. This was a catastrophe as I lost Salzburg, but no units. t109 was bleak. However by t150, after nursing my empire back to full health during a break for peace, I managed to counter-attack and take Salzburg and York in the south.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Did you save any policies, why?
Yeah, I dun goofed and went a very ad hoc style. Filled most of Liberty, while grabbing some points in Honour on the way, then opened Patronage and piety. My Holy city, which I managed to get first, was converted to Egypts religion, so I can't seem to spawn any religious agents. Must have been their second GP, so Piety isn't looking anywhere near as strong now.


All in all, looking disappointing, might be able to make a recovery and just buy out all the cultural buildings as I'm really raking in money. We shall see

looking ok so far, i am trying to go with fewer cities than i am used to, might be a pain in later on considering science.

cap was something like scout-monument-granary(buy scout)-gl-(buy worker)-nc-(buy settler)-water mill-HG-CI-HS-Sistine

settled only one other city which built stonehenge, got beat to it by 2 turns because i didnt chop. managed to get oracle here instead bought granny and lib, city is growing decently.

t90 edu, t100 acoustics, will be t150 arch. went tradition - pat/aesth - piety/religious tolerance so far. should have at least 3 policies saved up for freedom, hope will finish freedom ~t165.

havent managed to overcome hiawatha yet (very small army) but will with xbs. will need a lot more science to get to radio.