TSG60 Opening Actions thread

Welcome to the TSG60 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?
- How did you use your early UU's? Did you find them effective?

At first, I thought it was island - and met Spanish scout. Then I thought it to be a continents map. Again, my scout met England, France, and many CS. My first ship (have no idea how to spell that UU) went west and kept going. I finally suspected that it might be a pangea map, and it was.

Cap BO: scout - monument- granary - work boats (quadrame rush bought) - archers (one settler meanwhile)

2nd, 3rd city - monument - archers

SP: liberty opener - left 2 - citizenship.

religion: didn't bother, but met 2 religious CS and got 1st pantheon. Chose god of the sea.

Got culture ruin as 1st one. One pop ruin later I think.

My CB tech was slower than usual as I went for sailing first and some of optics. Right before I hit the tech, Spain DoWed me and I lost 1 archer. I upgraded 7 archers to CBs and wiped them out. After several turns (it was like t64), she offered her 2nd city - I decided to take a peace deal so that I can run west faster. I razed the city and she rebuilt 2nd city near the original location later.

meanwhile, khan got DoWed by 3 civs after taking 2 CS. I attacked England as soon as my troops reach there. Lost one CB and one UU horse due to my bad micro control. Got London at t82 (screenshot attached)

Just realized that I forgot to buy library at cap - this gonna hurt.

I'm new to GOTM, so I just play without much keeping track of what I did.

Settled on the hill, 2nd city left of the river at the coast, 3rd city NW of Budapest. Bought both settlers.

I went for Pottery, AH, Sailing and built plenty of workboats for the 3 cities. I haven't built any normal ships so far.

I got enough piety from visiting cities to choose God of the Sea. Got prophet at turn 89. I don't think I'll get much piety. But with Spain eliminated and lots of CSs between me and other civs, I might actually spread quite well.

Isabella DoWed me around t60 when I had 4 archers. I upgraded them and defended well, took a peace treaty, built a catapult, spearman and bought an elephant. Then I went for Barcelona which I puppeted at t88 and Madrid at t92. Elizabeth is next.

In between, I got bored and built Colossus. That is very uncommon for me.

I'm at t92 and 8 turns to go for NC.

Finnrat said:

I'm new to GOTM

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Best of luck. Hope you are not too bored.

Just to Turn 71 - but close enough
Settled in Place
Pottery - AH - Sailing - Writing - mining - masonry - archery - wheel - calendar
Tradition (7) - Legalism (14) Monarchy (24) - oligarchy - garrisons
God of the Sea (19)
Carthage - scout - start worker (5) - shrine - granary - work boat - completed worker - warrior - Qboat - settler archer
Utique (40- settled on Ivory) - shrine - swap archer - worker
Hippo Regis (55) archer
Gades (66) work boat


3: +1 Pop from Hut
4: Met Spain
7: +20 culture from Hut
8: Met England
15: Met Songhai
52 BW from Hut
67 - Spain declared war
70 Budapest (warrior)

what a mess, i usually dont start my games by losing my 2nd cities, but this time..

Looks like my Izzy did not wait so long as in other games, Dowed me t44 and came heavy, i killed one archer and withdrew my warrior. two turns to lose Utica



I figure its not a big deal at first, i had two archers and sold gpt for another, my cap on hill so no worries. Sure enough i killed everything she had, and then teched for CB while poping archers. SLowly rolled her back and took one of her cities and then Madrid on t81.



my real problem was not the city loss but total mismanagement of my pantheon. I was also thinking it will be an island, then small continents, while my scout and UU ship were slowly proving me wrong. i opened with scout then shrine, and despite seeing locations tailor made for GoTS went for MoTG. Then i thought it was optics to establish trade routes instead of wheel , and wasted 10 turns, after getting Utica i learned that recaptured cities lose their pantheon so my belief is useless most of the time since the barb boats keep appearing to brake the route, while i see glory pumping archers like crazy with some sweet extra production

Oh well it will be a challenging game even if not in contention, LIz just built herself a GW to make it more fun AT least i am not that far away from XBs
Went liberty for a change, but had worst luck with ruins: map and upgrade

I was a coward, I hid my early cities behind my cap.

One interesting thing is that Spain is ignoring my new city by the river and marching to the cap instead. My cb are in a shooting gallery.

north west of the grand mesa is as good a wheat, flood plain city spot as you are ever going to see. petra would give you the production. the one wheat that isn't river side has an oasis instead...

This is my first time with Game of the Month. I've also never won a game on Immortal difficulty. Lets hope I can make it another first.

Here's the state of play for me at turn 96.



Spain was a pain to start with, attacking with a seemingly endless warrior/archer/chariot army. Even with 6 CB defending Utique they managed to take the city twice, loosing me several pop, a monument, shrine, watermill and an almost completed library. My Quim came in handy for taking it back however. Then the constant flow of spanish spam stopped, I assume because she started to build the Colossus. I pushed on and the rest of her empire fell without any casualties.



I reached a point where my cap had nothing to build and the only interesting wonder was Terracotta Army, so I started building it. However when I teched to optics, I forgot to switch production to Great Lighthouse till several turns after. Still looks like I'm going to get it, but it could have been built already. I might switch back once it's done, but NC is waiting, also more units could be benificial (Elephants come to mind).

I've founded a religion: God of the Seas, Ceremonial Burial, Pagodas. I'm lacking faith output however, so I'm probably going to have to resort to temples. I don't want to chance hard-building one of the Theology wonders (and I'm still a way off from them anyhow), but a great engineer from lib finsisher could help here.

Tech-wise I still need Drama, Civil Service and Theology before hitting Education. I'll probably push for Theology first for the aformentioned wonder pop, then on to education and finally guilds so I can trading post the spanish lands.

My next move is to march on England. There's still one Spanish city remaining, but time is of the essence to take down England before she gets longbows. Thankfully Lizzy hasn't built the great wall, so that's a blessing. I'll probably buy-off Hanoi CS to use as a front, then anex London and push into Songhai lands if all goes well. I'm friends with Songhai at the moment, so I can probably bribe them to attack England as well. I'm just hoping that leaving that last spanish city alive doesn't come back to bite me.

Not used the Elephants yet, perhaps they could come in handy for killing English archers.

Djinn8 said:

This is my first time with Game of the Month. I've also never won a game on Immortal difficulty. Lets hope I can make it another first.

Click to expand...

Welcome to GOTM and best of luck to you.

Sounds like you have a good start.

I settled in place, built two scouts and a shrine. I chose my scouting directions to the east and north, because I met Spain with my warrior southwest of Cap. Bad decision, I managed to get only 3 ruins altogether, but they were pop, 90 gold and calendar. The fewer the better, it seems. I teched pottery-sailing, and decided to go liberty for a change. It seems I've played with tradition so much lately, I was pretty lost with liberty and it's slow culture and monument building etc. My first three cities were settled exactly like Djinn8, the fourth right after NC way up north on Ivory. I was first to pantheon, took God of the Sea, but faith growth is so slow I haven't been able to spawn a prophet. Only one religion founded in Madrid so far.

Isabella DoWed me turn 70ish, I had construction and 6 archers (and the money to upgrade them) right around Utique, but she came very close to taking it. I built another CB and got one from a CS, and took Seville without losses with some naval help, the UU. I built and bought two elephants and am heading towards Madrid. I'm planning to leave Isabella alive with her last city Seville. Spain's cities are btw settled exactly like in Djinn8's screenshot, except for Cordoba, which doesn't exist in my game.

I hope my adventure with Liberty pays off later in the game, I haven't had this slow a start for while. I tried to get the Pyramids for some workers, but Lizzy beat me to it by 7 turns. I got a whopping 72 gold for that, almost rage-quit, but managed to get over it.

There's still one civ to meet, the leader in score. So far I've met Spain, England, Songhai, Siam, France and Mongolia.

Slightly after turn 100. Looks pretty similar to everyone else. I've taken Liberty - I just don't think I can justify hammers on settlers and workers when I can build units and take someone else's empire with cities and workers already built...

Isabella was starting to come for me, so I beat her at my own game. We traded Seville a couple of times before I finally broke through her empire. She's been left with a junk empire down below to save my happiness.

Just declared on England and am about to take her first city.

My big challenge is going to be happiness. I've never won on this difficulty level. I'm in a decent position at the moment, here's hoping...

I am surprised that nobody have mentioned it is a map of Cyprus!

I settle in place and stated standard tradition opening. Found two religious CS fast and found pantheon and took Gods of the Sea. Founded 3 cities. Isabella dowed early (like Maxym). Fortunately, I had 4 archers and my city was on the other bank of the river so I repel the invasion and than capture Barcelona and Madrid. Later with crossbows I took London and Paris. Now I am fighting with Suleiman. He is a runaway. Istanbul have defence 71, so I need artillery to take it. I hope to take it without losing too much units. Taking Ramy and Askia should be easy. Genghis lost his capital tu Suleiman so I needn't think about it.

Genghis is a weakling in my game too with just a cap and conquered CS, I keep paying everyone to DoW him hoping he will be relieved of his cap but no luck so far. After taking London I am on the march towards Paris and thinking Istanbul next but worried he will have Janisaries by then and I might have to wait till arty too.

How did the terrain affect your early decisions?
Settled in place on the Hill near Bananas and Crab and Marble not too far away. Found excellent spot for 2nd city on the eastern coast with another three sea resources + Mountain and lots of Jungle which made me wish that Science was the designated victory condition.
What were your initial priorities?
Exploration: sent Warrior East and Scout West. Connect Lux and trade to buy settler: Crabs first and then Marble as soon as I got to steal a worker from a nearby CS.
What tech path did you follow and why?
Pottery -> Writing (from ancient ruin; for a moment I thought I should try GL but then dropped the idea; was built by Siam around turn 48 so could have gotten it easily) -> Sailing (for Workboats to connect the Crabs and build the UU) -> Masonry (to connect Marble) -> Calendar (Stoneworks) -> Animal Husbandry (to improve the Cattle tile) -> Archery (Archers) -> Philosophy (NC) -> Construction (CBs) -> HBR (Elephants) -> MC (Workshops) -> Machinery (XBows; Ironworks)
Planning to do an XBow rush and that's why I have been delaying Education ... not sure this is the way to do it since it's my first time to try early domination and I hope I won't regret it later.
Were there any early wars and who started them?
Spain attacked me on Turn 64 (had 3 Archers and one warrior at that stage). Got Construction on Turn 67 and started pushing back. Long war ... got Seville on Turn 105 and going after Barcelona next and then either Madrid or move on to London. Have lots of units now: 7 XBows, 2 Elephants, 1 Legion (gifted from a CS and using to build road), 1 Spearman + 1 Chariot Archer (both gifts from Budapest), and my initial warrior. About time that I get rid of that warrior and chariot archer.
How did you use your early UU's? Did you find them effective?
Was planning to build the naval UU early until I realized it was a pangea map (after meeting 4th Civ). Elephant is ok but I am not convinced that the -10% nearby enemy strength compensates for the loss of mobility as I tend to use mounted units to capture cities while tanking damage with ranged units.

• How did the terrain affect your early decisions?
  Start area looked good enough to settle right there, so i did. Apart from this, i was planning to conquer the area up to the middle mountain range as soon as possible, and i finally did conquer that area.
• What were your initial priorities?
  Get an army of CBs and Elephants as soon as possible, while grabbing a religion for the Happiness. Was quite a lot to do.
  Also, i must say that i won't submit (for a change ) as i actually played that early part twice. I first took God of the Sea as a pantheon, but after noticing my attacking force would come quite late to keep Elephants useful, i tested with Messenger of Gods for faster research thanks to instant trade routes. A new pop1 city giving you instant +3 science is quite nice early, and this allowed me to stop them at pop1 so i could settle more and have faster religion spread after founding.
  GotS on the other hand gives you some nice production, but you need to research Navigation and build several single-use workboats to get the benefit. Too late for early production. Elephants have a short usefulness time.
• What tech path did you follow and why?
  Pottery → Archery → The Wheel → Contruction → Horseback Ridding. Or the same with Navigation as 2nd tech on my GotS attempt. My focus was get my army up and running ASAP.
• Were there any early wars and who started them?
  Isabella Dow'd me around turn 50 on both attempts Never saw her as aggressive before. She had tons of units, but mostly Warriors - Archers with the occasional Chariot Archer. I wiped her, but not before she could produce Pikes. Fortunately she didn't have time to produce more than one, and so my Elephants were safe.
  I then took out Liza who, unexplicably still had Warrior-Archers. She quickly brought CBs and Spearmen, then Pikes but too late. At least in my Messanger game. With GotS, i was a little later and she already had Pikes to face my Elephants.
• How did you use your early UU's? Did you find them effective?
  Quinqueremes are decent as they will win 1-1 and are slightly better at taking coastal Cities (i used one to capture Isabella's second city in one of two games. They could be useful in watery maps, but on pangea that's where their usefulness ends. I built one, and only one.
  Elephants are nice with more strenght and a large bonus to Great Generals allowing you to quickly cross mountains (and get a strength boost). However, as Horsemen replacement, they have a short timing for being useful. Administration is not far from Horseback Riding, and AIs all put a high priority to this tech. This means you'll soon find str16 units with a bonus against you, and then your elephants will just be 3 moves units to capture 0 health cities after your CBs have bombed them. I would say they have about 15-20 turns to be really effective. Later, they are really just 3 moves finishers, and thus worse than horsemen If you want to use them, you better not delay them to build quinqueremes.

That's it. I'm now in war with Askia and his annoying Great Wall. I have control of my area, Ceremonial Burial and a strong religion. Conquest will be slow unless i cross mountains to attack Siam.

Flush with success from a previous domination victory, I charged headlong at Spain with a force of archers, useless ships and a warrior. Too little too soon...