TSG72 Opening Actions thread

Welcome to the TSG72 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. Anything after that should be posted in the After Action thread once you have completed your game.

- What did you consider in your decision of where to settle your capital?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
- Did you use your UU with beneficial effect?
- Was your UB helpful? Did you go for an early Great Work?

State of the World -- Turn 94

I have played 100 turns. I chose the path of peace and built the Hanging Gardens and then the NC. Failed on Parthenon by 4 turns. I am in 4th place with 3 cities, 6 techs behind. My second city went to get Mt Sinai, my third city is on the coast seafood mountain. I have a religion, Monument to the Gods, Peace Gardens, interfaith dialog.

I should probably kill the indian. I have a great work.

So first time then. And the first time is always painful:

Played around 95turns.

- What did you consider in your decision of where to settle your capital?
Sent warrior on north hill revealed salt, considered that the jungle hill tile wasn't great due to every bonus tile being in its second or third ring so I settled just west of the salt. Was a good decision, south area is all swamps and there is a 3rd salt north.
- What were your initial priorities?
Get workers. I'm terrible at stealing workers on immortal (I find it way harder than on deity). Then on the path to NC and get one or 2 city from someone after expanding
- What tech path did you follow and why?
Luxs, Philo, CS
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
Pocatello settled just next to me, had to kill his city with 4 archer and a warrior
- Did you use your UU with beneficial effect?
No, war was before UU. I would have used it for a later war but he settled a weak 8 strength city so I just rush bought 2 archers and captured it.
- Was your UB helpful? Did you go for an early Great Work?
No, I think it's not worth it until later wars.


My first 75 turns went really well but after that I made a couple of critical mistake that I think will set me back direly: I didn't pay attention and my caravans should have been sent for gold instead of food, I should also have waited a lot longer before anexing Te-Moak. As a result I'm broke at -10 a turn (with -4 from the courthouse, ouch).
Also, I had not enough workers since I failed to steal one from AI as I'm used to on Deity and started to build additional ones too late.
NC was late and as a result education will be late. Should have just went 2 city before NC.

I'll finish the game and win I think but that certainly will be ugly. Will probably replay it after.

leif erikson said:

- What did you consider in your decision of where to settle your capital?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
- Did you use your UU with beneficial effect?
- Was your UB helpful? Did you go for an early Great Work?

Click to expand...

Turn 102 now.

Stats

Science: 63BPT
Gold: 181 +37 GPT
Cult Finished Tradition, 248/465 +14 CPT
Faith +16 PT

I decided, rather than attempt to grab GL (and probably fail), to go after Hanging Gardens.

Tech: Pottery, beelined Math, mining, writing, calendar, philosphy, beelined Engineering (for Aqueducts), beelined Education (still 15 turns away)

Build Order: Scout, Scout, Shrine, Granary, Settler, Hanging Gardens (I think that was next)

Got the Second Pantheon (turn 24), choose Earth Mother, thanks to all the salt lying around. Also got the second religion, choose pagodas and Tithe.

At turn 102, I have 4 cities. Populations - 12, 9, 3, 1
Capital:
2nd: circa. turn 40 near Mt. K
3rd: turn 90, west of mountain near the row of sea resources to the NW
4th: turn 100, SE of Mt. Sinai

Notable dates:

Hanging Gardens: turn 67
Finished Tradition: turn 84
National College: turn 85

Diplomacy:
No wars, except to grab a worker from Riga.
At turn 102, everyone likes me, no red ink at all.

Running in the top three in most demographics. I haven't beaten immortal since back pre-GnK, but this has promise. I seem to be gaining ground science wise, and things look promising.

Have pretty much ignored Assyria's unique abilities. Not really in the spirit of the GOTM I suppose, but I have had very little experience at immortal, and war always seems so wasteful.

turn 94.. i settled on the salt.. scouted around a bit with my warrior to the south after seeing kilimanjaro.. opened with scout, granary, shrine, worker.. popped a pottery ruin with the scout while teching archery.. that worked out well.. stole a worker from ur and he worked on the salt while my second worker popped out to work the cows.. now there's farms and mines everywhere and growth is good with tradition..

i teched to mathematics and built a siege to attack the shoshone forward settled city to my east.. took that with 3 archers, a gifted speaman, a warrior and a siege tower.. built two more siege towers and went for the cap while building NC and teching construction..

composites were useless in taking the cap except for being cycled in as meat shields.. i used them to get my first two sieges thru the gap.. two sieges and a composite got thru and healed up in the open ground while my GG and my third siege got into position.. sacrificed the spearman in the meantime.. when everybody was healed i moved in and took the shoshone capital with 3 sieges and a composite.. settled for peace on the next turn by taking a 3 pop city he just built to the east of the second gold near the iron.. picked up trapping from the first city and iron working from the capital..

teching to civil service.. friends with maria, william (mistake-he forward settled to my west), siam.. maybe morocco too i forget..

will not start another war just yet as i am just about happy at +3 with a ton of land to improve and some tech ground to make up.. i'm sure morocco will start a fight soon as the shoshone city i got in the peace deal is right in his face..

1500 gold in reserve and profitable without any trade routes up.. decent start.
took earth mother as the last pantheon.. unless i get a city up by the faith mountain soon i aint getting a religion.

Assyria is a good civ for Tabarnak’s 3-city food opening, so I went with that, intending to use the siege tower and go to war after the NC went up. (I'm not going to ignore the UU.) My tech path focused on luxuries, Philosophy (NC), Mathematics (siege tower) and now Education (universities), with side trips for Sailing (crabs), eventually Construction (Bowmen).

I settled on the jungle hill - hill+river, good lux access - built Nineveh to the east (gold, later salt) on t44, built Nimrud on t53 (2 crabs, later silk), NC on t86, Writers Guild next as a matter of course, even though I will use a GW for The Royal Library. DoF’s with Netherlands, Byzantium, Siam and Portugal have all helped, as I stole no workers. As of t100, pop is #3, i have 60 bot, 460g, am about 12 turns from Education, have a quest super-alliance with Budapest, and am close to completing an army to take Te-Moak.

The only war so far had Indonesia attack Siam. They are both expanding, Indonesia even more. The Shoshone are contained at 4 cities, with Morocco and surprisingly Netherlands also at 3.

Settled in place, not ideal (hill would be nice) but wanted to keep the river for production in later age. Being sandwiched between river and hills doesn't feel horrible, and Warrior had gone south revealing gems.

Warrior continued South and found Kilimanjaro, prioritised getting a settler up to run down there - possibly doing so too early (while Cap only at Pop 2). Hopefully doesn't bite me in the backside later.

Got river/hill spot west of Kili.

Warrior (got spears, and altitude promo), and scout (altitude promo) did the rounds meeting all Civs and several CS. Mainly in North-East quadrant from Kili. Grabbed a worker from barbs near Riga and sent to Cap, grabbed a worker from Ur (for 2nd city) and quickly made peace.

Early plan to get the two cities up, grab National College, and then roll out a small army (2x Siege Tower, 3 x CB) and hit a target. Seems to be a major love-in, with a lot of DoF but Shoshone look to be alone - nice as they settled 2nd city not far east of my Cap - near the river gold.

T80: Stole stray Shoshone worker to prompt DoW, moved Siege Towers just out of city range, and 2x CB onto hills in range. Unfortunately lost my Scout to a Pathfinder who appeared out of the fog, but two turns (towers only hitting on second) was enough - impressed by Towers! Got Horseback Riding

Nat Coll completed a couple of turns later, around same time as finishing Tradition tree. Shoshone quickly sued for peace, offering 1gpt and Spices - which I took, not planning a massively aggressive game but will see how early ages develop.

All Civs met, only 3 (inc Shoshone) showing me Warmonger hit.

T99: Had to Annex Shoshone city (had wanted to puppet for now) as was at 1 Pop and Gold focus so stagnating.




Cap BO: Scout, Monument, Settler, Royal Lib, Archer, Granary, Archer, tried for Hanging Gardens but came up 9 turns short (stupid idea), Siege Tower x2, Colosseum, Comp Bowman, Nat College, Market

Expo BO: (Free Monument), Granary, Royal Lib, Archer (popped as CB), Stoneworks, Water Mill, Barracks

SP: Tradition Opener and all within.

Tech: Pottery, Writing, Mining, Calendar, Archery, Animal Husbandry, Wheel, Maths, Trapping, Masonry, Construction, BW, Philo, IW, Currency, and currently beelining for Education.

Strategy, early(ish) rush to grab 3rd city completed, develop economy peacefully and get Universities up asap. Plan to stay peaceful for a while, but will see how things develop as have Civs on most sides. I have my eye on the coast West of capital, with Fish/Crabs/Livestock - may drop a small city later (restricting growth) for Crabs if it looks worthwhile, but on Pangea I'm not sure how relevant it would be and I like the feel of three cities.

- What did you consider in your decision of where to settle your capital?
Wanted to set up quickly (not sure how valuable one turn is on Immortal - then again I'm some way from a min/max optimised player). Settling in place looked defensible, and combo of salt/gems works for some early growth. River will be useful for Production later (Hydro plant)

- What were your initial priorities?
Only my third attempt at Immortal (W1 L1 so far), so defense archers and grabbing workers through theft. Libraries, of course, and as soon as I saw it - getting Kili in range of my second city. Barracks there to give any future army the unique promo.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Writing asap, to be able to queue Royal Library early, plus Calendar ready for Philo (NC). Luxury techs and archery before pushing to Maths and Const for early army.

- Were there any early wars and who started them?
A very brief one started by me to grab my third city spot with a nice river, and Gold.

- Did you use your UU with beneficial effect?
Astonished at just how powerful they are early on, interested to know how long they remain viable. UA got me Horseback Riding.

- Was your UB helpful? Did you go for an early Great Work?
Not as yet, but Writers Guild will be up soon and will look to fill at least one slot.

I settled on a hill south to starting position.

BO in capital: scout - worker - settler - shrine - settler - library
SP: Tradition opener - Legalism - Landed Elite - Monarchy - Aristocracy - Oligarchy (with Oracle) -
Commerce opener - Mercenary Army - Rationalism opener

I settled 4 cities so far, 3 before NC, build NC around t80, finished Education t106, Astronomy t120. I just finished the first wave of RA and I settled 4rd city few turns ago. I founded pantheon due to goody-hut and chose Sun God, which helped a lot in growing my capital. However, I didn't dound religion and I will loose this nice pantheon soon.

Diplomacy is going well. I am friendly with everyone except Shoshones. Pocatello is plotting against me and will probably attack me but we will see. If not, I will probably play peacefully counting on RAs. I tried get CI (I entered medieval the same turns as many others) but Ramkhamhaeng had got it two turns before me.

As predicted this start was pretty awful. I started by building 2 scouts and beelining the GL. The scouts gave me a good idea of what I was working with but Morocco beat me to GL. I went with honor thinking I'll be at war with someone through the entire game so I started going after the Barbs for some culture. Since Shoshone was being aggressive with a land grab I thought I'd befriend them and use them as a barrier from all the civs in the east while I hit the west. However by now I was lagging far behind. I risked hitting Rotterdam, even though my odds were not good, in an attempt to bring myself back into the game. That failed so now I don't see anyway of pulling myself out of this rut. It'll be interesting to see how everyone else does.

I moved my settler to the hill across the river, beside the Jews, salt in range. Second city beside killamanjaro just before William and Byzantium arrived to settle. Pocatello settle just west of me, right against mt border, screwing up my planned cities along the river. So he becomes my first target. Get 2 workers from barbs, and build one siege tower and have 3 archers and one warrior. Take Pocatello city in 2 turns and raze it, and plant my own settler on the river hill by the gold.

Move east to the coast an attack city #3 built just off the river. 3 turns and it is mine, as a pop a settler from liberty, so I raze it also, and plant my settler on the sheep by the river. His capital is just to difficult to get to, so I consolidate and grow. He finally asks for peace, which I accept. Still friends with William Byzantium, Siam who always backstabs, guarded with morocco, and Indonesia.

William decides to settle between the city states and me, so I Dow him and take his city. And raze it as the placement was horrible. That got me denounced by Siam. 2 turns later everyone has denounced me. It has been total war since. At turn 100, I have 6 cities, beakers of 80 pt, cash is hovering around zero, pillaging is keeping me alive. Morocco takes my city on the coastal river, and Indonesia is trying to come through ur to get to me. My bows are having a field day.

I thought about rage quitting, but have continued to play.

Turn 100 update :

Turned to be one of my best starts since a year. I thought about the 3 cities strategy like Txurce but decided to go for 2 instead. Lot of land around, so barbs as well. I wanted to make sure that my workers will not dance forever before hooking luxuries and stuff. No worker steal from civ AIs.

So my BO was : Scout-scout-shrine-settler-worker-granary-2xcaravans-archer-NC

2nd city built : granary-shrine-2xsettlers

Finished NC early 70s. Bought 2 settlers and settled almost instantly 3 more cities around me. Got lucky because i blocked Pocatello who wanted to settle Kili but i repulsed him in time and settled near truffles(yes he lost about 15 turns ). Stole 2 more workers from barb camps that i kept.

Oracle turn 85 to finish Tradition. Sent a 3rd caravan(engi) to Genow to keep happiness afloat. Too bad, Byzantines settled north of crabs to catch the silk that i previously wanted. But there is no influence hit at least(proximity). Got religion soon enough top catch Tithe and Sword into plowshare, probably the best religious things for a sci. victory.

Like other players i got friendly with some civs and i will prepare RAs for the future. With 6 nice cities im up for a good science tech pace. Only bad thing is there is no cultural cs around, but at least it's the same for everyone

Initially my Warrior went SW and my Settler went East then crossed the river to the riverside Jungle Hill near the Gems. Then Turn 1 my Warrior saw the most magnificent mountain off in the distance, calling, calling, calling.... so my Settler put on his waders and slogged through much marsh to get to the Promised Land. And it was glorious. 2 Banana, 2 Salt, Cow and Deer plus the Gem Hill is still within reach.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is the perfect Natural Wonder, because working it doesn't slow your development down at all. In fact the CPT speeds it up. So what if I didn't settle until Turn 5. I was still filling policies faster than normal and had the fattest cap in the world in no time. And nothing clears a map like altitude trained Scouts.

I was mostly friendly except for when I found an Indonesian Worker wandering in the forest. He became Assyrian in a hurry. Gajah tried to settle past me during the war so his Settler became another donated Worker. The turn after we made peace he asked for a DoF.

I was just about to smoosh Pocatello but then he started signing DoFs with all of my DoF partners and I don't want to sabotage all that RA potential. The first round will be essentially Salt for Science. If I can keep the DoF web together for 2-3 rounds of RAs I should have a pretty impressive finish time.

I have my cap near Kili, my second city went next to Mt. Sinai, my third went on the coastal mountainside hill up near Riga. I just dropped a fourth city in the Gold pass because I wanted to cut off that access for Pocatello. I have so much Food and am shooting for as tall as I can go.

My Faith per Turn is pretty crazy, with Sinai and taking the 4 FPT for Natural Wonders pantheon. Whenever I need funds I just purchase a Missionary and have him go convert a City-State for a 100 Gold for me.

Three cities trad, but both routes to Byz for gold, I have more growth than I can handle.

Cities In usual spots: Kili and crab/cow mountain, bought both crab tiles and boats as well as two tiles to silk as Theo's settler was ready to drop a troll city there. I already did not block one in the mountain passage south where I planned my 4th.

Quite a few DoFs, planning to go RA heavy, but happy is limiting me big time. With earth mother, tithe and Plows my cities grow like crazy. I tried stealing worker from Budapest, turn later he popped a spear and took it back. I got it in a suicidal snatch eventually some twenty turns later and made peace I was hoping to farm some XP there and get few more slaves.

I made every wrong decision and took all the wrong turns with my starting spear warrior, and lost out on 4 out of 5 camp quests and worker liberations. had to harbuild one more but even that is not enough, cities grow too fast.

Lost oracle I was timing with Ratio open on the turn I started so no big loss. Still waiting to enhance as I went for Borobdur and hope to have the dominant religion, although few neighbors have founded and some even enhanced and Moroccan prophet is at my doorstep.

I built few archers but too late and immortal AIs have cleared the camps, at least I will be ready to respond if Pocatello tries anything funny. He spammed cities towards me taking my alternative 4th location and they are both garbage, I like his cap, but I don't think I can take it without much effort and or tech lead in military and I am obviously working top of the tree.

Played around 125 turns and ended my first attempt after messing up my invasion of Shosone capital.

While grabbing his 2 other cities was fairly easy, his capital is in a utterly horrendous position for invasion - fully surrounded by mountains and hills and rough terrain - and I wasted a *boatload* of units in doing so, completely ruining my game.

Called it a day and to be honest, think I'm just loading a turn 50 or so auto-save and coming back from there.

Went Tradition, 2 built cities , 1 cap, 1 annex, managed to get GL out and was doing pretty ok up to my failed invasion...

Honestly? I hate Assyria as a civ particulary in hard difficulties. Battering Ram gets obsolote quickly and early warring is bad in Immortal. Royal Library seems Meh. UA is okay-ish.

Also, have a feeling this will be moved to After Actions because I ended the game. I never really know where to post and am beggining to think the mods are about to DoW me. I'm sorry if that's the case.

Moderator Action: Sorry to hear you must let this one go. It can remain here since you completed it within the first 125 turns.

Alright, here's where i am now at T102.
Well, in the Announcement thread, i've posted that there was probably more to the starting location than what we could see. Actually, there was a lot more nearby. I rarely played such a "wonder-full" map. 2 NW close-by, including Mount "i got a religion" adnd a number of luxes. Really a nice map so far.

leif erikson said:

- What did you consider in your decision of where to settle your capital?

Click to expand...

I really like riverside hills for cap, so i moved my warrior north to check i wouldn't loose some important ring2 or 3 tiles and then settled on the jungle hill. Loosing 1 jungle tile for early production boost was ok.

- What were your initial priorities?

Click to expand...

As often, explore and get a religion if possible. I built 2 scouts first while researching pottery. My plan was 2 scouts - shrine - granny while going trad for free monuments. My first scout qickly made it obvious i wouldn't need a shrine at all, so i changed the BO to scout-scout-start granny-settler(i had a pop ruin so was size3 by t11)-finish granny-library-settler. This was quite a hit on early cap growth but i wanted those 2 NW. Got for mt sinai first, working it 2 turns for pantheon (one with nature), then growing and working it again later (along with kili) for 1st religion. Took Mosques for faster Rationalism and more industrial faith (and some happiness), then swords into plowshares and religious text.

- What tech path did you follow and why?

Click to expand...

Not sure about exact techs but roughly it was go for Writing then Philosophy with some lux techs and AH in between (no good AI trade routes to benefit from very early AH) then Education with some detours for Masonry and Bronze Working (jungle luxes to improve). Speaking of edu, i will get it next turn (T103), probably some better players would have it by now on such a map, but i still think it's not bad

- Were there any early wars and who started them?

Click to expand...

Does enslaving a couple of Ur's workers count?
Well, i went mostly peaceful since i choose Swords to Plowshares for growth.AIs were also quite peaceful, the warmonger i wanted to smach for free techs is nowhere to be found so far. I might end up attacking Poca, but havn't done yet.

- Did you use your UU with beneficial effect?

Click to expand...

Nope, Swords into Plowshares and focus on growth and science buildings prevented me from attacking anyone even thought i did built some archers for defense.

Was your UB helpful? Did you go for an early Great Work?

Click to expand...

Not yet, but i won't need to build amphis once i start working writers guild. I'm trying to "reserve" some culture for renaissance.

As for SPs, i have completed trad and commerce is my "filler" tree. Let's try something different from consulates now that it has been indirectly nerfed.

Also, i've settled 2 cities after NC and will probably add a 6th one at some point on the coast for that silk NW. 2 coastal cities can still grow fast but i need a bigger happiness buffer.


EDIT : Forgot to add when posting about religion that i choose Initiation Rites. I've been a Tithe player for quite some time, but lately i've found IR to be very good, especially on higher difficulties (when you can get a religion). Early gold can be extremely useful, especially with BNW, and you don't need to fight with the AIs continuous flow of missionaries after you got your 1 time founder bonus. Defending your religion in your own cities is all you need to do, and it's much easier than keep your religion on CSs. That's also part of the reason why i'm finishing the 600+ gold (counting probable passive conversion) Borobudur in the above screen.

Good luck getting Petra there. I lost out turn 89 with three turns left on the build...

Well, i really started it becauseit was still available and i had nothing more urgent to build, and none of the AIs desert cities were showing the "wonder under construction" model.
That being said, i lost it to Ahmed 1 or 2 turns after i checked he still didn't have that "wonder under construction" model so obviously it's not as reliable as some peopne in the Strategy and Tips forum imply
Wasn't part of my plan anyway.

I'm at turn 102 at the moment with 5 cities and a position I think I can win from. Three cities built, and another two taken.

I settled 1 tile east and...

built - scout, shrine, granary, library then military units thn oracle (around turn 95 )

researched - pottery, mining, AH, writing then military techs

Policies - Tradition - all bar Oligarchy, then liberty opener, then citizenship. (I got a policy and Oracle on same turn so was able to get free worker and quicker tile improvements - so I left Oligarchy till later.

Stole workers from 1CS, a barbarian and the Shoshone. Got another with citizenship of course.

First war was with the Shoshone - took one city (puppet) with spices and growth potential.
Second war with Morocco - took one coastal city with crab and silk. Annexed to force workboat build as it's my only coastal city.

I still don't have the NC
I can't make enough gold to fund everything I want

I have not demanded tribute from CS yet. Just haven't had time.
My military is doing a tour. I'll just pick weak cities and raze them for the tech. I''ll build new military to replace lost units and I won't be upgrading. I need the gold.

Anyway. Onwards and upwards. This is not going to be a quick win, but it has been a ball so far - so I'm in no hurry to finish.

Some screenies.

Holy aggressive builders batman! The Shoshone and Indonesian crowded my boarders quick and I had to take action. Siege towers are almost OP, but I digress. I got dubbed the warmonger and was doing fine after taking 4-5 cities, and then... around turn 110... all out war against me. No cities lost, but losing gold, lost BPT, whittled army... oy. I suggest going mostly peaceful with agressive cities early. I can see 4 to 5 cities winning this with the wonders and mountains around for the observatories. I am going to try and salvage my game by going peaceful, but having trouble with happiness around turn 140. Just about to get XB - but no money for upgrades. Such is (civ)live.