TSG97 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG97 Opening Actions thread.

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed at least 80 to 100 turns in your game.

This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing through your first 100 turns. Apart from normal decency, the only posting restrictions are to please not post videos until the deadline is finished and 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.

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.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- How did you you use your early Merchants of Venice? Did they help?
- Did you use Faith to gain an advantage? If so, how?

This should be fun. I was a little slow scouting so I didn't get the picture until the 70s. But anyway its 90s now, GK is taking all the CS, but Theo and I have a war alliance now against him. I will liberate all CS, take out GK and turn on Theo if I can swing it.


t113 - Sydney and Budapest liberated. GK is on his heels. He has 2 cities left plus Whittenburg. Theo improved Eastern Orthodoxy for me.

I'm trying out the Honor tree in this one. My hypothesis is that Venice is suited to Honor, since that tree's bonuses impact are tied to your army, while Tradition/Liberty/Piety all give bonuses toward founding cities. At the 100 turn mark, I have Honor completed and have just opened Patronage.

Feels like a slow game, but I get the sense that Venice is generally a slow civ. Lack of trading partners and cultural city-states doesn't help.

Obviously, I'm warmongering. So far I've razed one Mongolian city while liberating Budapest (which had already been my ally before Genghis came calling). Casualty count is one Composite Bowman, but Genghis gave me 500+ gold, 6gpt, and two luxuries for peace. So it's been profitable. I'm going to DOW him right back once the peace deal is over, since the Honor finisher will probably be worth more than 6gpt anyway.

For wonders, I've built the Oracle and just finished the Statue of Zeus. It looks like wonders are generally going late, but I don't know if I'll have time to build that many.

I also founded a religion (Initiation Rites and Religious Community), but at the moment I'm feeling like that was probably a mistake and I should've just planted a Prophet. Theodora has Pagodas and Mosques, so extra faith would be nice.

My first GOTM for civ5...

As usual started with Tradition as first policy and decided to add Honor (culture from barbs) and Piety openers.

Was lucky with ruins: culture, gold, map, upgrade spears, pop and much later from an island a knight upgrade.

GK conquered Sydney and when he was attacking my ally Budapest (got with my first merchant) I decided to go in the offensive and captured beshalik and made peace to regroup.

To keep GK occupied I bribed Thea to attack GK. Used one general (honor) to steal GOLD tile from Sydney and other to steal horse tile between Beshalik and GK's capital. Budapest is a nice in giving militairy units (archer, spear, catapult, horseman)

Made a mistake to convert one of Thea's cities together with Budapest with a missionary as she had also a religion. Choose Mother Earth, organized religion , theocracy, gold tithe and religoius texts with food bonus.

Was late with trade routes (2 ships and 1 caravan now) .

Probably going to join the wareffort with Thea and liberate Sydney once CB are available.

I missed Artemis temple (food bonus) but got hanging gardens.

Sofar a fun game.

Telco Inc said:

My first GOTM for civ5...

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM!

Glad you joined us and wish you luck in this and future games.

Thank you.

I just finished my first game.
I know now why I made my religion mistake: the symbol for Byzantium was the same as my religion.

Fun, easy start. All that salt!! I basically just built a Scout, Shrine, Gran, 8x archers that I upgraded to comps and wiped out my Cont before turn 150. Just in the nick of time since the turn after taking Didos last city Portugal showed up to say hello.

This is going so far good for me. I settled in places, built scout, monument, granary, library, Cargo ship, GLigthhouse. Techs were pottery, writing, sailing, mining, optics.

Got four ruins: spear, map, pop, gold. Not much to help early o except the pop. Used the first MoV to puppet Geneve and immediately sent a cargou ship to Venice. There was also a trade route from Theo to that city. But a bar galley plundered bith before I got a trireme there. Problem was taht I couldnt scout past the mountains of Theodora a I couldnt see her jungle city, so had to send caravans instead. Had to get open borders to scout more.

AI is Quite strange. Theo did not get a religion. When I saw her, I dod not bother either, so no religion on the continent yet. I have earth mother pantheon. Genghis is a wonder whore. He build ToA, Zeus and one more.He did not attack anybody yet, but has some units. I just think what to do now. I.m sure he will DoW me some time, but should I go ahead and DoW him first before he gets keshiks? Its T98 now, both of us are medieval, he has horsemen, I have pikes. I think I can puppet Sydney (2 spears, 2 cats) and Dow him. Otherwise how should I figth keshiks?

Settled in the spot, scout-monument-shrine-granary-library-...
Tech mining-pottery-writing-...
Stole one worker from Sydney, faith ruins turned up on turn 22 and chose Earth mother as pantheon
Mongolia was really quick to puppet Sydney
got SH on turn 60, Prophet on 67 (Tithe/Divine Inspiration), HG on 75, 2nd Prophet on 91 (Religious Community/Religious Texts) Oracle on 95.
Policy - Completed Tradition on 95 (@Oracle Free policy)
AIs were as expected - Theo got religion, Genghis taking out lots of CSs. Theo and Genghis hate each other 'cuz Genghis is a warmonger. No CS's to puppet - only one CS left and that is Geneve and I need their faith.

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Glad you joined us and bets of luck in future games.