TSG104 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG104 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.

- What were your initial priorities for Diplomacy on an Oval map?
- Did Oval map prove interesting? Did it affect any strategy or planning?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Have you decided to try using the early era UUs or UA knowing this is a Diplomacy VC game? If so, how?

- What were your initial priorities for Diplomacy on an Oval map? Kill my neighbors.
- Did Oval map prove interesting? Did it affect any strategy or planning? Scouting seems easier, researching Optics sooner. I have played Ovals before.
- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Open Tradition (borders)> 5/6 Honor (Raging barbs) > Open Patronage (CS alliances).
- Have you decided to try using the early era UUs or UA knowing this is a Diplomacy VC game? If so, how? Yes, I am going to kill everyone except Russia because she has a strong Spaceship flavor which should help her tech.

I'm somewhere around 103 I think. The killing part is going fine, but I did not combine it well with the research part. I probably wont be able to get to the end times very fast.

Probed around a bit to find a good settling spot. Initially thought I'd settle on one of the hills to the east, but liked the west area better. Settled T3 on hill west of silk on river.

- What were your initial priorities for Diplomacy on an Oval map?
Play nice guy and work the CS angle. Maybe take out some aggression on a few barbs. My orangey neighbor is proving a bit of a distraction to that end.

- Did Oval map prove interesting? Did it affect any strategy or planning?
I kinda like having somewhat unbroken land masses. Not sure it really affected the strategy much though. First foray on oval map.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
5/6 Tradition, opened Patronage, going to finish Tradition with Oracle in 2T.
Usual Trad strategy. Worked out that I was able to get the wonder hammer policy 1T before starting Petra. Now that I have a few CS friends, will work Patronage.

- Have you decided to try using the early era UUs or UA knowing this is a Diplomacy VC game? If so, how?
I did build a couple horse archers and was coveting the patch of land to the west with an orange hue. Instead, I used the HAs to check out Cape Town, which Genghis just got done conquering as I arrived. I hung around. They abandoned the puppet and came after me instead - he conveniently DoWed on next turn. I used 2 HAs and 1 warrior to liberate Cape Town. Huzzah for the conquering Huns! 1 bonus ally.

I was able to fend off the Mongols with an archer, city bombard, and 1 HA I quick bought. He quickly sued for peace and gave me free cotton, which made me a couple more CS friends and triggered a Golden Age. Overall, that worked out quite nicely.

- Other Notes:
Got Pantheon T21 with faith ruin, took desert folklore
Got second religion T91 - papal primacy and mosques
wonders: built Petra T91, 2T from Oracle
ruins: +pop, 20cult, barb map, faith, late T29 ruin way north got me Calendar (!)
A bit late on cities and NC; after Oracle, will do 2 city NC, then immediately found city 3 and maybe 4.

After couple test games I decided to HA rush my neighbors, skip religion and then make the CS friendly.

Starting location was difficult. Warior 1E revealed wheat, but I still didnt like the area. I considered settling the hill SE from settler, but moved along the river to the hill and settled the hill W from silk. Nice location and closer to Mongolia

Techs: Pottery, Archery, Wheel, Writing, ->BW, ->Philo, ->Civil Service, ->Edu

Build order: Scout, Monument, Scout, Granary, 3HA, scout, Ram, Library, HA, NC(T81),Oracle,Petra,Borobodur,...

Ruins: 55gold, Scout upgrade, 20 faith later on. The scout archer was the best thing, I used it to kill all the barbs around cap.

Policies: Full liberty (GS,golden age for NC),Honor opener (as 2nd policy), 4 patronage (until sci bonus). The barbs and allies helped a lot.

Settled my free settler next to Uluru, changed my mind to go religion. Got it second (after Russia) with +1food from wheat, Papal primacy, pagodas, +15%growth and double spread to friendly CS.

Spamming missionairies to fend off Russian spread, will go kill them to stop it.

Had a lot of CS allies and friends from the beginning , which helped a lot.

My war path went well as well. I DoWed Genghis when his loose settler approached my land. Had to wait to finish my HA and ram and took his capital. Then DoWed Pocatello, razed his second city and took capital. Both are wiped out. Later Shaka took Danish capital.

Pretty fun one so far.

Settled my capital one tile southwest of the start; nice to find horses in the 2nd ring.

3-4 HA and a couple battering rams were more than enough to get rid of Ghengis. I may turn around and go after Pocatello, as he's the only other one I foresee an annoying war with. Hoping to play peacefully in the later eras.

Tradition to Patronage.

Founded a religion, took Papacy for the influence and Mosques. Desert folklore for the pantheon

Looking to plop a city next to Uluru soon and then go NC. Petra is almost complete.

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM!

Glad you joined us and are having fun with the game. Best of luck to you.

Really liking this game. I also settled one tile to the southwest of spawn. Only settled one other city, to the east on the coast. Went full Tradition then Patronage.

Unlike most people it seems, I let Genghis be and just went after Pocatello. Took two of his cities including his capital, and razed another one he had just settled. He had another city north of Samarkand that I let him keep. The battering rams were surprisingly effective, just one was enough to help a lot with taking Pocatello's cities.

After that I've just been raking in the gold from trade routes from Attila's Court and buying off city states, and it's been smooth sailing since then. Actually haven't made a single military unit since the war with Pocatello.

I'm liking the Oval map, haven't tried it before and it seems more interesting than Pangea.

- What were your initial priorities for Diplomacy on an Oval map?
- Did Oval map prove interesting? Did it affect any strategy or planning?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Have you decided to try using the early era UUs or UA knowing this is a Diplomacy VC game? If so, how?

Click to expand...

- Read this thread and google what an Oval map actually was , generally speaking I handle it like I handle Terra or Pangea maps ( completely ignore naval techs and buildings in the beginning)
- Tradition so far, nearly finished tradition, no reason except change, I am generally a freedom person



Settled just like tribefaninnc.
Scout>Monument > Scout > worker > HA> Watermill > 2x HA > BatteringRam > HA > Settler (iirc., settler might have been sooner near the ram and HA's)

Then I don't know. I just finished Petra at turn 95. Bought a Granary with gold as soon as I had 400, and fitted a barracks and circus in there too, and some more HA's.

Got religion and thus 'gods of craft'' from a goody hut.

At war with Pocatello as the ***wipe settled a city in terrain I consider mine and puppeted that new town of his .


So far I'm turn 95, finished Genghis early on when he went with his army for Cape town, was an easy win with just 3 HA's and a Ram.

Just got enough gold by bullying Samarkand to buy a courthouse in Karakorum and befriended Bogota. Allied Cape town by killing a barb camp and freeing their worker.



Screens:



So far so good .

Like in all my games, Happiness is a major limiting factor, but I'm yet to buy the courthouse and still have some luxuries to improve in my lands .
Thinking of beelining to forbidden palace now. In the meantime trying to get as many city states befriended by killing barbs, or bullying gold out of them . Also see how much Pocatello will pay me when I move all my military to him .

Russeru said:

Really liking this game. I also settled one tile to the southwest of spawn. Only settled one other city, to the east on the coast. Went full Tradition then Patronage.

Unlike most people it seems, I let Genghis be and just went after Pocatello. Took two of his cities including his capital, and razed another one he had just settled. He had another city north of Samarkand that I let him keep. The battering rams were surprisingly effective, just one was enough to help a lot with taking Pocatello's cities.

After that I've just been raking in the gold from trade routes from Attila's Court and buying off city states, and it's been smooth sailing since then. Actually haven't made a single military unit since the war with Pocatello.

I'm liking the Oval map, haven't tried it before and it seems more interesting than Pangea.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CFC and Game of the Month! Glad you decided to give us a try. Good luck to you!

Settled on T1 on the river next to the Silk.

First priority, kill thy neighbors. I had the feeling Pocatello was locked up on his peninsula, so I wanted to kill him ASAP. He already built one city in the south. I fought three wars with him: one to kidnap a worker, the second to prevent him from building near/under my city, third to wipe him out.

Played Tradition (2), Honor (3) for the barbs and Patronage. I didn't focus on religion but got a Pantheon from a goodie hut. Desert Folklore was the best choice and right now I just started a religion with Tithe and Pagoda's (those pagoda's are tight! Get it? )

Funny thing is the CS helped me on the war path. Two of them wanted me to build statue of Zeus, which I did. Another wanted Copper, which belonged to Pocatello. Soon Battering Rams were rolling eastward.

It's going nice. Killing barbs for the CS. Right now to decide whether to make friends all around or trample Genghis and free Capetown from his clutches. Probably going to settle on the hill next to the mountain near his capital.

BTW, what happens when barbs conquer a CS? Is it destroyed? In my game Capetown was almost killed by barbs (if only they had a melee unit on the spot..).

Seems like most people took an extra turn to settle their first city on the hill to the left of the silk rather than on the right. Is there any specific reason settling on the hill is better? The tile to the right gives you access to the sheep to the southeast which seems ideal given Attila's UA.

Russeru said:

Seems like most people took an extra turn to settle their first city on the hill to the left of the silk rather than on the right. Is there any specific reason settling on the hill is better? The tile to the right gives you access to the sheep to the southeast which seems ideal given Attila's UA.

Click to expand...

The problem with settling on the hills E is that you do not have any good tiles to work early on. Settling hill 1E will leave you with 2x2, 1x11,3x2 tiles. Very bad, because you need to grow and to make some production.
No resources in the first city ring, 1 wheat in the second (revealed by the warior moving 1E). Both luxuries move to the third ring as well as the sheep. That means it will take too long for then to get into your cultural borders so you will have to wait until you can actually use them.
And you lose the river location, with the trade route bonus and the possibility to build gardens with the +25% bonus to Great people (that means two more Great Scientist for the science rush).

Thats why I decided that settling on the hills E is not good. I wanted to stay at the river. So I moved to the silk in a hope that something good will wait there. At least I knew I will have my luxuries near. moving 1SW reveals the horse tile and the hill 1W to silk next to river. Perfect to start there. And there are some forests to chop for the early boost.

Russeru said:

Seems like most people took an extra turn to settle their first city on the hill to the left of the silk rather than on the right. Is there any specific reason settling on the hill is better? The tile to the right gives you access to the sheep to the southeast which seems ideal given Attila's UA.

Click to expand...

In general, settling on a hill is preferred because it gives you 2 food, 2 hammer in your capital to start. Settling on the grassland or plain next to the river only gives you 2 food, 1 hammer in your capital. Extra production early.

Settling on a hill also provides a defensive bonus -- much cheaper than building walls.

Browd said:

Settling on a hill also provides a defensive bonus -- much cheaper than building walls.

Click to expand...

I prefer to think that I'll never need to use that bonus...

Oh okay, so between the extra hammer and the defensive bonus, settling on a hill next to a river seems pretty ideal, assuming decent resource availability.

Maybe the extra two tiles away from Genghis at least prevented him from getting too upset at me. Unless the AI doesn't really factor distance in as long as your borders don't touch.