TSG 110 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG110 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 Actions thread once you have completed your game.

- Describe your opening strategy choices. How did terrain and/or neighbors affect this?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- How did Shoshone's UA affect settling choices? Did it expand into all the tiles you hoped for?
- What Ruins choices did you take with Pathfinders? How many were you able to find?
- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?
- Did you have any wars in the first 100 turns?

Went down with my settler to get the desert and try to go for Petra. First ruin my pathfinder entered gave me the possibilty of an upgrade. Turn 2 Composite Bowman!

Met Caesar early and found out I was pretty secluded from other civs. Gathering an army to take Rome early. Also got a message that Shaka had now the most capitals even though I haven't met him yet.

- Describe your opening strategy choices. How did terrain and/or neighbors affect this?
Going for Petra and trying to capture Rome asap.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Went Honor first to deal with the raging barbarians. Going well so far.

- How did Shoshone's UA affect settling choices? Did it expand into all the tiles you hoped for?
Did good for me. Lots of resources to grab with an early worker.

- What Ruins choices did you take with Pathfinders? How many were you able to find?
Got 2 early upgrades, and a pop boost, but I think I went our poorly with the pathfinders and with Rome this close they stole some ruins just ahead of me.

- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?
Tithe and Devine Inspiration (since I'm going for Petra). Wanted desert folklore, but someone beat me to it.

- Did you have any wars in the first 100 turns?
Just about to go get Rome now.

I am on turn 103. I have 4 cities, plus Rome, Arabia cap and 1 Japanese city. Still haven't met anyone else, but I'm just coming up against a choke point here for Japan. My spears & c-bows might not be able to clear it all.


Describe your opening strategy choices. How did terrain and/or neighbors affect this?
My strategy was find some extra spots to settle. I settle 1st city east on copper. I settled north on wine, west on coast grabbing dye & gold and east near the 2 wheat tiles grabbing silver.

What Social Policies did you choose and why?
I believe I opened Honor and then went full Liberty.

How did Shoshone's UA affect settling choices? Did it expand into all the tiles you hoped for?
I dont think it did. I wanted it to grab the silver on the east site but I had to buy the tile.

Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?
No religion yet. I took ancestor worship, but Open Skies might have been a better choice.

Did you have any wars in the first 100 turns?
3 Wars. Rome, Arabia, Japan. The barbs did half the work on Arabia, I just swooped in and took the cap.

What Ruins choices did you take with Pathfinders? How many were you able to find?
I found several ruins. I took pop, culture, faith, two weapon upgrades, and 1 or two techs, not necessarily in that order.

Wow. Is this map ever a forceful reminder why 1UPT can suck. I kid. Mostly.

Whenever I see tundra to the South my instincts tell me to push North. Those instincts don't work well on the map So many wasted moves. This game is not a winner. I did sack the Japanese cap on t80, and it looks like the terrain may open up. Maybe.

What is the actual best strategy here? Rush to Chivalry and mass Knights? Obviously guessing the right direction to push in will help tremendously.

t1 Settled on the SE copper.
t2 ruin - upgrade to CB
t4 ruin - pop
t9 built pathfinder
t10 got pottery, ruin - Mining
t11 ruin - 2nd CB
t13 ruin - pop
t15 ruin - culture (Honor opener)
t24 ruin - faith (Earth Mother pantheon)
t55 took ROME (with 2 CB, 2 spears)
t89 founded Te-Moak on the coastal desert hill near the silver. Decided I need a ship producing city on this map. It will also allow me to have trade routes and spread my religion. (Initially I wasnt going to build any settlers but changed my opinion when I saw that the opponents will be incredibly hard to reach by land)
t93 completed HONOR
t95 Statue of Zeus in capital
t100 took MECCA (2CB, 2 Spears)

Meanwhile raging barbs are ravaging the land. I have more units near my core cities defending from barbs, than on the front line pushing for conquest ...

- Describe your opening strategy choices. How did terrain and/or neighbors affect this?

After playing a couple test games and discovering the upgrade goes directly to xbows my opening strategy was to build at least 3 pathfinders, upgrade 2 of those to xbows and take a nearby capital.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Honor, for the assist versus barbs and the culture. Then the garrison culture and happiness.

- How did Shoshone's UA affect settling choices? Did it expand into all the tiles you hoped for?

Settled on the SE copper since I intended to build units only for awhile.

- What Ruins choices did you take with Pathfinders? How many were you able to find?

Upgrade, Pop, Culture, Upgrade and then a Faith. I was attempting to get another upgrade, but I'm not sure how they cycled. I may have been able to get an upgrade after the last Faith, but I ran out of huts.

I was actually surprised to find so many, but this should be interesting to see how people play it and how it ends up affecting the game.

- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?

Took Sacred Waters, figuring any more cities would be river capitals. So if happiness became a problem I could spread it to the puppets.

Also someone else took God King which may have been a choice. If I do found, I'll take Tithe or Initiation. Ideally none of the other aspects will really matter. Probably get some happiness related things.

- Did you have any wars in the first 100 turns?
Rome circa turn 30.
Arabs circa turn 40.
Japan circa turn 50, took longer as both of his cities had to be captured.
Aztec circa turn 90.

After meeting the Aztecs and Zulu and getting embassies I started GL in capital and annexed Kyoto to build some triemes as there are still 4 civs unmet and this map is clearly not a typical Pangaea.

I planned on pushing out an early xbow army while attempting to then build out infrastructure for a more drawn out game. As there had to be some tricks involved with a Shoshone Prince game. I'm guessing the map will be some long snake shape so this will be a slog till turn 200, maybe ending with machine guns.

Made some small mistakes when capturing Rome and Mecca. Rome had a grass farm I should have razed as it grew to 5 pop before I even had Calendar to improve the two luxuries. Conversely Mecca is stuck at 1 pop working a desert incense and will likely not grow at all. So I should have razed more to balance that out a little. If it comes to it, I will annex and build Petra in Mecca.

OK I'm gonna try and get into the habit of actually answering the questions, too!

- Describe your opening strategy choices. How did terrain and/or neighbors affect this?

Decided to get honor for barb culture and conquer neighbors ASAP. Explore with 2 pathfinders and upgrade them to CBs. Initially wasn't sure whether to settle any cities, if there would have been a cool spot with 2 unique luxes I might have settled there but there wasn't any. Only decided to get a coastal city when I discovered more of the map.

Settled on SE copper so lost out on two unique luxes unfortunately. At least I will get the gold soon in my 4th circle.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Honor, left side first, then went for finisher. Got patronage opener afterwards as I still wasn't in Medieval for commerce.

- How did Shoshone's UA affect settling choices? Did it expand into all the tiles you hoped for?

Just settled one city near the silver on the shore. UA is kind of cool but best if you're going wide, which I wasn't.

- What Ruins choices did you take with Pathfinders? How many were you able to find?

7 ruins prioritised upgrades for early CBs which helped a lot conquering rome and mecca. Also went for religion asap.

- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?

Earth Mother pantheon from ruin. Religion came shortly after turn 100, took tithe and pagodas for gold and happiness.

- Did you have any wars in the first 100 turns?

Yeah, conquered Rome turn 55 and Mecca turn 100.

For my Pantheon belief I just missed God-King and almost took Earth Mother but, looking around and seeing more sheep than Scotland, I finally chose God of the Open Sky. That turned out to be very lucky. My pasture culture is 9 per turn.

My pathfinder ruin picks were population, culture, upgrade to composite bowman and religion for 30 faith. When my second pathfinder found a ruin there was a Great Prophet option which I took. It was a 60 faith boost but not enough for a GP. I wish instead I'd taken another bowman upgrade which I finally got 50 turns later--six ruins altogether.

I settled on the copper up against the three mountains which meant the UA territory expansion didn't reach the gold or the far copper. They're also too far away to buy. I got better early production but in hindsight I should have settled in place.

Social policies are Liberty and Honor. Religion is Tithe and Pagodas. Holy Warriors might have been better. No wars in the first 100 turns. I'm ready to attack Rome but, with all the AIs too poor to trade, money will be an issue.

I've only met Rome, Arabia and Japan, one unknown civ has lost it's capital. Raging barbarians were a pain in the beginning, several camps close by and new ones spawning regularly, so my units had to kill barbarians instead of attacking AIs.

- Describe your opening strategy choices. How did terrain and/or neighbors affect this?

I didn't plan to have many cities, I settled on the copper just by the desert (Petra). I was planning to take my neighbors early with CBs. Once I saw that only Rome was close, I decided to plant a coastal city up north. I declared war on Augie on t50 when he was kind enough to donate a much needed worker in the form of a lone settler. I decided to go for several wonders, since I knew I wouldn't be able to clear the map quickly, and on Prince almost all the wonders I want are doable. I built Hanging Gardens t81, Oracle t90 , National College t97, Petra, Chitzen Itza, Hagia Sophia t132, Great Wall t136 and then Borobudur.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

I was thinking of going full honor and early wars, but since I only met Rome I switched to Tradition, and filled it on turn 90.

- How did Shoshone's UA affect settling choices? Did it expand into all the tiles you hoped for?

Pretty much, I didn't pay that much attention.

- What Ruins choices did you take with Pathfinders? How many were you able to find?

I got two terrain ignoring composite bowmen, 3 pop, one tech (writing), and two culture ruins, since culture was a bit of a problem after opening both honor and tradition. I found two more ruins on island with my trireme, so I got a third terrain ignoring CB, but the last discovered ruin is so far from my pathfinders, I'm not sure I'll be able to grab it.

- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?

I founded a late (4th, IIRC) religion on t132 through Hagia Sophia. Pantheon was God-King, all the buildings were gone so I took the hammer-bonus for follower and tithe for founder.

- Did you have any wars in the first 100 turns?

Dowed Augie t50, didn't really attack him before I cleared some camps near the capital and built a couple more CBs. I took Rome t112, no buildings . I decided to wait for crossbows before attacking Arabia and get some experience for my units from Romes only city Antium. Arabia won't be a problem, Mecca is size 2 , but Japan will cause some headache. The rest I haven't even met. The map is quite interesting.

Because I haven't played in a while, I thought my only advantage would be to take a different approach than most. After my scout discovered nothing but loneliness to the west, I decided to settle my cap on the northeastern copper - tucked away between the mountains and the river - which would offer great protection from the raging barbs! Although this still did not produce a 3F tile, it opened up many sheep. Turns out this starting location worked great! My strategy: get animal husbandry ASAP and start working those sheep. I started researching AH and hit a ruin next turn, which I used for population and immediately started a worker. By turn 7 I had a worker started building a pasture on the first sheep - and thanks to the nice and shiny technology of archery I received from my second ruin, I was building my first archer. The plan was to use the sheep to crank out a quick military and take over the world!

Well, ok I hit a bit of a problem. This map certainly seems bigger than standard! And wow what I curious 'pangea'.

Whenever I see tundra to the South my instincts tell me to push North. Those instincts don't work well on the map

Click to expand...

I also encountered the 'south-north' problem. Luckily I found Ceasar early, and had sacked Rome by turn 50. But that took too much time, and I still had yet to find any other civs! This "pangea" is huge, and somehow it is all mine??? Ok, adapt strategy!

Another problem I am having is that my large military is starting to run a deficit. With only one city and a slowly recovering Rome to support it, by turn 60 I have decided to expand and rework my economy. This map is going to require a much bigger military than I had hoped, I need an infrastructural foundation to keep it going...

I am at turn 100. Tried to post a screenshot but can't figure out how without a URL (that's for another thread I guess). I have 6 cities (including Rome), and a new social policy to pop me a new settler coming next turn with my liberty policy. Have not declared war on anyone else yet.


Moving forward my aim is the following: Found my next (and last) city in 3 more turns, finish all current building projects, and start producing the world's 'pointiest sticks'!!! From that point 'all-out war one civ at a time.'

The (somewhat rhetorical) Questions: Consider my next military research? Do I go for chivalry, or metal working? Knights are nice for the faster movement, but I don't want to get stuck far away on the map with a unit that pikemen can destroy. (Perhaps I combo the knights with chariot archers) In the homeland I will support my troops by connecting my cities with trade routes and luxury resources. The real question, is it advantageous to spend time on naval techs? I could send my armies east, but at some point this land mass will probably bend up and then back west!!! It might be much faster to keep feeding my armies by sending them across the water to the north. Just a thought.

I started playing this Sunday night; never played the Shoshone before. I moved my settler one tile to the east to get it within 2 tiles of a mountain and a little closer to some sheep that I saw in that direction, and I settled on the first turn.

First thing I build was another pathfinder. I took the +20 culture for my first ruin so I could get a quick policy -- Honor opener to help with barbs. Second policy came just a few turns later and I opened Tradition.

Things were going pretty well. I found lots of ruins; I upgraded both pathfinders to c-bows, got 2 free techs, extra pop, and enough faith for a pantheon (God-King) and I discovered Rome (strength 10 and pretty much unguarded.) And lots of culture and experience from killing barbarians. My plan was to rush Rome with 2 bows and a pathfinder and take it down early, annex it right away, and then stop and build up my infrastructure. Early warfare is not my usual style.

My two bows had cover promotions and my pathfinder had survivalism. I thought that would be enough because Rome was so weak. What I didn't count on was getting swarmed by barbarians just as I was about to take the city. They killed my pathfinder and one of my bows, and I "rage-quit" at turn 48.

I started the game again, and this time played it more like I usually do; build one ancient wonder and national college before founding a 2nd city. Then get stables and workshops right away to boost production, THEN I can think about warfare (but I usually don't until Industrial era).

I'm allied with several CS's from clearing camps and rescuing their workers. I herded a Roman settler into an encampment, then took it for a worker w/o having to declare war. I don't remember what turn I'm on but it's finally safe to run a caravan or two (barely.) I'm the tech leader according to the demographics screen, and I've started building horsemen and pikes. Rome is the only civ that I've met (this must be a really weird-shaped map), and I've seen a couple of messages that an unmet civ has lost its capital. When I stopped last night, I had just gotten a great prophet, and I'm one turn away from finishing that Mausoleum wonder that nobody else was building, so I'll wait a turn before I enhance my religion to get an extra 100 gold.

I've finished Tradition, taken a couple of points in Honor, and wasn't sure whether to go Patronage next or Commerce, or finish Honor. I decided I need to right side of Commerce more so I went that way.

I built the Great Wall just to keep anyone else from getting it.

Not sure if I'll need a trebuchet to take Rome, and if so do I need to build a road thru all those hills to shorten my supply lines. I usually don't mess with siege units until cannons because they are so fragile.

Fun game (even tho' I've already disqualified my self by restarting)