TSG114 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG114 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.

- Did you start this game with a preconceived strategy? If so, which one?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- How many ruins did you find? What were the results?
- Did you go to war in the first 100 turns?
- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?

Alright, here's my input:

- I wanted to try out the Sacred Sites culture win thing

- I went Liberty to Free Settler, then Piety to Reformation. Using Oracle, I managed to grab Reformation around turn 95ish.

- Not much, I did get a pair of culture ruins, a pop ruin, one upgrade warrior to spear, and one faith

- No, I did not. In fact, I bribed a neighbor to attack another neighbor

- Yes, Despite getting Stonehenge at 42, I was the second one to found. I picked 100 gold per converted city, pagodas, and then later +1 happy from shrines and faster spread, as Monasteries and Mosques both got taken in the meantime, sadly. So it might be a gimped SS effort

edit: how do you file a T172 crash to desktop

stormtrooper412 said:

edit: how do you file a T172 crash to desktop

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just a crash if you can still play from there after reloading. also, if that's your VC turn we'll move this portion to AA.

HR

it's not. I did set autosaves to 1 turn but I doubt I'll finish it any time soon, I really wanted to go all in and end it last night, instead who knows when will I get around to it.

Some additional advice:

If you want SS, use the first 100 turns to set up your religion, enhance it to your first couple cities because you probably won't reform until 85-90 if you're going Liberty to Piety. Use Oracle to catch the Reformation, and make sure you have Stonehenge as early as possible.

More importantly. if you want to win reasonably quickly, after first 100 turns, you will run out of room for additional cities (I managed 9 or 10), and then roll out the Impis, with each city you take, puppet then annex then convert then spam religious building. My tourism for this point in the game was quite low, in the mid 30s because I ran out of room and I didn't pick the 2nd building in time. Also, I didn't have enough cities. I was rolling in happiness though, in the +30 range

My strategy was to conquer almost everyone and then dazzle the survivors. That meant getting quickly to Bronze Working for the Ikanda Spearmen three-move promotion and then Civil Service for Impis, taking just enough other techs so the cities and workers had something to build. Theodora and Gustavus are friendly and far enough away, so right now I plan for them be the final tourists.

My policies were Honor, Liberty to the settler, then back to complete the Honor tree.

I found six ruins: 2 population, Archery, barb camps, Scout to Archer (my favourite) and 20 culture.

The Huns attacked me on turn 68 a dozen turns after I settled north of them on the coast Ivory. I managed to take Attila's Court on turn 102 and now have the largest, most expensive, army. I'm close to Boudicca and she took the Great Library the same turn I would have had it, so I should attack her.

I haven't founded a religion but the first thing I build in each new city is a shrine, so I'm hopeful.

I was too sleepy when I started this game and butchered it good. I took left honor and have been killing every barbarian I can to get myself to reformation after my religion is founded. I was too tired to remember rule number one to early and effective warmongering: tons of cities. Should have opened left liberty and built 10 cities instead of building a bunch of spearmen to play trade the capital with Attila. Attila still has his capital, and I lost most of my spearmen. It's turn 95, and my science is so terrible that civil service won't be arriving anytime soon. I will stick this one out though and still try to win, but it won't be a competitive time at all thanks to my early game mistakes and terrible cities. I need to remember to not start these until I am actually awake, I played a horrible early game and will be replaying this as soon as I win and submit to see how I can do better. I feel like Microsoft now, TSG112 was a horrifying Turn 430 finish, but TSG113 was a competitive turn 302 victory, and now here I am on TSG114 looking at a terrible game I will hopefully still win but not anytime soon. Really looking forward to TSG115 now...

Oh I'm not trying to be competitive, I know that stuff is generally way beyond my abilities. I'm yet to actually finish any of these maps

Just cleaned the dust off my Civ 5 game the other day, and got totally addicted once more after years of inactivity. I wanted to try out the GOTM for a more enjoyable challenge (I like the single player with a multiplayer aspect). Also, King level fits me perfectly, Diety is way to hard. So... here I am

- Did you start this game with a preconceived strategy? If so, which one?
Yes, as this was my first BNW game (bought the expansion "while" downloading the GOTM save game) I was totally new to the tourism concept. I read up on a SS strategy and wanted to try out that. I wanted to get 3-4 cities up asap and went for Shrine -> monument in the cities while building a couple of warriors as escorts. When I found Atilla I knew I had to be ready to defend, and I was right! I tried scouting for all civs, however, didn't find all before long after t100.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Liberty -> Free settler (to expand fast, SS)
Pity to get reformation (around t120), but got it way to slow because of war efforts took so much of my focus away from culture building and I may have founded too many cities which gave me a culture raise headache. Did not get the Oracle, Egypt beat me on that.

- How many ruins did you find? What were the results?
Found a few, got archer tech, 2 equip. upgrades and faith (but to late to make a real difference)

- Did you go to war in the first 100 turns?
I didn't want to, but The Huns attacked, around t70, with a strong army with several battle rams (hate those, tear down city defenses fast(!)). Luckely I had placed some scouts so I saw them coming 3-4 turns before they declared war. I rush bought some defence, but they managed to raze one of my newly found cities on the north coast before I could stop them I was mad, built up an army and ~t130 I took Atilla's court as revenge!

- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?
I picked faith for copper, iron and salt, and the 2 gold per city, pagodas, and then, as stormtrooper, +1 happy from shrines and faster spread, as Monasteries and Mosques both got taken in the meantime I also felt my SS fast finish effort was crushed because of war and slow reformation and also I struggle with unhappiness.

Camv said:

Just cleaned the dust off my Civ 5 game the other day, and got totally addicted once more after years of inactivity. I wanted to try out the GOTM for a more enjoyable challenge (I like the single player with a multiplayer aspect). Also, King level fits me perfectly, Piety is way to hard. So... here I am

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Welcome back to Civ5 and thanks for joining us in GotM! If you haven't played in a while, several VCs were changed during BNW -- most notably with Culture but also for Diplo and Domination. It should feel a little like a new game now. Good luck!

Thanks,
HR

Hammer Rabbi said:

Welcome back to Civ5 and thanks for joining us in GotM! If you haven't played in a while, several VCs were changed during BNW -- most notably with Culture but also for Diplo and Domination. It should feel a little like a new game now. Good luck!

HR

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Thanks HR! After 300 turns I've found quite a few differences from the vanilla version I'm used to I really like the changes to culture, love arch. digging!

t98 - it's not quite going as I planned, unfortunately. I'm having a feeling that I do better in deity games than on lower difficulties, guess I didn't respect the AI enough...

Settled my first expo down south near Kilimancharo, to block off Egypt. 2nd and 3rd expo near Attila. Then a fourth one to the east of capital, near 3 salt coz I have Earth Mother (I always seem to get Earth Mother pantheon!)

Attila marched an army southeast towards my first expo. I had two Ikanda promoted spears so I was sure I could hold him off long enough to get reinforcements from my capital. Well I couldn't, he killed my spears and razed my first expo!

I wiped out his army afterwards, he is currently offering me peace in exchange for his only expo. Think I'm going to accept in order to consolidate.

As for sacred sites, I only managed to get 1 religious building, Theodora snatched the last two with her UA shortly before I was able to enhance my religion. I did get SS; my backup plan is to let Theo spread her religion to a couple of my cities, buy the buildings and then convert to my religion.

Religious progress was as follows:
t76 - founded Buddhism - Pagodas, Ceremonial Burial for happiness
t92 - enhanced - Itinerant preachers (spreads 30% further), Ascetics (happiness from shrines)
t98 - reformation - SS (with Oracle)

Policy path: left liberty, then Reformation (as most people probably did)

Ruins: 2 gold, 1 pop, Archery, barb activity, 60 faith for prophet, scout upgrade

I just resettled Umgundgundlovu (or whatever that 1st expo is called) and planning to backfill my lands now, then once I get Impis probably invade Egypt and/or Huns.

Wild_Woojsha said:

I was too sleepy when I started this game and butchered it good. I took left honor and have been killing every barbarian I can to get myself to reformation after my religion is founded. I was too tired to remember rule number one to early and effective warmongering: tons of cities. Should have opened left liberty and built 10 cities instead of building a bunch of spearmen to play trade the capital with Attila. Attila still has his capital, and I lost most of my spearmen. It's turn 95, and my science is so terrible that civil service won't be arriving anytime soon. I will stick this one out though and still try to win, but it won't be a competitive time at all thanks to my early game mistakes and terrible cities. I need to remember to not start these until I am actually awake, I played a horrible early game and will be replaying this as soon as I win and submit to see how I can do better. I feel like Microsoft now, TSG112 was a horrifying Turn 430 finish, but TSG113 was a competitive turn 302 victory, and now here I am on TSG114 looking at a terrible game I will hopefully still win but not anytime soon. Really looking forward to TSG115 now...

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This sounds like my game. After a long pause I dusted off CivV and tried this GotM casually. I forgot to bring ranged units, because of the awesome looks of the spears being pumped out of my Ikanda. They just couldn't resist flanking all around the Hunnic capital. Of course, Attila noticed their war-like behavior and "at least I was honest" to DOW him - hey, that's me! After a long war, I did manage to conquer the only Hunnic city, destroying the Huns and leaving the Zulus with two nearly dead super spears (the remains of what used to be a proud army). It was clearly not the way to a great GotM submission, but nevertheless fun

I never play as the Zulus. I do not plan to use my Impis much except defensively. I avoid war. I went with my usual sub-optimal strategy to see if it would work. I usually win diplomatically, but this is a bigger map than I'm used to.

Best not say more, I'm no threat of winning quickly. I just don't play aggressively enough.

edit - I resumed playing this game in a gap between studies. I decided to accept the challenge though I'm never the best at quick victories. I will follow my usual peaceful builder tactics. Should have tried to be more clever, but even my comment from the other day disappeared or was lost in the Chinese Internet.

Moderator Action: Moved to the Opening Action thread. Once you open the save, please do not post in the Announcement thread due to spoilers. Your comment about the map could be a spoiler. Thanks.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- Did you start this game with a preconceived strategy? If so, which one?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- How many ruins did you find? What were the results?
- Did you go to war in the first 100 turns?
- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?

Click to expand...

Did you start this game with a preconceived strategy? If so, which one?

Yes I did. I started the game with the plan to try Sacred Sites. I haven't won with that victory style before, and am fairly good at the normal culture victory, so I wanted a different challenge.

What Social Policies did you choose and why?

I opened Honor to get additional culture throughout the game from barbarian farming. I then opened Liberty and rushed to an extra settler, and faster settler building. This was important because I want to be able to spam cities once the Sacred Sites strategy is getting off the ground. You need cities to place religious buildings, so this is an important part of that plan. After completing the left hand side of the Liberty, I opened Piety and rushed towards Reformation.

As of Turn 100, I have completed Oracle, to give me Religious Tolerance, but I don't yet have Reformation. I am running fairly slow this game in my opinion, and am not happy with how the culture progression has gone. I am going to reach Sacred Sites well later than I would have liked.

How many ruins did you find?

I am not sure exactly, but I think it was 4. My first production was a scout specifically to try for ruins. I received: 1. Greater area vision (revealing a 2nd ruin), 2. +20 Culture, 3. Warrior upgrade to Spearman, 4. Free Tech (Mining)

The free mining tech was perfectly timed as I was working on my 2nd technology, Calendar. That allowed me to build a worker, and start quickly improving my salt, while building Stonehenge.

Did you go to war in the first 100 turns?

No. I managed to remain friendly with Attila, even though he expanded towards me aggressively.

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

Yes, I was the 2nd religion founded.
Pantheon: Earth Mother (+1 faith for my salt!!!)
Founder: Tithe (My favorite no matter the strategy used)
Follower: Mosques
2nd Follower: Cathedrals
Enhancer: Itinerant Preachers (+30% conversion distance) This one is important for when I spam cities to overwhelm the religion on the continent.

Reformation: Not yet chosen, but will be Sacred Sites if I can get it.

Overall Synopsis:
While I have set myself up towards winning at this point, I am not happy with my performance. I have only three cities, because Attila took my ideal fourth city location. (West of starting location, next to ivory and on the water). My first expansion was founded next to the salt in the south, on the hill next to salt and wheat. My second expansion was founded next to the ocean, and 3 salt to my east. This would have ideally been my first expansion, but I had to move south because of barbarians I couldn't yet fight off.

I have a relatively weak military, as I spent too much time on wonders. I missed the Great Library by 3 turns. (This hurt badly). If I hadn't made the mistake of trying to double up on the Library and Stonehenge, I likely would have been in a much better situation than I am.

The biggest problem that I have is that I have only met 4 of the 7 AI players as of Turn 100. This is a SEVERE issue for the use of my sacred sites strategy. If I can't find the enemy, then I can't culturally influence them. That is not good. I don't know where they could be. This is partially a problem because I haven't explored as much as I should have. I am trying to fix this right now, but I mishandled the barbarians near me due to a weak military.

As of this point, I would be happy with a turn 200 victory, because of my shoddy start.

- Did you start this game with a preconceived strategy? If so, which one?
Yes. I wanted to go for a blend of Sacred Sites and war mongering to eliminate the cultural leaders from the game. I expanded to 4 cities before building up for my initial war. Here is what the northern part of my empire looks like at turn 120.

After taking Egypt I decided to built 2 more settlers to link up my empire. Also, I am generating a good amount of faith so getting a Cathedral and a Pagoda in each city nets me +4 tourism with SS. After taking out Egypt, it looks like Byzantium, Shoshone and Japan are my greatest cultural threats.


- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
I opened Honor for the bonus culture from barbarians and then went for Full Piety. I also opened Aesthetics for the bonus to GW/GA (and eventually GM too). Then I returned to Honor for the left side (for faster xp).


- How many ruins did you find? What were the results?
Honestly, I don't remember. I'm certain that I got 2x population and 2x culture because these have the biggest impact on the early game IMHO. I don't remember getting any free technologies and only one scout was upgraded to an archer.

- Did you go to war in the first 100 turns?
Yes. Egypt had to go down! Perhaps I could have planned a bit better.

I built 4 spearmen (to upgrade to UU later) and 4 archers and went for Egypt to start the war mongering. Unfortunately, Egypt was a bit tougher to take than I had anticipated. I've lost 3 out of 4 spearmen and the war took me about 30-40 turns. Perhaps I should have gotten construction earlier for a CB rush with spears.

- Did you found a religion? If so, what belief choices were made?
Yes. I thought I took a screenshot, but don't see one now.

Earth Mother (lots of salt), Tithe (gold bonus) plus Cathedrals (extra GW slot) and Pagodas for the SS tourism. My enhancer gave bonus faith for each great person (I will be generating quite a few) and of course Sacred Sites as a reformation belief.

I'm over 200 turns in, so not sure if I should be posting in this thread or "after actions". Posting here because It's not done yet. I've never played a Sacred Sites game before. After building a scout I rushed out a shrine to get a pantheon as quickly as possible. Boudicca beat me, of course, but I got the 2nd or 3rd pantheon and took Earth Mother. I wanted pagodas and cathedrals, but pagodas (and mosques) were taken already -- and now I'm having happiness problems.

I opened Honor to help deal with barbs, then went straight Piety, then Aesthetics.

Attila has been a terror. He's captured Constantinople and Thebes and I'm not sure what all else. (Thebes had the Great Wall ) He's also the science leader. I'm sieging Attila's Court right now and will be capturing it soon -- it's been a nasty war of attrition, but what else do I have to do to pass the time while my tourism and open borders overtakes everybody? Every other turn I lose about 2 Impis and a crossbow, and I build 4 more to replace them.

My religion is Earth Mother, Initiation Rites, Cathedrals, Monasteries, SS, and Itinerant Preachers.

Eventually I'll have to declare war on the Shoshones so I can musician-bomb them. I found them early enough (Sweden was the holdout for me) but Pocatello also seems to be going culture. They are also hostile and I'm not sure why (maybe because I'm friends with Japan)

I've only build a couple of wonders; MoH and Great Mosque. Maybe I should have gone for Stonehenge instead of a very early settler. I'll replay this game, and try that, and also dive straight into Piety w/o opening Honor first (that sounds like a disaster to me, but who know) mainly to finish Aesthetics sooner.

It's fine to post that in here since the submission date has expired. But I would prefer you not post up through t200 in the OA threads if the submission expiration date hasn't occurred yet. It isn't a hard rule, just a guideline. We are fine with posting up through t150 in the OA too. It's more just a middle point in your game update.

But I'm glad you are working your way through these. These are some fun games even if you are 'late' to the party so keep revisiting them as much as you want. We appreciate you willing to comment on them too.

HR