TSG128 Opening Actions

Welcome to the TSG128 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 with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.
- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.
- How many neighbors have you met? And who?
- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?
- Describe your ruins results.
- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?
- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?

Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.

I was very lucky on the first few turns, but it was always going to be a slow start



Very peaceful so far, I've got 4 cities up + NC. The Assyrians are kicking Korean butt, but they have so far left me to myself.

Happiness has been the limiting factor with 4 cities and not too many luxuries. Went liberty, completed it fast and have picked the aesthetics and commerce opener for now.

Looking good so far, but we are way way way behind still....

This is my first game on deity, so I'm not expecting much other than learning from my mistakes.

Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.
I started with the idea to try a culture victory, but its still too early. My goal for now is to survive and grow.

Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.
I settled in place. Explored a little and decided to settle northwest near the desert.

How many neighbors have you met? And who?
Pretty much met the few city-states around me. I only met the other civs when they encountered me.

Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?
Peaceful so far. I see Austria settled close by and I anticipate a problem with them. I think 2 other civs lost their capital already so I'm going to have to start on a defense.

Describe your ruins results.
20 culture, 1 pop, show nearby barbarians, 55 gold, 20 culture

Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?
I got the pantheon and chose Fertility Rites, but missed out on the religion.

What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?
I can't remember which were free and which I earned...
Liberty -- Citizenship - Republic - Collective Rule - Representation
Tradition


For techs, I'm not sure I made the best choices but my tree went as follows:
Pottery, Archery, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Writing, The Wheel, Mathematics, Currency, Calendar, Masonry, Philosophy, Sailing, Bronze Working, Trapping, Horseback Riding.


I lost a lot of time trying for some wonders. I guess I won't try that again in my next deity game.

Taeloz said:

This is my first game on deity, so I'm not expecting much other than learning from my mistakes.

Click to expand...

Thanks for joining us at CFC and the Game of the Month! Good luck and have fun!

HR

Well, as is typical, things are going great until someone decides to march an army across the map (in this case Assyria) to attack me. Oh well, it's put me behind a few turns from already a slow start but I'm knocking them back.

- Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.

Being a relatively weak culture player, science was obvious for me. Plus, I think the timing of Poland's free culture picks helps you to run through the rationalism tree.

- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.

Settled in place. Got 1+ pop ruin and el Dorado and immediately sent a settler NE to settle on coast and got Mt. Kailaish. Third expo is west on coast to take advantage of multiple whales and marble.

- How many neighbors have you met? And who?

Met everyone (except one who was destroyed by Assyria, I think). Look like Babylon after a second glance.

- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?

As mentioned, Assyria obviously saw the benefit of coming across the continent to attack so in the middle of pushing back his superior army as we speak.

- Describe your ruins results.

+1 Pop, gold, a barbarian spawn, and a very late culture (worthless...)

- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?

With first expo, settled mt. Kailaish. Took One with Nature (no really good pantheons from dirt) and started running to religion. Took Tithe and Pagodas and in process of spreading them.

- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?

So far completed Tradition and will use them between Rationalism and Patronage (I play a strong game with City States).

T99 education so far so good.
Let's see what Assur is planning.

- Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.
Science...I am simply not a huge fan of CV.

- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.
Well the hint in the announcement thread made me wonder.
So I decided to move the settler NW along the coast and the warrior south...revealing El Dorado, I think before I settled.
As I wanted to spend the money asap on a settler and the spot in the north with all them whales did not feel so bad, I settled.

Second city went a bit south along the cost - 3 tiles north of El Dorado, which got snagged by Prague (not sure if this makes me unhappy).

Third and final expo (four is just too much to do ) is to the east on the sheep (still below T30 I think). Bought Kailash and secured a pantheon.....god king (didn't feel like the fisherboat thing would cut it).

In the early turns I had some happy problems, thus locking Lodsch on Kailash and speeding up religion.

Teched rather directly to optics, then luxes, philo, education (this turn), will go astro to renassaince and should open with double SP
Edit: aaaah should change that - I have no Mountains!!

Rush bought two universities.

Was quite lucky with CS quests.

- How many neighbors have you met? And who?
Met everyone, though poor Sejon is already gone...just a few turns ago and that spells bad time with Assur I guess.

- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?
Only Hanoi had to deliver 3 workers over time.
AI is active though. Korea is gone and Austria Songhai declared on Russia with no impact though. But that did make me try late HG and not so late Oracle but lost both.

- Describe your ruins results.
phew...what was it?
+1 pop
culture
tech mining
upgrade warrior
map
cash

- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?
yes, was even a bit unlucky to miss pagodas (5 turns over due with 2 other religions founded in between), took tithe and mosques then.

- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?
full tradition, 2 into patronage and now I am pondering whether to also take scholasticism next....hmhm






Sorry I did not manage to get rid of the "attached thumbnails" => how would I do that?

I made it to turn 15. From previous Deity games I figured if I was going to have a chance later I had to steal a worker and defeat the neighbours. When I saw Austria had an undefended worker with only one warrior in sight, and I had a ruin-promoted spearman, I declared war.

Unfortunately I was on the side away from home having to cross north of the second Austrian city. Battered by two more warriors who appeared out of nowhere, and using the next promotion for health, I made it to the forest but I didn't make it to the second forest tile, let alone out the other side. With my spearman killed, my worker recaptured, and my limited Deity skills, I think I'll have to wait til next time.

Kendon said:

I made it to turn 15. From previous Deity games I figured if I was going to have a chance later I had to steal a worker and defeat the neighbours. When I saw Austria had an undefended worker with only one warrior in sight, and I had a ruin-promoted spearman, I declared war.

Unfortunately I was on the side away from home having to cross north of the second Austrian city. Battered by two more warriors who appeared out of nowhere, and using the next promotion for health, I made it to the forest but I didn't make it to the second forest tile, let alone out the other side. With my spearman killed, my worker recaptured, and my limited Deity skills, I think I'll have to wait til next time.

Click to expand...

You could always restart and try again for practice, to work thru the mistakes. Submitting isn't required and if you already know you won't be submitting then you can 'break rules' by restarting to try it again. We'd rather players learn more than compete from these GotMs. And you can always discuss and seek advice/help on making the leap to a higher diff too.

Thanks for giving it a shot though.

HR

I only play on Emperor and this is being really tough, it's turn 190 and I only have 2 cities LOL. I foward settled Austria near Mt. Kailash and she declared war on me, I managed to defend and started to push back, but with all those jungles and marshes I had to retreat without her city. Since then, she never wanted peace and I have to focus on military and gold to keep it going. Those no production land are really awkward too. I will restart and try again tomorrow. Good Luck boys!

Hi all i'm finally back

Maybe not...at least for a game. Poland + Deity is interesting and the map seems hard at first glance

Settled in place since my warrior didnt see anything good nearby. Wanted to stay on coast too. Well like the others i found the overpowered thing little way south and bought a settler. Then rushed optics for lighthouse x2. Under Tradition ofc.

Kick start with many steals. I could steal 2 workers and 1 settler from AIs(Boutica and Austria) and 2 more from cs(DoWed 1 only). Stayed at war with Antaranivo to get it later(Gibraltar + fish yum yum).

Built NC around 80 and added 3 more cities. Allied Riga(maritime).

Almost forgot how Deity is annoying regarding religion! They keep bombing me missionnaries but one religion has pagodas. At least they generally suck so it's only amusing. Will likely go for a science victory i dunno.

Edit: Forgot to say that i picked 2 policies into exploration. For extra production.

I can't remember leading that early in a deity game

welcome back (temporarily), Tabarnak! i expect a minimum of 40 turns faster than my SV out of you.

So, I am giving this a crack. It's been interesting. Update as of T105.

- Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.

No. I opened figuring I would try to hit education / NC and then pick.

- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.

This was interesting. I walked southwest to the hill with my warrior while heading southeast (following the river) with my settler. The opener looked poor, and I've always been a big proponent of "taking a walk". I was worried that I made a horrific choice, but ultimately settled next to a bananas & deer for food. I think it has worked out as Warsaw is up to size 18 at T105, but man I was worried.

- How many neighbors have you met? And who?

I have met six neighbors at this point. Missing someone far too the west. My scouting has been mediocre.

- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?

I declared on Austria early on and took two workers. I also took a worker from Prague. My only real military adventure was to blockade the Assyrians from taking Belgrade.

- Describe your ruins results.

Ah heck, can't remember. Initial ruin was a culture. NOthing special otherwise. Bunch of barbarians, maps & gold. Oh, and my third or fourth ruin was the writing tech.

- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?

I got 3rd religion using Mt. Kailash and early alliance with Lhasa. I took Sun God for the food, tithe and Pagodas.

- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?

I finished Tradition and opened Patronage with the 2 free SPs. Tradition was finished circa T66 which was nice.

I went for the ToA early by teching Pottery - Archery - Mining. I used the two "free" workers from Austria to chop five nearby forests in my capital. I didn't feel the pressure to pound out an early settler - I bought one with the 500 gold from El Dorado.

Empire at T105:


Fun with blockades:

First 100 Turns :



- Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.
I wasn't sure if I was going to try for Culture with War or Peace into SV but the lazy side looks like SV.

- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.

Settle in place thinking cargo ships can fix any problems and after moving warrior it didn't look good to move.

- How many neighbors have you met? And who?
I met them all but Korea who got wiped out very early by Assur.

- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?
None for me I played pretty peaceful but some of the Ais went to war with each other. Thanks to Assur for killing Korea.

- Describe your ruins results.
Free Pop, Evi Barbs and Gold I think. Not too many ruins for me this game.

- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?
2nd to Religion and I went 1 with Nature, Tithe, Pagodas, Rel Community, and Rel Texts.

- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?
Full Tradition going 2 into Liberty and going to go 2 into Exploration next.

Still alive at turn 100 at least. I found the ruins for the +1 pop, but went east to explore and didn't find El Dorado until much later. Korea is gone thanks to Assyria, which for a science game could be fine. Sweden is down to 2 cities now and is at war with the Celts and Russians.

I have two cities now, the capital settled in place, and the other is due west on the coast, which should net 4 extra whales for trading. I have a weak army compared to the rest, but i'm friends with Austria even though she forward settled on me; so she is a buffer between my two cities and the legions of units running around. I'm way behind on tech, working on guilds now and Boudicca just finished Notre Dame. I'm going to turtle and build populations as high as I can, probably in just the two cities, and see how fast I can crank out the discoveries.

My empire at t101: Five self-founded cities, plus ex-City-State Prague. Lodz is my National College city.

The starting location seemed completely unacceptable, so I wandered south into the hills. I didn't see anything too exciting, so I settled for a boring capital with a Cotton and a hill inside the first ring. This at least gave a nice 2-pop city for the early game. With a bad capital, Liberty seemed like a no-brainer.

I used some of my El Dorado gold to buy a Scout on the turn I settled. I needed to wait 8 turns to grow to 2-pop before I could buy a Settler anyway, and I estimated that a purchased Scout would make back enough gold by meeting CS that I could buy my Settler on time. It ended up working out, and I'm pretty confident that it was the correct play.

I built a ton of units early, and it paid off by allowing me to secure a city at Lodz. Austria sent a Settler that way before me, but I was able to trap and kill it, severely harming my neighbor and putting me in a safe, strong position.

For policies, I have Tradition opener, full Liberty, and left-side Patronage to CS science. About 20 of my beakers are coming from CS Allies, which is quite a good chunk of my current output.

My religion is God of Craftsmen, Tithe, Pagodas, Guruship, and Reliquary. I am working Merchant specialists in every city that can. That means my cities are getting as much as 3 extra hammers from religion, which is a huge amount at this stage of the game.

I decided to grab both Metal Casting and Guilds before Education. Edu should come around t115, which is quite good considering my detours. I should have some nicely developed cities with Workshops and pre-Trading-Posted jungle once Universities come in.

I currently have a bazillion happiness, five more Pagodas left to buy, and access to additional happiness policies in both Tradition and Patronage. So I definitely want to expand more. Ideally I'll take out Austria as soon as I get Crossbows, but right now there's some risk that I get tied up in war with the Celts.

I will be going for Culture Victory. With Prague under my control, there are no Cultural CS left on the map (that I know of -- one CS left to find), which is great for keeping AI culture generation down. I should safely be able to win on the Third World Congress, for a win around t240. However, with my good start and favorable CS condition, there should be room to get a bit more ambitious. Winning pre-Internet on the Second Congress may be a possibility. Futurism is also a consideration, although I probably won't bother with that.

- Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.
Science, since I was bored of culture and wanted to see how fast polish sv can be.

- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.
In place, after a few turns of wandering, capital has poor production. Settled areas around capital, north of east neighbor and also west after NC.

- How many neighbors have you met? And who?
Met Austria shortly, rest of AI all met before turn 80.

- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?
Only war was to steal worker off Austria, DoF after I sent caravan.

- Describe your ruins results.
2 culture ruins among other useless ones.

- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?
Religion with mosque to help with faith when I'm not playing wide. Will take Swords into Plowshares if available.

- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?
Tradition finisher, Commerce opener so far.

- Did you start this with a specific VC strategy? If so, which one and why.

Science. The only real victory.

- Did you wander and settle somewhere else? Settle in place? Describe any expos choices.

No, the starting position is fairly decent. Of course the combination with survivors from a ruins on the way to El Dorado give us a second settler immediately. We are also nicely protected behind a line of City States. We put seven cities there. 5 Krakow is on the west coast and continously works El Dorado. 30 Lodz is on the east coast and does the same with Mt. Kailash. This may not be the optimal choice, but it felt right.

56 Wroclaw is in the desert. Then 66 Poznan and 71 Gdansk in the south, competing for tiles with La Venta and Salzburg (Austria), and the last one 72 Szczecin again on the coast at the Wine.

- How many neighbors have you met? And who?

Songhai was last, on turn 35. We also found all City States except one, and every natural wonder except one. Korea built the Great Library but neglected its military and got run over by Assyria, so there's one AI less.

Everyone else is going religious, particularly the Celts. We will need a long wall of units to protect our coastal cities and their God of the Sea pantheon from annoying foreign Great Prophets...

- Any early wars or have you remained peaceful so far?

We did not steal any Workers and have remained at peace so far.

- Describe your ruins results.

Warrior: survivors, gold.
Settler: culture.
Scouts: map, upgrade to Archer, survivors, culture.
Pretty good but alas no faith.

- Did you get a religion? If so, which tenets?

Judaism was founded on turn 62 for Tithe and Pagodas. We are again delaying the enhancement while our one Missionary and the Pagodas are still cheap. We don't expect it to spread to the jungle cities, as Catholicism (Celts) is everywhere already, but as long as the coastal cities keep it we're good.

- What free SPs did you get with Poland's UA?

After the Tradition opener we completed the Liberty tree. One academy was created. The extra policies were Meritocracy (39 Optics) and Philanthropy (89 Metal Casting). Scholasticism on turn 90 significantly boosted our research and we got Civil Service on turn 100 exactly. Most AI are already well past that, of course, but no spies yet.


Turn 100 Statistics
p=50 (10,9,7,8,6,5,5)
s=+110
g=76 (+64)
r=2/4
h=11 (512/790)
c=443/840 (+36)
t=0 (+0)
f=72 (+29)

Warsaw completed the COLOSSUS on turn 84 and is currently building the National College.

Population (science, gold, culture, faith per turn)
10 = 4 (7, 2, 11, 0)
20 = 5 (8, 6, 13, 0)
30 = 6 (9, 5, 16, 7)
40 = 8 (11, 9, 16, 7)
50 = 9 (12, 3, 18, 7)
60 = 14 (25, 10, 30, 7) (Golden Age from Representation)
70 = 18 (29, 23, 28, 14)
80 = 30 (47, 39, 34, 15)
90 = 40 (83, 64, 43, 22)
100 = 50 (110, 64, 36, 29)


Technology
8 Animal Husbandry
15 Pottery
27 Sailing
30 Mining
39 Optics
42 Archery
47 Calendar
51 Masonry
56 The Wheel
59 Bronze Working
61 Writing
64 Trapping
68 Mathematics
76 Iron Working
78 Construction
83 Engineering
89 Metal Casting
91 Horseback Riding
93 Philosophy
97 Currency
100 Civil Service

Hammer Rabbi said:

You could always restart and try again for practice, to work thru the mistakes. Submitting isn't required and if you already know you won't be submitting then you can 'break rules' by restarting to try it again. We'd rather players learn more than compete from these GotMs. And you can always discuss and seek advice/help on making the leap to a higher diff too.

Thanks for giving it a shot though.

HR

Click to expand...

I appreciate the encouragement. I read Acken's comments, recommended by Wild Woojsha in the 128 announcement, and then did the replay you suggest.

I went through the first 80 turns four times, restarting each time I made a critical mistake. I learned three main things.

First, if my archer is near the end of bombarding a barbarian camp I have to wait til the AI scouts leave so my unit takes the camp instead of just getting experience for the attack. I also have to be sure I've met all the adjacent city-states because they're probably going to reward me for destroying the camp.

Secondly, Deity seems to have a rush to religion I don't see on easier levels. My second play-through I didn't check world religions until turn 97 and by then everything was long gone. I restarted on turn 57 with Krakow, my Mt. Kailash city, on religious focus and missed the last religion again on turn 68.

I restarted at turn 38, resettled the Mt. Kailash city and got the fifth religion one turn after religions 3 and 4 were founded. Of course that affected my belief selection.

My first play through was the 'pay attention to details' test. I was restarting every six turns, sometimes replaying sequences three or four times. I made it to turn 105 but in a very weak position. I wasted a lot of time in the jungle to the south of the capitol trying to get a city with iron.

The third big lesson is that starting cities early is crucial for Science but it's not easy to do. Usually I wait for Collective Rule but, since I open Tradition for the accelerated growth, that's my fourth policy. There's a 500 gold bonus for discovering El Dorado which coincidentally is the cost of a settler so I'll go back to turn 13 and see how buying a settler plays out.

Finally I'm going back to the start to play the first 100 moves without any replays. I know it won't be like a real GoM because I now know where everything is, but it will test whether the new ideas work. Of course I won't submit but it will force me to correct things I might overlook so it will be more realistic to that extent.

Thanks again for the pep talk.

Thanks for the reply, Kendon. Another thing is that the game is largely separated by how much micromanagement a player is willing to maintain. Each turn it seems tedious but pay attention to each new event in the side bar where the notifications come up. (You'll see when those religions are taken, haha.) I had to end my habit of speedily clicking thru them to get on with the turn taking (just impatience, really). I never realized how much more could be done by paying attention to it.

Most of the really good players already know much of Civ's differences at each difficulty level and know how to maximize that micromanagement based on that knowledge. At Deity, the AI gets a lot of bonuses and it is worth looking up the specifics of them so you can know what needs to happen to help catch up. (And the specifics are generally available, not some kind of secret.) Ultimately, knowledge is what makes better decisions, and this game has a need for a lot of knowledge to successfully compete at Deity. And most of that knowledge is there if you know how/where to look for it. I hope that process of discovery is interesting because it will also separate the players who find it fun to micromanage and those who don't.

Thanks for trying to learn and improve with these. Good luck!

HR

My first GOTM and first Diety Start, Status at turn 80:

- Started with CV strategy. Finished Writers' Guild at turn 80. Not sure this was right build order.

- Moved Settler one tile to the River fork and settled turn 1.

- Met 6 civ's and 6 CS. My only Scout promoted to Archer and I did not build another. One of my Workers was stolen, and I stole 2 Workers back.

- Stayed out of early wars. Removed two Barb camps for perks. However, I am ranked 7th. in all categories with very weak military. I expect to get eliminated well before completing CV.

- Got the Ruin goodies, El Dorado, and Mt. Kailash Faith working for my second city. Did not intend to go for any religion but achieved the last Pantheon with +1 Culture for Jungle Tiles.

- Intended 4 Cities at start, but likely stopping at 3 Cities. Legalism will provide 3 free Amphitheaters.