TSG 228 Opening Actions Thread

[Nizef]

This thread is used to discuss the game's opening decisions and strategies through the first 100 or so turns. Here you can post questions related to the game and share your achievements/anger/frustration/victories while you play.

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this 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?
- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?

 

[raider980]

Going pretty well so far at turn 88 I think. A little slow since only two others on our continent. Settled on the hill next to the silver and went scout, scout, shrine, monument. Then second city up north and bought tiles to Sri Pada to secure first pantheon, went with culture from plantations since we have much Dye and bananas; I usually don't improve bananas so I can get the science bonus from jungle but will this game. Also, Isabella has many citrus for even more plantations and I'll be taking her capital at some point.

• What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
  • Culture on continents with William is not going to be easy; doable but not easy. So need to explore and go for science as usual; but also find some way to generate culture and tourism.
• How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
  • Terrain was pretty good. There are enough luxuries to keep happiness up and some marshland to the east for some poluders so I had to expand toward Spain (not the safest thing but gotta get those poulders).
• What tech path did you follow and why?
  • I went normal tech path to Civil Service and Education. I should have gone for the top row sooner to meet more people though. I had originally planned to take out the two AI civs on my continent but then changed my mind when I realized that wasn't going to be as easy as last game with Ikanda and Impi.
• What Social Policies did you choose?
  • Full Tradtion into Aesthetics with a detour into Patronage to keep my allies longer.
• What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
  • Tried to get Hanging Gardens and Oracle; didn't get either. So I'm wonderless.
• Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
  • Got a religion: Culture from Plantations; Tithe, Pagodas, Cathedrals, Spread religion further. I shouldn't have taken both Pagodas and Cathedrals, I'm never going to have enough faith to get all those buildings.

Everything was going well, nice and peaceful. Until T64, what the heck, Liz plops Nottingham down 4 tiles from my capital, taking one of my 3rd tier luxury plantations. She's got all kinds of room to her south too. Well I'm going to have to go to war earlier than I thought. Built some archers to turn into CB, one ChArcher, and my warriors. Toook Nottingham T88 and burning it to the ground. Shortly after, Liz offered me York for a peace deal. It wasn't a great city but it wasn't bad and it would give me a monopoly on silver so I peaced out.

 

[Rhodro]

I think my game is going decent so far. I'm not sure if my overall plan is going to work out, we will see. I got Great Library and hoping to get HG and Oracle next few turns. I'm also training comp bows on Panama city and researching machinery for xbows. The plan is to destroy england and spain before meeting other civs.
turn 38 great library by stealing a worker from panama. In total I got 3 workers from Panama and 1 from england. I could definetly use some more. Jungle always so slow to remove.
turn 51 settled rotterdam between york and barcelona for marshes
turn 57 settled utrecht at sri pada, got a pantheon from it, doubted between hammer for 3 pop and sun god, took sun god. Don't know if I can keep the religion, i'm in between religion nuts this game.
turn 96 NC up.
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
Continents, so my plan is to destroy civs on my continent before meeting the other continent. Since this is lower difficulty I wanted to shoot for great library.
- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
On the coastal river hill next to silver. I built scouts, granary before starting on great library.
Going for great library probably delayed settling a bit. I'm lucky I could still squeeze rotterdam between spain and england.
- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
I didn't see a very strong pantheon opportunity from the start so I opted out of shrine. Found sri pada later and got pantheon that way. I'm not sure yet if I will be able to create a religion, i'm not focussing on it.
I found panama city close and was hoping that would be my worker farm, so i camped a scout there. It worked out in the end, but panama is not fast at pumping out settlers. Now using it as a training grounds.
- What were your initial priorities?
Grand library, getting 3 cities up, trade routes, 4 archers and a spearman and national collega. Laying a foundation for a xbow push.
- What tech path did you follow and why?
writing, mining for GL, calendar + pop philosopy, gives a lot of freedom. animal husbandry and bronze working to reveal tiles. construction for comp bows and guilds for polder, now machinery for xbows. After that probably metal casting or civil service. I'm thinking metal casting because i dont have that many river farms up yet.
- What Social Policies did you choose?
Full tradition so far, next up is aesthetics.
- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
GL, HG and oracle hopefully soon. I put HG in the coastal city because its not on a river. Hopefully I get a garden in each city this way.
- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Not yet.

 

[dumpstertrash]

I'd say this is pretty smooth so far. Got AH free from a ruin, some gold and a free pop. Scouted and found 4 spots I wanted ASAP. 1st was SE, 2nd on the marble, and 3rd on the hill next to the mountain in the NW. That NW city is going to be a beast with all of the fish. All of these are prime spots. Liz and Isabella are typically weak neighbors, so I felt totally at ease here.

Before my game started I wanted to go Tradition and then hit up Piety and hopefully get SS. Unfortunately someone already nabbed that, so I'll go with whichever reformation that'll supplement best later on. I said I didn't want to war it out (it just cheapens the CV IMO, but sometimes is necessary). However, I did steal the easiest worker from Liz and from Panama.

I went scout, scout, shrine, worker, bought spearman, settler, settler, granary, settler. my 2nd and 3rd went shrine, granary, library, and my last city went immediately into library.

Tech path starts pottery, free AH, mining, BW, calendar, writing. Not rushing anything, just establishing myself as quick and reasonable as possible.

My cap was able to get Oracle and my 2nd got Temple of Artimis (who doesn't love free growth?). Got NC by turn 104, again no rush, just asserting myself here.

Religion was pilgrimage, Pagodas, food from shrine and temples, and farther spread. My hope is to King LIz and have her propose world religion. Maybe that's a bad play idk. I might rethink it. Oh, and I got faith and culture from silver to beef up my early culture/faith.

Anyway, to the others here, how or why didn't you guys settle that NW mountain with 2 luxes, 4 in range fish and horses? I settled it last because I guarded access to it and wanted my forward spots first, but my God that spot is just too damn good to waste people!

Edit: I got 4 CS allies rn too. They just keep feeding barbs their workers. Too easy. Doubt I'll be fastest, but this might be the easiest game I've had in a while. And Polders are really nice.

 

[raider980]

Anyway, to the others here, how or why didn't you guys settle that NW mountain with 2 luxes, 4 in range fish and horses? I settled it last because I guarded access to it and wanted my forward spots first, but my God that spot is just too damn good to waste people!

Oh, I did settle it. It is definitely a great spot. I just had to delay it to take care of Liz when she settled Nottingham 4 tiles from my capital so I had to build units. I figured neither Liz nor Isabella would be able to get a settler there without me knowing it so it was safe to leave it for quite a while.

 

[dumpstertrash]

Oh, I did settle it. It is definitely a great spot. I just had to delay it to take care of Liz when she settled Nottingham 4 tiles from my capital so I had to build units. I figured neither Liz nor Isabella would be able to get a settler there without me knowing it so it was safe to leave it for quite a while.

Oh thank God lol. I know you only posted up to turn 88 and I was posting my turn 114, and I didn't get forward settled like you either. I played about another 80 turns last night, and that city is massive. All my cities are really.

You said you're not generating enough faith for those pagodas and cathedrals; do you ever dip into piety? When I get an early religion I usually go into piety for the extra faith, faster build and reformation. Sometimes I finish it for the faith buildings cost save and massive gold boost from temples. I am only getting 6 faith from my pantheon and Sri Prada, but now I'm currently around 70 FPT with just 4 cities and no religious CS alliance.

I also thought about Patronage. In a normal game I think Patronage is the most underrated policy tree, finishing it gives you free GP, which could add to your tourism too. It's probably too slow for a quick time CV, but I considered it.

 

[raider980]

Never thought about dipping into Piety to get more faith. I could have used it this game for sure since I didn't even build any Cathedrals (maybe one, can't remember atm). Reformation seems so far down the line you almost have to comit to finishing the tree. And if they would have put the +1 faith in the Opener that would make it more enticing. Usually I dip into Patronage to help with allying CS. Might have to try Piety sometime.

 

[dumpstertrash]

Never thought about dipping into Piety to get more faith. I could have used it this game for sure since I didn't even build any Cathedrals (maybe one, can't remember atm). Reformation seems so far down the line you almost have to comit to finishing the tree. And if they would have put the +1 faith in the Opener that would make it more enticing. Usually I dip into Patronage to help with allying CS. Might have to try Piety sometime.

I'll talk more about what I ended up doing in the other thread when I finish. So far it's making my game much easier, idk if it'll make my finish time slower though. Can't imagine I'll lose too many turns because of it.

 

[Megalou]

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
I wanted to shoot for culture and allied Bucharest very early. Of course, I'm also shooting for tourism but hm, how to do that in the early stages? Tech and social policy focus, I figured. It will be a hard game, since it's continents.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
I wanted to be on the coast and luckily settled on what turned out to be iron.
Then I settled Rotterdam on the marble close to Sri Pada and Utrecht 1 southwest of the ivory. That's it for now. I'm happy about settling far from England and Spain so I don't provoke them. On turn 117 (no save from turn 100) my army was laughable: 1 archer, 1 warrior, 1 pikeman, 1 trireme. That's little more than scouting material.

On the whole I think my game was similar to @raider980 but I went with Republic instead of Tradition, just opening up Tradition for the sake of border expansion and the 3 culture in the capital.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Polders did not attract me so much, since it's not available until Guilds. By then Civil Service is very nice too.
The silver made me choose "Religious Idols" for silver faith and culture

- What were your initial priorities?
Culture and tall growth. Growth was marvellous with Amsterdam having +24 food on turn 117.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Civil Service felt important.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
Republic then Aesthetics, plus opened up Tradition.

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
Lots of wonders, actually. On turn 117 I had Stonehenge, Artemis, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, National Epic and National College.
I missed Parthenon, unfortunately. In fact, I had forgotten about its existence. The 4 culture will be missed but the wonders I did get are arguably more useful

- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Yes, I don't know if I've ever had so much religion in the early stages, thanks to Stonehenge, Sri Pada, the pantheon and a rather early shrine. Pagodas was picked as Follower belief. And I picked "Interfaith Dialogue" as Founder Belief - gain tech beakers when you spread religion. This caused a funny thing to happen, which I didn't understand at first: The moment I spread religion to La Venta I actually learned a tech that was due 1 turn!

The big question is naturally if I will meet the oveseas civs in time to gain influence over them with tourism or, possibly, overrun them military.