TSG 239 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?

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

My game was over before it started; I went for an early settler, but it got captured by barbarians. I thought I had 'radared' all tiles on the way to Uluru, but I apparently missed a tile. I had no units nearby either. My spearman and scout were near Ulundi tryng to capture Shaka's first settler (unsuccessfully, I might add - he defended it well and moved it in a direction that made stealing impossible), another scout was still exploring to the west.

It's been refreshing to play by the GotM rules, and not sully my games with reloads for every little mistake I make in the early game, and also to force myself to play a little more carefully instead of going max greed every time. Having said that, I also don't enjoy playing a game in which something has gone terribly wrong (for example, sometimes the Deity AI settles a city four tiles from your capital), or in which I made not a small but a very big mistake. Of course, losing an early settler does not equal the defeat screen, but these GotM are also a bit competitive, and wasting 15 turns in the early game will not result in a competitive finish time.

The plan for this game had been - unsurprisingly - sacred sites, which was only reinforced when I discovered the two faith wonders nearby. Initially I was hoping for desert folklore, but that was picked before I could have gotten a pantheon (unless there were faith city states nearby that I did not discover). In any case, good luck guys, and I'll catch the next one.

 

[lerrocco]

It's been refreshing to play by the GotM rules, and not sully my games with reloads for every little mistake I make in the early game, and also to force myself to play a little more carefully instead of going max greed every time. Having said that, I also don't enjoy playing a game in which something has gone terribly wrong (for example, sometimes the Deity AI settles a city four tiles from your capital), or in which I made not a small but a very big mistake.

I agree. Likewise normally I will restart a game. Its a huge investment of time to lose to a stray mouse click, and how many times at 2am did I sleepwalk 10 turns. Its not about cheating to win, but rather a decent challenge and not wasted effort for silly errors. Of course, when learning the game, it also helps to replay large sections of poor play.

But I also think it is good to play to these rules and see how the games go. I am much more cautious in my attacks.

I wont be playing this game, I do hope to play last months Attila game, but I have no time, especially to play within these rules.

 

[fiddlesticks]

I failed at this one too. I tried sacred sites, but by turn 100 it was clear that a 'quick' win that way was impossible since the culture leader was on the opposite side of the map and I was losing ground each turn even with 30-40 tourism. The fastest culture wins are always sacred sites or Greek liberation (i.e., Domination with a splash of culture).

I'll try a re-do with a 'classic' culture strategy since the Songhai are a fun civ and the map is a good one.

 

[zxcvbob]

I'm about 160 turns in so not posting any screenshots (even tho' they look about the same as turn 100.) Settled 4 cities; capital settled in place, one on the east coast on a hill next to Uluru, one on the copper (I thought about putting it on the gems but decided Gao would grow to the gems and my expo could work it), and one on a sugar tile to the north within 3 tiles of the marble. I was going to settle that last city on the other sugar tile with the salt next to it, but the CS expanded to the salt the turn before I settled. I researched Pottery first; got a science ruin that popped Pottery just as I was about to finish it anyway, but I still got my shrine up a couple of turns faster that way. It didn't matter, someone took Desert Folklore and actually founded a religion (Theodora? it's Eastern Orthodoxy) before I even had a pantheon. But I did get the faith and culture from incense pantheon, which was my second choice. My religion is Tithe, Pagodas (I can't believe that one was still available), Religious Community for the extra hammers, and Religious Texts.

Social policies were Tradition up to the free monuments, then opened Honor, then back to Tradition to finish it. Next Aesthetics. I'll open Rationalism as soon as it unlocks.

I built Hanging Gardens and Great Wall. (Great Wall for obvious reasons, even though Gao already had walls) Tried to build Machu Picchu but got beat, same thing with the Oracle. Petra was gone already before I even researched Commerce.

I've been warring with Shaka the whole game. Not sure I'm going to finish; I'm doing okay in the war but it's holding me back in science and culture. He builds replacement units almost as fast as I can kill them. Eventually I will have to eliminate Shaka, and then everyone will hate me. "Zulus gotta zulu", and I'm the only one close enough for him to fight. Meanwhile Egypt and France and someone else I haven't met yet are building all the wonders. I should settle one more city right on Shaka's doorstep, just bristling with crossbows, then use it as an operating base when I get my Mandekalu (sp?) cavalry in a few turns.

Perhaps I need to change tactics and go full warmonger and kill everybody and take their culture and wonders. Before I take the last capital, liberate some other capital that got eliminated early (I don't know who but there's usually at least one) so I don't accidentally get a domination victory.

 

[raider980]

Whew, glad to see I'm not the only one having troubles with this one. Before I started I figured this was Emperor so I can play a little looser and take some chances. Boy was I wrong. I moved the warrior west and saw a beautiful sight; the Incense by the lake is in range of 4 unique luxuries! I couldn't resist so I settled there, not sure if I've ever had a 4-lux capital. I think it turned out to be a mistake though. It moved the capital away from the wheat (in fact put it in the 3rd tier) and there was no similar tile near the lake and lost the extra hammer from the hill.

The terrain and map settings led me to go for DF and Petra, neither of which I would get. On T23 Shaka got DF. And he got first religion - and chose to purchase pre-industrial units with faith; oh great, he's going to be able to buy Impi with all that DF faith. He's got to go before he can do that. I did get the Wine and Incense pantheon so that was pretty awesome with all that incense. My religion so far is Incense pantheon, Tithe, and Monasteries. If I can get it going that will be pretty nice. And then I'll go steal Shaka's religion so I have a choice.

For SP, I messed that up too. Opened Honor, then went full Liberty. After seeing all this glorious desert land I figured I'd go for it. But the honor opener didn't really help that much and my borders were growing at a snails pace thanks to not opening Tradition like normal.

I researched Pottery first; got a science ruin that popped Pottery just as I was about to finish it anyway

The exact same thing happened to me! I had only one turn left and the ruin gives it to me dagnabit. This was probably the worst ruin luck I've ever had. Barb Camps, gold, Map, and Pottery which I would have gotten the next turn anyway.

As soon as I saw Shaka's land I decided to try and take him out early. So I stole a worker on T19. Stayed at war for a while but then had to peace out because barbs were running rampant.

My cities are pretty terrible. No production so far, not a ton of food either. Settled the second city on the coast by Sri Pada to the SW. Then I found Uluru and sent a settler there too. Went 3 city NC which I got with my GE Liberty finisher because it would have taken 17 turns to finish and I was in the midst of the The Second Zulu War.

Stole another worker from Shaka on T70something and was going to try and take his capital and another city to cripple him before he got Impi. Man the Zulu units are powerful. My spearmen had no chance against the Ikanda promoted Zulu spearmen with their 3 moves; they just come out of nowhere and picking my guys off. Even with that choke between the mountains I lost 3 spearmen and a warrior. I killed plenty of his units but they just kept coming.

.

Spoiler Now its turn 112 and I fear the end is nigh :

 

[Rhodro]

My game is going good so far. I just unlocked sacred sites. Just bullied zulu out of one city with peace deal. The highest culture per turn was zulu with 20 before i bullied him out of that city. I think I have a shot with sacred sites.

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
First thoughts were to do a standard tradition game, and use the unique building, since a no upkeep temple is pretty good. Kill some barb camps for some money. If I found a lot of luxes I would think about liberty.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
In place. I thought about the settle position for like 15 minutes, because my warrior scouted westward and found more unique luxes. In the end I settled in place, because moving 1 tile left I would lose the hill (early advantage) plus the tiles in first ring would be crap. Was afraid I would lose too much momentum.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
I made 2 scouts, not sure what the terrain was gonna look like. Shaka found me very fast so I knew he was south. For a while i thought it was a continents map, but 1 of my scout that kept going west kept finding civs. Quite happy with the scouting effort, found lots of natural wonders which also completed quests.

- What were your initial priorities?
I had a bit of luck with initial barb camps that were quests for CS. Gave me a comfortable alliance with 2 culture and 1 martime CS. First I wanted to steal workers from Ur, because they are hostile. They didn't spawn worker for a while though, so I went back to scouting. Later I got a worker from Zulu.
When I found the 2 faith natural wonders, I very quickly changed my tradition plan. I went for shrine, monument and settler + archer spam. From then on the focus was faith asap. 2 prophets asap. I wanted petra and oracle. And the mud pyramids.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Pottery, AH, lux techs, writing, tech for Petra, then oracle, then circus, then aquaduct and now im going for drama and poetry. I will probably go for civil service, to get open borders tourism increase.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
I got a culture ruin on turn 2 or so. I went tradition opener with that. Then I found the sacred sites favourable wonders and land so I changed plans to liberty for collective rule and then reformation belief. A few turns before I got sacred sites morocco got a reformation belief. Luckily he went for jesuit education. Almost ruind my sacred site plans these piety loving enemies I probably have to go for representation now, because I'm gonna spam cities hard now and it's gonna skyrocket my policy costs. After that I'll have to think about completing piety or starting on aesthetics, for the tourism increase. I hope I don't need rationalism.

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
When I was waiting for petra tech I was thinking about hanging gardens. It was gonna take a bit too many turns i felt, so i went for TOA, also because 2 CS wanted me to build it. This paid off greatly, I got TOA, Petra and Oracle.

- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Yeah I got a faith ruin exactly on turn 20, amazing. Got desert folklore, initiation rites, pagodas, mosques, itinerant preachers. Used the money to buy friendship with UR, a watermill in capital and upgraded 6 archers.

Spoiler :

 

[Megalou]

My game is going good so far. I just unlocked sacred sites. Just bullied zulu out of one city with peace deal. The highest culture per turn was zulu with 20 before i bullied him out of that city. I think I have a shot with sacred sites.

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
First thoughts were to do a standard tradition game, and use the unique building, since a no upkeep temple is pretty good. Kill some barb camps for some money. If I found a lot of luxes I would think about liberty.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
In place. I thought about the settle position for like 15 minutes, because my warrior scouted westward and found more unique luxes. In the end I settled in place, because moving 1 tile left I would lose the hill (early advantage) plus the tiles in first ring would be crap. Was afraid I would lose too much momentum.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
I made 2 scouts, not sure what the terrain was gonna look like. Shaka found me very fast so I knew he was south. For a while i thought it was a continents map, but 1 of my scout that kept going west kept finding civs. Quite happy with the scouting effort, found lots of natural wonders which also completed quests.

- What were your initial priorities?
I had a bit of luck with initial barb camps that were quests for CS. Gave me a comfortable alliance with 2 culture and 1 martime CS. First I wanted to steal workers from Ur, because they are hostile. They didn't spawn worker for a while though, so I went back to scouting. Later I got a worker from Zulu.
When I found the 2 faith natural wonders, I very quickly changed my tradition plan. I went for shrine, monument and settler + archer spam. From then on the focus was faith asap. 2 prophets asap. I wanted petra and oracle. And the mud pyramids.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Pottery, AH, lux techs, writing, tech for Petra, then oracle, then circus, then aquaduct and now im going for drama and poetry. I will probably go for civil service, to get open borders tourism increase.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
I got a culture ruin on turn 2 or so. I went tradition opener with that. Then I found the sacred sites favourable wonders and land so I changed plans to liberty for collective rule and then reformation belief. A few turns before I got sacred sites morocco got a reformation belief. Luckily he went for jesuit education. Almost ruind my sacred site plans these piety loving enemies I probably have to go for representation now, because I'm gonna spam cities hard now and it's gonna skyrocket my policy costs. After that I'll have to think about completing piety or starting on aesthetics, for the tourism increase. I hope I don't need rationalism.

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
When I was waiting for petra tech I was thinking about hanging gardens. It was gonna take a bit too many turns i felt, so i went for TOA, also because 2 CS wanted me to build it. This paid off greatly, I got TOA, Petra and Oracle.

- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Yeah I got a faith ruin exactly on turn 20, amazing. Got desert folklore, initiation rites, pagodas, mosques, itinerant preachers. Used the money to buy friendship with UR, a watermill in capital and upgraded 6 archers.

Spoiler :

View attachment 684866

Congratulations are in order. And I don’t mean for getting desert folklore but for a game well played. Actually, sun God was a pretty good consolation pantheon with all that wheat lying around. No, I thought you did a really good job with the social policies and your emphasis on archers and barb camps. I learned a lot from your game. Myself, I got too greedy, finishing the whole liberty tree before going for reformation and sacred sites. When I missed it, I gave up. Greed is a really really interesting factor in Civilisation 5 and nothing less than a real cause for self–reflection.

 

[Rhodro]

Thanks, those are nice words. A bit of luck was also involved. The faith ruin was great and I feel the citystate quests were also in my favor. Normally the quests RNG is against me but not this time.
I indeed think if you want sacred sites, after going for the free settler you really have to gun for reformation belief. Many enemy civs really love piety and they will get reformation beliefs before you if you complete liberty first.

 

[Megalou]

Thanks, those are nice words. A bit of luck was also involved. The faith ruin was great and I feel the citystate quests were also in my favor. Normally the quests RNG is against me but not this time.
I indeed think if you want sacred sites, after going for the free settler you really have to gun for reformation belief. Many enemy civs really love piety and they will get reformation beliefs before you if you complete liberty first.

I replayed - still no Desert Folklore - and played very much like you did with regards to the social policies. I thought that the hardest Liberty belief to skip was Citizenship. On the other hand, with no worker or no improved tiles around to protect, it becomes easier to prioritize shrine, granary, monument, exploration, camp clearing, etc, and both the wheat town and the two natural wonder towns did a lot of good without improvements. On the whole, this was a test in priorities. It felt like I wanted everything. It will be interesting to see your tech paths later on.

 

[Rhodro]

I replayed - still no Desert Folklore - and played very much like you did with regards to the social policies. I thought that the hardest Liberty belief to skip was Citizenship. On the other hand, with no worker or no improved tiles around to protect, it becomes easier to prioritize shrine, granary, monument, exploration, camp clearing, etc, and both the wheat town and the two natural wonder towns did a lot of good without improvements. On the whole, this was a test in priorities. It felt like I wanted everything. It will be interesting to see your tech paths later on.

I see, the turn 20 ruin seems pretty clutch then. All the other posters mentioned not getting desert folklore.
The lack of workers is definetly hard, its hard to look at a lot of unimproved tiles. But that's just it for this strat. Sacred Sites is a very myopic strategy, you don't need any built buildings in sattelite sities per se, you just need to spam the faith buildings and manage happiness by locking growth and only growing pop if local hapiness allows it. So 2 faith buildings means the city can have 3 pop, with colloseum 5, with circus 7. If your cities are soooo small you can't work much tiles anyway.
But of course I was happy when I could steal a worker somewhere and eventually I got pyramids too because noone built it till quite late.

I might try the game again tomorrow see if I can get desert folklore without the turn 20 faith ruin. But it sounds very hard if no other poster got it and we have piety loving AI.

 

[Megalou]

I see, the turn 20 ruin seems pretty clutch then. All the other posters mentioned not getting desert folklore.
The lack of workers is definetly hard, its hard to look at a lot of unimproved tiles. But that's just it for this strat. Sacred Sites is a very myopic strategy, you don't need any built buildings in sattelite sities per se, you just need to spam the faith buildings and manage happiness by locking growth and only growing pop if local hapiness allows it. So 2 faith buildings means the city can have 3 pop, with colloseum 5, with circus 7. If your cities are soooo small you can't work much tiles anyway.
But of course I was happy when I could steal a worker somewhere and eventually I got pyramids too because noone built it till quite late.

I might try the game again tomorrow see if I can get desert folklore without the turn 20 faith ruin. But it sounds very hard if no other poster got it and we have piety loving AI.

I see, thanks, that’s really interesting. I take it you hadn’t opened up Monarchy either if the ”lay of the land” had been clearer a bit earlier. I guess it would have been an entirely different matter if we hadn’t had a pangea, and I was even thinking free great admiral in that case. But most of the time sandstorm maps appear to be pangeae.

 

[Rhodro]

I replayed the first 30 turns or so a few times. Getting desert folklore is really RNG heavy. If not getting faith on turn 20 with a ruin it's gonna take a settler after 2 scouts to settle sri pada AND getting RNG luck of the other AI not getting faith ruins / faith city state and picking desert folklore before you.
So my first playthrough looks very lucky actually.