6otM111 Opening Actions

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM111 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.

- What was your plan for achieving the VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- Where did you settle your capital city? Why? Your second city? Why?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
- What was your early build order in your capital and other early cities? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
- What governments did you select? What policy cards did you use? Why?
- Which Governors did you choose and why did you choose them?
- How long did it take to find your neighbors? What did you do for early diplomacy/trading? Peace or War (and by you or them)?
- What City-States did you meet and which ones did you nurture to your side?
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
- How were the Barbarians?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations?

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

 

[nikAlto]

I have never won a deity dom victory before, so thought i would give this a go. i normally play peaceful for science or culture victories.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all? other civs far away. which was a surprise. i have teched past the unique units without any wars yet
- Where did you settle your capital city? Why? Your second city? Why? settled in place. second city 4 tiles north to take advantage of the mountain range for campus and holy site
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
- What was your early build order in your capital and other early cities? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting? scout, then slinger x3
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why? got very lucky and popped a relic from a goody hut. got the first pantheon and took religious settlements for free settler. i only wanted to settle 3 cities, and then planned on capturing the rest. alas, that plan has not worked out with distant neighbours
- What governments did you select? What policy cards did you use? Why?
- Which Governors did you choose and why did you choose them? pingala start. just got victor in expectation of war
- How long did it take to find your neighbors? What did you do for early diplomacy/trading? Peace or War (and by you or them)? long time. china found me first, but they are a long way away. gorgo closest, but still far. only found three civs so far
- What City-States did you meet and which ones did you nurture to your side? 3 so far. none that useful
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages? dark age first, but then heroic age next. happy with that
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play? have got two heroes. neither my faves. oya and mulan. but thought i should take them both to have heroes up my sleeve for later wars
- How were the Barbarians? ok. zombies very irritating. keep appearing
- Any surprises/frustration/elations? main surprise is distant civs. no wars yet. i fear this may be difficult to get the win without some good early victories.

 

[kcd_swede]

6 or more zombies appear at about t10 around my capitol. Even if you dedicate a lot of resources to keeping them at bay, you are so far from the other civs which are virtually unfazed by any such zombies, and are way too far advanced to be able to use any of Alexanders unique units.

I tried this 4 times with same results... no chance for me. OK, I usually struggle on Deity Domination anyhow, but rarely so badly not a single foreign city of any kind can be taken and kept. Best I managed was to capture 2 Spartan cities which last about 4 turns each before revolting due to loyalty issues. That was by using heroes.

If anyone wins this one I will be wanting to see details.

 

[etcdev]

Zombies, just stop please. This could have been a fun game, scout discovered relic and managed to get the Free Settler choice then I realized (again) the idiocy of zombies and quit game. There's 15 minutes of my life I never get back.

 

[Eyswein]

Zombies, just stop please. This could have been a fun game, scout discovered relic and managed to get the Free Settler choice then I realized (again) the idiocy of zombies and quit game. There's 15 minutes of my life I never get back.

Bonus version of the game (no zombies; immortal level) put up in the AAR thread for any who want to try without the zombie scourge.

 

[etcdev]

Bonus version of the game (no zombies; immortal level) put up in the AAR thread for any who want to try without the zombie scourge.

Thank you. I will probably still fail miserably, but at least it will not be because of Zombies!

 

[Brokencar]

I played ~85t and I found this game really challenging. Firstly, I think Macedon is probably one of the worst civs to pick if you aim for DV. The horse UU's extra cost makes it impossible to do the 1 tree = 1 horse conversion at ~60t, which then significantly delayed the first horseman rush to ~75t. What makes it even worse is that this UU is considered as a heavy Cavalry and it does not have the important promotion depredation!!!!!! (cost 1 move to pillage) To be honest, if this unit is not replacing the normal horseman, I will prefer using normal horseman instead of this UU in a DV game! Second, as a consequence of horseman rush delay, whether nearby AIs are easy to conquer is an important thing. However, unfortunately again, our two neighbors are really strong! I understand the GOTM staff probably wants to give "bonus" to a Macedon domination by choosing Qin Shi Huang and Gorgo nearby. However, these two AIs are all difficult to conquer. Qin Shi Huang has a strong preference on Masonry which giving its city wall even before me chopping the UU. Gorgo has additional strength from policy card and its capital is surrounded by hills which strongly penalizes the movements. Third, zombies are really really annoying. I even have to chop walls instead of chopping new military units on cities I conquered to avoid it be tore down by those strong zombies. Fighting against zombies and barbarians is even harder than conquering AIs. Zombies got nearly 40 strength in my game ~80t and they are everywhere!!!

 

[Arnold_T]

At turn 80 so far I have successfully survived the barbs and zombies, but the other civs are so far away I'm not sure when my conquering will begin. also looks like this game is going to take a long time. not sure I will finish it.

- What was your plan for achieving the VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
first priority was to survive the early zombie/barbs. I kept my starting warrior close to home and built slinger/slinger to open. got them upgraded to archers quickly without losing any units. want to build a UU army to take on first victim, which will probably be Greece, but they are so far away. worried my UUs will be obsolete by the time I get there. One surprise was getting a Pantheon at t41 and Religious Settlements was still available! Don't think I've ever seen Religious Settlements still available so late (on Diety anyway). so I took the free settler of course. then at t54 I somehow discovered hero H&X. not sure how that happened (maybe on discovery of a new continent?). I don't understand how the Heroes work very well. I think this is only my second game with heroes. I've been using H&X to recruit Barbarian warriors and slingers, and maybe I'll get a barb swordsman soon too. But I'm lacking the gold to upgrade them all. I somehow discovered Sinbad recently (again, don't know how that happened). Maybe getting Sinbad to help with those upgrades would be a good plan from here.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
prioritized encampments and the UB. not sure if that will work out. got one UU horseman out and had him kill a few units, and the bonus GG points have got me a GG, so I just need to get an army marching now.

- Where did you settle your capital city? Why? Your second city? Why?
in place capital. second directly north since there was water to the east and west

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
towards UB and UUs

- Which Governors did you choose and why did you choose them?
Magnus first for chopping trees/stone. Pingala next in the capital. thinking maybe Amani next to get Suz of Lahore.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Dark age first, but I've already qualified for Heroic Medieval age coming in eight turns

- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
Seems I've spent most of the game so far just dealing with the zombies. I don't really like Zombies (annoying) or Heroes (seems like cheating), but together they kind of balance each other out I guess.

- How were the Barbarians?
not as bad as the zombies, and I'm using them as a recruitment source for my army which will hopefully soon start some conquering.