TSG 129 opening actions thread

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG129 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 Action thread once you have completed your game.

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
- 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 go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
- How did you do your scouting?
- How did you manage your happiness?
- Any surprises?

 

[budweiser]

I am on turn 105. I have the east cap and my army is marching on 2 down south. I have warriors X 2, scouts, c-bows X 4, a cat and a chariot, maybe a horse. Pity I didnt just rush a bunch of chariots. I'll be happy if I can finish about 150.


What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
Its been a while since I played Venice. I thought about how I wanted to use the MoVs.

- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
I moved the warrior south, then settled in place. I was too afraid of losing sea access.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
Settle in place. Scout, Scout Monument, worker.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Decided I would MoV the closest CS after they had a chance to improve their lux. Decided to bow rush Rammy 1st. I kinda messed that up. Attacked with just three c-bow. Didnt lose any but lost some turns.

- What were your initial priorities?
Scouting above all, a granary and a library.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
1 city, writing, archery, triremes.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
Full Honor.

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
None. Thought about Terra Cotta but I was too broke to afford more men.

- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
Nope, God of the Sea around 70 or 80.

- How did you do your scouting?
1 scout east, one scout west, one ship.

- How did you manage your happiness?
Mining

- Any surprises?
Found El Dorado way too late. Also found GBR but there is no impact.

 

[bjelar]

Generally this was a very good start. I did take my time building up my base before creating an army, and I hope I didn't spend too much time growing my cities. Once I had enough units, I went east to kill Ramkhamhaeng before tackling Ashurbanipal in the south. As the pic demonstrates, he was in a lot of trouble

I think I am doing well, but there is a lot of room for improvement, so I am looking forward to see what the top players do.


What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?

*It was to me a very new fresh type of game since I don't play domination games, I have never played Venice, I don't play on prince difficulty and don't use standard time controls. My plan was to take my time building up my capital before going completely bonkers, because in my last domination game years back I did go over the top on millitary units and neglected city development.

Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?

*No. I knew great people wouldn't be important, so moving to a river tile would not help me much. I settled in place without too much consideration.

Where did you settle and what did you build first?

*I settled in place and build scout->scout->worker->granery I think it was.

How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?

* The terrain offered a lot of hammers, gold and luxuries. I soon guessed that the one city would be good enough, but it was too tempting for me to use my great merchant to buy the nearby city state with it's salt

What were your initial priorities?

*Gold. Money. Happiness. Exploreation. I wanted to find everyone and all the city states. I wanted to connect up all the lux and sell them for gold so I could buy units.

What tech path did you follow and why?

*Hmmm let's see... Pottery, mining, s..sailing? Can't remember, it's been almost a day (hint-hint this thread should have been up sooner )

What Social Policies did you choose?

*Tradition for growth and gold and happiness.

What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?

* I didn't build wonders until I was 10 turns from victory, then I build two random ones in order to get a better final score

Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?

*I did not go for early faith, and thus didn't use it in any way.

How did you do your scouting?

*I built two scouts, and I was careful to not loose them like I usually do. I am used to marathon time settings, which makes barbs much less dangerous for scouts. Together with the warrior they explored the world nicely without any issues.

How did you manage your happiness?

* It was never a problem. The luxuries from the first city + the city state that I bought was enough. I even sold off my luxuries for gold, and only dropped into negative happiness when racing two cities at a time.

Any surprises?

*Not yet (100 turns). It is surprising how well it goes, though. I am curious how fast the best players will win this map. Even I am doing well.

 

[Sclb]

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
Delay conquest as much as possible to maximize score and let AI settle more cities for me to puppet.

- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
No, start was possibly connecting 2 seas and turns out to be true. River doesn't matter if I get Hanging Garden anyway. Scout, Monument, Shrine, Worker, GL

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Easy wonder spam for higher score.

- What were your initial priorities?
Explore map, find AI and find CS to puppet.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Classic GL into Philosophy slingshot, then Mathematics for HG.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
Tradition, then Commerce for extra gold and faster GMer.

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them?
Got every wonders I tried, due to slow prince AI. GL, ToA, HG, GLH, Colossus, CI, HS so far.

- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
God King pantheon since I wanted the extra boost to capital, and took faith to wonders and pagoda for religion. Will spam GMer once I can buy them if not completing rationalism.

- How did you do your scouting?
Scout upgraded into archer went west, bought another scout and sent east, warrior killed barbs and camps.

- How did you manage your happiness?
No problem as all happiness wonders are easy to build and also due to very small number of cities.

- Any surprises?
Description says 18 CS but I have found less than 4 so far and only one of them is candidate for puppet.

 

[Kendon]

I started out thinking I'd need to puppet city-states to generate the technology for a domination win. The big surprise was how few city-states there were. Mogadishu was next door and Colombo was south. Singapore was at the end of a peninsula. Mongolia had already conquered Kuala Lumpur and Cahokia.

Everything else had to be offshore, which didn't really matter because I underestimated how slow it would be to generate Merchants of Venice.

I settled in place and built two scouts who were very good at finding ruins with maps of the surrounding territory. I went for money technologies first. Policies were Tradition, the right side of Honor and then the rest of Tradition. Commerce will be next to cut the road costs. Wonders were GLib, HG, Oracle, Colossus.

I was slow building trade routes because they didn't have anywhere to go. My early units are fighting barbarians for experience and culture. I expect to attack either Siam or the Aztecs around turn 120, once I have three trebuchets. I wish I'd taken pre-industrial units when I founded my religion.

It looks like the big issue will be building roads through the jungle to coordinate attacks. If trebuchets or frigates can take capitols in two turns then forest movement will be the main time factor.