TSG 256 Opening Actions

[vadalaz]

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.

Quick links: Upload submission | Announcement thread | After actions

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- What Social Policies did you choose?
- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Haha, M'banza Kongo has Camels, and Sofia has Keshiks! I was wondering what kind of approach I would take with this game. I was already leaning towards aggression, and with those two units, plus Mount Kilimanjaro, I am definitely going for the domination-style culture victory.

My start was amazing in terms of ruins (first two culture and pop, and then later I got two more pop ruins), but the worker steals were slow. I got one from India, and one from Brazil, and that was it for a long time. I was too greedy to go exploring with my warrior (I was hoping for an Immortal upgrade which I didn't get) instead of camping Indian borders. Also, the CS did not have workers when I passed them by, and soon they got useful camp quests so I did not want to declare war on them anymore.

Fast forward to turn 100 and I am still working on my sim. I got Hanging Gardens and Oracle (in Susa), but I lost Mausoleum (also in Susa), and Chichen Itza. The latter was a top priority for me: I chopped some forests in the capital, and even bought the stables to maximize production, but my scouting had been poor, and with some 4 turns on the build left, it was built in a faraway land. My scouting had been poor, so I had not met Siam (who built it), and Morocco yet. Otherwise, I might have embroiled Siam in war with a neighbour and myself, that is usually enough to slow a wonder build down. So, my fault for losing it. Thankfully, Sukhothai is flat land, and Brazil built the Great Wall, so my first army will be going straight north west.

*Edit: Oh, religion. I did not know which pantheon to pick. I've never been a fan of the wine and incense one, and anyway there was not that much wine around. I considered happiness from cities on rivers, but I wanted something to boost my early game. As I had first met Ife, I got a reasonably early pantheon and went for God King. Then Uluru got me a religion: tithe, religious community, and garden happiness.

 

[raider980]

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

• Thought about how to get a culture victory on Immortal without Moai, I've never done it before. I don't really like Persia, I can never take advantage of their UA and UU. So I chose to just ignore them and play like a normal civ with a good UB. I'll play a science game and see if I can pull out the CV at the end.

- What tech path did you follow and why?

• Standard tech path since there really wasn't any reason to beeline anything that I could see. I do seem to be doing better than normal at science; I'm not that far behind Black Vegetable.

- What Social Policies did you choose?

• Full Tradition; pretty boring but its the all around best.

- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?

• Yes, got a religion. I actually chose to move my GPr to Susa and make that the Holy Cityt because it was more centrally located. But I may as well not have gone for a religion; every single Civ surrounding me has a religion also so there will be no opportunity to spread. And they're already sending GPr and Missionaries into my lands. Pedro has even converted one of my cities to his vile religion (its not actually that vile because he has Mosques and Sacred Sites; I might actually let him convert all my cities except my Holy City lol).

After moving the starting warrior west, I debated whether to found on the Silver or move to the coast since I did spy a fish and more wine. But thank goodness I stayed on the Silver, that coast is not very good. When I found Uluru, I knew I had to have it. So I sent my second settler over that way. Again, there was a debate about where to settle. First I was going to settle further south, closer to Uluru but that would leave out the third salt and a horse up north. So I settled 3 tiles from Uluru on the river. Its a little exposed but since I have Immortals I'm not that worried. Third city went at the head of the Bay of Persia on top of a wine and coastal so that I would at least have one coastal city.

I was going to go for a 3-city NC... until I found Mt. Kili, my favorite wonder. Unfortunately, Askia threw down his own city - one tile from being out of range of Mt. Kili! Come on Askia, at least settle a decent city for me to take and get Mt. Kili with. I stole a worker from him to start a war as I planned on capturing Tombouctu and razing it anyway. Some turns later, before I could even get near Tombouctu, Askia offered it to me in a peace deal so I said sure; then razed it to the ground and settled my own city in range of Mt. Kili. I think Askia was willing to give up the city because I had paid Monte to join in on the war; thanks Monte! There wasn't an ideal location near Mt. Kili to settle my own city - the best locations were either too far from my capital or too exposed to Monte. So I did something I never do - settled on Bananas, it wiped out the jungle so was only 2f2p initially but once a granary is built it will get that extra food back from the bananas.

Ruins were pretty good not great: Gold, Culture, Map, Gold, Pop (not great since I was close to a pop jump anyway), Scarcher.
Capital BO: Scout, Scout, Monument, Shrine, Settler, Archer, Settler.

It seems like I'm doing better than normal; not sure why. I have plenty of gold, again not sure why. And my science is ok as well as my culture. I think I might have a chance at a CV! I can never get the wonders I need though, I'll have to concentrate on at least getting one of them.

(I did notice the CS with Camel Archers and Keshiks and breifly thought about trying to get them and do some domination. But we've had quite a few domination games recently so I think I'll play this peacefully.)

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I can never take advantage of their UA and UU

I find the Immortal to be only occasionally useful; however, the unique ability to get an extra movement during a golden age is huge. Especially combined with Kilimanjaro: you can move your trebuchet onto a wooded hill two tiles out from a city, set up, and shoot the same turn. It's a game-changing ability in my opinion (also I won't say no to 10% increased combat strength during GA, or to longer GAs). Playing Persia really makes you appreciate how important mobility is when fighting wars. Finally, the Satrap's court is a very nice building. I tend to build banks in my games, and getting two happiness from them is very welcome. Persia also used to be FilthyRobot's favorite civ. My only 'gripe' with them is that you don't really get any early-game bonuses with them (though in multiplayer, an immortal upgrade can be very good for tributing city states), so they don't get going until late medieval/early Renaissance.

 

[raider980]

The UA sounds awesome; but its hard to use, at least for me. Timing the Golden Ages for when you're attacking a city is difficult, I can never do it right. I'm either late to the city, or late with the GA, or something so that it doesn't work out. Anything that involves timing is harder than a unique that simply does something without the player having to time anything. That's why I disagree with a lot of the tier lists for various things that have come out for Civ 5; they seem to be written by good players, for good players. Us mediocre players just can't make those complicated mechanics work very well

 

[Rhodro]

It's turn 105. I just got chichen itza! Askia and India were also building it, saw it because i had embassy vision on their capital. I let monty war on aska for 2 luxes and declared war on india myself, chopped 2 forest and changed my build queue around to full focus on the wonder and got it.

I settled on the river banana west of mt. kili to keep some distance from monty, I didn't want him to hate me for settling close.
The plan was next to settle south and north west of capital 2 coastal cities so they can send cargo ships to eachother. The south city settled. Then when the last settler was going out to the coast to settle close to ivory, one of my scouts going to help mbaza kongo found uluru, so I detoured that settler there. I made granary and library everywhere and NC in capital. I will settle one last city with the settler coming out next turn close to that Ivory.

I had atrocious luck with the ruins, didn't find many and the only useful one was 20 culture. I managed to steal some workers from india, I have 7 now and I think 6 were stolen. I lost 1 scout and 1 warrior to barbs after they were low on hp from stealing. I used most gold to buy tiles. Especially the 2 natural wonders. Also used 750gold now on cultural city state.

I don't have any other wonders yet besides chichen itza. Oracle I didn't attempt because it didn't fit well in my build queue at the time.
Religion: I got a shrine after 2 scouts because I found Ife early. I got god king. My scouting didn't find the 2 natural wonders yet and the only other option was culture from pastures. But india grabbed a good pasture spot early so I went god king. Religion I took tithe and pagoda's. I bought 1 missionary and 1 pagoda so far. I did focus on shrines and temples so that I actually have some faith to buy pagoda's. And enough faith later for great people buys.

Next focus is gonna be universities and getting printing press asap.

Spoiler :

 

[jrwh]

My settling plans changed constantly.

First thing I wanted to do was forward settle the cotton/river area to the east. Then I saw Kilimanjaro, and wanted to plant on the spices three tiles to the west to grab that. Then I saw the salt/river area to the west, and started abandoning the idea of even forward-settling India; he'd be more than happy to trade me cotton, after all. Then Askia decided to take a massive dump on my Kilimanjaro dreams by beelining Tombouctu ridiculously early, like before my first settler even popped out. It's four tiles away from the wonder too, so he blocked both of us from settling it. Had two nice river/lux spots right by his cap, but he said no thanks. Siam has since settled one of them. So I returned to the idea of forward-settling India asap. There's a lot of good land, luxes, and stable resources to be had, so it was difficult deciding on specific settling locations.

I also got analysis-paralysis trying to pick a pantheon. I considered both plantation and pasture culture, but I wasn't confident I could get Stonehenge, nor did I want to rush it, and I didn't see how I could get a religion otherwise. I considered God-King, but it seemed like such a waste with all the land around me. I considered OWN, but I thought it would take too long with me having to settle and buy out to Kili. I had first pick as well due to discovering Ife, so all options were on the table. Ultimately, I settled on wine faith+culture, even though I don't like having to work wine, nor settling to arrange my borders for it. I wanted to both generate some faith and make use of the land somehow. I was about to settle Susa on the hill between salt/horses/sheep when my escorting scout with +1 vision saw Uluru, so I settled on the marble instead. Once again, I have made uninformed decisions due to a lack of early scouting; pasture culture would've been superb. Actually, what made me miss Uluru early is that I turned my scout archer around to go get the Kili bonus just before I would've revealed it, lol. Also once again, my prophet was six turns late, got mosques and tithe though. Will see if I want to enhance with production or monasteries when I get there, provided they're even available.

My NC was late as I decided to finish granary in Ecbatana before library, possibly a bad choice as it did not have good early tiles to work, and took a long time. I did Oracle before NC because of that, finished NC on turn 99. I do have water mills and stables out or about to finish everywhere, two trade routes to the cap, plus civil service just finished, so my demos are looking tasty. Trying to get my faith going earlier than I usually do as the next step, I'm always pushing shrines/temples off in favor of other buildings.

I snagged India's naked settler + a naked worker on the same turn, then he walked another spearman-escorted settler straight through my expand, which gave me three free Indian workers. Scouts got Siamese and Mbanzan workers out of barb camps, and Ife has been sending me a nice little conveyor belt of workers to that iron tile, so that's been good. My fears came true about crippling India so much early, however, and Montezuma came to take his cities relatively uncontested. I don't want him as a neighbor, nor do I want him running away with culture, so I paid him to DoW Songhai, waited two turns, then sent in what immortals, spearmen (lots of CS gifted units), and archers I had available to liberate Delhi asap. Should happen next turn. Songhai went from being guarded to requesting friendship because of our common foe, so I can worry less about Ecbatana being attacked for a little while.

I've spent a ton of gold buying up river tiles near India and Songhai, which is probably a dumb use of my gold. I could've rush-bought my third library and gotten NC earlier, for example.

I'm about to settle a fifth city to fill in my northwestern lands. Looks kinda junky at a glance, but should end up with a ton of pasture tiles and some third-ring fresh water in the long run. Hope it pays for itself.

Thus far I've just been doing the basic, get-my-empire-set-up stuff. Unis are coming soon, and I'll have to start thinking about the actual victory condition from there.

Spoiler :

 

[Megalou]

My settling plans changed constantly.

First thing I wanted to do was forward settle the cotton/river area to the east. Then I saw Kilimanjaro, and wanted to plant on the spices three tiles to the west to grab that. Then I saw the salt/river area to the west, and started abandoning the idea of even forward-settling India; he'd be more than happy to trade me cotton, after all. Then Askia decided to take a massive dump on my Kilimanjaro dreams by beelining Tombouctu ridiculously early, like before my first settler even popped out. It's four tiles away from the wonder too, so he blocked both of us from settling it. Had two nice river/lux spots right by his cap, but he said no thanks. Siam has since settled one of them. So I returned to the idea of forward-settling India asap. There's a lot of good land, luxes, and stable resources to be had, so it was difficult deciding on specific settling locations.

I also got analysis-paralysis trying to pick a pantheon. I considered both plantation and pasture culture, but I wasn't confident I could get Stonehenge, nor did I want to rush it, and I didn't see how I could get a religion otherwise. I considered God-King, but it seemed like such a waste with all the land around me. I considered OWN, but I thought it would take too long with me having to settle and buy out to Kili. I had first pick as well due to discovering Ife, so all options were on the table. Ultimately, I settled on wine faith+culture, even though I don't like having to work wine, nor settling to arrange my borders for it. I wanted to both generate some faith and make use of the land somehow. I was about to settle Susa on the hill between salt/horses/sheep when my escorting scout with +1 vision saw Uluru, so I settled on the marble instead. Once again, I have made uninformed decisions due to a lack of early scouting; pasture culture would've been superb. Actually, what made me miss Uluru early is that I turned my scout archer around to go get the Kili bonus just before I would've revealed it, lol. Also once again, my prophet was six turns late, got mosques and tithe though. Will see if I want to enhance with production or monasteries when I get there, provided they're even available.

My NC was late as I decided to finish granary in Ecbatana before library, possibly a bad choice as it did not have good early tiles to work, and took a long time. I did Oracle before NC because of that, finished NC on turn 99. I do have water mills and stables out or about to finish everywhere, two trade routes to the cap, plus civil service just finished, so my demos are looking tasty. Trying to get my faith going earlier than I usually do as the next step, I'm always pushing shrines/temples off in favor of other buildings.

I snagged India's naked settler + a naked worker on the same turn, then he walked another spearman-escorted settler straight through my expand, which gave me three free Indian workers. Scouts got Siamese and Mbanzan workers out of barb camps, and Ife has been sending me a nice little conveyor belt of workers to that iron tile, so that's been good. My fears came true about crippling India so much early, however, and Montezuma came to take his cities relatively uncontested. I don't want him as a neighbor, nor do I want him running away with culture, so I paid him to DoW Songhai, waited two turns, then sent in what immortals, spearmen (lots of CS gifted units), and archers I had available to liberate Delhi asap. Should happen next turn. Songhai went from being guarded to requesting friendship because of our common foe, so I can worry less about Ecbatana being attacked for a little while.

I've spent a ton of gold buying up river tiles near India and Songhai, which is probably a dumb use of my gold. I could've rush-bought my third library and gotten NC earlier, for example.

I'm about to settle a fifth city to fill in my northwestern lands. Looks kinda junky at a glance, but should end up with a ton of pasture tiles and some third-ring fresh water in the long run. Hope it pays for itself.

Thus far I've just been doing the basic, get-my-empire-set-up stuff. Unis are coming soon, and I'll have to start thinking about the actual victory condition from there.

What a great term, 'analysis-paralysis', and such a big factor in my life. In this case, however, I have a bias towards early culture benefits that peeps through if there are no strong alternatives, so I picked wine faith+culture too, although the measly 1 food of working wine is a definite drawback.
The major thing that happened to me was missing Great Library by 2 turns. (I forgot that Immortal is the second hardest level.) This would postpone NC by many hundred years, and I almost rage quit, but decided instead to take some risks, mainly in the form of war with Brazil for caravan plunder and workers, and an early assault on India. The risks were of a kind where a lone barb or a few enemies near the capital or the Uluru city (mine was also placed on the marble) could have wreaked total havoc, but that didn't happen, so I'm still in the game, capturing Mumbai by Mount Kili fairly early. I got help from Aztecs who were terrorizing India too.

 

[enKage]

Having achieved the best score last GOTM I decided to go with the flow.

Currently turn 100, pretty behind in techs (15 vs 22 leader), as my College will com in 14 turns or less (saving chops for better wonder), but I am only 6 turns from Civil Service and maybe I would be able to build Chicken Pizza and not lost it by 1 turn like Pyramids (at least I had cash to buy lacking library).
Maybe Oracle is still possible (9 turns), but stupid horseman pillaged my marble -_-


- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
Immortal culture must be hard, I have never gone fore it. I don't like Persia as well, probably only in Civ5 I hate Persia, but at least playing Persia is not having wonderspamming Persia as opponent.


- What tech path did you follow and why?
I went Pottery first to secure pantheon, and settled on wine for gold and culture and faith from future pantheon. then basic worker stuff, then ignored lower part completely beside masonry. I don't even know where iron is. Beelining Civil Service. Wanted to save libert engineer to Chitzen Itza, but I would never tech to Civil Service without settling an academy.


- What Social Policies did you choose?
I don't know how to tradition, it looks extremely slow for me, went liberty as usual, especially with so many luxuries in reasonable distance. I sent free settler to settle natural wonder, then nearby wine to even more culture/faith. Currently at seven cities with a plan of 3-4 more after college (1 for gems hopefully). I have also Piety opened due to decent culture generation from allied Bratislava (Polynesia cut off my way back, so I used a scout to return worker twice and destroy a camp). I hope I will be able to build Oracle and soon secure reformation


- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
30 faith from a tribe and early alliance with Ife (barb camp+ returned worker) secured me very early religion. I went for +2 faith per city and Pagoda, then enchanced to further passive spread and Mosque.
If I manage to get +2 tourism from reformation, I plan to bribe AIs into wars while turtling myself

Demographic at turn 100 is not very optimistic but my time to shine will soon come hopefully. Just have to build some units.

EDIT:
I already started generating tourism. Only Monte went full Piety, but choose converting barbarians. Brazil went tradition, the rest liberty.

 

[gerishnakov]

I used my first golden age to destroy Songhai, as they'd built a few wonders and my second city had a relatively unobstructed path to their land. However, shortly after conquering them, every single other AI declared war on me, lol. Maybe I should have kept my early game worker stealing to a minimum, rather than DoWing India AND Brazil to do so.