TSG 268 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]

Coming into this game, I had the same expectation as Rhodro: very few AI typically have a coastal capital on inland sea, but I was wrong! 5 coastal AI capitals, and we ourselves are coastal too of course. I wonder, have these AIs been relocated to the coast? Another interesting thing about this map: there is salt everywhere! It looks like all our copies of our regional luxury copper have been changed into salt, with the exception of the two copies in the capital. As a result, I now have four strong cities capable of pumping out military (or banks, water mills and gardens if I get distracted ), two coastal ones, and two inland ones, possibly a good division of labour for the production of army and navy.

As I mentioned in the announcement thread, I've played a lot of inland sea maps recently, and one gambit you can try is to skip the shrine and gamble on a post turn 20 faith ruin to get your pantheon. I did not want to risk it here, so I built the shrine as soon as I could, although I did actually get the faith ruin, bang on turn 20, too. I picked earth mother, and helped by two more big faith ruins (60 each), I founded for tithe and production.

My game did get off to a somewhat poor start. I wanted to steal an early worker from Indonesia, and even let him a have a ruin in order to be able to position my warrior for a steal. However, it took forever for me to move into position to attempt a reasonably safe steal. When an opportunity presented itself, I took it, though it turned out to be not so safe after all. Even though it was the third-ring salt, I would have had to endure three warrior slams in total. That was dicey to begin with, but as I tried to escape, there was also a scout archer returning to the city, so I lost both the worker and the warrior. I did get a reasonably steady supply of workers from Belgrade, but those were the only worker steals I got, which explains why my game is not particularly fast (I did declare on Carthage to pillage a caravan). Actually, I did get one late steal from Indonesia, and after that we made peace.

Indonesia remained unfriendly, however, and when I saw increasing numbers of Kris swordsmen near my borders, I bribed him to attack Dido (for only whales and 5gpt). Then later I bribed him into warring Denmark, and declared war myself, which brings us to the screenshot. I dutifully completed my NC on turn 100, though now I'm not sure how to proceed. Workshops or Universities; crossbows or frigates; keep pushing into Indonesia or wait for crossbows? I think Sid Meier once said something along the lines that a game is fun if there are interesting decisions to be taken, and I certainly have a lot of decisions to make.

 

[Megalou]

We settled in place an were pretty lucky with the goody huts: +30 faith meant we were 2nd to choose pantheon and it had to be God of the Sea (+1 shield for fishing boats). We were unable to get a religion, however. For that we would have needed perfect relations with Ife, which we were pretty far from having, for two reasons. Firstly, we stole a worker from them. This was a tough decision because we were already trying, rather unsuccessfully, for a worker factory in Belgrade, which meant bad rep stage 2 with city states - no money when meeting new CS:s. Secondly, Ife was allied with Indonesia as we went to war with them.

I also got +20 culture from a hut (going from 15c to 35c, so good but not ideal) and picked Tradition. The choice seems doubtful because of the large number of cities that we will eventually have - if things go as planned - but the prospect of building monuments and aqueducts by hand was not alluring.

IIRC, I also popped AH and archery, and one or two population boosts.

The tech plan was to focus on the bottom and the top of the tech tree, getting to CBs rather quickly but also going for lighthouses, fishing boats, the extra trade route and eventually galleasses. We'll see what the combination of ranged units and boats can do.

My first 100 turns were completely different from the previous vegetable's (call me the White Meat-bureau), the main reason being a wild and foolish attempt to build ToA that slowed expansion down so much that Indonesia were able to settle not only the cotton to the southwest, but also - barely - a very intrusive city to the east of us. (You can see the smudge marking the remnants of this city in the screenshot.) Absurdly enough, the intrusion forced us to build Edirne with only half of the Great Barrier Reef in reach. .

Only 2 cities on turn 100 means keeping the pressure on Indonesia and we are now heading for Medan by the cotton. I've started on Hanging gardens because only Indonesia has Tradition and they are not building Hanging Gardens but Colossus, which I hope to take as a prize.

Oh, and I missed Temple of Artemis by 1 turn. Still, it is an interesting game and the rather high difficulty is welcome. It makes mistakes more bearable, because even if you make them, you are still left with the exciting challenge of winning the game, even though the chance of a fast win has gone out the window.

 

[zxcvbob]

I don't normally play the Immortal and Deity games, especially domination and large maps, but the start looked so good here I had to try it. (I don't know if I'll finish or not) Turn 102, I have 4 cities connected with roads and I'm building the national college. No real wars yet, just a worker steal from Indonesia and a settler steal from Polynesia. I went Liberty instead of Tradition in anticipation of having lots of cities eventually, so gold has been my limiting factor until very recently. I even considered taking a great merchant for the Liberty finisher instead of a scientist or engineer.

I will probably start warring with galleasses, composite bows, and pikes against Indonesia, then beeline Gunpowder and start spamming crossbows and janissaries for everybody else. Jakarta might be captured by Dido by the time I get there; they are at war right now and Gaja is not doing so well. As soon as the NC finishes I will start building composite bows both for offense and defense.

I did get a religion (I don't remember how but I think I cleared a barb camp for a religious city-state): God-King, Tithe, and Pagodas. I haven't enhanced it yet.

 

[Rhodro]

Just got to turn 101.
I wanted to do a compbow rush and honor, so i focussed on the policies to get cheaper upgrades and my capital pumped out archers after scout, monument, 2 settlers. Gold was good and I got 5 compbows early and found jakarta a good first victim, since it was not on a hill.
My starting warrior and a scout harassed indonesia a lot to steal his workers before attacking him. I got like 5 workers out of it. I forward settled him on top of the silk and my other settler went to GBR.
After beating up indonesia he gifted me a city which i sold to William.
I saw carthage was settled on a hill and she always gets dangerous elephants early so my 2nd target was gonna be polynesia which also had his cap not on a hill.
I razed 2 of his cities in between us and just got his capital. Now im gonna train my compbows on his last city to get as many logistics as I can. Currently have 1 with logistics. When i get crossbows im gonna march to the next target, don't know who yet.
I just got civil service and will now focus universities, then crossbows, jannisary and dynamite. Maybe galleas after university, not sure yet.

I had to pick 1 filler policy, patronage, 2 turns before getting in the next age. This will delay my policies in commerce sadly so i will probably also focus on the guilds to get more culture.

 

[qontroL]

I've been away for a while, but I too got rolling on this map. I wanted to do a liberty game because it looks like we have access to quite a number of resources. My early game was very relaxed, no Barbarian troubles, I even got 2 City-States to ally me. Indonesia was mildly annoying because he wanted to settle a ton of cities, and for some reason was really pushing to settle east of me. Later I noticed why... Great Barrier Reef, I missed it by a tile, ups. Anyway, I sent the HOA (Dido) to check on Indonesia's housing situation and she came back with certain problems so I decided to help him with his housing situation.

I'm currently on 8 (9/10 coming soon) cities, it's a pretty chill pace so far, I need to start building markets but it's coming. So far most civs want to be friends with me so they aren't too upset about Indonesia. My scouting situation is terrible because I prioritized allying the City-States. I plan to make 2 armies and basically sweep west and east and meet down south. I really hope the southern cives are closer to the coast because with all the iron in the area I can definitely have some Frigate fun. My science/happiness/gold is terrible. I went to war way too early for this map size, but it's all fine. Science is for nerds.

I have my own religion with Tithe because Initiation Rites was taken by Indonesia. I also got Garden happiness, which is probably really stupid, but there's so many rivers and I didn't really know what else to pick.

The Netherlands is completely running away with the game in my save so that'll be fun. They don't run away with the game often, but when they do it's usually pretty interesting.
Screenshot:

 

[jrwh]

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
I thought about so many things, much of which is covered by the following questions. In general, I wanted to harass my neighbors early stealing workers and settlers, settle one city to either side of me for coastal trade routes and naval potential, and start taking cities with comp bows asap, while also getting food/production/science infrastructure to get me to the midgame. Simple right?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
I went for shrine asap because I really wanted religion here for gold and production, quick archers to help with barbs and neighbor harrassment, sweet, sweet lighthouses, Pyramids and comps, then libraries and philosophy. Decided to go universities next here since I want both muskets for the UU and frigates for the map in the long run, and I think it will be fastest that way. Still keeping it simple, right? Early workshops for production trade routes were tempting; Jakarta had Colossus for me, too. I don't think I can grow too much with all the conquering that needs doing. Looks like I'm a bit behind everyone else's tech, you're all already working on Civil Service in your posts .
- What Social Policies did you choose?
Gave some thought to Tradition for building up that capital location, but stuck with my gut that Liberty is better for war, and conquering from the get go is better than teching for awhile first. Man, it would be nice to settle a city (or more) on those salt horse rivers, but I don't think it will speed up this game. Did take one point Trad for border growth after the free settler. Will finish Liberty soon and probably engineer a wonder, trying to pop a natty golden age first so I can chain them together. Got Pyramids comfortably. Likely Honor after Liberty is done, may see about trying Oracle, Jakarta was building it when I captured.
- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
NO, lol. Missed last religion with -3 turns on prophet , I hate that mechanic. Tithe and production are both still on the table, which would be perfect for this game, but as it turns out, I wasted a lot of production on three early shrines and a temple. I get fishing boat production and pagodas from Jakarta as a consolation prize I guess.
- Other things that weren't great:
I lost three scouts and a warrior to barbs and worker stealing shenanigans. My land scouting has been terrible, especially to the west. I probably lost out on some ruins getting my monument and shrine out after only one scout, but Indonesia was already sending scouts straight into my fog from turn 3 so I figured I'd delay scouting anyway.
- Things that are okay, I guess:
Just got NC up, own and flipped my first enemy capital immediately after, have an army on the way to Polynesia which looks super weak. Infrastructure decent, aside from NC I have lighthouses and stables going, among other things. GBR was a nice surprise, and a helpful boost to early science. Didn't scout that location thoroughly, and found it when I planted the city.

Spoiler Demos look promising :

Spoiler The Ottoman Empire :

 

[Bol]

Ok early game for me, though not great: the spices on the west coast were taken very early by Indonesia, so I had to settle for a single coastal expansion (which is as good as the capital, btw).
Moreover, Polynesia decided to randomly drop Tonga in the middle of MY salt before I could settle it, so I had to settle for 4 cities instead of 5, and I lost a unique lux + 3 marketable copies of salt...oh well.
Other than this, it went pretty smoothly: a T2 pop ruin followed by an early culture ruin to open tradition, and the early 2 pop (working the copper) allowed me to open 2x Scout -> Shrine -> Worker before Settlers, which I liked.
Unfortunately I kept failing to get a pantheon, but honestly it really didn't matter as I got faith from GBR as soon as I settled Edirne, so it worked fine in the end.
Tradition finish ~T90, NC T96 and Civil Service T98, so now I can hit a fine growth window before starting a war campaign.

I plan to Frigate rush all 5 coastal capitals, but then I don't really know how to efficiently take the other 4, as they are far apart.
I might try Sipahi + Artillery, otherwise I'll patiently wait for bombers; yet to decide.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

@Bol man, that's a lot of population you have there, 8 more than me!

 

[jrwh]

@Bol man, that's a lot of population you have there, 8 more than me!

85bpt also the most anyone's posted so far by a good margin

 

[sebtanic]

Here's my game on turn 101:

I'm about to attack Jakarta, which has GLH.

I haven't decided on a conquest path for the rest of the map yet. However going for Carthage next seems to be a no brainer. From there it's probably best to go clock wise for the inland capitals. I might make a detour for Kilimanjaro though, since the terrain is quite hilly it might pay off. At least for the units that are already at Jakarta.

Probably going to tech for Frigates, and once I'm there build a navy to take out the coastal capitals in parallel to the land army.

 

[raider980]

I'm almost embarrassed to post my game. Its abysmal compared to the others. I have a third of the science of the leaders. Low population, no religion, very few units. I've had happiness and money problems all game. It seems like everything is taking forever to build, and my cities are taking forever to grow. Whew, everything that could go wrong did lol.

I moved the settler next to the mountain for may capital and spied GBR early so got that as my expand so that was good. Gadah took my 3rd city spot, I was going to settle on the Silk and it sounds like others had that idea too, so I had to go inland.

I went Honor, that's part of the problem, should've just stuck with Tradition as usual but wanted to try something different. I also didn't have enough workers, a perennial problem of mine.

Luckily we don't have aggressive neighbors, although Gadah can sometimes be a punk. We'll see what happens!

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

@raider980 those coastal cities are all about the cargo ships, you need to get those up asap. Sometimes indeed you need to build a trireme first, although on this map the possibility of barb galleys is small.