TSG 269 Opening Actions

[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?

 

[qontroL]

Very quiet early game. My growth is a bit slow, because I pushed into Optics thinking it would be beneficial, but after sailing my Settler to the Copper I realized that wasn't the place to be, so I sent my settler back to the other side and got Sri Pada from there.
I wasn't able to war any opposing Civs, with hurt my growth a ton, they simple were all too far away and there were too many Barbarians in the way to even properly gets the stolen Workers across. I did however declare war on Kiev (worst choice possible, but the other City-States all rushed Granary) from which I've taken 3 Workers.
Now I'm allied to Quebec City, which is also a bit of a mistake because he keeps using his Horseman to steal Kiev's Workers as soon as they pop out, so Kiev has spent the entire game being completely ravaged.

The start is giga isolated, I know Pacal is somewhere west of me but he can't realistically launch an attack on me from there (jinxed myself) so I think I will sim-city it up until I have Radio and then see where I want to go from there. I'll have to do something to gain an edge, and usually my go-to for Deity/Culture wins is to take out 3 Civs with Arti/Cav and then turtle up for the tourism counter. My growth has been really slow, but I have 4 cities with really good potential to boom. I'm considering a 5th city north between Troyes and Orleans (where my Archer is stationed) but as long as I'm allied to Quebec City the value of that city is a bit limited.

I have 2 Civs yet to discover, but there's no rush, I've gotten a bunch of units from Valletta so they're exploring for me.

A big surprise in my game is that someone rushed Oracle giga early, which is a shame. I think I might be using the extra hammers to build up an army and conquer America. They have the Science lead and Hanging Garden/Notre Dame and their location looks extremely easy to conquer, but I'm undecided since my DoF with them just ended and I am able to use them for trades.

Missed out on religion, another major bummer. Tradition tree almost filled out. And just finished Civil Services. Big plus is that my potential for growth is pretty big and all 4 cities have amazing tiles.

Screenshot:

 

[Rhodro]

- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
From the map type I wanted 3 scouts early to get through hills and around mountains.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
Plan was to go for the hill river mountain spot. Warrior went west, so I didn't spot the sea resources. With no sea access those are gonna be without fishing boat, and no lighthouse sucks too.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
I found out relatively early the scouts were hampered by water a lot. I also saw the maya peeking out of the fog of war accross the water. I got optics at a decent pace to improve scouting. It worked out because i found all AI civs now.

- What were your initial priorities? Shrine, Getting to pop 4, get out 3 settlers, 2 caravans, some archers to defend. Granaries + libraries + national college. I got that at turn 98. I managed to steal 3 workers from quebec city before he made too many comp bows. I built 2 myself.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
Standard stuff, except mix in optics. I went for engineering first to get extra trade route. Going civil service now. I also want theology soon for grand temple.

- What Social Policies did you choose?
Full tradition.

- What Wonders did you try to get and did you get them? None, i found this early game hard and the AI are building wonders left and right.

- Did you get a religion? What religious beliefs did you pick?
Yes, dance of aurora, + tithe and pagoda's. Very early on from the fog of war pacal already converted my west most city, i saw he had cathedrals and jesuit education. So i used the early faith to buy 1 pagoda in capital and cathedral in Lyon. I want to use pressure from grand temple to convert my cities, and use the next great prophet to convert the city states around me. Many relegions are already enhanced so i think i can wait a bit with that, i have last pick anyway.

I also have a lot of happiness, enough to build more cities, but i don't see that many spots. I'm maybe foolishly going north west of wittenberg with the settler i just built. There seems a good petra spot there, and so far i didn't find an enemy AI city on or next to desert. It's not build yet, so maybe I get lucky.

This map looks like it's gonna be hard to win cultural the normal way. Making trade routes with all AI seems difficult with this map. We also have to make sure noone snowballs and actually wins before us. I think military action will be necessary. But with this terrain... Maybe stall for XCOMs?

Spoiler :

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

A big surprise in my game is that someone rushed Oracle giga early

Ah, you mentioned Pacal is in the game, that explains it. He is probably the worst "Oracle offender" - in my game it went turn 61.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

After the early scouting I was quite excited about this start, but after the first 100 turns that excitement has waned a little. There are a lot of luxuries around, and of course a salt regional, but it's not obvious to me how to best place cities to make use of them. Looking at the announcement thread, I had already decided on the hill-river-mountain spot, and my warrior move revealed nothing to dissuade me from it. I think I put a bit too much stock into the observatory though. From the announcements thread you could already see that there might be coast nearby, and consequently the capital does not have a lot of tiles.

With full map knowledge, it might have been possible to plant the capital smack in the middle of our little peninsula, and get a city with 5 salt (ok, two of them tundra) and marble - though the marble would have been completely useless as the AI were spamming the wonders like no tomorrow. Anyway, my answer to getting all the nice tiles settled was going 6-city tradition, but boy do I regret that now. Sure, by turn 220 my cities should be nice, but I've completely sacrificed all early-game tempo, my capital is tiny, and I'm struggling with happiness. This means it's very unlikely I'll get any wonders even in the Renaissance. I might like Forbidden Palace, for example, but with already two of the AI having gone Patro, that is not likely to work.

I did get a religion - Dance of the Aurora, Tithe, Religious Community, temple happiness; Dance of the Aurora also kind of explained both my eastern and my western expand - eventually I will be able to work a lot of faith there - assuming I can hold on to my religion.

I'm not sure how to tackle the rest of the game. In a quick game, I would like to rush Printing Press both for Leaning Tower and the chair of the congress, but I will likely not get there in time. With all these mountain settles, I would like to observatories quickly, but that will definitely slow down my middle game even more. Also, not being able to propose anything in congress would be quite bad. This may have to be a turn 280 quai-domination victory instead of a 'real' culture attempt.

I almost forgot, but one other reason the game is so slow is that I got only a single early worker steal. I stole from Jerusalem, which was a questionable choice since I prefer flatland city states, but they had their worker out first, and I thought I could steal from the gold. However, the second worker they built could not get out immediately due to a barb, and in that short space of time an archer was built and it guarded the worker when it stepped onto the gold. I thought I would move out of range and try to steal the next turn, but of course the archer could see me from the hill and started shooting me. I had to retreat, and once you give city states a little bit of time, they start to spam units. I did steal one late settler from America, but by that time I had all of my cities churning out workers.

 

[Nizef]

Ah, you mentioned Pacal is in the game, that explains it. He is probably the worst "Oracle offender" - in my game it went turn 61.

Pacal really loves the Oracle (and all other wonders as well). I have seen him build the Oracle on turn 44 (there is a post about this in the funny screenshots thread a few years back).

 

[Rhodro]

I think this fail can still fit in this thread? It's from a few turns later. In case i put it in spoiler tags.

Spoiler Ashurbanipal teached me something new :

This dude just made me waste a bunch of turns on petra. I checked all visible cities if they had desert, even hovering over all tiles to see the terrain type. I was pretty sure i was gonna get petra in my city specifically planted for it.
Then the notification pops up that he built it. I was very confused, because i hovered over all tiles connected to that city. Turns out a mountain can be desert too, but this does not show visually in normal mode and you cannot see it on the tooltip.
Switching to strategic mode finally shows one of his mountains was desert

 

[Megalou]

Pacal really loves the Oracle (and all other wonders as well). I have seen him build the Oracle on turn 44 (there is a post about this in the funny screenshots thread a few years back).

Oracle actually went out the window on turn 47 for me.

 

[fiddlesticks]

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

With a 'slab' map, especially highlands, I was expecting far-flung civs and the need to build extra scouts and units. I think I started with 4 scouts! One or two died, but overall it was the right call to explore the map, pillage a trade route (America), liberate a useful missionary from barbs (Maya) and meet city-states.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?

On the hill as most have. Too bad it's one tile from the coast and three sea resources. I wish Civ 5 allowed lighthouses/workboats to be built in non-coastal cities. I'll never get that darned whale luxury. After 4 scouts I built: worker, settler, settler, granary, settler, buying an archer in between.

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

I used all gold available to buy two tiles in Orleans to get Sri Pada and a pantheon (Earth Mother). It was nice that both Lyon and Troyes have two new luxuries.

Jerusalem was my worker-farm, but I only got two. I should probably peace them now since the war isn't much use. I'm gearing up to attack Pacal since he's wonder spamming big time. After turn 100 I bought two mountain tiles west of Lyon and then plunked down a citadel near Palenque and I'm experience farming until I can move on the city.

- What tech path did you follow and why?

I researched Optics earlier than usual for the mobility challenges a few others mentioned. I entered Renaissance through Astronomy for observatories.

- What Social Policies did you choose?

Full Tradition, will open Aesthetics before Rationalism as a filler

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

None - the wonder competition is really high. Oracle went later than some though ~turn 70-75 to Washington.

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

Earth mother, 15% production, divine inspiration (this was a mistake - I meant to pick faith units, but by the time I realized it I was 10 turns past), 50 faith for GP. After the turn 100 screenshot I've converted all expands to Mayan Catholicism that has temple happiness and monasteries.

 

[qontroL]

Ah, you mentioned Pacal is in the game, that explains it. He is probably the worst "Oracle offender" - in my game it went turn 61.

I didn't feel so bad about it anymore later. I was sad for 2 reasons, no Oracle and no Religion, and then Pacal came rolling in with his Jesuit Education and I forgave him.

 

[raider980]

Before the game I planned on playing a science Tradition game until later game and then convert to culture tourism with Chateau. After scouting a bit I thought the same as @qontroL mentioned in the Announcement thread; ouch, pretty bleak. Especially after I had settled on the hill river mountain to the east - BIG MISTAKE. Only two copies of a single lux, and a Whale which you can't get a boat to because we're one tile from the sea. The move would have been to settle one tile west of the starting location on the river hill. That would be an awesome capital. Still has the two wheat, two deer and two sheep, plus 5 Salt and a Marble! And I would have beeen able to settle a city to the east of the mountain and get the Whales and a Gold lux. Even if I would have moved the warrior west I don't think I would have settled that direction though, I don't believe the Marble would have been visible yet. But darn... around T50, I briefly considered just resigning and giving this one up then starting over just to see if it would have been that much better but in the spirit of GotM I went on. (I may go back after the game is over and play the first 100 turns again to see how much better I would have done.)

Started out Scout, Scout, Monument like usual. Probably should have built one more scout - one of my two scouts got trapped in English territory when Liz's border expanded so I just deleted it.

Spoiler Trapped Scout :

Liz also stole one of my city locations up north. I thought it would be too far away from her for her to send a settler there, but apparently not. Now I might need to go to war with her to take it out, if not I'm probably stuck with 3 cities.

Because of the rough terrain I did build another scout later. And I went for Optics earlier than usual because we were surrounded by water also, rough going even for scouts. Went full Tradition and have one more policy left in it. Didn't try for any wonders; like others have said they were going very early. I did end up building a Shrine after finding Jerusalem; took Sun God for the growth from the two wheat near our capital, since I only had two Salt in the capital I am not going to even try for a religion and hope Pacal spreads his to me soon.

I seriously doubt I have a chance of winning this but we are well protected and its not likely that we will be taken out of the game by an enemy AI Civ (Unless Dido sends a fleet of Quinquereme to take my coastal city; I've already seen two of them hanging around) so I'll keep going.

 

[Bol]

Weird map, my main takeaway is than exploration has been slow and painful.
Of course I was very sad to lose 2x fishes and whales in the capital, but with the given information I think settling hill + river + mountain was 100% correct.

I was quite lucky with ruins (T1 pop ruin, T8 culture ruin and T19 pop ruin to 4pop!), so I went for 5 cities tradition as it can be supported even without whales (which I guess I'll never improve); the main limitation was workers, of which I managed to steal only 2 from Quebec, as they quickly built 2 Comps...
other than that, getting the cities started was fine, as the many salts, deers and sheep all helped.
The northeast expansion isn't really needed I don't think, but it has 2 unique lux and enough good tiles to justify it. It gets 4 chateaus in the late game, which is a big plus.

Not much else to say: I opened 2x Scout - Shrine - 4x Settlers and spammed workers after granary in the first 3 expansions; 1st caravan to the 4th expansion to let it catch up with other cities.
I befriended Kiev very early by killing a barb camp, so I finished tradition T88 which is quite early: for once I made full use of the Aristocracy production bonus for NC, which I finished T98.

I thankfully have no happiness issue at all despite the lack of trades because I am perma-allied with Genoa: I killed a barb camp for them and returned 2 workers (I already had 8 when I did, so the opportunity cost was very low).

Finally, religion is Earth Mother, Tithe, +production and I'm about to enhance for temple happiness (Pagodas might have been better, but I really value production in a culture game) and religious texts.
I forgot Dance of the Aurora is a thing so I didn't consider it, but I think Earth Mother is slightly better since you really want to work salt early game.
Funny thing is Maya's religion quickly spread to Troyes and it's quite good: Dance of the Aurora, Monasteries, Mosques and Sacred Sites! It might be worth converting the whole empire to it, but at least I'm keeping it in that city.

PS: once again it looks like I have a lot more population than everyone else, even only counting the first 4 cities. Maybe that's what I'm good at, setting up a sim empire?

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

PS: once again it looks like I have a lot more population than everyone else, even only counting the first 4 cities. Maybe that's what I'm good at, setting up a sim empire?

Yes, it looks really good, this is what I was aiming my game to be . Interesting placement of of Tours and Orleans too. I automatically settled for the copper, but now you have one city with all fish, plus Tours reaches the silver.

 

[Bol]

Yes, it looks really good, this is what I was aiming my game to be . Interesting placement of of Tours and Orleans too. I automatically settled for the copper, but now you have one city with all fish, plus Tours reaches the silver.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention it!

As for Orleans it was actually quite easy, I'm ok giving up a unique lux I don't really need (and that I'll eventually reach) for all the benefits: settling a hill that gives me +2g every turn for free, one more fish, one more chateau.

As for Tours, it may look weird but I think it makes a lot of sense: there is no need for a 3rd coastal when it can't feed the capital, 2 coastals can feed each other while you send the usual 3 routes to the capital.
I lose one fish, but lighthouse for one fish isn't a wow investment to begin with, and I'm still working the fish from Orleans so it isn't lost at all.
Settling the hill would of course be very good, but the spot is limited in good tiles and I'm not working the ivory like ever, so at the margin I'd be working a plain farm for sure: ivory city + hill farm is 4f3p2g, whereas hill city + farm is 4f3p...an actual gain in yield!
Losing the Observatory isn't relevant imho, you don't need a 5th Observatory in your 5th not-so-great city in a culture game. As you mention you also get a Silver in the 3rd ring, which at least I can grab as soon as I have the money, and finally this gives me an extra chateau spot in the late game.

 

[bc1]

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

so much salt = no doubt about winning, but maybe not fast enough to beat @fiddlesticks

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?

unlike most I settled in place: so used to Acken domination deity I forgot about observatory (too late in the game) and about non-modded game plain hills bonus
I built 2 scouts, then took the risk (this is easy deity, not Acken's) of building a worker and 3 settlers without much of a military (maybe an archer or two ?)
paid the price: had to cripple my exploration, call back my explorers and warrior to defend against barbs, and took some pillaging

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

decided against early AI rush due to terrain and distance, and to turtle traditional 4-city

- What were your initial priorities?

chain stealing workers from Quebec (until that nasty CB popped up), growth, religion, developing and selling AIs all of my strategic resources

- What tech path did you follow and why?

science (CV = SV, mostly)

- What Social Policies did you choose?

tradition, then plan on aesthetics

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

too much of a risk on deity

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

yes I did focus on getting a religion for the culture. Obviously picked the earth mother pantheon, got lucky pagodas and later mosques

Spoiler :

 

[bc1]

in case people think it strange, the cash in the spoiler is for rushing universities
my T100 seems a bit more developed than @fiddlesticks, but has structural weaknesses = bad scouting & fewer observatory opportunities

 

[fiddlesticks]

Looking good @bc1 !

 

[elotar]

I'm as usual got several month break from civ, so first turns (or, spoiler, actually the whole game) was kinda "what am I doing here".

I've settled on the river hill to the west (in range of marble), tundra to the south for some reason worried me, so decided to drop observatory.

Orleans on the gold coast hill to the north

Lyon near the mountain to the North-East (two tiles north east from the place where Bol settled Tours) in reach of the Silver

Troyes on the mountain hill at the coast to the East (so in reach of coastal goodies and gold)

(Will try to remember to take scrins next time)

Ruins was: turn 4 - weapons, 7 pottery, 8 culture (started Tradition), 11 map, 13 weapons, 17 population (in 1 turn before I was organically getting to pop 3) camps, 21 archery, 28 culture...

Stealed only one worker from Quebec (t26), have to peace out as was pressed between city and barb brute.

Generally was fooling around with scouts and early builds, but it went fine - finished tradition and NC at t88

Got a religion - faith from salt, tithe, food from religious buildings (last one was mistake in retrospect, +production will be much better).

After it before t100 settled Tours at the middle of the north peninsula, left east coastal mountain hill spot near the wine for a Marseille. It was looking not very contested one.

By t100 got 33 population, 68 science.

General feelings from the early game were quite relaxed - plenty of good land, non threatening neighbors. Maybe a little rough terrain and straight borders of the map were kind of disturbing.