TSG115 Opening Actions

leif erikson

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Welcome to the TSG115 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 and why?
- When did you begin your wars and who was your first victim?
- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
 
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
My initial plan was a 3-4 city tradition science focus, possibly sidetracking to composite bowman in order to clear my neighbor if I had company on my small continent. Then punch out a few navies of frigates when I got there.

- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
Just a quick look nearby with the warrior. Decided to settle on the hill to the SE of the settler start.

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
Small continents encouraged me to try and get by with 1 scout early, and then I met 4 neighbors in the first 20 turns or so, and I decided to rethink my entire plan. Decided on just 2 cities for now, making a quick settler and getting them out to the middle near the wonder and the desert. Hoping for Petra with the food lake. Also figure I need to get Berserkers and crossbowman earlier, and claim control of my much more crowded than I expected continent.

- What were your initial priorities?
Get my cities established, get a pantheon, get a few archers made, get the NC up.

- What tech path did you follow and why?
I chased chopping and luxuries early, since I stole a worker from Dido early, and held off on Writing initially since I wasn't chasing the Great Library

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Tradition, because I feel most comfortable with it for a science race to Navigation.

- When did you begin your wars and who was your first victim?
Dido had some workers I could steal, so I started the first war around turn 15 or so, it didn't last very long. Around turn 80 Elizabeth declared war on me, and surrounded my desert city. I thought I was toast at that point, I only had a few archers, a warrior and a scout, and she had a dozen I could see. But I played it out, and focused on her melee, and sacrificed the scout to block a hex long enough kill all the melee. My city spent 4-5 turns in the red, but couldn't be captured. Eventually my archers worked through all hers, (and I kept making more). Now I've turned the tables and will clear her from the continent, keeping London, and burning the other 3 cities.

- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
I made an early shrine with a plan to use faith, but to be honest I haven't really done much with it.
 
I wanted to attack as early as possible with catapults. Two of my scouts got the archery promotion so I also went for Construction. Even so, I'm at turn 98 and my target, Carthage, still has an army that can wipe me off the planet. I'm friends with everyone else. The good news is I have barracks, four good ranged units almost ready and the berserker a few turns after that. A third scout is exploring the nearby islands.

Opening strategy was to get a library so technology wouldn't be hopelessly behind; then Optics for three moves on water, though seeing Polynesia ruined my dream of being the main ocean explorer. I got the Hanging Gardens and a second city on Lake Victoria but I think I'll build units rather than try for the Oracle. If I don't conquer somebody soon I'll fall hopelessly behind.

Wars to date have been tiny, mainly barb camps. I attacked Elizabeth on turn 13 and killed her scout but I doubt that was a game-changer. I got a worker from Colombo and another from the barbarians. I did get God-King, thanks to a ruin, and I'll try for a religion. The caravan is bringing in some science, along with gold from the cargo ship, so things are somewhat balanced.
 
- What did you think about before starting the game, what was your approach to this game?
I hadn't played any Civ for a year or more, so I was just excited :) Didn't have much of a plan just see how it goes.

- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
Moved Warrior to hill 1 tile in the south, liked it, moved settler there too.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
Small continents so I thoght 1 scout will do. Had a lucky hut after a few turns that gave me pottery right away. Combined with early hammers and seafood that made for a great start! Built up the capital for a while (size 5 I think), and then two settlers in close succesion. First city Northwest of lake Victoria will be a production powerhouse, but needs to be fed. Second one well South of that, decent spot at best but I didnt find anything better. A bit concerned I have only one city at coast so far, because later it will be Frigates for the win!

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

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Went with tradition full, now going into might a little because its Domination time. Probably not the optimal choice, but I'm in for the fun.

- When did you begin your wars and who was your first victim?
First victim was england around 110 turns with catapults and first berserks and two composite bowmen. I learned thats a mighty and fun combination! Elizabeth was really into religion and wonders and quite behind in tech, so it was quite easy, despite unfavorable capital geography. Thanks Lizzy! I let her other two cities live because I don't wanna waste time on her. (she actually built her third city in the tundra well south of my starting position, even though some decent space in the middle of the continent was still free, which I managed to grab later).
Oh and I decided to annex London, I guess there will be enemies on that side of the world so it will hopefully serve as a valuable port.


- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
No faith for, except what I conquered from Lizzy.


Game goes surprisingly well so far (I don't know if I ever played Immortal, usually Emperor I think, but its long ago..). I have discovered the three Civs on my continent so far, and one to the west. The plan was to take out England first before she gets her strong special units. Then I went to Korea, because he is closeby and can be conquered relatively easy by land. At the moment (t-130) I slowly advancing in the Korean war, with Busan about to fall, which will clear the path to mighty Seoul. Even though everyone was friendly with me, my spy reports activities from Dido in the north, I kind of suspect herr attacking me soon. Have two units guarded there and built city walls in panic. She will be more difficutl, her capital is very defendable. I plan on a hybrid naval and country attack, but I'll need to build up navy soon. Also my science output seems to fall behind a lot, so I should probably consolidate for some time after Seoul and prepare the next attack.

I wonder in how little turns the CivFanatics-wizards will finish this :) Or what sort of runawy monster of a civ awaits me on the other side of the world.
 
Larger write up coming soon, but firstly I would like to thank the team for organizing a game that requires astronomy! I've played the last 5 or so civ 5 gotm and I don't think any of them had a map that required the movement over oceans, which has eliminated a very important aspect of the game (and one of my favorites)...
 
What a good, not great, game so far. Very excited about this one. My start wasn't great, but it was good. My overall strategy for this game was to use the UU and UA all the way. To do so, my aim was to get Great Library to acquire Iron Working which would help me get Metal Casting even faster. Along the way, I decided to also get Colossus, which would help keeping my economy strong along the way. Money would be crucial for three reasons: 1) upgrading units 2) likely to not have many friends for trade routes or trading resources for gold 3) buying crucial science buildings along the way as to not disrupt troop production.

Early game was very exciting because there was so much open land around us... I started to get nervous around turn 30 because the AIs started to forward settle all around me, and there were only a few CS near by. Therefore, as soon as I (finally) got my free settler from Liberty I also quickly built another and settled two cities. This was great because it made sure I got Lake Victoria and another crucial 2-lux site to the east, but it was bad because it gave me early unhappiness... which in the end really set me back. My cities were very slow expanding and it took me some time to improve the luxes... The goal was to get Petra with my second city but I quickly abandoned this because I couldn't get my city big enough to do so because of the unhappiness. I was at first upset about this, because I was able to get Desert Folklore with my Pantheon. In the end not going for Petra was a much better idea for two reasons: 1) I was not able to get a religion (and then 2 turns after I got Desert Folklore my cities were converted to Korea's religion) 2) I'm going for fast domination, and Petra is a wonder that requires a lot of early-game production that I instead used to crank out berserkers.

Instead I got Honor opener and build Statue of Zues. Hollelujah!!!!!! Wow what a great wonder for domination victories...

Toward turn 70-80 I was able to get things rolling for what will ultimately be perpetual war. Was able to trade for, borrow, and save enough money to upgrade my swordsman to berserkers. Got optics to allow them to embark. Declared war and quickly wiped out Polynesia. My thinking was that they would be the only AI that could reach the unknown civs and let them know what a bastard warmongerer I was about to become!!!! I, to my surprise, quickly wiped them off the map, only keeping Honolulu and leaving the rest of their land a smoldering rubble.I think I'm going to like Denmark. A lot. Especially with the last few civs.

Next target will be Carthage. Then England. Got NC on turns 99 and cross bowmen around the same time to help out the war effort.

- Did you spend much time doing reconnaissance before settling?
Yes. My scout was around (I always have bad luck with ruins on high difficulties which was frustrating.

- Where did you settle and what did you build first?
The hill to the south (not much up north that I was able to tell on turn 1 with my warrior). Built Scout, Monument / Granery, Shrine...

- How did the terrain and map settings affect your early decisions?
The lack of CS and the open land around made me rush to settle. The presence of Polynesia made me wipe them out first. Wanted Petra and desert folklore with the three great desert city locations, only got DL and abandoned my hope for Petra (Thankfully). Beginning to think that wonders might not be that great on Immortal / Deity fast victories.

- What were your initial priorities?
GL / berserkers/ early exploration

- What tech path did you follow and why?
the tech for my priorities

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Liberty (left) > Honor opener (statue of zues)> Rationalism opener

- When did you begin your wars and who was your first victim?
Turn 70 Polynesia

- Did you go for early Faith? How did you use faith?
Built shrine. Turns out +1 faith was not enough to get religion in this game. Who cares, my atheist berserkers will destroy the dogmatic mystical followers!!!! On with the War!!!!!
 
I planned to scout the land and make an attack plan while beelining berserkers. That's pretty much what I did.

Settled on the south hill like mostly everyone else. Needed to secure some iron so settled a second city to the north, between 6 iron and lake victoria.

My second city quickly got boxed in by Carthatge's cities, so they became my first target. I bribed Carthage to attack England first, to give me time to prepare my Berserkers.

Once I had Metal Casting I spent 500 gold to upgrade my 5 swordsmen and attacked. Went well, Berserkers and CBs cut through his swordsmen and knights like butter. Quinqueremes caused some trouble initially but I managed to shoot most of them down from land (have no navy yet).

t130 and I'm moving towards their capital.

I didn't bother to found a religion, but built a shrine for pantehon (Goddess of the sea) which gave me a nice early production bonus until Korea spread their religion to me.

Built Statue of Zeus in capital, very impressive.

After I take Carthage I'll have to do some teching to get to Astro and find my remaining opponents. (Just got a late NC) Wondering if it's worth going after England or Polynesia meanwhile, but not decided yet as other Civs might hate me and I will probably need trading partneres. So far, no warmonger penalty even though I captured 2 of Carthages cities.
 
First domination GoTM, very excited :king:

It turns out that moving around on the map is not as easy as I hoped. Dido is up north and has a nice little barricade to prevent me from taking the capital right away. England's little satellite city had a similar effect, being quite in the way of a straight shot to the capital.

Went for a liberty opener, then opened honor for Statue of Zeus. Took a while to get a settler since growth in the capital was so easy, what with taking some boats earlier to get those nice sea resources. I'm sooo used to going tall that growing my capital has been so tempting... But thanks to my offshoots having good luxes, I have been able to keep :c5happy: > 0, except right when I started razing York.

No religion, as you can see. Pushing most of my :c5production: into culture and army. It's looking good for a potentially pre-225 game.

Balancing a good :c5war: VS :c5science: has been tough. I'm thinking of aiming for peak science around turn 200, so that if I don't have a massive victory before then I will at least have peaked late enough to be ahead on tech at that point. It's also hard to figure out how many cities to take and how many to skip, and which to raze! @.@

Here's my T111:

Spoiler :


 
It turns out that moving around on the map is not as easy as I hoped. Dido is up north and has a nice little barricade to prevent me from taking the capital right away. England's little satellite city had a similar effect, being quite in the way of a straight shot to the capital.

You do realize you are Denmark right? Attack directly from the sea!
 
You do realize you are Denmark right? Attack directly from the sea!

Well I get that I can attack from the sea, but only with melee, right? I suppose a nice bunch of melee units from the sea could take down a city, but I usually plan for some archers to chip away as a main plan of attack.

Also, I don't have Compass yet, so I can't send things through anything but shallow water, and the shallow waters are owned by Dido!
 
In my game, I first helped Dido wage war against Elizabeth, which led to some English cities burning to the ground. Then I expanded (a bit too late I suppose...) and decimated Dido (conquering Carthage), but happiness was quite the problem during war. I recuperated during a short peacetime, agreeing with Sejong that Elizabeth was a threat to the world. Time to take London, with my berserkers and Xbows, or so I thought. London has a defense of 43 right now... and that's where my first session ended. Don't know... seems quite a challenge to go for London right away at the moment, I will need more of an army.

So far, the game seems to be progressing quite well, though I am by no means a regular Immortal player. In fact, I may never have finished an immortal or deity game before. Point wise, my Danes are far behind the leading civs (though the whole continent is, supposedly because we have each other as competition). We are all around the 400s, while Catherine in her kingdom "far far away" already is around 900.
 
Well I get that I can attack from the sea, but only with melee, right? I suppose a nice bunch of melee units from the sea could take down a city, but I usually plan for some archers to chip away as a main plan of attack.

While It is true that only melee units can attack directly from the sea, all units (including archery and civilian)can move after disembarking. In fact I rarely attack directly from the sea anyway as non-naval units are especially vulnerable from city bombardment and other attacks while there. The strategy is to Form a small pack of units waiting off shore, suprise attack and land all at once. Your archers and melee can attack immediately that same turn as disembark uses only 1 movement regardless of terrain with Denmark. (and berserker has a movement of three to land and make space for others). The AI will not have enough time to react and you can take the city in 2-3 turns max - usually without losing a unit.

Also, I don't have Compass yet, so I can't send things through anything but shallow water, and the shallow waters are owned by Dido!

It's astronomy that shows ocean tile movement. In this case you so have two very good options: either declare war and move through her coastal tiles to get to capital and attack, or sign an open borders, get close to capital in shallow waters that are not under her control, and then declare war. Who cares about morals or her opinion of you??? This is domination on immortal!
Good luck
 
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