TSG40 Game in Progress

[dthompson32]

Turn 259. I just ran through 10 GSs which shot me to the Hubble and the lower half of the tech tree to nanotechnology. Working on Apollo now to start building parts. I still need 13 techs from the top of the tree to get to Particle Physics.

Biggest issue is/was not enough BPT to get maximum value out of the GSs only 650. I think not enough trading posts are the problem. Also not enough culture, needed some additional policies to boost the BPT.

 

[dthompson32]

I've started a second play through and you can beat Geneva to the Natural Wonder if you build a settler early.

 

[S.K. Ren]

I don't think it would be worth it. If there was enough room to REX properly without resorting to ICS it would be nice to get your religion up early.

I didn't have any time to play since it came out until this morning. So far my play through has been rather nice. I managed to get 2 +1 Pop ruins, a 100g ruin, a Weapon Upgrade for my Warrior and a Barb detector. Settled in place, put the first city below the Salt/Wheat tiles to the east, my second on the hill between the mountain and river to the west. The fourth city went at the bottom of the peninsula to the south below the deer.

As soon as optics finished I set my Picktish Warrior south and my Scout west. To my joy I found two Mercantile CS that both had a beef with the same encampment I've been keep them as allies ever since. My cities are 17(Capital), 12, 18, 13 and growing. My scout after healing from a nasty Trireme barb made a huge loop and discovered everyone else.

I'm currently on turn 179

My tech so far has gone Writing->Philosphy->Optics->Mining->Trapping->Education->Acoustics->Metal Casting->Printing Press->Architecture->Astronomy->Scientific Method->Industrialization (In progress)

Social Policies: Tradition->Commerce Opener (Missed skipping it by 6 turns ) -> Rationalism

I'm thinking of skipping the finisher, taking only the left side of rationalism and going for Planned Economy. My thinking is the two free techs are woth at most 20k(9.5k for each of the final techs for ship pieces) research at most if It's timed perfectly. Its likely to be less though. If by taking planned economy, that +25% bumps my science enough to make my GS pile give more than 20k over what it would have without, it'll definitely be worth it.

For religion I went with Fertility rights as while the raw food from Goddess of the Hunt means a higher supported Pop and more potent growth boost if you had several in range at once, it required camps which was too far away to be of use plus as my scouting turned up, it was only the capital that had an abundance of camps so I decided to go with Fertility rights since 2 of my cities were coastal dependent on food and 1 had a ton of farms.

The latest development is that Gustavus Al-dufus has gotten in into his head to DoW me despite me being friends with everyone and him having lots of positive modifiers. I suppose that's what I get when I intentionally let Civs steal tech so they have a chance of keeping parity (And reducing my RA costs)

 

[kamikazees]

- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow?
- Any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- How did you organize and improve your chosen city site?
- What is different in your G&K start versus what you would have done in vanilla?
- Did you find any other civs and when did you meet them?

Settled in place after moving the warrior. So much forest! Saw 3x fur and deer, so chose Godess of the Hunt as Pantheon. Build order was Scout, Worker, Great Library. I wanted that wonder so I teched straight to writing first, then mining so I could start chopping forests. I think AI gets pottery for free on king, but I got the wonder on about turn 40.

After mining, I went calendar, then to trapping. The +3 science from the Great Library really helped, but probably should have done trapping first. I went Tradition and planned a tradition/honor approach for Pictish warrior barbarian smashers, but when I discovered I was isolated I dropped plans to take honor.

I then got a trireme out and build Oracle and Pyraminds. No one built Terracota, so I built that too. I found Carthage, Sweden and Myans. Sold them furs and bought 3 settlers. Second city next to salt, 3rd next to mountain on west side and 4th just north of capitol.

Thought I'd do some early conquest and have a sizeable puppet empire to grow science... but no iron, so I'm gonna have to find that before I can build Frigates...

 

[S.K. Ren]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...........

I underestimated my last RA wave and neglected to sign a 3rd wave.... so now my tech speed has dropped to a stand still as I wait for a few more RAs and GS to pop. Ugh

 

[Half Nelson]

So here we go, second G&K game after an amble through the new Tech Tree with a William/Warlord/Continents game. Following this experience, I had planned to take the strong new Tradition route, but that’s not how it is working out. Settled on River Furs N of start; built scout/monument/shrine/granary/worker. My early exploration revealed trees, more trees, a couple of Religious CS, an island start and not much else. A lot of Faith will be needed to make a decent empire here! After Tradition starter, I switched to the time-honoured Liberty path because (i) there were very few Lux for happiness and (ii) I would need a few cities to pick up what Lux were available. I was first to Pantheon / Religion:- I took Messenger of the Gods for Science, Pagodas and +1 Happy per religious city. In retrospect I may not have chosen wisely (growth attributes may have been better), but it is all experience. I expanded to 4 cities fairly quickly with Liberty (E Coast for salt; NW on river for furs/stone and W coast for wine) and connected them with roads for the science bonus. Bought a couple of triremes and started to explore, met everyone before turn 100 and discovered love/peace all round. I was first to enhance (happy shrines and cheap missionaries) but began to notice I wasn’t growing quickly enough. To boost Edinburgh growth, I dipped back into Tradition (for 10% growth) and built an aqueduct. I also settled a fifth city at the S tip of the island for its growth potential (3 fish/ 2 atolls). My starting warrior was upgraded to a Pictish Warrior through a hut, which gave me an early opportunity to see how handy they were. I boosted my military with couple more Picts and a brace of archers for barb clearance. I allied the friendly nearby CS and was looking to extend my religious influence with missionaries when I noticed a Mayan Great Prophet heading towards Edinburgh:- this was another new experience, but I headed him off with military until I could buy an Inquisitor (or two). Hopefully he will now go elsewhere, although he seems to sit very stubbornly on my territory. I may have to withdraw OB from Maya (assuming this does stop Prophets?) or even DoW at some stage.

I suspect I was rather late (turn 120) to Education but at turn 150 I have 9RA in place (4 to mature next turn), working universities and a GE (Liberty Finisher) to pop PT. I have 1 turn left on both Acoustics and Banking, the idea being to avoid Renaissance until I had set up a full round of RA (this might have been another error, as an earlier spy would have been useful). I still need to get my head around the new RA yields but I am fairly sure that Architecture will be discovered on turn 151! My next SP is also due, so I will be able to open Rationalism.
I have not built any Wonders (World or otherwise) in this game yet, an unusual feature for me at this level. I thought expanding for the MotG bonus would be more interesting than a GL start. The Colossus would have been good in city 5 but I settled there too late. National Wonders are now in the pipeline and I am hoping for the PT, Leaning Tower (probably taking a GS) and possibly Notre Dame.
Other G&K observations:-
Triremes don’t upgrade so quickly now you can only wave at land units

The Arborea map is great for Faith but does no favours on the strategic resource front:- no cows, horses or handy iron (I was lucky that city 5 did cover the only sub-arctic iron available). I have only seen 1 horse resource on the whole map as yet!

The Religious bonuses offer a greater variety of approaches to a game

Attila the Hun seems a very nice fellow (friendly and peaceful).

 

[dominox]

omg - king is the new chieftain...

 

[godotnut]

Turn 200

Meh, I'm not having my best game. It's not terrible, but it's slower than I had hoped. I usually play on immortal, so the pace threw me off a little, especially in terms of the really slow development of foreign economies, which limited research agreements and trades in my game. I think I was spoiled playing as overpowered-and-soon-to-be-nerfed Austria in my last game. Anyway, on to the details.

I settled a little north of the starting position on a hill near a river. I built the Great Library and later the Mosque of Djenne, the Porcelain Towers, and Notre Dame. My capital built all science, religion, and culture buildings, while my one other city built units.

I really only liked one other city position on my landmass (on the western coast, near the fish and wine), so I only settled one other city for the early game. Peaceful start, as I slowly built Celtic UUs to uprgrade to Pikes and also two catapaults for a planned attack on the Maya (which went off fine--I captured two cities on the large island to the south and puppeted them).

Maybe around turn 100 or so, I settled a tasty looking spot on the landmass to the east, which disrupted relations over there faster than I thought or hoped. Soon I was DOWd by both Augustus and Dido. Luckily my army to the south had already begun trekking up there, warned that an attack was imminent by Dido's denouncement. I fought them both off. I only took Augustus's capital (and razed one other), leaving him with a couple cities and settling for peace with Dido without also taking her capital. I was worried about the diplo hit.

Turns out, all of this warring has indeed affected by ability to secure research agreements. I have finished several but nowhere near as many as some have indicated in this thread. The two capitals and the one other city that I captured have made my empire rich, and I have acquired Stonehenge, the Great Lighthouse, Macchu Picchu, and the Oracle for my troubles. I have lots of luxuries to trade. But on this map and with fastest science as the goal, I now question my logic in expanding into the eastern landmass and, as it turned out, inciting world war. Sometimes winning a war is still losing.

I am at least a religious monster. I tried interfaith dialogue for the first time, and it is not too bad. I think it is well balanced. All told, I have probably chopped about 8 turns off my teching with it at turn 200. Decent but not game making. I could have used it better, but I didn't fully understand the mechanics and wasted some chances.

I have just finished scientific theory and entered the industrial era at turn 200. This isn't too terrible, but I have already blown some great scientists and only have one saved at the moment (more coming via religion soon though). Most disappointing to me is that I am only teching at a rate of 200 beakers/turn. I have been too slow with my universities in cities besides the capital, and my growth rate was poor in these cities as well.

Live and learn.

 

[kargano]

omg - king is the new chieftain...

I feel like it's more the specific map setup that happens to favor peace and loving all around than anything. This GotM was my first ever Civ 5 game, and I won it. I then lost my next game on Prince difficulty (Austria/Standard).

 

[kcd_swede]

I have rocketry, but cannot build the appollo program in any of my cities. Is this a known bug? Maybe I need to check that one of the puppets isn't building it?

Anything else I should try?

 

[dominox]

I feel like it's more the specific map setup that happens to favor peace and loving all around than anything. This GotM was my first ever Civ 5 game, and I won it. I then lost my next game on Prince difficulty (Austria/Standard).

Don't know - it feels to me like the AI is far less aggressive on expanding now - and the extra lux resources + religion bonuses makes happiness much less of a problem than before. I've played two G&K-games so far. Both on King, and finished both games with twice the score of the runner up. I usually don't play King - but still... Perhaps I should try a couple of games on a harder level before I judge it too harshly.

 

[Thresian]

The AI's never been good at expanding on naval maps. I agree that happiness seems too easy to come by now - it doesn't feel like it's functioning as a meaningful constraint after the first 100 turns or so.

 

[xiziz]

On turn 106 now, first game of G&K, so some small errors have been made, just from things that have changed etc. Noticed a little to late I was on my own continent but played a good game so far. Second in tech atm last in soldiers so thats somethings I need to fix. Have hade a close call on happiness after building my fourth city, but have just recoverd from that, hopefully. Very lucky with my ruins, 1pop, upgrade and lots of culture.

Spoiler :

Tech Order: Mining(ruins), Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Trapping, Calendar, Archery, Masonry, Writing, Sailing, Optics, Philosophy, Wheel, Construction, Drama & Poetry, Mathematics, Currency

T1: Settled on furs NE.
T3: Pop mining from ruins
T6: Pantheon, Fertility Rites, 10% growth.
T6: Scout
T8: Culture ruin + wepons ruin(warrior upgrade)
T10: Open tradition
T12: Ruins +1pop and map.
T17: Legalism
T27: Monarchy
T45: Landed Elite
T48: Settled Dublin to the east
T50: Culture ruin
T63: Settled Cardiff to the west
T68: Settled Truro to the north
T71: Great Prophet, Church property, Swords into plowshares
T82: Pyramids
T94: National Collage

Edinburgh BO: Scout, Worker, Granery, Scout, Warrior, Settler, archer, Settler, settler, Pyramids, National collage

 

[King_Course]

Settled north on the river, got the holy mountain buying the tiles with second city. Settled a city up north to gain the 12 Iron for some frigs, but never got round to building them. I went for growth pretty much, and have kept the Civs friendly. Only Dido was hostile at some point, me having no army at all. Later Austria grew sour as I converted her cities to Christianity.

The Civs around me share my religion, which I have spread to the Dutch as well, and now Austria too.

Have started to slack, everything takes care of itself. So forgot to buy Research labs for example, even though I had thousands of gold. I was often building 4 wonders at a time.

Spoiler :

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/kDGltStzH9ZpN_yWTPNBVc_D0JssVSVDGNXYJdyuPFU?feat=directlink

 

[twothree]

- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow?
- Any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- How did you organize and improve your chosen city site?
- What is different in your G&K start versus what you would have done in vanilla?
- Did you find any other civs and when did you meet them?

Another new player to the GOTM for Civ5, and this will also be my second game of Civ5. I played my first game at Prince level with all DLC and G&K, and I have not played vanilla Civ5.

Since this is my first King level game, I decided to initially prioritize getting a few Pictish Warriors. So, I aimed for Bronze Working early. Then in the first 100 turns, I followed no particular tech path, just learning the cheapest tech available.

I was aware of no early wars. I chose the Honor social policy because I wanted to strengthen my defense against Barbarians. And, I have purchased four Honor social policies after 100 turns.

I stayed at one city for the longest time after building where the settler started, maybe 60 turns. The city was left on default production until I started going after World Wonders when I switch from default to emphasize production. The initial worker improved the available resources and left the forests alone to continue to receive the faith bonus.

I did not encounter any other civs for what seemed like a long time. As I explored up and down the west coast of my island. Dido eventually came and said hello. And around turn 80 I found Sweden with a work boat.

While my initial priority was to get a few Pictish Warriors. I never built one. And after 100 turns I have not built any military units. My initial warrior got upgraded into a Pictish Warrior by one of the Ancient ruins. And I have not needed any other military units. I did lose my social policy granted, unprotected Great General around turn 90.

After 100 turns I have three cities, Dublin by the salt and the third city by the 2 Iron. I also managed to be the first civ to build the Great Library, but have failed to build any other World Wonders. I am however 2 turns away from maybe building The Pyramids. And, my first Golden Age just came to an end.

 

[bsmith]

This is my first Game of the Month although I have played Civ for years. I intended to settle in place but accidentally moved my Settler instead of my warrior on the first turn so ended up settling on the furs. Turned out to be a good move I think because of the river.

Fully intended to go Tradition, but changed my mind as I didn't want to waste time with a settler so I took Liberty instead. I'm on turn 119 and am just about to finish Liberty and get my free great person.

Since Carthage visited me early, I decided to send a Trireme over and look for some more trading partners for all the fur and got pretty lucky. I bought settlers once I discovered the Pearls/Gold and Marble to the east, and was pleasantly surprised to find Dyes within my city radius after I settled, so I have single copies of ALOT of luxuries now. (3rd and 4th cities were on the continent to the East) Carthage (war) and Sweden (denounced) are not happy with me, but I've met Spain and the Huns so I'm selling them furs now. I'm having no trouble defending against Carthage.

For Pantheon I took the 2 science per trade route, which I think was a mistake because I still only have 2 trade routes should've taken Goddess of the Hunt, oh well. I can't remember what beliefs I took other than Tithe, but they were production ones, and the +20% combat bonus near friendly cities.

One of the most fun games I've played in a while (I usually play on Empire but don't win very often) Although I'm not doing too well in the science department (lost Great Library by 3 turns) Only wonder I have it Terrcotta Army, although I'm 1 turn from the Colossus. I'm kinda all over the place with those, haha. Haven't built National College yet either, but I do have libraries in all 5 cities.

 

[leif erikson]

This is my first Game of the Month although I have played Civ for years.

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM. Sounds like you are enjoying yourself, good luck.

 

[wetroofwoof]

I settled on the FUR.

WHO ELSE DID THIS?

 

[Dave_the_Turnip]

Just stopped at turn 102. This is my first GotM and my first G&K game i feel good about where it's headed.

I still am quite amateurish when it comes to most of the game's mechanics, but i like being peaceful if i can, and appreciate the island start as i've been left alone by the other civs and left to develop. I have 2 cities with 2 workers, and have been progressing pretty nicely. I've taken Tradition and now Piety as i thought i'd use this game to explore the religion mechanic (also since the Celts seem to create faith easier). I want to keep my citizens happy, encourage growth and then boost science whenever i can.

Edinburgh is my science focus, and Dublin is a production focus. I had a really slow start and had quite a few tussles with barbs, but now the island is pretty much mine. Dido and Pacal have sailed up to greet me. I've been trading my luxuries, and Pacal and i have signed a DoF. I've also put an embassy in their capitals to see where they are on the map, but have refused any offers from them to put one in mine.

One interesting thing is that i'm only now about to research guilds, but i am earning gold like crazy. I'm closing in on 1k! I settled Dublin up under the oasis to the north east and grabbed the Salt, but most of my land is pretty rich in gold. Oo, for my pantheon i chose the one that gives you science for establishing trade routes. Actually, i wonder if i should settle some other cities to make more use of it.

I've been building science buildings and am currently building a wonder that gives me a free tech. I've also formed a religion and will be seeing how that progresses.

Aside from boosting science i don't have that much of a plan. The other civs seem to be dealing with each other (one lost its capital about 10 turns ago). I feel like i should explore the ocean but if left alone to my own devices, i should be able to progress quite nicely, not having to prepare for war or deal with diplomacy.

 

[Zaimejs]

This is my first GOTM. I realize that I am in the lower echelon of players, but I wanted to give it a try. I'm having fun, but for some reason, although I'm on the Rationalism track, I do not have the option to purchase a Great Scientist with faith.

I also don't get how much science missionaries get for spreading my religion to other cities with other religions. I like how some religion choices are very clear.... x gold/follower... but this one where you get science is very unclear.

Here is my save... can anyone tell me why I don't get the option to purchase a GS?

Moderator Action: Moved from the Announcement thread.
Please don't post in the game announcement thread once you have opened the save and started playing. Posts containing spoilers should be posted in the Spoiler threads.