TSG49 Game in Progress

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the TSG49 Game in Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing. There are no posting restrictions as such (apart from normal decency), although we encourage players 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.

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed at least 80 to 100 turns in your game.

Please use this thread to discuss your goals for the game and your opening moves through about the first 60 to 80 turns.

- What did you do with the extra space?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow?
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?

 

[Novalia]

Turn 93.
Amazing start so far. Settled 1 SE. Got a granary, shrine, library up ASAP. Allied the military CS's. allied the maritime, cultural, and religious CS with barb camps and wonders. DOF Mongolia (POd William but he's been a dick so far anyway). Freed a worker for Egypt. Just finished theology and NC, working on oracle while the other civs beat up on my allied CS's.

Religion: food from camps (was struggling for food from start). Cap at 10 pop already. Haven't founded another city. Policies 4 from tradition 1 from piety. Planted a GA.

This won't last I'm awful at culture games
Cheers

 

[budweiser]

- What did you do with the extra space? - I let the barbs have it.

- What were your initial priorities? - Food and the Tradition tree.

- What tech path did you follow? - Pottery>Writing>Mining>Philo, etc.

- Were there any early wars and who started them? I didnt see any. I was attacked aroung 1000AD.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Tradtion? 3 Piety > Liberty opener so far. Because I want a Cultural Victory.

- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's? Not yet. But I plan to kill the guy that attacked me. He has extra cash.

 

[Gamewizard]

Turn 83. I settled southwest next to the stone in order to get as many desert tiles in the cap as possible. I got desert folklore and then founded Judaism, tithe and cathedrals so far. Built Stonehenge, am 5 turns from Hanging Gardens and then will start Petra. I just settled a second city by the mountain near Belgrade, this will be a monster science city thanks to the jungle and observatory. Settled a third city further north on one of the cottons along the rivers and desert hills. These cities were delayed because I tried sending them without escorts but there were barb spears at every turn. I allied a religious CS early thanks to a camp clear/worker freeing combo. Just allied Belgrade and the maritime nearby thanks to another barb camp clearing. Friended Mongolia, William is a jerk. Close to completing Tradition.

The plan: Growth, religion spread, find the CS, wondermonger

 

[ense7en]

Terrible, terrible game i'm having.

I think i'm getting worse the more i play this game

I lost my starting warrior to barbs.
Lost my scout to barbs.
Lost my first archer to barbs.

I am so ridiculously far behind where i need to be in this it's just embarrassing.

t116, just sad how badly i am doing in bpt/cpt.

Spoiler :

I really hate how long it takes to get coastal resources going.



- What did you do with the extra space?
Not much. I want to settle a fourth city somewhere in the jungle mess within range of the spices eventually, but i've gotten off to such a bad start who knows if that'll happen.

- What were your initial priorities?
Apparently to fail hard, losing my first three units to barbs somehow.
Teching at a snail's pace, no cpt. Just so frustrated with how badly things have gone.
Also, i think settling in place was a big mistake.

- What tech path did you follow?
Same as usual beeline toward Education.

- Were there any early wars and who started them?
Most AI dislike the Mongols, but being away from the AI has been a godsend so no wars i've been in.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Opened Tradition then all of Liberty.
I really dunno what i am thinking in this game...apparently i am not.

- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?
Not there yet.

 

[Maxym]

Terrible, terrible game i'm having.

Same here, I think my worst start in culture game ever. Got beat to GL, then HG, CI and GW almost all by few turns, so I am swimming in cash but nothing to spend it on.

Waffled between trad and lib and got none of them completed and not even representation in lib so my culture counter is high then opened piety, so I am all over the place.

Dropped the ball on some easy CS quests by parking my units b4 taking a camp and forgetting it will auto heal and not cycle to it and having someone else swoop in and take it parked a scout in similar manner and lost it to barbs, missed out on finding a culture CS earlier.

At least it was all Harun wonder whoring so he is a marked man, even though I know it will be Rammy who will Dow me first. I agreed to dog pile gengis but everyone is friends anyway so I might avoid that war. Lost cathedrals coz I was greedy and wanted 15% production first. Took desert pantheon since I was getting beat to all the wonders and needed faith, prolly wrong long term choice.

T138 IIRC and still 6 turns away from acoustics.

 

[goyal]

I am new to GOTM and pretty bad at Cultural vic.

Presently at turn 159, have completed tradition and piety. cpt is currently at 119. Will have hermitage in 20 more turns. DOF with 4 AIs and have already generated 3 GAs.

settled on wine. seems to be a good idea as I can get a lot more luxuries.Had a good start with 4 techs from ruins. went scout->shrine->worker->GL

Religion - tool +1 faith from desert, +8 culture from hermitage, +1 gold from 4 followers, +30% spread of religion and +2 faith from each world wonder

Have been pretty lucky with WW, Got most of them (GL, HG, Petra, Sistine, Oracle, terracota army) which I wanted. I missed on Alhambra as I wasn't aware of its 20% bonus to culture (

Gold is going well due to trading of all my luxs. Have 1-2 Cultural CS allied most of the time. Mongol has been an ass and captured 4-5 CS. Greece is biggest at present but it has been kept busy with Mongol.

- What did you do with the extra space? - nothing special, I plan to play with one city.
- What were your initial priorities? - get these wonders GL-> HG -> Petra
- What tech path did you follow? husbandry->pottery->library -> currency -> education -> Acoustics
- Were there any early wars and who started them? No wars for me yet but I have pissed off Egypt by converting his cities and stealing techs from him. Expect a DOW from him soon.
- What Social Policies did you choose and why? Tradition -> Piety , well because culture win
- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's? Not till now, but will start on it to clear out Egypt.

Btw how to take a printscreen ? I tried but it was all black.

 

[leif erikson]

I am new to GOTM and pretty bad at Cultural vic.

Btw how to take a printscreen ? I tried but it was all black.

Welcome to GOTM.

Should be able to take a screen shot by having the picture you want on screen and hitting the "Print Screen" key on you keyboard. The game software will save an image in your D:\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\ScreenShots folder. The file is a .tga file and you must have software that will read that file. .tga files cannot be uploaded to cfc as they are not an accepted file format for use of image tags. You must convert the .tga file to .jpg, .jpeg or .png. Hope that helps.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Hi there. Already played a couple TSGs but never posted cause i started late. This time i started in time. Won't going to submit cause i don't care the rating, but discussing can be interesting.

• What did you do with the extra space?
  I let nature prosper and barbs have fun Since the VC is culture, i decided to stop at 3 cities so not much i can do in all that space, except for early exploration.
  I settled east of the Wine on turn 2. Couldn't care less for those 2 fishes on the coast. My cap is in a nice area with 2 rivers. Mostly plains so it took some time to grow, but now with +1 food from Administration and Hanging Garden, it's growing nicely.
  Speaking of exploration, i started building a scout and bought a second one as soon as i had 140 golds. Might be unusual, but all the ruins got me 2 techs and early culture to get the culture pump going. Probably not bad even thought it delayed my worker.
  Second city was in the hilly desert NW for Petra. Third one was between cap and that city. One the coast so i could get ships in case this wasn't a Pangea (looks like it is a Pangea in the end)
• What were your initial priorities?
  Get the culture pump going. I only won culturally once so far. This is still an unusual victory for me, and one i don't master well.
• What tech path did you follow?
  Mhh, tech path?? You mean tech maze don't you?
  Well, i followed a bit of everything, not much on the military as there was space to expand and i wasn't expecting an attack soon. I tried to get Money for Petra early.
• Were there any early wars and who started them?
  Yeah, plenty of Gengis Khan vs City States wars. This guy is really becomming an issue. If only Alex would attack him rather than Arabia, but no, he keeps denouncing the Mongols and attacking Arabia.
  Ramses attacked me after being friendly for a long time. He probably decided he wanted my Petra city. I had a couple Composite Bowmen and 4 swordsman i received from Belgrade so i had no troubles eliminating his army. Those hills made his UU useless. I was expecting his attack so most of my troops were near that city.
• What Social Policies did you choose and why?
  Opened up Traditions, then followed with Liberty for free settler, better culture and free GP and golden age. Then i opened Religion for even more culture and faith for my religious Buildings.
  I got first Pantheon thanks to Pottery/Shrine opening and faith from Whittenberg. Choosed Desert trad as there was some desert near my Cap and i was planning to settle with Petra in the nice hilly desert to the NW. Worked pretty well, got first religion and used Liberty to quickly get a second GP. I secured Cathedrals and pagodas for happyness and culture.
• Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?
  Wayyyy too soone for them to show up.

EDIT : Those Huns were Mongols actually

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i settled 3 cities after my cap with the extra space. My cap went down to the desert tile on the river (got DF + Petra). Sigtuna went east to the Wheat tile on the river. Helsinki went north to the jungles and settled on the Incense and Birka decided to be a satellite further north to the desert hills by the mountains and settled on the cotton in the desert. Birka was a later decision, settled post t100. I dont regret it. turned into a good production city but lacking in growth speed. It only gets the DF bonus, not the Petra bonus so growth was an issue.

Founded my religion, Tithe, Cathedrals, later enhanced with Divine Inspiration and Itinerant Preachers. I dont think i can get sub-300 win. Ive been reading different culture threads before this Gotm was announced and trying some different timings that im still not familiar with. I went Tradition opener then into Liberty. Finished Liberty and used the GE to rush Hagia Sophia which got me the religion enhancer at t116 or so, maybe 10-12 turns after founding. I got the NC way later than I wanted because of the late Birka settling and going for Petra before NC. I plan on trying to get free Opera Houses with Tradition finisher so this part is what is messing with my timings, the free culture buildings. Im trying to get to Industrial quickly. I have signed 2 RAs to help.

Ive only met 3 of my opponents so far. I have lots of Ivory to trade and cant til I find them. Also only met 1 culture CS that im friends with but not allies yet. Tithe hasnt really kicked in til i get it in a few more cities. Allied Belgrade with quests and got a few free units.

Also, my scout got 2 free techs and turned into an archer, one from the east by William (Archery) and one from the west by the CSs wilderness that hasnt been settled yet (Bronze Working).

 

[Tabarnak]

Update turn 125 :

Settled on the wine tile to catch the wheat and lot of river tiles. Pottery-Calendar-Trapping so i can sell extra luxs. Took desert folklore. Stole a worker from Egypt and he turned hostile still then.

I settled 1 more city on the spice and it had grow pretty fast with 3x3f tiles. Lost the GL 8 turns from completion(better than 1 or 2 turns) so i switched for a library and finished NC.

Sigtuna hard built a settler and rush bought one. Settled Birka on the awesome site with lot of desert tiles and started Petra in it. Helsinki is catching sea tiles east of capital(nice spot too). With Tradition almost finished, these cities will grow pretty fast, especially with 2 allied maritime cs. HG have been built before i started it.

Spoiler :

After a granary Helsinki is working on Colossus. Terracotta is finished in capital. There is lot of iron around! I DoFed 3 civs from the Orient part of the world with Ghengis, Greece and the Dutches. Ghengis is at war against both Greece and Netherlands but seems pretty healthy so far. He conquered most cs around(and Florence )

Spoiler :

Cities still growing fast we are going to be into unhappiness soon. 3 cities have finished their wonders. I rush bought a university in capital and made a research agreement with greece. I want to use a gs and a RA or 2 to reach the industrial era as fast as possible. I finally allied a cultural cs.

Spoiler :

Egypt DoWed me so i'm lightly defending around Birka, waiting for a peace deal. Their cities aren't appealing. Sigtuna is now building Machu, Birka the GW and Stockholm the HS. I took Tithe and +15% prod and will take cathedrals and 50 faith per gp burned. I allied a 2nd cultural cs(can't ally more for now). I need happiness.

Spoiler :

 

[Bezhukov]

I need happiness.

My game has played out remarkably similar to yours, though I went Liberty after Trad open. Ivory opens up Circuses, so that can help with the happies.

 

[glory7]

I used tommynt-style (don't care about RA and just extract max gold from AIs and DoW them before get DoWed) this time. I tried 2 practice games with the same setting and it seems that AIs can take key wonders much faster than I thought (well, previous gotm was prince, so I should have considered that).

* edit: my bad - won't use any such words in the future.

If I play peacefully and let them do what they want, AIs took most wonders, especially 'peace and build' civs. Instead, if I take gold and DoW often, they didn't get wonders before I did (I guess they were building units for the war and lack of money caused them to hard-build most stuff). Interestingly, AIs offered me a peace deal with some gold and gpt, even though I had basically no army and we didn't even see each other's units. After that, I decided to be a crazy-warmonger who only cares about his civ.

moved to wine and settled on the right spot of wine (turns out to be an iron spot). Since we have fewer civs, I opened with scout. cap BO was scout - monument - shrine - granary - GL - HG (bought watermill) - national epic. I think I got GL around t60, HG at t77 and petra at t91.

Found 2 cotton, gold dessert river north and decided to settle there asap and aim for petra (I practice-played gotm 41 right before playing this and learnt petra is really OP). Bought wheat tiles near cap at the very beginning and it delayed my settler a bit, but I think it was a good choice as without those tiles cap would not have grown. 3rd city was next to mountain near belgrade and 4th one was E-SE hill of silk. jungle areas.

For pantheon, I spent like 5 mins between desert forklore and jungle culture one, as I planned to settle next two cities at the jungle field above belgrade. As my second city will be desert one, I decided to go with dessert forklore and I believe that it was an optimal choice. Otherwise, I could have not had GS before HS.

Bought uni right after edu at cap and bought one for 3rd city with 3 bananas and full of jungles. I got 4 free opera houses with legalism as i thought it would be too long till I try to get museum with that. hard built amphi at cap and 3rd city. For 2nd city, petra gives free amphi! for 4th city, after monument I bought it immediately.

DL pantheon allowed me to found religion early and enhance it before GS from HS comes. DL - tithe - cathedral - religious community - 30% far away spread. Used GS from HS to spread religion to 2nd and 3rd city and 2 CS (wittenburg and quebec). religion is spreading out and money will roll in soon.

update: entered ind era with oxford arch at t156 and opened freedom at t161. Yet, my sp is a bit messy - tradition opener, liberty completion, piety opener, pat left 2, and the next one is freedom open.

- What did you do with the extra space?

I built my cities spread out and built 4th city really late (t116) as AI won't build near me soon anyway.

- What were your initial priorities?

Get pantheon quick and key wonders. Gather gold as much as possible from AI.

- What tech path did you follow?

pottery - animal (no horse...) - trapping - calendar (from ruin) - writing - mining - beeline to currency and poped it with GL (so that I can start petra asap) - beeline to civil service - phil - beeline to edu - iron - acoustics.

- Were there any early wars and who started them?

mongols devoured CS (3 of them were culture CS out of total 6 CS). Alexander and mongols (arabs? don't remember exactly) had war. I did DoW dutch, egypt, arab about 2 times and DoWed mongol 1 time. mongolia had 3x army points than I had but still offered some gold for peace treaty. don't know why.


- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

tradition opener - liberty opener - worker - settler - GA - liberty finisher - pat opener - pat left two - tradition legalism between pat left two. I went worker one first as I needed to get lux and sell them asap. GE from liberty finisher were used for itza.

- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?

Not yet. But I may have to fight against mongols to liberate culture CS.

 

[Bezhukov]

Also Old Faithful is 3 happies if in borders

 

[Sadato]

- What did you do with the extra space?
Nothing, I played OCC

- What were your initial priorities?
Growth and found a religion. Monument-Scout-Shrine-Granary-Stonehenge-GL(lucky)-Water Mill-Hanging Gardens-National College-Oracle.

- What tech path did you follow?
I beelined Drama for the free amphitheatre then Chivalry for Alahambra then Leaning Tower then Acoustics then Navigation and Oxford->Archeology.

- Were there any early wars and who started them?
I had 0 wars all the game.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
Full Trad (growth), Full Devotion (I had huge Faith per turn from CS, HS, Djenne and Notre Dam so I planted 3 prophets), Full Patronage (I ended allied with all the CS).

- Did you do anything exciting with your UU's?
Well I had 3 Haccapelites parked while clicking End Turn, is that exciting?

 

[omnivore]

Settled one to the southwest which seems counterproductive and went liberty which seems counterintuitive. Was going to go with three cities then saw the amazing jungle with all the plantation potential, and I have +1 culture for plantations. Now I'm eyeing a spot for a fifth city near the Egyptians. Have a nice little army, was gifted a catapult. Haven't even seen any Mongols or Huns yet.

I know it's not the classic way to play a cultural victory game but I'm not too worried about time; it's my first game at Emperor. I know it's not your normal angry Emperor game because my neighbors have been snotty but not hostile, and I have maintained a nice little defensive army just in case.

What did you do with the extra space?

Settled as much as I could. I'm an old school civ expansionist at heart. Circuses, and extra Ivory for trade, help with the happiness.

What were your initial priorties.

Growth and scouting, finding out who what where my neighbors. Kept finding irresistable city spots, so I didn't resist.

What tech path did you follow.

Beelined for Disorganization. It really was a hodgepodge. Have I mentioned I don't play on Emperor? Now I'm building Oracle but I don't really think I'll actually get it.

Were there any early wars and who started them?

The foul Barbarians, but I finished it.

What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Liberty. I am just finishing the tree now. I chose it because even though I am going for a cultural victory, it felt like there were some good city spots and the neighbors weren't too close.

Did you do anything exciting with your UUs?

Read their description during the load screen with great interest.

Edit: Got The Oracle, Turn 115 - went into Commerce. The idea is to get my economy up and running, then Rationalism to get my Science on par, then the most productive modern production machine, then Patronage for the finish.

 

[beestar]

i settled 3 cities after my cap with the extra space. My cap went down to the desert tile on the river (got DF + Petra). Sigtuna went east to the Wheat tile on the river. Helsinki went north to the jungles and settled on the Incense and Birka decided to be a satellite further north to the desert hills by the mountains and settled on the cotton in the desert. Birka was a later decision, settled post t100. I dont regret it. turned into a good production city but lacking in growth speed. It only gets the DF bonus, not the Petra bonus so growth was an issue.

I think my settling was about the same as the Rabbi, except I put Petra in the northwestern desert site, and Birka was a jungle university science city.

I developed 4 cities reasonably well but I'm not experienced at Civ5 culture wins, and I don't know what to prioritize. (Why does everyone think Chichen Itza is so important, for example?)

I also don't know how to balance culture/science/faith/production: My spies told me Willem was going to attack me (betraying our DOF) so I built up an army, but it never happened. Instead Ramesses attacked me from the west. I got carried away and puppeted 80% of his empire, winning Alhambra and another wonder (I forget which) but setting me back from all the happiness that his citizens needed. I think I should have just stayed focused on defending instead of amassing a conquering army.

I'm now in 1850AD and Willem has Apollo and Manhattan Project and has built one spaceship part. I think I can sneak in the cultural win before he launches, especially since he's now embroiled in a war with Mongolia (Mongolia was scary early - conquered four or five CSs in the first 80 turns - but it turned out to be good because everyone else denounced him, strengthening our mutual friendship).

I'm not submitting this one though, as I misclicked and accidentally agreed to a DOW-on-Willem request by Mongolia. With Willem a world-bestriding monster, this was effectively signing my own death warrant. I also earlier accidentally sent a Great General to be killed (bad pathfinding). And I experienced several instances of auto-annexing. So I ended up doing quite a bit of reloading in this game, and won't be submitting.

 

[glory7]

I developed 4 cities reasonably well but I'm not good at Civ5 culture wins, and I don't know what to prioritize. (Why does everyone thinking Chichen Itza is so important, for example?)

I am not a pro, especially at culture vic, but I think I might answer this one: it seems that for culture victory, the amount of culture you can produce (cpt) is quite limited, unlike science. There are maximum 5 artist slots and 6 culture buildings (monument, amphi, opera house, museum, B tower, and cathedral) and after that, only wonders can add culture and except for sistine and alhambra even effects from wonders are marginal.

As golden Age 20% culture bonus is really huge, after certain period (it depends on your game progress, but usually freedom finish time at latest) you want non-stopping Golden age for faster finish. To ensure that, you need many G Artists - and without CI, you cannot plant enough artists for landmarks or even cannot make sure that you can have endless golden age.

Hope this helps.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

beestar, for some of your happiness problems you could sell a puppet (the least valauble ones of course) to a friendly AI who is unlikely to attack you or who is already at war with Egypt.

and yeah, what glory7 said about CI. it isnt 100% necessary to get CI but since ages give 20% cpt bonus the CI's extra turns are equivalent to even more of a bonus since you can settle more artists for the 20% bonus rather than save them for more GAs.

for me it doesnt change how many artists i get but how i use them. i usually get 14+ with Louvre, wonders, faith and GP generation. i could, for example, settle 6 of them and burn 8 without CI (8 x 8 = 64 turns of ages + whatever other age bonuses you get) or settle 9 of them and burn 5 (5 x 12 = 60 turns) or settle 8 and burn 6 (72 turns) with CI. it will normally shave several turns at the end. of course there are more bonuses to alter that but it was just an example.

better players can get under t300 without CI but ive never been able to. CI was my only way to get over 1000cpt.

 

[beestar]

Ah, okay. I've been planting Great Artists right up to the end - I didn't realize there is a tipping point where I should just be triggering Golden Ages.

Will look into selling puppets. Hope it's worth a huge amount of gold ...