TSG57 Opening Actions Thread

ense7en · Mar 18, 2013

thio said:
<rant>
But it seems pretty much impossible to keep a real tech advantage like this, your one newby spy to defend won't catch anything most of the time, and even if he does, having plenty of enemies means having a spying event about 1/turn. It's annoying in this game (I'd have been able to roll Japan but they stole all my military tech, pretty fast too), but i did a OCC science race in another game and nearly lost because of how easy it is to lose your techs. Only building the firewall really got rid of that, but thats a rather late thing. It seems to me it completely cancels out any profit from focusing science.

Theres really nothing to put a stop to it, sure you can ask them to stop, but if they don't what you gonna do? Declare war? That won't stop it either unless you completely wipe them and that means no more RAs.

Theres just nothing good about it in my opinion. Well it's easier to keep city states friendly, but mostly i don't care about city states.
</rant>

Moderator Action: Moved to the Opening Action thread. Once you have opened the save, please do not post in the Announcement thread because you may reveal spoilers, as you did in this post.

The spying is annoying, but on King, it's very easy to maintain a huge tech lead, so regardless of how many techs the AI steals it doesn't really matter.

You should already be well ahead of the AI going into Renaissance. Park your first spy in your cap; he'll eventually hit level 3.
Constabulary up if losing techs bothers you.

thio · Mar 18, 2013

Maxym said:
I was wondering how much ahead glory is, so i decided to benchmark at t 138 like him.

342 beakers and still nine turn away from free thought

As soon as i settled that deer on turn 2 and did not see the extra food i expected (tested on grass in some random game) i knew i will regret it and it shows up already. i was hoping that aestethics would make up with more culture from CS, i guess it still has time to kick in

Oda is getting to be a bit of a beast as much as king AI can be, he has his samurai for a while and gobbled most of USA and got himself a GW so my plan or rushing him with CB or XB is out of the window. i am hoping for some decent gifts from military CS to nab a few cities but i am not willing to spend any of my cash on upgrades, still running with slingers

Spoiler :

Second problem with them is that the cities are so very close together, no room to move. I'm thinking of taking my expansion elsewhere.

And i know this isn't really connected to this particular game, but how do you get spys anyway? I saw one wonder that provided one, but what triggers the others?

Browd · Mar 18, 2013

You get your first spy automatically when the first player enters the Renaissance (England gets 2 spies at Renaissance).

You get one extra spy each time you enter a new era.

If you build the Natoinal Intelligence Agency (requires police stations in each city), you get one extra spy and each spy is promoted one level.

thio · Mar 18, 2013

Thanks browd. Still, in the other game i got too many spies for only that, i think.

How many eras are there after renaissance?

Maxym · Mar 18, 2013

Four I think. So five total.

glory7 · Mar 18, 2013

Maxym said:
I was wondering how much ahead glory is, so i decided to benchmark at t 138 like him.

342 beakers and still nine turn away from free thought

As soon as i settled that deer on turn 2 and did not see the extra food i expected (tested on grass in some random game) i knew i will regret it and it shows up already. i was hoping that aestethics would make up with more culture from CS, i guess it still has time to kick in

Oda is getting to be a bit of a beast as much as king AI can be, he has his samurai for a while and gobbled most of USA and got himself a GW so my plan or rushing him with CB or XB is out of the window. i am hoping for some decent gifts from military CS to nab a few cities but i am not willing to spend any of my cash on upgrades, still running with slingers

Spoiler :

it seems that you already have 5 cities - I considered that west 2 salt position too but my happiness and cash were tight. You have 25 happy so I guess you managed it really well.

2 turns to industrial... I assume you went sci theory first, so you are actually ahead of me in tech. One thing I did notice is in your game oda grew big. maybe that's why you didn't take that uluru spot.

stickyfingers · Mar 18, 2013

I'm around turn 110 or so. I did 4 cities tradition and unlike most people, I kept my cities fairly close together. They're all on that starting peninsula thing. Around when I was building my NC, I ran into happiness problems. Even though I had 4 salt and 2 incense, no AI had any luxes to trade me back. They had some cash though which helped. Had to get construction, build some colesiums and buy tiles to get crab and marble hooked up.

When I finally got my happiness fixed, Oda DOWed me even though we were friends. I had actually considered DOWing him a few turns early, but when I marched my slingers up there, I saw he had some CBs already so I thought better of it. Oda's army was no threat and my slingers hid in the mountains and killed them all. I used some saved cash to upgrade them to 5 or 6 CBs and then went after him. I took a city that was east of his capital. It was size 7 and had 2 bananas and 2 gems so I decided to puppet it. I made peace and took all his money. There's where I left off, but I realized I can use my GG that just spawned and steal his other 2 gems from his capital. That's what he gets. I'll just take his capital in a little anyway.

Back on the home front, the terraces are awesome as others have noted. I built HG and I'm almost done with Petra. I'll probably start collecting wonders now.

Maxym · Mar 18, 2013

glory7 said:
it seems that you already have 5 cities - I considered that west 2 salt position too but my happiness and cash were tight. You have 25 happy so I guess you managed it really well.

2 turns to industrial... I assume you went sci theory first, so you are actually ahead of me in tech. One thing I did notice is in your game oda grew big. maybe that's why you didn't take that uluru spot.

No I actually went for industrial first, since my aesthetics was about to kick in, and I wanted all those culture and food CS fueling my growth. I know it's suboptimal for early labs, but I have invested in that SP and was determined to make it pay.

I will have labs about 14 turns after you, but I am hoping that extra city will make some decent science later. And this way I am getting my factory production bonus in most cities, usually the policy can't come fast enough.

Did you burn a GS to get plastics? I am considering since I almost got enough cash for four labs. And I started on Oda now, taking his first city on t 175.

I decided to burn one GS for plastics and got it on t177, so nine turns behind. I have a feeling now at t202 that I waited to long to bulb, and will have scientists or ratio finisher leftover

glory7 · Mar 19, 2013

Maxym said:
No I actually went for industrial first, since my aesthetics was about to kick in, and I wanted all those culture and food CS fueling my growth. I know it's suboptimal for early labs, but I have invested in that SP and was determined to make it pay.

I will have labs about 14 turns after you, but I am hoping that extra city will make some decent science later. And this way I am getting my factory production bonus in most cities, usually the policy can't come fast enough.

Did you burn a GS to get plastics? I am considering since I almost got enough cash for four labs. And I started on Oda now, taking his first city on t 175.

I decided to burn one GS for plastics and got it on t177, so nine turns behind. I have a feeling now at t202 that I waited to long to bulb, and will have scientists or ratio finisher leftover

hm I understand. I personally believe that aesthetics is overrated at lower diff level, but I think it depends on the playstyle.

I did burn a GS - I was even thinking about two. it's definitely yes if you got money for four labs.

I prefer to attack other civ fast and use their caps for additional spt (learnt from tommynt) and other cities for gpt.

Usually, it's good to use one or two GS for earlier plastics and apollo, especially when you got enough money so that you can rush buy sci buildings in new annexed cities. Even though I try to keep that in my mind, I usually have one GS leftover too;

Maxym · Mar 19, 2013

I usually burn two for Apollo, but this time I used only one as my only RA was maturing about that time. And I used one for plastics. I think I misplayed the end game this time. Its the first time I had enough cash for all the labs, and should have started puppeting earlier. I was hoping Oda was going to get Constantinople for me but he had it at 0 hp for four turns and then gave her peace as he was being wiped out by me.

NCommander · Mar 22, 2013

Played a lot this morning, and took notes on each turn like a few other players did in earlier GOTMs (which I read for fun; I didn't read anything on this one since this seemed like a good game and difficulty to ease myself back into Civ ...)

Here's how the world looks at T85:

Spoiler :

I've never been a professional player, or anything more than causal, but I'm pretty happy with this.

Spoiler Turn Log :

I know a lot of people seem to favor going for NC early, but I think I did better with rapid expansion. As it stands, I don't have Education yet to build it, but I'm about to have libraries go down everywhere. Happiness has been a bit of an issue, but generally been Ok. Having region should definitely help though at this point.

I was iffy on founding the two desert cities with desert folklore, but seems to be working very well, with Petra on the way, and making Japan's life hard. He still hasn't offered peace, and I'm debating removing him from the game though I don't have any melee units handy to do that ATM.

As a side note, right after I took this screenshot, I misclicked closing the picture taker, and moved the GP. I reloaded the file with that being a mistake. I don't think that counts as replaying a turn (the screenshot app screwed it up), but I won't submit it if others feel otherwise.

(this won't be in the running for the best game anyway, I'm too much of a n00b for that ;-); Last game I played was on Prince so ...).

Moderator Action: Welcome to GOTM.
Moved your post to the opening actions thread because it contains information that will spoil the game for other players. Once you open the save, you must use either the Opening Action thread (turns 0 - about 100) or After Action thread once you have submitted your game.
Best of luck in your game.

Philipum · Mar 28, 2013

Hello, this is my first game of the month, I couldn't resist the Incas and besides I unusually have got some extra time for playing, and it is a real pleasure !

- What were your initial priorities?

Early science! I settled on the river-coast-mountain and took advantage of the hills movement bonus to explore with my warrior while building a worker and teching archery. Then when I got archery I switched to a slinger and finished the worker
later. I went for writing and built the Great Library early with some forest chopping.

Three first cities settled in the best spots, near mountains. Second city next to Uluru, third in desert on the East coast. Later settle the area on the West and the Island on the North.

Wonders in capital, prioritizing science wonders (plan to settle a lot of great scientists): Great Library, Oracle, National College, National Epic, Great Mosque of Djenne, Porcelain Tower, and others... although I regret that I forgot to build Petra in the desert city, it's a great city already and would have become amazing! Got friends with several city-states, which helped a lot with culture and religion; went for a faith-produce-more-faith religion path, with Desert Folklore, Pilgrimage, Divine Inspiration, then Religious Community and Religious Texts. Together with Great Mosque, this allowed my religion to become the absolute dominant one on my continent and later on on the other continent as well. With Pilgrimage that makes really a lot of faith for purchasing great scientists later on!

- What tech path did you follow?

Archery - Mining - Pottery - Writing - Calendar - Philosophy (from GL)
...then towards Education and Astronomy

- Were there any early wars and who started them?

Japan declared war on me at some point, not too early. I could defeat him easily with composites. I don't plan to take any city from him.

- What Social Policies did you choose and why?

Tradition, for the early growth and the wonder bonus. Opened liberty as well since hadn't got medieval yet; then patronage because I was ally with many city-states, and Rationalism for the science.

- Did you do find your UU and UB useful?

Slinger not so much, terrace farm is great!

leif erikson · Mar 28, 2013

Philipum said:
Hello, this is my first game of the month, I couldn't resist the Incas and besides I unusually have got some extra time for playing, and it is a real pleasure !

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM. :wavey:

Glad you joined us and that you enjoyed your game. Best of luck in future. :thumbsup:

Philipum · Mar 28, 2013

Thanks for the warm welcome

I am sure enjoying this game and am looking forward to posting my win soon :king:

killerloop · Mar 28, 2013

t 102

3rd uni on line, just passed 100bpt. Bought 2 unis.

5 cities, 27 pop, Japan will fall in a couple of turns. 10 turns away from Astro, prebuild Oracle in 2nd city. Also 10 turns away form next Policy, well timed!!!

1st city on deer, 2nd N near river and mountain, 3rd city W of Uluru, 4th city NW on coastal gems, 5th city Osaka (peace dea). 6th city Tokyo I got out of a peace deal as well but sold it to Byzs as happiness is scarce. Already build 3 colosseums.

Have already an enhanced relegion, and finished Liberty tree (GE waiting for duty)

Went for a 2city NC, that I got at t50. Lib bought in 2nd city.

Build order capital:
Monu, scout, shrine, granny, GLib, NC, Settler, HG, colosseum, CI, Uni. Somewhere in between I fitted a slinger and a longbow.

Army: 3 LB upgraded from slingers, 1 LB and good old warrior.

In between I was able to ally Florence and Jerusalem, but saved my money now for Unis.

I'm ok with progress, wonder if tradition would have gone better, but doubt it. The extra growth doesn't help in this happiness scarce environment...

I'm setting sail in 2 turns as well to discover the rest of world.

thio · Mar 30, 2013

I have another question, concerning Declarations of Friendship, since nowadays you seem to need them to sign RA's.

How do you get them?

I've started a few more Science games on King difficulty (and lost them all to russia),
and in the latest one i couldn't get even one RA because noone wanted me as a friend.
They were all "friendly", yet declined all my requests for a declaration. I treid giving them favorable trades but that didn't work.

Maxym · Mar 30, 2013

Did you get the favorable trade modifier to go double green? You need about 5gpt for that. Was there no one to denounce?

thio · Mar 30, 2013

So this has something to do with how many good modifiers you have with them or do bad ones come in too?

I asked two of them to stop spying once and it pretty much lasted the whole game as a negative mod (although i also forgave them about 5 times each), the other had a negative because of differing policies.

I never denounced anyone.

Also i gave each a hundred gold, might not have been enough then if 5gpt is minimum.

Maxym · Mar 31, 2013

Yes don't ask them to stop spying, they won't. And you need to give them a bit more then 100. Find who they denounced and denounce same civ. That should get you a DOF with at least one AI and create additional positive modifier for others who are ales friends with that one.

marekb · Mar 31, 2013

Sharing intrigues that your spies discovered works very well.

TSG57 Opening Actions Thread

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