TSG62 Opening Actions

[Finnrat]

T114 and going well.

I also saw marble and settled NE. Exploring went well, I had a mix of all types of ruin with culture first (yay!), barbs, writing, gold, faith, weapon, culture. I met both religious CS before anyone else so I found pantheon just with their gifts and went for Gods of the sea. On Deity level, I rarely ever bother to build shrines/temples, so I hoped to just get enough faith from those 2 cities.

build order was something like scout, scout (abandoned for granary), scout finish, bought wb (had 100g from ruins), wb, bought wb, archer, archer, Great Lighthouse, archers, spearmen, Colossus (finished in T80). I bought 1 or 2 settlers in between. In the early rounds, I tried to get 240g from other civs, buy a workboat with it and sell the whales to a civ for 240g again. it worked reasonably well.

tech order was pottery, found writing, sailing, archery, optics, mining, calendar, ... early optics is unusual, but I wasn't sure how many cities I'll be able to build, so I decided to get a fast growing capital.

when I found a culture ruin in like t4, I decided to not build a monument, but to just go for tradition -> Legalism -> Landed Elite (yay for big capital!) -> Honor opener (not that I had trouble with barbs, but I mainly wanted a GG fast to fight persia and for the 50% exp bonus) -> Warrior Code

got a prophet in t72, chose Ceremonial Burial, Rel. Community, pagodas. In the early stage, I didn't really want to go strong on religion, but noticing that the other civs on my continent felt the same, I might actually spread well. I built a missionary before upgrading religion since I felt that there was so many cities to conquer religiously, that I better start early. not sure if that was a good idea.

I stole a worker from Sydney, a while later from Persia, fought with him a few turns, took peace and later took another worker to start the real war with him. I settled my second city near the Faith mountain and defended a long time there against an army with plenty of Immortals, upgraded my archers to CBs during that time. I didn't think I'd win, but I did. And then went for his cap which I took in T113, but I lost a GG during the siege.

About the same time, Germany took Parsagadae, so Persia is pretty much wiped, I let his last city live. In T114, I met Ramesses. He has a Caravel. I wonder if he is from another continent or was just hiding behind the Roman Empire which I haven't explored yet.

I was lucky with CS quests, so I'm allied with Vatican, Lisbon, Sydney. But their new quests suck.

Germany is next. Let's hope Augustus will not attack.

 

[Maxym]

This is what it looked like at the first update....

Spoiler :

I guess there was something good in making a mess of the start...

Darius is my new BFF (well at least till he decides that my inhospitable northern lands will make a fine addition to his empire) or I will decide that Persepolis will make a fine puppet with all them wonders, but that latter one not very likely.

I have REXed or should i say DLXed (Delayed Late EXplansion) into three mountain adjacent spots i figured might have some potential and are defensible. Growth is poor but they dont need to be huge. If i can evetually staff the unis, schools and labs then with observatories it should make for decent science generation.

The plan is still to try to get diplo win, but without a religion it will be hard ... huh you say, no religion?

Yep, i think i am doing a tutorial in how not to play Byz. After initial period of general atheism on my continent, Darius decided he wants one, and with DF got one quick. With one to go i beelined medieval and built a shrine, Ceasar got stone circles and beat me to it, i had 222 faith at that point oh well, we will tie our other hand behind our back now, and keep trying. Not that i needed any horses for UU I dont know how i will fund the diplo win without tithe and a large puppet empire....

I decided i better not mess up my other remaining attribute, and built few dromons and even managed to get a cap-built one through Rome on two OB treaties. You can se it rounding the southern tip of Roman lands on strategic map.

Spoiler :

After a while, on t 91 i think Darius finally got some courage and after leading military standings for most of the game declared on Germany. It pains me to report that is was a short war, but it acomplished all of my strategic objectives bar one. It was not a stalemate, but it removed a number of german settlers i had to fence out of my lands and they were getting closer. Now as Persian workers they are finding new and productive meaning in life. It did not end in german total defeat, and after about 30 turns they fought another war. Which thankfuly stalemated. I have paid Ceasar (now military leader) to Dow Persia after Daruis's german war ended, a lot i must say, and i dont think a single shot was fired but still worth it. Dont need the two of them to be friends on my opposite borders.

After that I just waited for inevitable Roman DoW. I thought it will come arounf t 114, i just noticed he went from hostile to friendly, just as I got my dromon stuck in his lands. So I renewed OB, sold him lux and gpt and moved my archers (yes archers, i am always broke here) and three dromons thinking he might put enough troops in the water to even out the odds. He outnumbered me 4 to 1. I even had time to upgrade to CBs, build another dromon and ..... nothing, he went back to hostile but did not Dow. At this point I was too far invested into the war and he put a city just west of my cap next to three whales, which is what i was waiting for, his two other settlers were in my lands, but two pike escorts and two workers were well behind and i decided it was a good time. I denounced him and Dowed, adding his settlers to my workforce and eventually taking the whale city.

He was not completely dumb and tried to move most troops overland, but never enough so i just kept killing them and whatever got in the water my dromons then galleases sunk. In meantime I teched for Navi and got it at t 149. But only enough cash to get one upgraded. Now borrowed enough for 2nd and I am thinking that a Domination win might be a possibility since i will not have cash to compete with Persia, who is peeling off all my allies already. On the other hand he is friendly, genuinely so, i think, and so is Bismarck. I am on my 2nd RA with Darius, met Rammy who is also friendly, and If i can grind down Roman Empire and puppet the worthwile bits then maybe i will have the cash and enough AI votes to overcome my cash struggles. I dont think i ever was this poor, i am hard building all the unis and observatories. All my gold went for unit upgrades. I have enough of an army and navy to win against Rome who with few other AIs just got into Industrial recently. But any othe conquest willl require BS as i am too late for arty rush and will get beat to flight too, i am sure. And we all know how wars against ghost bombers without air cover end up. I will let you now how it turned out in the After action thread, now time for some AI bashing

Spoiler :

 

[Arnold_T]

I'm nearing t200 in this game. Don't worry I won't write any spoiler stuff about anything specific past t100. I'm just writing this to vent my frustrations!

I thought I was doing OK for the first 60 turns on this, staying out of Darius way, then sighed in relief when he declared on Germany before me. I had my four cities settled before turn 80 in four good spots that others seem to have to gravitated to as well. Also got the Oracle built by some miracle! Found out later in the game that an AI was pissed at me about that - come on! - can you not allow me just ONE WONDER!? Biggest problem that I recognized early, but couldn't really do anything about, was that Germany decided for some reason to attack Almaty. He blows his army on that, then Darius takes advantage of it, attacks Germany, and strips him of all his cities except Berlin. Darius becomes a monster. My plans to trim Darius down to size are always thwarted by lack of sufficient army and tech. Though I am stealing lots of techs from him! Germany also decided to recover by building a city right in the spot I wanted to put my fifth city (by the lake south west of Constantinople). It hasn't really caused me huge problems, since Germany is the only civ weaker than me, but it complicates protecting my city near the Rock of Gibraltar from the Romans.

I'm behind the tech leaders by about 20 turns I think. I'm thinking Diplo is the only way I can win this one, but money is big problem. More likely this will end up in defeat. I have three AI allies. I'm thinking maybe I should try knocking off some of the nearby CSs who are at war with me, allied with Persia, then try to take down Persia somehow to get his cash.

 

[Muaziz]

I haven't played Civ 5 in well over a year, and hadn't bought the Gods & Kings expansion until today. I did read up a little on what was new with that expansion so that I wouldn't be completely lost with regards to religion and espionage. So let's just say I was a little rusty... perfect for a Deity game! (Note: perfect for the AIs, not so much for me.)

Because of Theodora's UA (one more Belief when you found a Religion), the game plan was to get early Faith. Things seem to be working well since the two closest City-States were both Religious. I was able to friend them both relatively early which I thought gave me a great chance for a decent early game.

I was actually surprised not to be overwhelmed by Barbs during the early game. I guess this being Deity, the AIs probably prevented and cleaned up a lot of that potential mess.

I never founded a Pantheon, but that's probably because I messed up. Next thing I knew, a Religion had been enhanced before I had my first Great Prophet. I did manage to found the 4th Religion though, although some of the nicer bonuses were already taken (mercifully, God of the Sea was still open).

After prioritizing Religion, but only getting the 4th one, I knew I was in for a treat. This was later confirmed when most Civs entered the Medieval Era while I was still in the Ancient Era. Much later, most Civs were in the Modern Era before I reached the Industrial Era.

My one Spy did manage to steal a couple techs which was nice, but I was still woefully behind.

At one point, the Happiness Census is presented and I have 9 Happy people versus Persia's 120+ Happiness (I guess I'm the only one playing on Deity...).

Persia was rolling. Darius had conquered Germany and kept spamming Missionaries in my towns to convert to his religion which only made things worse for me.

Around turn 170, Rome decides I am puny (a fairly accurate assessment) and must be crushed. My Crossbows and City Bombardments kill all Caesar's advancing units, but there is no way I can counter-attack beyond my borders. The war lasts forever since Caesar demands all my gold (3k+) for peace (and that's just not happening). Eventually, Rome's Cannon's plus Great War Infantry prove too much for my out-dated units and I just give up around turn 215.

I only ever built 3 cities: the capital on the starting Settler spot, one 4 tiles to the west (just east of the Stone), and one to the north-east, just NE of the Marble. Those all seemed like decent placements.

I feel like the game would have gone a lot better if Germany had been able to hold of Persia better, especially since I had decent relations with Bismarck before his untimely demise.

All in all, it was an interesting experience even though I had no chance...

--Muaziz

 

[Gori the Grey]

I learned about this belatedly, from the responses to the guide on "Mauling Deity." But I'm giving it a try (in fact I'm 50 turns in). I've only ever won on Deity once in 18 tries, so I welcome the opportunity to hone my skills by sharing my choices with top players and seeing how they went about things differently. I love the map in that, in the first 50 turns, I feel like I've made more decisions that will significantly impact my development, one way or the other, than usual in that space of time. At the rate I play, I won't finish by June 30, but I'm most interested in commentary on the opening 150 turns, and I should get that far.

Moderator Action: I have moved your post to the Opening Actions thread. One of our rules is that once you open the save, you are not allowed to post in the Announcement thread because you may accidentally give away information that might spoil the game for other players. Best of luck in your game.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Sorry for putting my previous post in the Announcement thread.

As I said, I relish communal Deity games that are created w/o DLC so I can play the same map as other players and compare my strategies. Since I'm coming to this belatedly, maybe nobody is looking at this thread any more, but still, in hopes of getting responses to the choices I made, I'll post some of how my game has gone.

I'm now on turn 100. I'm posting a picture of how things look.

I'll give a brief recap, and then, in other posts (so this one doesn't get enormous), reflect on the challenges I've encountered in progressing from this start.

Did see the marble on warrior's first turn of scouting, so moved settler 1 NE.

Teched Pottery first; didn't think there would be many horses and figured I might start on shrine early for UA. Scout, worker, shrine, settler

Ruins: 100 g (2), 20 culture (6), pop (12), AH (14), almost worthless map of ocean around Lisbon (18), 85 gold (27). So what I would count as a good set of ruins.

With culture ruin, picked Tradition on turn 7 before much exploring. After more scouting, I feel Liberty could work on this map (all the space to SW), but had to make the decision early.

Met Geneva first (10) and Vatican city first (28) but getting pantheon also required the shrine I'd built. Pantheon: God of Sea (29).

Start settler on 23, eyeing spot near Mt. Kailish. Founded Adrianople on turn 40 and bought Mt. Kailish tile, so Sydney wouldn't get it. Started working it as soon as I could, not quite sure what turn.

I freed a worker from a barb camp near Sydney and kept it, and stole one from Vatican city.

Met Persia turn 9, Germany turn 48; Roman galley sailed up to Nicaea turn 80.

Great Prophet turn 82, founded last available religion: Tithe, Cathedrals, Ceremonial Burial.

Germany attacked Persia on turn 50, which was good for me b/c it was clear Persia was planning invasion and I had like 2 archers and 2 warriors as my entire military. But they settled on turn 56 and Persia declared on me on 68. I got back three luxes. Construction on turn 75. Upgrading.

Adrianople is unassailable, so fended off attack (83) and started toward Persia. Darius has great wall and Persepolis is defense ~30, so I'm not going to take that with my 5 CBs and 2 warriors. But I fight until I get a great general. He offers white peace; I agree and buy the tiles out from Adrianople in order to plant a citidel where I can take silver and marble.

I hard-built all three settlers because money goes elsewhere (fishing boats, Mt. Kailish tile, silk near Nicaea).

 

[Gori the Grey]

This is a slow map. You want to take some turn-costly detours off the main tech path to get sailing (for whales and UU) and trapping (for your best food resources).

But I felt was there were interesting choices all along the way, hard calls. Whether to spend settler-money on fishing boats. Whether to settle near Mt. Kailash given so few food resources. (But luxes are good once you plant a citidel to the east ).

What to build. In deity, I often forgo shrine, on the assumption that there's little chance of getting a religion. But to do that here is to negate the civ's UA. I'd sure rather get fishing boats in the build order than buy them, but at the cost of of a granary, when I have wheat and two deer? Fun little things like that to choose between. GoS was the right call, I'm sure, but I felt like I had to mull Aurora over for a bit. Stop Adrianople's growth by working Mt. Kailash with second citizen? Or risk not getting a religion? When will I again go off the main tech path to get Optics and a lighthouse?

And even though it's a slow map, Constantinople will eventually be a strong city, with the Whales, GoS and a superpowered granary. There are various luxes spread throughout all the area you would settle.

The question is, will the growth spurt come too late. To succeed, I should conquer Persepolis, but that's just not happening with Darius having GW and my size army. But if not now, when will it ever happen?

Very engaging game.

 

[Arnold_T]

Hey Gori,
your game looks very similar to mine in many ways, including the planting of a citadel east of mount Kalaish. I'm at around t200 right now, and I probably won't finish it because I just can't see a path to victory since Persia is a monster. He has dominated Germany all game, and just took Berlin off the Germans around t200. germany made the bad mistake of attacking Almaty very early, blowing his army, and letting himself open to an early attack from Persia where he lost a couple of cities and that left him with just Berlin.
I like your chances a lot better than mine though since Germany looks pretty healthy. You could get a diplo win, espcially if you can get some AIs to vote for you in the end. Germany for sure. maybe Rome if you can get a common enemy. Also some undiscovered AIs could be good allies too.
good luck!

 

[Gori the Grey]

Little update on my game. On turn 104, Germany proposed attacking Persia. I figured it was my best chance and agreed. I got Civil Service that turn and upgraded a few spears to pikes. Was biding my time with little attacks and pillaging until I could get to Machinery. (Though GW and Persia's UA movement bonus plays havoc with standard CB-Pikeman positioning. He had knights and pikes.)

My spy stole Guilds on 119, so machinery in 6. Darius offered a white peace on that turn. In retrospect I should have taken it. Augustus declared war on 124. I'd long thought he might because he had a bunch of troops around Antioch. But then he marched them away, I thought on a long slow trip to Vatican City, but in fact he was going after Nicaea.

Darius and Bismark settled on 127. Now the only peace Darius will offer involves my giving up Adrianople. I can actually probably defend against both Darius and Rome, but I'm not going to get anywhere. I can see the slow but steady loss of steam ahead. I'll play for a while longer and then post my resignation in the Results thread.