TSG69 Opening Actions

[Hammer Rabbi]

Welcome to the TSG69 Opening Actions thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing through your first 100 turns. 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 the first 100 turns. We are going to try something new and limit your game description in this thread to the first 100 turns. Anything after that should be posted in the After Action thread once you have completed your game.

- How did the terrain and map affect your early decisions?
- What were your initial priorities?
- What tech path did you follow and why?
- Were there any early wars and who started them?
- What Social Policies did you choose and why?
- What Wonders did you build or miss out on?

 

[budweiser]

A raging barbarian upset my game plan.

 

[pkf]

t96 edu, not as fast as i wanted...

t145 (i think) public schools, now at t174 just got plastics. factories are up in 2 turns but i will hardly get 1k beakers. not sure if i wanna capture zulu and rome, both caps have a mountain.

no luck with culture CS so i went full trad - rati with oracle (t106) - some in order - finish rati.

started with GL-NC with 2 cities, bought one settler. warlord is so soft its hard to bypass on wonders

 

[casualplayer]

Delaying GL meant it got yoinked from me. Cost me nearly 20 turns.


Moderator Action: Moved from Pre-game announcement thread.
Please don't post in the announcement thread once you have started to play the game.

 

[kamikazees]

Settled in place, went for Scout->Worker->Shrine->GL. Tradition opening. Rome and Zulu are my neighbors? Great.

Built a settler in there somewhere and dropped it about 9 tiles east of Zulu. Not sure it was a good plan overall, but I figured war was inevitable anyway. The spot had 2 lux, stone and river with grass all around, so I really couldn't help it.

Shaka got ticked, started dropping cities in my direction. Do they actually DoW on Warlord? Well, after the 4th Zulu city, and seeing 5 spearmen on my borders, I decided to go ahead and get it over with. I DoW'd him with 6 comps and a warrior. Took 3 of his cities, including his cap. Razed one and kept the other 2. He was tough for warlord. I lost 3 comps, which I had to replace. I added 2 pikes and a cat to the army in the process.

Well, the war set me back. I didn't get NC up until a little before T100. Not only that, I had 1 less trading partner when trade was already pretty scarce. I think I got to education around T120, but then I had happiness problems for several turns.

I don't think Rome has iron, and he's happy for now. I plan to open renaissance through acoustics, then get printing press and astronomy. I need bad! Hopefully I can add Pisa to my GL and Hanging Gardens.

I did manage to get to education around T120, I think, but I'm behind. Maybe a sub 300 finish, but certainly not very fast.

 

[Theramoe]

Settled in place.
Did scout, monument, worker, granary, GL, NC, then settler x 2.
One city to the west of cap and one SE on desert with Petra.
Discovered Shaka early and decided to cripple from the first worker that popped out. Gave into peace round turn 70 for his only exp. His cap still hadnt passed 8 pop and no tiles worked for him..
Made all the wonders I wanted except, missed oracle
I had it premade, but wanted to open rat. Somehow I timed it wrong by one turn, so had to postpone it and in this turn PacoMaya took it. Slowed me 10-20 turns, not sure..
Took fertility rites for pantheon, just want growts and DF went early. Opened religion late by free GP from HS and enhanced soon after. Got tithe, +% prod, 30% further spread.
Detour for getting 6 traderoutes, 4 to my own cities and 2 for CS quests.
Money will come faster when the UU comes out..
Rome is pressing my border after taking out Bucharest, so plan is to liberate that before WC takes place..

 

[Maxym]

I opened with tradition one city GL (50) to NC (61), then built a settler, saved gold for archer upgrades. Hard built a worker as I had no idea when AI or CS would have one.

Before Edu kicked out six archers and two spears to deal with Zulu as he has mountain cap. Now debating what to do about Rome, as he has one too and I have a five CB and two pike army plus initial warrior and scarcher. But he gave me a DOF as did Pacal after I spared his life (cooperative war with Zulu). I can easily take both caps and erase all three opponents and meet the other AIs as a sole survivor. What Rome? There was no one here by that name Zulu? someone must have misled you...

I am not sure if that is the best approach.

Spoiler :

Took stone circles as pantheon, and got 1st religion and enhance(HS).
Lost oracle on t 110 already partially built.

 

[glory7]

cap BO: scout - warrior - granary - GL/shrine - NC - 2 settlers - (edit: 2 cargo ships) - HG - writer's guild - NE - univ/oracle. Rush bought 2 archers.

expo 1 (west of cap, 3 salt + 2 more lux + lots of resources): granary - library - watermill - univ - (edit: built garden and settler for 4th city) - HS

expo 2 (SE of cap, 2 salt + etc, coastal): granary rush bought (for food cargo to cap) - library - trireme - petra - univ - GLighthouse

Bullied CS at the beginning (that's why I built warrior early and bought more archers) and used that gold to rush buy a worker. I took 2 workers (maybe one of them was a settler) from Zulu. CS worker came so late and I forgot to steal.... I realized that around t65, and decided not to steal a worker as I did barb quest for neighbor CSs already.

AIs were really poor so could not even sell salt for 6gpt.

Used oracle and GW to get secularism on the turn I enter renaissance with astronomy. Hard built all univs.

Will get 3-4 frigates and take Rome as my 4th city. Zulu/Maya cap is tempting too. If I can find a nice cap in the other continent, that will be my city too. Somebody "stole" "my" colossus and I will find out who did and maybe take it back.

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

Missed the Great Library by one turn.

 

[strake]

So my first try at the game was going fine, settled on the hill next to the start, harassed zulu, did GL-NC, and then dropped 3 cities, was feeling pretty good and pretty happy with my start. Then I read the opening actions and was like damnit - I need to figure out how to do one of these education under 100 starts.

So thank you Glory7 for the fairly detailed explanation of how you did things. I started a second game, just to figure this out. The key to me, was understanding the concept of timing. And the importance of sometimes delaying something so it all lines up better, and this trick of timing a great writer and oracle. I still made a couple of mistakes, but....

astronomy and secularism on turn 115! (second try, and following someone else's example, but this is HUGE for me) 164 bpt, 3 cities, size 19, 11, 10

So again, Thank you to all the good players who explain what they do, it has made me a much better player.

 

[glory7]

So my first try at the game was going fine, settled on the hill next to the start, harassed zulu, did GL-NC, and then dropped 3 cities, was feeling pretty good and pretty happy with my start. Then I read the opening actions and was like damnit - I need to figure out how to do one of these education under 100 starts.

So thank you Glory7 for the fairly detailed explanation of how you did things. I started a second game, just to figure this out. The key to me, was understanding the concept of timing. And the importance of sometimes delaying something so it all lines up better, and this trick of timing a great writer and oracle. I still made a couple of mistakes, but....

astronomy and secularism on turn 115! (second try, and following someone else's example, but this is HUGE for me) 164 bpt, 3 cities, size 19, 11, 10

So again, Thank you to all the good players who explain what they do, it has made me a much better player.

I am very happy to hear that my example was useful. t115 is very impressive - I guess you learnt most of the tactics I used with only one play.

 

[glory7]

includes information about the other continent - so I put under the spoiler.

Spoiler :

I haven't played warlord level for a long time (whenever the previous warlord gotm was...) and certainly did not know what AIs do at this level.

I settled 4th city after astro (had to build harbor to reach food caravan there) and got 3 frigates + 2Xbows to attack Rome. There was no army... but the problem was that there was basically nothing in the cap too. I mean, it was t125 and the only thing in the cap was library.... 2nd city had none when I captured it - I razed it immediately. I bought aqueduct, lighthouse, and university at Rome and sent food cargo ship at the turn I captured it.

Meanwhile, UUs find other civs and CS - but only one cap was coastal and that one was far away. I built UI on 2 merc CS to get free lux.

I built 2 Xbows + 1 knight + 1 trebuchet before workshops and went for Zulu. I expected some units but he had like 2 archers and 1 swordman.... I took cap and 2nd city. Again, only 1 or 2 buildings were in there.... I should have expected this and built my own 2-3 more cities a lot earlier instead. I was so used to deity games where you can get cities with full buildings, sometimes even pub schools, when you take main cities at t145.

Everyone thinks that I am a warmonger so diplo relationship went really bad. I DoFed with Maya but he got no money so cannot do RA anyway... and I use my cash to rush buy buildings too. I just attack coastal cities on the other continent so that I won't let 3 frigates unemployed.

 

[joshua43214]

Not used to playing on Warlord and seriously over estimated the AI...

Settled in place.
BO: scout/scout/worker/granary/GL/NC/settler/4 archers/spearman/HG/HS
Tech order: Pottery, writing, mining, calendar, masonry>mathematics, construction>civil service. I had to fiddle with the run to construction to finish the 4th archer, and grabbed BW before I finished civil service to push out a spearman. Went to Education next (rush bought all 3 universities), the picked up Machinery and entered renaissance with printing press.

I basically did OCC til the NC was up ~T65. Shaka forward settled on my to the SW in a really crappy coastal spot. I dropped my expo on the north coast west of the cap between the stone and the spices.

The timing worked out nicely and I DoW'd Shaka once CS was done. He had 2 or 3 really crappy expos settled on flats, 4 CB's and the pike made short work of him, razed all his cities and kept the cap (also crappy) as a puppet. I settled a 3rd city next to the river to the SW right on the cotton once his badly placed on was torched.

Willy and Caesar where both guarded by that time, figured I would get no trading partners and just wiped both out. Finished off Willy with the CB's, machinery came online just as I was headed to Rome. Cleared the whole continent with 4 range units and 2 pikes.

Then I researched Astronomy and went to meet the rest of the civs

 

[FeiLing]

0 settled in place.
2 > Pop ruin
9 > Culture ruin; opened Tradition.
11 Border expanded onto the Salt (wonderering if for some people it went for the Marble first instead as both tiles were marked for expansion?)
14 > Upgrade ruin: Scarcher
16 * Animal Husbandry researched (so much plains, so little cattle -.-)
18 > Map ruin
39 > Barb ruin -.-
41 Second Zulu expansion in my face (it's freaking Warlord difficulty!). Haven't even met him yet, just seing the cities through previously explored area). If only those cities were placed better...
47 / Great Library built
48 Pantheon: Stone Circles
51 * Bronze Working researched (no iron... of course not. I had already so many horses, should have been obvious there wasn't going to be any iron).
55 / National College built
62 DoW'd the Zulu.
66 Nobamba captured (has 4 Stone and 4 Iron tiles. Not on the coast though.)
73 Umgungungungungungungungungungungununglove captured.
79 Kwadukuza captured (yes, it was his 5th city... T79, Warlord... quite... impressive!).
88 Took Bulawayo in a peace treaty. Won't be able to take his (admitable juicy) capital (on a hill with garrisoned archer) with only 3 comp bows anyway and am not willing to invest in further troops at this point.
91 * Civil Service researched
108 * Education researched
113 > Culture ruin
120 * Astronomy researched
132 SP: Rationalism opened

Let's leave it at that... nothing went particularly well and I don't expect to place in the top20 this time.

 

[DrZ]

I settled 4 cities, went tradition.
My build order started with monument first as it seamed to me that it was an island map and I would not get a lot of benefit from a scout.
This was from what I can tell a mistake because i finished Tradition around turn 80 and entered renaissance around turn 120 (education turn 106 -> acoustics t120). This forced me to add one policy into patronage and delay rationalism a bunch of turns.

 

[Blicero]

Settled on the hill NW of start as it looked to be pretty much the same as the start except with one more hammer. Then I was glad I did as I picked up one more salt in the third ring.

1st ruin: culture; 2nd ruin: pop

BO: scout - warrior - worker - granary - settler - shrine - GL (no!) - library - caravan - worker

tech: pottery - writing - mining - archery - calendar - AH - philosophy - masonry

education T114 / rationalism T133 / secularism T149 (the GW trick above is a great idea, will have to remember that next time)

Used tommy's trick and demanded tribute 5x which allowed me to buy a settler on T32

founded a religion with hagia sophia:
pantheon: MotG
followers: shrines / temples +1 food; swords into ploughshares (going for mega growth)

Screwed around with the GL trying to get into medieval and lost it on T55...

In my game it was me who fwd settled Shaka, putting a city on the coast right next to the whale. Then I put Braga on the river so that it could get the 3x salts plus as much production as possible. He then fwd settled on me, but his life was short. Razed his second city and kept his capital, which I have now annexed for the mountain spot. Took Palenque next, and now moving on Rome / Antium.

So probably not going very well for a super speedy finish. My plan was to wipe out my entire continent before I discovered the others so that I could 1) have three nice cities in the AI's capitals and 2) have a shot at signing RA with everyone on the new continent. So I'm delaying sending the nau out until Rome is completely gone. Maybe it was a good idea if I would have done it pre navigation, but not looking so much now.

 

[Ribannah]

Peaceful game, no stealing or bullying.

In my first BNW science game (and second BNW game in total) I decided to play nice. Obviously, that has put us somewhat behind a path of bullying. Ruins were helpful but not impressive (55g, Scout to Archer, Bronze Working, 20 faith).

Lisbon was settled on the hill and with so many tiles to improve we went Pyramids before Great Library.

The plan seems simple: Liberty settlers, later Rationalism and Order. Don't settle any Great Scientists (game will be too short) and bulb to get the essential techs asap.

The Zulu declared war on the weak Maya once but didn't get anywhere. Rome is silent, they have lots of space to expand. Four more rivals are still undiscovered, we need some 15-20 additional turns to Astronomy.


Cities
1 Lisbon=18 (hill next to the starting location)
58 Porto=7 (desert peninsula, central hill to maximize desert tiles)
63 Braga=8 (on the river, with Cotton in third ring)
68 Coimbra=4 (tundra peninsula, on hill behind mountain)
73 Funchal=4 (coast west of Lisbon)
74 Leiria=6 (further west at the Whales)
85 Goa=3 (south between Maya and Rome at Sri Pada)

All cities except Braga are on the coast. Only Coimbra and Goa will be able to build Observatories. Trade is all-food to the capital, for now.

Religion
33 Fertility Rites
111 Judaism: Tithe, Religious Community

Policies
12 Tradition
16 Liberty
23 Citizenship
36 Republic
54 Collective Rule
73 Aristocracy
93 Meritocracy

Golden Age
47 Happiness (10)

Trade routes
96 Caravan (4f) from Braga to Lisbon
97 Cargo Ship (8f) from Coimbra to Lisbon
100 Cargo Ship (8f) from Funchal to Lisbon
104 Cargo Ship (8f) from Leiria to Lisbon

Lisbon
1 Founded
8 Monument
12 Scout
20 Granary
23 Worker (policy)
25 Shrine
30 Warrior
44 PYRAMIDS, 2 Workers (wonder)
52 GREAT LIBRARY
54 Settler (policy)
58 NATIONAL COLLEGE
61 Settler
64 Settler
67 Settler
70 Settler
72 Settler
81 HANGING GARDENS
83 Workboat
85 Workboat
89 Aqueduct
92 Writers' Guild
96 Cargo Ship
99 Cargo Ship
103 Cargo Ship
111 Great Prophet (faith)

Other wonders
95 PETRA (Porto)

Technology

Spoiler :

11 Pottery
18 Mining; Bronze Working (ruins)
29 Masonry
40 Animal Husbandry
44 Writing
45 (?) Archery
50 Calendar
52 Philosophy (wonder)
54 The Wheel
57 Sailing
60 Optics
64 Mathematics
68 Construction
74 Currency
80 Engineering
82 Trapping
87 Drama and Poetry
89 Horseback Riding
96 Civil Service
102 (?) Theology
111 Education