Hi everyone and welcome to the TSG23 After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!

Please use the Civ5 game submission page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/c5-gotm.php) to submit your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered (using the "Lemme play one more turn" feature.).

Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay).

Would be interested to hear any thoughts on game setup. :)

Finished at Turn 316 with a cultural victory

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-02
Reference number: 25104
Your name: Mazer Rackham
Game status: Diplomacy Wrong VC
Game date: 1806AD
Turns played: 273
Base score: 1133
Final score: 2098
Renamed file: Mazer_Rackham_C502301.Civ5Save

The designated VC is Diplo, right? I noticed thio submitted a Cultural win, and then I got this on my submission.

I didn't rush to Dynamite - just fit it in the normal RA path. Once I got there, I was able to slowly clear out some space for myself with a small, hi-tech army.

I tried to have two GEs ready for the UN, but one was still 12 turns away when I bulbed out Globalization. Two GGs and Chichen Itza gave me a lasting golden age while I completed the UN and fought for control of CSs. Alex was buying back 1 every turn - and one turn he even got 2 which I thought the AI wasn't allowed to do.

I've had games with Rammy where I set up 4 beautiful cities and masterfully timed Legalism to pop out Wats immediately after researching Education. This was far from that.

Here is a link to my in action thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11016435&postcount=3

In hindsight:


You really need to get aggressive early on this map to clear out some space for your cities. 10 AIs crowd up the map and the starting location is terrible if Oda expands your way like he did for me.

4 strong cities with a few puppets would've really sped the game along. Instead I was stuck at 3 for too much of the game.

Thanks, we're checking it out. Sorry for any inconvenience as Diplo is the designated VC.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-02
Reference number: 25104
Your name: Mazer Rackham
Game status: Diplomacy Wrong VC
Game date: 1806AD
Turns played: 273
Base score: 1133
Final score: 2098
Renamed file: Mazer_Rackham_C502301.Civ5Save

The designated VC is Diplo, right? I noticed thio submitted a Cultural win, and then I got this on my submission.

Sorry - I've fixed both results. I made this game's database entry as a copy of TSG 22, and forgot to change the VC. :blush:

Sorry - I've fixed both results. I made this game's database entry as a copy of TSG 22, and forgot to change the VC. :blush:

No problem! Thanks for correcting the submission. :goodjob:

:thanx: Alan.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-02
Reference number: 25105
Your name: Monthar
Your email:
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1931AD
Turns played: 351
Base score: 2325
Final score: 3321
Time played: 14:18:00
Submitted save: TSG23_Diplo_Win_T351.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C502301.Civ5Save

I started off well enough. I settled on the norther gems next to the mountain. Made friends with India, Japan, Askia and a couple others. Someone beat me to the GL by 1 turn. When I finally met China and discovered they beat me to the GL, I immediately denounced them. Pretty soon almost the entire world was against China.

Next, Japan decided to start taking over India. So I decided to put a stop to that after Japan denounced me. A few war/peace flip/flops, with good peace deals for me, Japan was pushed off the mainland to just a single crappy island.

Then sometime in the 200's China, Persian, Greece, Ottomans and I think Arabia as well all DoW'd me when I had all but 3 of the CS's as allies and already had the policy that gave me the science boost from the CS alliances. This war wasn't really a problem for my troops, but these folks proceeded to capture all my CS allies in the west.

This war also managed to irritate everyone else, so I was lucky to get 1 or two more RA's started, but the rest of the trades went down hill fast. Then Askia decided he didn't want us to have open boarders anymore so I had to take his cities from him so I could get my troops safely to the west to go liberate enough CS's to have the 11 votes this game required.

After a long drawn out war/peace flip-flip I finally managed to liberate the last CS I needed plus resurrected the Romans as a 12th vote a few turns after I finished the UN.

At some point, I think after the big war started, but before I took Askia's lands, Gandhi decided he'd denounce me. Well I had a RA with him, so I waited for it to finish, then ejected him from the mainland as well.

I think if I ever get good at war mongering, I might just get my times down on every VC.

I think if I ever get good at war mongering, I might just get my times down on every VC.
When you get this figured out, please let me know. Could use some help myself... :please:

Congrats on your victory. :thumbsup:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-03
Reference number: 25106
Your name: Aaronius
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1870AD
Turns played: 305
Base score: 943
Final score: 1545
Time played: 7:48:00


I talked about some of my early moves in the progress thread. Basically, I didn't try for any wonders, and I killed Japan and puppeted five of his cities. Despite my lack of effort, I did end up with Great Library, Ankor Wat, and Porcelain Tower. All that happened before turn 150.

The last 150 turns was spent keeping the peace with everybody, selling resources, signing tons of RAs, maintaining alliances, and stockpiling money.



I managed to stay friends with pretty much everybody but china. China denounced and was denounced by everybody, so I denounced her too. I was able to keep China from getting hostile even while denouncing her so I still got RAs until turn 250 or so. Ghandi started getting testy around that time and ceased being my friend. Towards the very end, everybody began to pick on and then DOW Askia. I joined in just to stay on everybody else's good side.

I think ultimately I stayed on everybody's good side because I stayed so small. I never settled a second city and just had my capital and five puppets. Moreover, Ghandi was on either side of my six city empire so he was the only AI with cities near me. This made me everybody's best friend except ultimately India. Even tho Ghandi became guarded I was still able to sign RAs with him, and I had enough resources to sell him on the cheap and try to keep him from doing something stupid. Also my military was among the best in the world thru most of the game. I took all the honor policies by game end b/c I just figured Ghandi and I were going to have it out at some point. Picking on China along with the rest of the world really helped forego this ultimately unprofitable eventuality, and following everybody picking on Askia helped too. The best part was everybody hated Persia as well, but I was able to stay friendly with them. No declarations of friendship, but no denunciations either. Persia was running away with the game, so it makes sense that they were willing to work with me as the one friendly power in the game. Also, we were on opposite sides of the world.

Persia was not quite a runaway, but clearly the dominant force in the early and mid game. They were dirty rotten filthy stinkin rich and bought up almost every CS. I had two nearby military CS from the very beginning of the game, which I held all game long. Darius had most of the other 14. Sometimes Greece or Khan or Harun would try to take one from Darius, but he was so rich he always got them back. At the very end, Wu was finally taking the lead, I think by managing to take some of Harun's cities with a military tech advantage.

At game end the leader (Wu) had 1500 points. I was in fourth with 1000 points or so. My science was pathetic at 269 beakers per turn on turn 305, but I only had one city and no observatory so... This is why RAs and great scientists meant so much to me. I had all the wonders buildings and policies to really crank out those scientists. I also had an engineer waiting to help build the UN, but it still took four more turns to build. I was a little surprised that my capital didn't grow more than it did (size 24). Probably b/c I only had two military CS allies all game.

The easiest part of this game was staying happy. I had only one city (my capital) and my five puppets provided a lot of lux resources. My military CS allies had good lux and ultimately strategic resources as well.

The hard parts of this game were (1) exploring the map, and (2) making money. I never built a scout and my capital was not on the coast. I ended up basically letting the AI find me. I explored maybe 3/4 of the globe with two extra workers that I sent swimming and exploring. I found Greece and Rome very late in the game.

With Japan spamming cities and acting like he always does I knew I had to strike while the iron was hot. I beelined to swords hooked up that iron and attacked. My military CS gave me some spears and pikes to help as well. I was so desperate to kill Japan before he got those dreaded samurai I ended up puppeting a five city empire that was about 20 spaces away. Getting roads out there was expensive and time consuming. Around turn 150 I was losing 30gpt and relied exclusively on resource sales to finance my empire. Around turn 200 I was breaking even finally, around turn 250 I had a couple thousand in the bank but I was very concerned about getting enough money for my endgame strategy.

By the endgame I was making about 100-150gpt depending on golden ages or not. I was very happy and had lots of long GAs thanks to some wonders and policies and cranking out great people. I got three great artists in one turn with the louvre and my city spitting one out :D. I sold more resources than I probably every have, and signed more RAs than ever. I got the number of RAs exactly right and built Oxford one turn after the last RA gave me Computers (I mistimed by one turn :mad:).

After the UN was built Harun Darius Wu and Ghandi all began wasting money trying to steal CS from each other. I had accumulated 14000 gold, which was a lot except Darius had 16000 gold and Harun had 7000 gold. However, they wasted some of that with the global war on Askia, wars with each other (Wu Harun and Darius all locked in a battle to the death), and stealing CS. Meanwhile, I was friends with both Harun and Darius so I was getting sweet rates on all sales. On the last turn before the vote I traded all my GPT and lux (200gpt maxed out) for about 4000 of Darius's gold. Sold everything I had to Harun as well. I then paid 1000 gold for every single CS on the map. I already had my two military CS, and 1000 gold worked for every single one of the other 14. I now had all 16 CS, and 5000 gold left in the bank. I declared war (completely and utterly back-stabbed) on Harun and Darius so that they could not buy back their CS. One turn wasn't long enough for them to kill any CS, so on the next turn I got a perfect 16 votes for my diplomatic victory.

I shudder to think of what the AI would have done to me in the next ten turns, probably every single AI would have attacked me and killed all my CS allies. Nevertheless, I won in good time. Fun game.

On a side note here: What benefits do Declaration of Friendships actually convey?

It seems to me that all you can do with it is piss people off if you do not grant their often ridiculous requests. I haven't seen any benefit as of yet when trading or whatnot.

On a side note here: What benefits do Declaration of Friendships actually convey?

It seems to me that all you can do with it is piss people off if you do not grant their often ridiculous requests. I haven't seen any benefit as of yet when trading or whatnot.

I would also like to know. My understanding is that a declaration of friendship makes it harder for your friend to declare war on you for one thing. For another they have to remain friendly so you get top dollar for your resources and whatnot. For another you hold influence over your friend so you can get them to denounce who you denounce and turn the world against your enemies. There are definitely limits to this but I've had good results in the past with certain leaders.

Turn 311. Diplo. Me.

Kinda slow.

I need to learn how to submit properly.

Turn 311. Diplo. Me.

Kinda slow.

I need to learn how to submit properly.
Did your submission go through? Can you describe the problem? :hmm:

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1856AD
Turns played: 298
Score: 1070


settled on gems next to mountain, liberty and settled second city fast up in a hill close to silver, japan and india,
was at war with japan, when india also went for japan i took two japanese cities, india got angry them at war with india too, friendly with everyone else, untill askia took some japanese cities them at war with askia and gandhi, just played defensive, did a loot of wonders,

GL, PT, HS, FP, ND, MP, big beng, louvre, tahj, himeji, brandenburg and some national,

signed a lot of RA, could have won a lot sonner, i forgot to save the GE for the UN, did it in 23 turns, bulbed the last 5 or 6 tech, 3 GS, 1 from oxford, two from scientific rev.

the last 30 turns was in Golden Age, sold my 200 gpt in exchange of 5000 plus my 5000 gold, buyed all CS and them declared war on greece.

first time i post, but follow the forum for a time, great job.

Welcome to CivFanatics and to the GOTM community. :beer:

Congrats on your win, nice date. :)

There was no problem becuase I didnt do anything! i need to learn how to do it.

There was no problem becuase I didnt do anything! i need to learn how to do it.
That should be easy enough.

You click on the link in the first post, this is the same link. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/c5-gotm.php)

When you get to the submission system, it will ask you for whether you have played GOTM before, for your forum name and for your email address (so it can send you confirmation that your save was uploaded). If you lost via conquest defeat, you tell the system through the drop down menu that you saved the game the turn before defeat, otherwise it is a save from the turn after victory and then you select the save you want to upload. Click on the upload button and allow the site to churn away for a few minutes as your save is parsed and, voila, you should be all set.

Please give it a try and see how it goes. :cheers:

edit - You may also try the Civ5 Replay Facility to compare games. It can be found here. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/Civ5/c5gotmreplay.php)

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-04
Reference number: 25112
Your name: xerex
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1898AD
Turns played: 319
Base score: 1142
Final score: 1812
Time played: 4:12:00

In this game both Alexander and Darius were loaded with cash. I only allied two CS during the game, which Alex eventually snatched. Only at the very end I allied all CS, just one turn before the UN vote!
To raise the cash, I burned a few GP's for GA's while my cities had production set on Economy. On the last turn before UN vote, I allied half of CS, sold more luxuries, borrowed a massive amount of money, and allied the rest.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/8714/2011110500001u.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/507/2011110500001u.jpg/)
Obviously there is no way I could repay such a loan! But that's the difference between a game that stops right after elections, and the real world. Or is it?

I kind of... sort of... kicked major butt on this one! :)

Through straight up abuse of RA's, I was able to whittle my time down to something more akin to Dave's or Tommy's usual games.

Initial build order was something like this:

Scout->Warrior->Granary->Warrior->GL->NC->Oracle->HG->Market->NT->Pyramids->HS->PT->Wat->Workshop->Forge->Stable->Elephants->????->Profit

Other stuff:
•Did not found any additional cities
•Did not follow liberty policy branch
•Spent initial money expanding borders to deer (settled on west gems)
•Found cultural ruin for tradition, then used legalism to get a monument
•Used initial luxury sales to rush-buy worker, water mill, and stone works
•Rush bought an archer at some point
•Got lucky with barb encampment mission for Sidon, which provided me with sufficient army to take down Japan
•Spent as much money as possible on RA's, buying up city-states (cultural first) with any remaining money after establishing RA's with everybody I wasn't at war with
•Took out Japan, Songhai, and the Ottomans to establish trade network infrastructure. (+500 GPT by game end)
•6 great scientists saved and bulbed at game end (along with 2 techs from rationalism and 1 from Oxford)
•Stayed up all night and did this in one 10 hour session. I'm an awful addict. :<
•I like bullet points!

Policies:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/nthexwn/Unsorted/TSG23_Policies.jpg

Victory:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/nthexwn/Unsorted/TSG23_Victory.jpg

Sukhothai:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/nthexwn/Unsorted/TSG23_Sukhothai.jpg

Difficult map for expansion, being hemmed in by the mountains to the North. Therefore, decided to settle two cities only. In turn, this meant a relatively peaceful game, until Oda decided to DoW me near the end. No problem to hold him off with Artillery. I found the going slow towards the end, with unusually long wait times between turns. It must have been because of the larger than usual number Civs and the larger than usual number of units on the map. The run-in was interesting with the Ottomans and Greeks trying to buy the best City States away from me. Finally, allied the requisite number of City States 3 turns from the end then DoW'd both Civs to ensure they wouldn't buy any back again. By then it was too late for them to organise any reprisals.

Diplomatic turn 271

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-05
Reference number:25117
Your name: Yrag80
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1802AD
Turns played: 271
Base score: 1205
Final score: 2231
Time played: 4:54:00
Submitted save: Ramkhamhaeng_0271 AD-1802 .Civ5Save
Renamed file: Yrag80_C502301.Civ5Save


Game coulda been better. For some reason I signed a RA with Japan and they DOW'd me 1 turn away.... AI is so dumb. Got pissed at them and whiped them out. my SP's were tradition opener, Liberty then back to fill tradition, along the way I snagged Rat opener and Patronage. Filled left side of Rationalism at the end to get 2 free techs to go with my oxford and 8 GS's. also popped the lourve or w/e to get the 2 free GA's to push my GPT at the end to 350+. sold my GPT to buy out the CS's from Persia. Pretty fun game even though my Comp could barely handle 10 civs at once. Game got real slow at the end especially once i started rackin up the CS allys.

If I would timed my GE better and didnt oversign RA's at the end I coulda finished around 250. My cap took 16 turns to finish UN.

Would post some SS's but steam crashes with civ 5 when I press f12 key. Some runtime error or something.

Diplomatic win, turn 324, 1904 AD, Score 1764/2756

I foundate only two cities, no good place around. I manage GL and HS and with Steel I quickly conquered India and then Japan. City states gave me a lot of culture and food, so it was easy. After I made UN, all rest staes attacked me and my alies, and it took about ten turns to vote - I was able to protect only some of them, but finally I received 14 vots.

My mistakes - a lot. The worst was let workers to work automatically, I was lazy to take care of them. Theresult was I spend 90 Gold on road maintenance, 15 income. It cost me a fortune. Another was that I choose Freedom and make anarchy (I had Order before)

Game was fun, but last 30 turns was a bit boring. I have nothing to do but wait for the end of turn.

My first submitted game, I did shadow a couple before. My 3rd (I think) emperor win ever, so I'm quite pleased.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-07
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1866AD
Turns played: 303
Base score: 1355
Final score: 2258
Time played: 3:47:00
Submitted save: Ende - TSG23 AD-1866.Civ5Save
Renamed file: madmatt55_C502301.Civ5Save

Founded in the western Gems, which turned out to be a GREAT spot with all the iron and even picking up the furs SW. Tradition opener first while beelining to writing, then kind of changed my mind and filled up representation while building the GL (Philosophy) and teching to Iron working. Japan took the sweet spot at the northern river with silver, so I prepared the free settler to take the so far unknown iron spot. Seeing all the iron at the capitol spot I founded at the eastern coast, bought/built/upgrades some warriors/swordsman and razed said japanese city (I think 4 swordsmen).

During the war I managed to get NC and the HS, teched up to Education and got myself 2 more settlers. Settled the river/silver spot and the west coast spot grabbing both tiles of the natural wonder. I used the HS engineer and the representation engineer for ND and PT, bulbed navigation. During that I managed to take all but a west coast japanese city with swordsman and 2-3 catapults.

I used a caravel to find all the others for RAs, at some point I used legalism to get some wats (i think 2 and a temple), founded 1 more city at the coast and was done with settling. I kept all of the japanese cities for trading post spam, used longswords to take Machu Pichu from India and all but the most northern indian cities for more trading posts.

From that position I remained peaceful till the end of the game, used my cities for great scientiests and spammed RAs as much as possible. I took the rationalism opener, freedom opener and only then filled up rationalism.

My only concern in the endgame were Persia and Greece, who stocked up huge gold piles (I think Persia ended the game with 14000). Thank god the AI are completely stupid in spending the money on city states, so I managed to get all of the alive ones (13) for the UN vote. I tried to get rid of some gold/ keep them busy by bribing persia to war against greece a couple of times, but they never even managed to even exchange one city...

Pretty fun game overall, I think the starting position was godly. The crowded map didn't seem to change to much, probably even made the RA-spamming and thus teching even better. I guess a war with Japan was unavoidable in any case ;)

finished this tonight in t186 with a Diplo win.
Will do some writeup later, votes been pretty close - I was too lazy (press end turns only) to get ais gold before they dowed me - So I could barly buy enough CS - 10+my vote been enough ..

Had from turn 172-to175 1 RA going in each turn and together with oxford and 4 GS the last 9 techs came in kinda fast - had 2 engis rdy aswell (which been saved for LONG time) - for for like 80 turns - standing close to cap doing nothing ...

Faster finish time should be possible easily for some1 good if he buys open boarder with asiyaka and starts RA spam more early with meeting civs 60 turns faster than I did

Here's a mistake for you guys: I was half asleep and mis-clicked a Great Scientist to give a golden age instead of free tech Globalism... :( This put me 15 turns behind where I should've been, but I'm still pretty happy with finishing at turn 337.

Faster finish time should be possible easily for some1 good if he buys open boarder with asiyaka and starts RA spam more early with meeting civs 60 turns faster than I did

Thing is he became guarded in my game and i couldn't open borders with him. Even if he was friendly, i don't know if i would have opened border because i tought we were 4 alone on our continent until much later in the game. I discovered a 5th civ around turn 120.

I played until turn 172 i think and i don't know if i will finish under 240 turns. Pretty lame game for me overall, i played sessions after my ''no writing tech domination game'' at deity so i hadn't much will to bring a very good game here. I even lost 3-4 units for ''nothing''. Songhai, Japan and Ghandi triple DoWed me and i only captured an Indian's city and defending myself. I retreive myself with only 6 RAers and 1 civ is always broke(Suleiman).

I play this game bad, i'm pretty unlucky with diplo(not declared war at all and everyone is still against me) and i played it with no brain juice left.

I should at least take a big break or simply wait for the other day next time :)

Sry if it's in the wrong thread, but at that point i discovered everyone and every cs so it doesn't change anything.

A pretty easy win, could have been better I guess if I had started with RA's sooner and would have conquered more aggressively (first RA signed at t152!)

Settled west on diamond hill, build a scout 1st, mining 1st. My warrior went via Sidon north of mountain range, my scout went the southern way where my scout bumped into a Japanese settler/warrior pair leaving Kyoto going southeast. I took the chance and attacked, with my warrior/sout combo. My settler from SP went to 3 wheat spot SE of Kyoto, for a 2 city NC setup via GLib (that I used for CS).
beelined CS, then Iron, then Astro, then Steel.
By turn 60 I'd defeated Oda with 4 swords, by turn 115 Ghandi, giving me a nice part of the world on my own.
Because of my early warmongering everyone the whole game was guarded, which costed me a fortune, I only got 109 gold for each lux, and I had plenty. No one ever DOWed me.
I finally took out Askia as well, out of boredom I guess. Then stopped, but with my techlead I easily could have moved on.

edit: I finally signed 8RA's, actually only needed 6 to get to the end bulb.
edit: For the vote I had a real overkill, only Dublin was not my ally!

Thanks to my big civ, i managed to get a raw :c5science: high enough for the last 70 turns. Conquests fund me some RAs and Alex was litterally my :c5gold: bank. I went into a golden age for approx 40 turns in a row until the end. I began to ally cs 20 turns before Globalization to let my capital to grow from 10 to 15 :c5citizen: to complete the UN in 1 turn. Thanks Alex!

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-08
Reference number: 25139
Your name: Banman
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1886AD
Turns played: 313
Base score: 1554
Final score: 2506
Time played: 7:18:00
Submitted save: TSG23Ramkhamhaeng_0313 AD-1886.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Banman_C502301.Civ5Save

settled on the N gems by the mountain and later regretted it strategically, since I didn't end up having a good production city on the eastern coast to meet other civs. Popped a city in the NW and another in the SW on the iron hill, focused on wonder production and research. got most every wonder I tried for (GL, HS, PT, and so on). Japan went to war with everybody they knew in the early game, and I used geography to hold them off with archers and swords. Once my tech edge got bigger, I mowed in, liberated sidon, got super-friendly with asoka and gandhi due to our mutual struggle, took Japan's eastern border cities and got a lot of their (formerly Songhai) puppet empire in the peace deal. The puppet empire ended up providing the cash for RAs and CS alliances --> I waited until I was into the patronage tree before starting to ally in earnest. Japan DOW'd again, but by that time I had artillery almost to logistics and pretty much wiped them out. After that, the economy was really really pumping. No one else DOW'd me, though after taking the rest of Japan the other side of the world got pretty wary. Definitely could have shaved a lot of turns in a variety of ways: in hindsight, more even city placement; more GEs relative to GSs in pocket; an earlier start to RAs; etc. occur off the top of my head

Overall, I enjoyed the higher AI# --> made things more challenging/exciting foreign policy-wise, and forces harder choices with respect to city placement and military development. would definitely like higher AI #s in the future ... thanks for the game!

You see Tabarnak,

now you beat me again by two turns....congrats!!

...should have been one turn if my GG would have been inside my territory at start of UN building. Now I was 8 hammers short for a 4 turn build, or 2hpt in my pop28 capital

Diplomatic win on turn 223.

Winning was never an issue, the problem was to finish as fast as possible.
In that regard I think it made two big mistakes, I should have annexed Sidon and puppetting way sooner, same thing for RAs ; I started both around turn 140. When I reached Globalization I was producing close to 900 beakers and around 600 gpt under GA, I had more than 7K gold leftover after allying all 15 CS left so I guess I should have stopped developing my civilization a bunch of turns sooner to focus on the diplomatic victory, I didn't need such a powerhouse.
Doing all this could have shaved maybe a little over 20 turns but I'm still far from Tommynt's win date. I wonder what I am still missing.

Thanks for the game, great training exercise ;)

Edit : re-read some comments and it looks like golden ages helped a lot so not having Chichen Itza was also a mistake.

Tommynt's win date. I wonder what I am still missing.

Guess no1 else is milking ais as much as I do ....

Actually I usually DoW 1 civ 1 time each game. So most times I meet a civ I ll grab all his gold for lux and dow right away (if my scout is save not to get killed) - after 10 turns most civs will be very happy to have peace and often be more friendly then before dowing (as they are happy not to get killed).

This additional money usually flows into CS or buying units early on - having 3-4 CS more as other with this strat just gives some headstart.

Dowing more then once brings danger of civs getting unfriendly making Ras impossible.


Apart that I play too much civ and am pretty good at some "small" stuff I think.

I believe I did a pretty good milking job too as no AI ever reached 600 gold at any point in the game. I often had to buy their gpt so they had enough for RAs and even gifted gold to the almost wiped out civs.

Good trick declaring a war early just to get their gold. I wasn't planning it but happen to do that this game. When I discovered my first ruin, Ghandi's scout was going to beat me to it by one turn so I traded my gpt for all his gold, declared war, got the ruin and he offered a clean peace 10 turns later and was friendly. I just copied someone's idea in the progress thread, maybe it was you ;)

As you say, all the small stuff that comes from experience builds up through the game and contribute to shaving some turns in the end so I'll keep practicing !

Thanks ;)

That should be easy enough.

You click on the link in the first post, this is the same link. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/c5-gotm.php)

When you get to the submission system, it will ask you for whether you have played GOTM before, for your forum name and for your email address (so it can send you confirmation that your save was uploaded). If you lost via conquest defeat, you tell the system through the drop down menu that you saved the game the turn before defeat, otherwise it is a save from the turn after victory and then you select the save you want to upload. Click on the upload button and allow the site to churn away for a few minutes as your save is parsed and, voila, you should be all set.

Please give it a try and see how it goes. :cheers:

edit - You may also try the Civ5 Replay Facility to compare games. It can be found here. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/Civ5/c5gotmreplay.php)


ye know, i think Leif is probably my favourite Mod on the board?

and not just because he is one of the few Mods not to have given me an infraction warning! ;)


youll get a submission from me for most GOTM's untill you stop posting them. ive probably just committed myself to years of Civ5 playing, ha.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-12
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1892AD
Turns played: 316
Base score: 1230
Final score: 1952
Time played: 5:34:00

Why, oh why, didn't Julius Caesar buy off all these City States just before I got my diplomatic victory? He did have about 70k gold in his treasury, while I only had 5k :rolleyes:. He could have won the game if he just tried. This is why I don't like playing diplo, it feels too fake. Maybe it needs to be reconsidered... I would suggest that the longer a civ keeps an alliance with a City State, the more it costs other civs to buy it off. How about that?

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-13
Reference number: 25157
Your name: kcd_swede
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1937AD
Turns played: 357
Base score: 1593
Final score: 2243
Time played: 10:35:00

Thing is, I built the UN in t317. I had 9 votes when I reached Econ and was ready to use 2 free techs from civics 2t later for Globalization, with 2GE's ready to build the UN. Saving money to buy the last 2 CA's of course. But.. Econ seems to be a trigger for something.... got DOW'd by Persia and Greece. Then a bunch of denouncements, etc.

Ugh. I could not help 2 of my CA allies in time, and they were captured. I lost Rome and Baghdad as well. Then I get Rome back and liberate it. Now I just need to liberate Bagdad and the CS and I'll win. Not a simple task against the higherst power civs... but instead of saving cash, I can now buy a whole bunch of hardware.

I finally got to see nukes get used... against me, twice, in totally ineffectual way.:rolleyes:

Anyhow, it was a very exciting game that required me to do a bit of everything. Note, I don't borrow cash from people... it seems like a silly mechanism that makes the games tedious. (But that's why my finish times stink, I suppose). But I got to build a lot of stuff, WW's, get a lot of policies, could have built a SS, use a whole lot of modern-era units (cool battle graphics, actually) and got nuked (twice). What more could you ask for in a game? I'm glad I stuck it out for a diplo win, it was quite a challenge requiring a lot of adaptation. Thanks for the map, Leif! :goodjob:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-13
Reference number: 25158
Your name: Quizman
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1856AD
Turns played: 299
Base score: 716
Final score: 1213
Time played: 4:28:00
Renamed file: Quizman_C502301.Civ5Save


A pleasing victory and my first at emperor . I played this as an OCC. Furthermore, I made my own additional rule that I would play it entirely peacefully. That included no puppeting or city razing and it suited my preference for peaceful games.

As it happened Oda was the only AI to DoW me although for a reason I cannot fathom, I had a host of denouncements midway through - all on the same turn. Mostly though, I was friendly with everyone, even Oda. This helped incredibly with all the RA's that I signed up to, even if the later ones did cost me an extra 100 per time.

I made a last minute decision to settle on the western gems rather than the northern ones which was original plan and I am really pleased that I did so especially after researching IW. Adequate gold was always an issue, but I had just about enough to pledge to all the city states at the end.

My RA planning worked almost perfectly. I was 3 turns short of where I wanted to be on the last one because that was the turns left to complete Radio before using my 2 saved GS's for the last two required techs. I only had one GE though so I needed another 5 turns before completing UN on turn 288. After that, it was just a case of splashing the cash.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-13
Reference number: 25161
Your name: danglading
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1957AD
Turns played: 377
Base score: 1449
Final score: 1932
Time played: 12:20:00
Renamed file: danglading_C502301.Civ5Save

First GotM for any Civ ever. A little slow, but I got there eventually. :)

I expanded to 3 cities to start the game: Original starting spot, down on the hill near the snow to get the furs (I know, but it slowly became one of my better cities...), and west between the mountains and coast (I know, I know...not a great location). This felt like a tough starting spot for expansion, for sure.

I intended to expand as fast as I could, hold enough military to slap around any irritants, and basically pile up money while teching my way to as many science buildings as I could and then the UN.

The terrain and Japan put the kibosh on the whole "early expansion" idea by expanding right up to my doorstep. They declared war on me right when I got swords, and after I slapped that down pretty hard (terrain was a HUGE advantage here) I quickly realized that I was hopelessly boxed in and there was no way I would keep up the economic strength I needed to buy this victory without some conquest. So, while Japan was busy fighting Gandhi and Askia I went to war with them. I razed a city and puppeted another before accepting one favorable peace treaty, which I used to regroup. One more round of war (spanning muskets then rifles) pushed japan off the mainland to the little pissant island off the west coast.

From there I just turtled. I milked my happiness till I could annex Japans two best cities and tweak them to my liking. I ran neck-and-neck with Persia on the tech race the whole game, which helped a lot when the bastards attacked me for no reason. (Is there ever a reason...) After shredding their initial attacking force with only one troop making landfall I made an ill-fated expedition to attempt a liberation of Quebec City but got completely humiliated. After the remnants of Operation Canadian Storm limped home I just worked on my defenses and used my small but hard-hitting navy to sink flotilla after flotilla that Darius sent my way. Eventually he saw the wisdom of taking peace without demanding half my cities and I took it because I was feeling sorry for his poor army.

At this point it was just a question of tweaking my economy to science & gold to make sure I was the first to the UN and had the cash to take advantage of it. I maintained my alliance with the three military CS's on my part of the continent (didn't realize it wasn't a separate continent until Satellites revealed the whole map), so once my defenses were comfortable I just kept shuttling the gifted troops to my turf and turning them into cash.

Not a great game for great people, but I got enough scientists to keep my tech going strong, more merchants than I'm used to (including two in the end game which helped the coffers a LOT), and had a spare general to pop a well-timed golden age during the second half of my UN build (total of 13 turns or so to build it). I managed to save up enough cash to buy all the remaining CS's on the last turn before the vote, which would give me 12 total votes. Alex bought one on his turn, making me sweat until Darius finished his turn, because he and I had been bidding up Rio for the previous four turns. But I held on to the bare minimum 11 votes for the win.

By the end of the game I had about a dozen wonders while every other team had one, maybe two. That was definitely a first for me. I had about 250gpt without a golden age, and over 1100 beakers per turn. I ended up completing the Liberty (there's that expansion plan again...) and Rationalism trees, the first tier of the Honor tree (for the barb/production/combat bonus) and the left half of the Patronage tree.

This was also my first attempt at Emperor, so it felt pretty good to never find myself in any "oh CRAP" situations. A few "what the heck was I thinking!" moments, but I can live with that. =)

Next month I'll work on screen shots. ;-)

Congrats on your win and welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM. :wavey:

Your name: pontias
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1854AD
Turns played: 297
Base score: 1498
Final score: 2538
Time played: 10:44:00

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1740AD
Turns played: 258
Base score: 1147
Final score: 2249
Time played: 15:40:00


i will try to post the first part in the game in progress hopefully with a screenshot this time, i am determined to figure it out finally. The rest of this game was not very exciting, trading luxes, borders and whatever horses and iron i could scrounge up to whoever could afford it, slowly buying some Cs, mostly culture, after opening up Patronage, and scouting the map.

And of course signing RAs like mad, at least 6-7 at a time until Alex turned hostile and Genghis, Harun and Sully fell to far behind in tech fopr me to afford it. Also they were down to last cities and i was afraid they will be taken over before RAs mature. Rome was the runaway civ with Persia and Alex holding their own. Only 1 RA broken with China, but a crucial one just before bulbing to globalization, costing me 9 turns. 2 GE to finish UN even though it was only 4 more turns to finish. 15 votes.

and the reason for such a late finish is that Japan almost had me on the ropes very early taking my 2nd city and only stopped in a desperate last stand at Sidon's river with them as my new allies weakening Japanes hordes before me warriors dispatched them. Oda was an almost monster by turn 60?? maybe with 5 of his cities, two of Askias and one of mine, before I started rolling him back. Only Ghandi :confused: managed not to lose anything :crazyeye: and also razed one of Odas cities by the C. de Potosi. The initial game was very excitnig i like a lot of civs i think

acihjkI-qSw

*** Deleted ***

Base score: 1263
Final score: 2428
Fairly comfortable and largely peaceful victory (14 UN votes), after completing the destruction of Japan (their final city was taken by Songhai). I maintained good relations with most AI (long-term DOF with India, Arabia and Persia), then finally DOW on Songhai to grab extra luxuries for buying up CS. Completed UN (using a GE) on turn 250 and bought up CS in successive turns leading up to UN vote. Completed 15 RA. For later policies took Rationalism then finally into Patronage to reduce CS costs. I enjoyed this setup:- Japan was a tricky early opponent (Bushido plus hills made for hard fighting).

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-19
Reference number: 25212
Your name: tommynt
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1260AD
Turns played: 186
Base score: 1245
Final score: 3364
Time played: 6:26:00
Submitted save: GOTM23_t186_win.Civ5Save
Renamed file: tommynt_C502301.Civ5Save

uploaded save

I will post a summary later on! Greece and Persia became runaways and I needed to take down all of the western part of the continent with brute force... fun game and very close for a long time!


Game:

Civ5 GOTM 23



Date submitted:

2011-11-20



Reference number:

25218



Your name:

Subber



Game status:

Diplomacy Victory



Game date:

1983AD



Turns played:

403



Base score:

3084



Final score:

3855



Time played:

11:19:00



Submitted save:

Ramkhamhaeng_0403 - 1983 n. Chr..Civ5Save



Renamed file:

Subber_C502301.Civ5Save

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1911AD
Turns played: 331
Base score: 991
Final score: 1501
Time played: 9:27:00

This was my first game on Emperor and honestly I'm very baffled, that I won it. It was a though game, but in the end I won the UN vote with 12 votes.

I described my first 100 turns quite detailled in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11064903&postcount=17)).

The war with Oda went well for me and I snatched the silver/wheat city from him. He still had access to iron and thus Samurai, so I pillaged the tile and kept a close guard. Oda was happy to offer a peace treaty anyhow. I kept friends with Gandhi and he didn't got along with Oda, so as soon as Gandhi declared war on Oda I joined. This gave me another 2 cities from him. AI is not too clever when fighting to say the least. In the end we obilterated him, Gandhi weakened the cities, I conquered them. Good division of work, I think :) Besides that I tried to keep a peaceful game. Greece declared war twice, but without direct confrontation.

When the threat from Oda was under control...I focused on getting to Globalisation and tried to have as many RAs as possible, while still mantaining allied status with CSs. Nothing much of interest happend for the rest. About 15 turns before I could research Globalisation a GS emerged and I put him to sleep to pop Globalisation later. Luckly 2 turns into production of the UN a GE emerged and I could also rush it. Persia tried hard in the last 2 turns to undermine my relationships with the CS, but I had enough cash to convince the CS leaders, that I'm the nicer friend.

I was really surprised that I could win this as Rome had build Apollo Programm on turn 292...

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-27
Reference number: 25254
Your name: ladia74
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1740AD
Turns played: 258
Base score: 960
Final score: 1882
Time played: 5:50:00
Submitted save: TSG23_0258 AD-1740.Civ5Save
Renamed file: ladia74_C502301.Civ5Save

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-29
Reference number: 25269
Your name: VulturuL

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1864AD
Turns played: 302
Base score: 1175
Final score: 1958
Time played: 4:10:00
Submitted save: TSG23.Civ5Save
Renamed file: VulturuL_C502301.Civ5Save

Seems I never got round to posting this:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-22
Your name: ElWanderer
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1824AD
Turns played: 282
Base score: 979
Final score: 1748
Time played: 10:36:00

With the cramped conditions I only founded three cities myself. My scouting was quite poor as I lost my first scout very quickly and the second one didn't live much longer. My use of Siam's trait was spectacularly poor - partly because it was a while before I discovered any City States that weren't military. I also got confused whether I should be focusing on Rationalism for quick teching to Globalisation or Patronage for City State bonuses...

Early on, Japan gave me a scare by declaring shortly after I'd settled the good riverside spot between us. But the AI isn't very good and I held the city until Oda asked for straight peace. The mid-game was so peaceful and uninspiring I (after several drinks) declared war on Japan around about turn 180 just to have something to do... that meant turn after turn of slidey-block-puzzle defending against a suicidal onslaught of out-dated units until I had enough artillery to go on the offensive. A few puppets were good for my gold income, and I sold Tokyo to India for a small pile of gold and 60gpt. I also sold a Japanese city to Songhai, but I can't remember how much Askia gave me. The extra income was useful for building up a large fund to co-opt all the City States in the turn before the UN vote.

I remember getting quite worried how many City States I hadn't met, as there were quite a few that had been conquered before I clapped eyes on them. Fortunately enough survived that I got 14 votes in the end. It may have helped that several civs decided to wipe out Genghis Khan (he was in this game, wasn't he? I hope I'm not thinking of a different game) before he could do any more damage.

I think I signed three declarations of friendship very early on, with India, Japan and Songhai. All three of them made ridiculous requests for gold/resources off me in quick succession. Unsurprisingly, Japan ended up backstabbing and at war with all three of us. What did surprise me is that the one DoF I kept renewing (with India) was maintained despite me refusing to gift them gems, and survived to the end of the game with no further requests made.

Question to DaveMcW:

You mention a diplo-victory in your header, is this a typo? Tech victory was goal for GOTM23.

edit: never mind, I've mixed up with GOTM24!!!!

Game: Civ5 GOTM 23
Date submitted: 2011-11-30
Reference number: 25271
Your name: qutsemnie
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1933AD
Turns played: 354
Base score: 1548
Final score: 2211
Time played: 6:25:00
Renamed file: qutsemnie_C502301.Civ5Save


Only settled 2 cities. Did my usual thing of trying to get every wonder I could. No focus at all. Eventually smashed Japan for puppets. Blood thirsty after that campaign I decided to go at the big dog on the board Persia half a planet away with no cities near by to base out of right before flight... that was a doomed campaign... Fortunately though he was half a planet away from me and took out his aggression on 3 of my nearby city states until we could do peace. Then I hit next turn until the timer said 1 and dumped all meh gold. Reparations not bribes!

"I was really surprised that I could win this as Rome had build Apollo Programm on turn 292..."


It is always interesting to hear who was the big players. In my world rome started with an early score and then got smashed by somebody. I looked at my replay Rome didn't get smashed by "somebody". Rome got smashed by everybody! It looked like every neighbor DoW at once and gobbled the Roman empire from every direction. Even a city state nommed a piece of it.

"I was really surprised that I could win this as Rome had build Apollo Programm on turn 292..."


It is always interesting to hear who was the big players. In my world rome started with an early score and then got smashed by somebody. I looked at my replay Rome didn't get smashed by "somebody". Rome got smashed by everybody! It looked like every neighbor DoW at once and gobbled the Roman empire from every direction. Even a city state nommed a piece of it.

Oh, Rome was not the big one in my game. They were just the first ones to complete AP (Gandhi and Darius did so a bit later in game) and had a good chance to complete the space ship in a couple of turns. Rome was in the middle of the lot, but I thought they could sneak the win in. In the end they just managed to build Boosters. Some late wars might have helped me here :D

Leader of the pack was Darius with a huge amount of money.

Darius was the man in my game too. 25k gold on hand. Gandhi got destroyed by Japan.