TSG5 After Action Report

Hi everyone and welcome to the TSG5 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 attach your .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered. Please also state your HoF score. We are trying out a new parser that is in its infancy. It is important that you post your .Civ5Save file from the turn after your victory or defeat, or the turn before your defeat should you lose by conquest.

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). The game will not be closed as such, but after three weeks, the results will be compiled, and will not necessarily be updated with reports coming in after the closing date.

Good Luck and

I won with 2 cities and very little war. I can't remember my score but it wasn't high (over 1000 but below 2000). I used all my policy advances as soon as they were available. Thanks for the game guys

Well, that was a lot of fun! I had a good start and the rest of the game I could steadily keep on expanding and building. I won with two cities under control, and having conquered China, France, Russia and Japan. I could have easily got a UN victory earlier, being allied to all city states. Instead, I waited until I could have the cultural victory.

I chose to make use of the Aztec unique ability of gaining culture be killing enemy units. I made the game more interesting, but in the end I don't think the massive killing and puppeting contributed much to my culture. It was tough watching all the puppet cities building useless defense buildings wihtout producing any culture.

It was a pity I couldn't build the Sydney Opera house (must be build in a coastal city, I learned from this site), and that I couldn't use the Great Engineer I had saved to rush the Utopia Project.

I got an all time high score of something more than 5000 points from this game.

I wonder if someone plays this game with only one city, or with a lot of them. It would be interesting to see which is the best approach to a quick cultural vicory.

Edit: I forgot to make use of policy saving! It would have helped in the end, where I did not get much benefit from the last policies.

View attachment Montezuma_0375 AD-1955.Civ5Save

Well I played this one twice. First time I played ICS/warmonger and got capped at about 9 or 10 cities I just could not get enough happniess. So then It was an all out puppet fest. I had riflemen they had pikemen. Around turn 200 I had 15 cities and the largest AI was 4. Stoped playing casue it was going to be a win. Did not get the 500g from eldorado England found it first.

Secound time I play one city and did win cultural at 1955. I started on the gems which is the same spot I started in the first game. I used only auto explore (as I knew where everything was and tried to make it fair, lost 3 scouts and 1 warrior to barbs which if I was moving manually I could have avoided). I farmed plains and grassland, kept the forest for lumber mills and minned the hills. I should have built trading post as my income was very low aroudn 9-10 gold through out most of the game, when it went negative I traded some of the extra silk for GPT. All of my great people I used for tile improvements except engineers which I used for wonders. I had 1 warrior and 1 worker other then the auto explorers. I never had a research agreement and was friendly untill the very end of the game with all other nations.

City was massive by the end 450+ science 115 hammers 350 culture and still had 27 extra food with all possible specialist being used. I did not get the Hijmar castle or use the honor branch but I did have the 33% from policy and the 20% from the general so I was very well defended

Tech went for stonehenge then minning for the gems then went for oracle, Think I skiped building great library and hanging garndes but got most of the wonders I wanted (missed statue of liberity due to the slow down from the war with china). Got riflemen very late (for me atleast as I normally warmonger) I might have been able to skip them all togther if china had backed off or I had allied militray states for free units.

Things I noticed since the patch. AI has a very hard time taking cities all in all 3 cities were taken in the entire game. City states build way more units now. China declared war on me I had 1 warrior they had crossbows, pikemen (they had musketmen but never upgraded warriors into them and instead had pikemen) and cannons. They had about 10 units on my tiles but only pillaged 1 tile in the 15 turn war (really dumb they could have set me back 50 turns atelast). I had to trade for iron (I had left the iron with a jungle on it) so I could upraged the warrior into a riflmen. I traded away all of the lux resource at 300g per and speed built a cannon. As soon as the cannon was built they withdrew every unit from my land. I was one shotting anything on grass or plains with the cannon. The riflemen also was one shotting anything it fought then healing for 2 hp (in the other game I had 10 warriors upgraded to riflemen healing for 2hp every kill). As soon as they withdrew they offered me peace I took the lux resource and gold, turned down the city they offered.

When they attacked my my city was around 20-25 size and was around 30 defence with cities healing for 4 hp per turn they would have been able to take it.

I tried not to use city states at all but latter in the game Russia was going for space victory so I allied the cultural ones. Which made England mad as this was there route to victory. Up to this point other then being attacked once by china I was friendly woth all other civs

Time for a diety game and see if the AI can take a city

Cultured victory at1892, Score 2445, turn 316

My plan was clear – make three cities and then try to capture some puppets. At the begining El Dorade help, I bought settler and find perfect place for cities. From the beginning I had a lot of luxuries, so I never had problems with unhappiness – in the end I had about 70 smiles.

I went for piety, forgot to unlock tradition. My fault, could have more food in capital. Postponing of picking policies and promoting helped a lot. I suppose it is very good option and I prefer it.

First I attacked China and conquer it, later Russia. Both had two cities. Next all Ais declared war to me. I had problem to protect puppet cities, but suddenly all AIs wanted peace – and gave me all their money and luxuries – it was very nice, but I suppose it is more bug in the program – I really were not able to conquer them.

I tried to use workers manually till 0BC, then switchd to automatic regime. About 800 AD I was surprised I cannot see any workers – all (six workers) were about 10 turns out of my territory. Budapest wantet a road.

Diplomacy or Conquest would be much faster, here I was in the end sitting and clicking – waiting for last five cultures. No chance to increase culture. In the end I decided to conquer France and did it with modern tanks. Helicopters were very usefull too. I spare great engineer for Sydney Opera, forgot that I cannot build it. Maybe in some puppet, but I did not find this idea in time – it could save ten turs.

In the end my capital had 42 citizens, production 160 – so Utopia was in nine turns.

I have to say the game was funny and I liked it. Looking forward to next one.

I forgot the saved file

Lost to Russia Science victory.
Catherine was constructing spaceship parts so I attacked her to "divert" her attention and weaken her. Too bad I got half a dozen of nukes on my head (having none to respond); all leader became hostile towards me and eventually it was global war. The weird thing is that I managed to win three cities in the process while losing only a worthless puppet. However my capital got reduced from 20 pop to barely 4, ie a huge loss of culture, production and currency
Dunno what would have happened if I had just doing some culture "cocooning"...
GG

xerex said:

got half a dozen of nukes on my head (having none to respond); all leader became hostile towards me and eventually it was global war.

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Too bad you lost, but it must have been interesting to get caught in global nuclear warfare. I have yet to see the first atom bomb being deployed.

In hindsight, would you have done anything different to prevent Cathy winning?

I won a cultural victory that just as easily could have been a domination
Score=3873 Victory on turn 398

Firstly I should say aztec on lakes map is pretty win and I discovered el dorado which was a nice boost.

Quick rundown:

I settled on the jungle 2 tiles SE and built jags, workers and monuments

el dorado financed an eventual settler on the 6 iron hill roughly 3 tiles sw of capitol spot

Policies were tradition, piety, freedom, order and patronage roughly in that order with a lil jumping around.

I ended up getting stonehenge, big ben, taj, cristo and a few others that no one seemed to want.

I chose all policies on turn and had no need to save any really same with promotions

I went oligarchy and landed elite early to give me some decent space to fight good in

I eventually had 4 total core cities packed about 3 tiles apart in the staring area

puppetted china, then russia later on and eventually france after that it was all a blur

I usually play on king and I feel this game went too smoothly I guess perhaps I can just jump up a level but the start seemed really great to me once I started gettin it goin. Much fun thank you I look forward to more of these.

lol i forgot the save as well

Lost. England UN victory turn 336, 1916AD. At the end I had 5 cities (all 4 extra built asap), 12 puppets and 3 SPs remaining. So what did I do wrong? I guessing that I could have gotten by with only one or two extra cities. And probably more importantly I always left the AI with one city remaining. For some reason I was worried about diplomatic consequences of completly eliminating them. But of course when they built back another city or two I was their main target. And they added votes for England. I allied cultural CSs but I should also have allied some of the maritime ones to free up citizens for culture. By the time I realized this England had DOWed and had allied all the Maritimes. So I finished the last 30 or so turns without any chance of picking up more allies.

Alphons Rodulfo said:

Too bad you lost, but it must have been interesting to get caught in global nuclear warfare. I have yet to see the first atom bomb being deployed.

In hindsight, would you have done anything different to prevent Cathy winning?

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Cleaning the fallout takes three turns, and rebuilding the improvement two turns. With an army of workers it is just a little setback. The nuke also kills nearby units, but the worse is the population loss of course.
I don't if I had a nuke perhaps it would have "deterred" my opponent.

Well the alternative was to not attack, and set the slider max on culture.. Wait that's Civ 4, no? I mean finish the culture buildings/wonders and focus on culture. Last time I won that way, but only two-three turns ahead of villain's space race.. Since I'm always gambling in this situation, it means that I'm doing something wrong. Guys keep writing I've much to learn

Failsave attached. I didn't know there was a Fallout: Tenochtitlan in production, but hooah. All in all, I enjoyed being stabbed in the back right before crossing the finish line. (That may sound facetious, but I mean it, this was a good GOTM.)

I had never tried an OCC before so I did. Tried, anyways.

I don't see how OCC is possible on Emperor unless one is very, very, very lucky with resource placement. Or when people say they did an OCC, does that mean one city and 50 puppets? To me that doesn't really count. "I'm monogamous, I have one wife and 50 mistresses." OK, buddy. Good luck in divorce court. I ended up puppeting Cape Town and a couple Russian cities or I think I would have lost much earlier. Else I would have had 2 horses, zero iron, and not enough trading posts to buy more strategic resources nor enough happiness resources to grow onto more tiles.

Does the Aztec UA not scale? It didn't appear to. Very useful to pick up SPs in the early game by killing barbs and whacking on a weak city state, but later in the game it seemed killing units yielded far less culture than did culture buildings and Artists.

This was my first game post-patch and if anything it seems to me that ICS, or at least puppet-driven expansion, is even more of a killer app. Don't get me wrong, I like that it appears that one has to build a strong empire to win the game - nobody appears to be complaining that Luxembourg is going to take over the world. (Hail Prince Alois and Duchess Sofie.) But I really don't see the point of the cultural victory as designed in this game. Expand and get big enough that you could win much earlier one of several ways. But don't win! and just keep hitting "next turn" for the next 100 turns to build culture until you can switch the capital over to Production and build the Utopia Project. Excuse me, but how ducking fumb is that? Whose bright idea was it to create a victory condition in which the most difficult aspect is to avoid winning by some other means? And where you have to commit to your specific victory goal almost from turn 1? Whenever I play a Culture game I feel like the 2 hot girls at the bar are begging to go home with me but I'm like, "Oh no, I must avoid the models and get the ugly fat chick's phone number." Wazzupwiddat. I thank the GOTM club for providing me this opportunity to determine that yes, post-patch the Cultural game is just as empty and pointless as it was before. That's my opinion anyways. Is it just me? "I have a full house, but I'm going to turn it in and hope I win with an ace high. Because that would be so much more fun!"

Anways, I picked up most of Honor and Tradition, then Freedom and Piety and filled out the first 2 with Piety's free policies. Then I filled out Autocracy for lack of anything better, figuring the +5 production per city would at least help me built the Utopia Project. Started the Utopia project with about 9 turns to go to win the game. By the way, why are so many people on the forums saying "I need to get a Great Engineer for the Utopia Project." You can't rush the Utopia Project. I thought maybe this had changed post-patch, but no, it didn't. What game are these people playing?

Napoleon, as usual, was the runaway AI. Also as usual, China was the early game powerhouse (she had +3000 gold by the Industrial era and I think the tech and resource lead) and then just sat around and failed. Maybe it's the foot-binding that prevents CivChina from getting off its lazy behind and winning? Anyways Nappy built the UN, had uber-gold, and yet managed to lose the UN election. When I think "France", I think "Incapable of bribing foreign diplomats." (Sorry Frenchies. Hey, my country lets idiots vote before they can legally get drunk after the inevitably depressing results of the election. Nobody's perfect.)

By the way, Lizzy seems to have started out the game hating me from as far way across the map as physically possible (I never once made it to her borders) and never stopped telling me she was going to kill me. (Nag, nag, nag.) I definitely like the additional diplomacy information. However...I still don't understand what is going on. Is that just me? Why you hating on the Aztecs, Lizzie? You racist or something? Come suck on my hot cocoa. But no, she was hostile the entire game yet never attacked me. Napoleon, on the other hand, was Friendly the entire game (we were even military allies) right up until he told me there was no other option but total war. ...Okay then.

Well anyways, France completely surrounded me by the end of the game and, I'm somewhat glad to report, did the smart thing and attacked on turn 415 after he apparently couldn't figure out how to use his vault full of bullion and control of 2/3 of the world to bribe the UN hacks, and I was a few turns into completing the the Utopia Project. I'm surprised that I lasted more than 3 turns against his 30+ modern units, with my few rocket artys and mech infantry (how much army can you really afford if you only have one real city.) But after nuking me to hell and back and sending in a carpet of doom, he did overrun Tenochtitlan in 2001 / Turn 421.

A final note on tactics. I built all the city defense buildings in my capital, since they are now maintenance-free. (Which makes no sense, but that's okay, it's a game not reality.) However, all those defensive buildings don't count cockamamie when you can only have 1 defender inside the city and it can only fire once per turn. (Artie can't get the Blitz promotion, am I correct?) I always thought the best defense in Civ was a good offense, and now I still think so. (Stacking air force on top of land units is helpful. However, I wonder why this fits into the 1UPT code, but I can't have my submarine stack underneath my aircraft carrier. Hm?)

PS - Yes, mounted units are now stupid. I don't care that they're still good in the field. The AI certainly appears to be smart enough to run into the closest city rather than wait around to be attacked by your knights in the open field. Which is good, but then why would you bother with horses? While on the subject, militarily the proper use of cavalry should be to pursue and finish off enemy infantry after they have been damaged. I would have made mounted units not quite so powerful or fast, but also made forces which are at fewer than 50% hit points move at 1/2 speed for the next turn and receive a defense penalty against mounted. Also, militarily speaking, archery units should get a bonus against mounted. Human beings may be smart enough charge into a storm of arrows screaming God and King George, but horses are dumb enough to know that becoming an equine pincushion will not get them back to the stable and that bag of oats. Perhaps there is a tactics mod for this.

Montezuma's Revenge FINALLY reached in 1957 with a raw score of 4772 and HOF Score of 6341. That is now my new personal best score after 7 games on CivV.

I sacrificed all who did not see my enlightened ways, and their absorbed culture helped to slowly draw to a close the looong road to a cultural victory. I settled only two Aztec cities and the rest of the continent was captured except for one lone city left to the least pesky... the English. They were allowed to keep only their capital to the end... although it was pretty useless for them after I nuked the country side.

All the independent nations with cultural value were kept as allies through the game and eventually ALL were kept allied in the end... making it very hard for the opponents to wander around much.

My overall comments:
a) Fun game and appreciated!
b) Would greatly prefer we don't mandate a game victory condition. (I understand for now we are still in 'testing' phase).
c) Victory should be determined by 'score' - not date finished . Using ONLY time to determine victory will vastly dumb down the game to mechanics, not play.

Game attached...

That "AI Civs Dog Pile on the Human Player" algorithm is still alive and working in Civ V.

Thing went pretty well in the early part of the game, I had 4 cities, including El Dorado. I had my eyes on capturing Capetown, but China attacked and captured it first. So I attacked China, and captured and liberated Capetown. That may have been a mistake, as Capetown had the Mount Fuji natural wonder. But they were an ally now. China asked for peace, which was granted, but China had only built two cities, so two more short wars took them out. Even after that, I was still on pretty good terms with the other AI Civs.

~ mid-1800's, the CS Budapest, just SE of El Dorado, was captured by the CS Hanoi. So I attacked and liberated CS Budapest, which initially went back to being an ally of Russia, but one turn later became my ally. This is where everything turned ugly. I'm not sure who CS Hanoi was allied with, but apparently several Civs were at war with Russia when I attacked and liberated CS Budapest. If there is an easy way to see the relationships between the AI Civs in Civ V, like there is in BtS, I haven't figured it out yet.

Darius and Bismarck declared on me right away, followed shortly by Elizabeth & Catherine. Bismarck was eventually eliminated by someone else (Japan, I think). Darius captured CS Budapest and El Dorado, while Catherine captured CS Capetown and my Capitol. Darius offered me peace for all my gold, 4 strategic resources, and 2 of my cities. Seeing the direction this game was going, I reluctantly accepted. But Catherine was in no mood to bargain, and it didn't take her long to capture the two former Chinese cities and my last city.

Attached is the file from the turn before my defeat. Base score from turn before defeat = 306. HOF Score = 0

But thanks for an interesting game! They are a big help with the Civ V learning curve.

DaveMcW said:

the new dominant strategy is puppet the planet.

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I started with monument + National College + Stonehenge. Used El Dorado gold for a worker and half of the library.

Then I switched to war mode, teching HBR + IW (no iron in the capital ). Wu was nice enough to build her cities by iron though. I conquered her with 2 jaguars, 3 spearmen, and 2 horsemen.

I continued along the military path with Steel and Chivalry, using all my gold for upgrades and unit purchases. Wiped out Catherine and Napoleon.

I slowed down once I owned half the world, buying cultural city states and letting them fight my battles. The 4 remaining civs formed a desperate alliance to stop me, but I ground them down with my veteran units and puppeted most of their cities too.

I never signed a research agreement.

Policies used before getting Cristo Redentor:
Tradition -> Aristocracy
Freedom -> Constitution -> Free Speech
Rationalism -> Secularism -> Free Thought -> Scientific Revolution
Order -> Socialism -> Planned Economy -> Communism

Cultural victory on turn 237 - 1635 AD.

Most of my progress and strategy can be read in the Progress thread.

But to sum it up: I choose a 2-cities strategy with a focus on peaceful relations and selling lots of early luxuries. My research was purely based on RA's which worked excellent until the all the wars. I build a lot of wonders, but was beaten 4 times (!) by France and Russia (stonehenge, great lib and Taj hurt the most). The wars nearly killed me, but I bounced back and in the end I actually conquered a city just because it was fun to see the Jags upgraded to Infantry doing their heal-on-kill magic

All in all it was a very entertaining game with some nerve wrecking action and decisions. I had played a test game with the Aztecs on a lake map and here I got a peaceful game and a turn 248 victory. So this game proved quite a bit more difficult. Not only from the aggressive AI, but also from lack of river tiles (my economy was really bad most of the game).

I also learned to NEVER sign a Friend agreement with Lizzy the Backstabber!

Fairly straight forward game, if not very exciting for me. Took out China with jags and archers early doors, then Russia with swords and cats.

Had a few skirmishes with Japan and France, and took out 2 french cities (including Paris), then called it a day for war and focused on culture.

Bee-lined Globalisation until I realised you can't build the Sydney Opera House on a lake

Things I learnt:
- don't dig up roads when you actually need them
- build early wonders for Great Engineers, otherwise you'll be building a lot by hand
- nuclear weapons are fun

Detailed notes attached for those that are interested.

Well, just finished my game, and the result is in the title. I have chosen 2 city tactics with the puppeting of the most valueable cities, which i had about 20 in the end. That was very enjoyable, thanks to the orgs for another great opportunity for testing my knowledge in Civ5 . Also posting a screenshot with my max rate of science and culture per turn.

I might have found a Bug: I was replaying the start of TSG5, sent the Jag on a bee-line to El Dorado (since I knew where it was ) and got the 500 gold bonus for finding it first.

Shortly thereafter, I encounter a Chinese Unit, and in the trade negotiations window, I can sign a Research Agreement with China (which I did), even though I didn't have Philosophy, and I doubt China had it that early in the game!

Unless that is another bonus from finding El Dorado first, I think it must be a Bug in the latest patch (ver.1.0.1.141)

EDIT: Also posted in Civ V Bug Report Forum