TSG5 After Action Report

That was a fun game, except for the end when there was a lot of "end turning". My first game above Prince too, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I ended up losing diplomatically to Neopolean, but my strategy was to pretty much ignore diplomacy and city-states (not a great one as it turns out). I did not find El Derado first, so actually had to culture bomb Tyre and build a forth city by it.

I didn't have any war throughout the entire game (although it turns out I should have made a run at France...) and didn't realize the importance of rushing to CR until I finally built it. Thanks for the game and I look forward to TSG6!
 
Well this was my first attempt at a culture win and it didn't go as well as I would have liked.

I tried a completely peaceful run at it. I expanded slowly to 4 cities and got most of the wonders I wanted and SP to run up my culture. The game was full of warmongers and most of the wars were fought in my territory but at least not against me. I was friendly with all and getting an SP every 20 to 30 turns once I got to T300. Around this time, Wu decided that I needed to die even though she liked me. I had a couple rifles and cannons and she rolled up with infantry and artillery.

I lost 2 cities before Catherine hit her hard and she forgot about me. At this point I did a little math and realized I needed 10 more SP and at 30 turns each that would be another 300 turns so I through in the towel.

Guess making some puppets is the key to culture.

So, next TSG ...
 
Well this was my first attempt at a culture win and it didn't go as well as I would have liked.

I tried a completely peaceful run at it. I expanded slowly to 4 cities and got most of the wonders I wanted and SP to run up my culture. The game was full of warmongers and most of the wars were fought in my territory but at least not against me. I was friendly with all and getting an SP every 20 to 30 turns once I got to T300. Around this time, Wu decided that I needed to die even though she liked me. I had a couple rifles and cannons and she rolled up with infantry and artillery.

I lost 2 cities before Catherine hit her hard and she forgot about me. At this point I did a little math and realized I needed 10 more SP and at 30 turns each that would be another 300 turns so I through in the towel.

Guess making some puppets is the key to culture.

So, next TSG ...

Sorry to hear it. But the key to culture is, sadly, not expanding. Two cities is the most you should build on your own; the rest should be puppets. Puppets aren't really for generating culture (though it helps); they are mainly for science, cash, and extra resources/luxuries.

While I understand the desire to go the peaceful route, as a wise general once said: If you seek peace, plan for war.
 
Sorry to hear it. But the key to culture is, sadly, not expanding. Two cities is the most you should build on your own; the rest should be puppets. Puppets aren't really for generating culture (though it helps); they are mainly for science, cash, and extra resources/luxuries.

While I understand the desire to go the peaceful route, as a wise general once said: If you seek peace, plan for war.

I learned my lesson. In Civ4, a peaceful culture win is very doable but I am learning quickly that all win types require strategic timed wars. Play and learn!! At least it was fun and I learned a good bit more about the dynamics of the game.
 
Since this is my first post I would like to start by saying that i like Civ 5 much beter than Civ 4 - ok, the AI is weak but I am sure it can be patched and Firaxis is probably working on it right now. That's positive thinking for you, never hurt nobody...

As for my game I gave up at around mid 20th century after it crashed for the second time, when I had a decent chance of winning the game since my main competitor for a cultural victory - Lizzy - was getting hammered by Napoleon's massive army. My comment for the game would be that having all the Civs denounce you silmutaneously for no good reason - i was staying peacefully inside my borders at the time - didn't make much sense. Maybe it would if they were all friends and one of them decided to denounce me, but they were not. It just happened and it felt fake, like all the civs agents were running on the same rule for denouncing me - which was probably the case, but a player should not be getting such insights because they ruin his suspension of disbelief.

However I do like the TGOM idea and I will be trying again next time :)
 
However I do like the TGOM idea and I will be trying again next time :)
:wavey: Welcome to CivFanatics and the TGOM.

Keep posting and reading. We look forward to your future participation. :thumbsup:
 
first post here, too, just joined for the game of the month.

Turn 346, Score 5113, Cultural Victory

Strategy was quite simple - 3 own cities, focused on production, puppet the nearest AI, puppet half of the second nearest civ for some nice economy, then be nice and build culture and make some research agreements, but be prepared for the big war.
Social Policies: Tradition, Honor, Piety, Patronage & Freedom

Went quite well, i discovered El Dorado, settled direcly next to China to get the iron. Being lucky Wu just declared war 2 turns before i wanted to attack, so i didn't have to do it, and puppeted both her Cities. Went for Russia with Longswordsmen & Catapults - too easy because Japan and France were the ones who asked me to join the war. Got some nice techs with my research agreements and when i had rifles i attacked russia again and puppeted the last cities.
Soon after that, i was just upgrading my cannons to artillery the attack came - Japan, Germany, Babylon and England declared me war. I was able to use one City State at the western border to delay the japanese attack (germanys army came much later) and one at the eastern border to take care of england while i took out the babylonian army. Then France, although bribed with 3 Luxuries, joined the war - and flooded the former russian Territory with Musketeers and Foreign Legion. Good thing the eastern front was as good as solved and i could send reinforcements to Moscow before they could get it - and with Mechanized Infantry (some upgraded from warriors) i could drive them out and start the conquering while building the later culture buildings. Unfortunatelly i had a crash in 282 and i had to reload the autosave from 280. After conquering France, Germany, half of Japan and Babylon which gave me quite a few turns of culture, and after realizing you can't build sidney opera at a lake, I finally got my Utopia Project in Turn 346 (score 5131 in the ranking, 5113 at the hall of fame :p )

Things i learned:
- Securing your border with a military city state is great. Not only you need to build less or even no units (which is awesome when trying a cultural victory) - they can hold off a small nation on their own, and a big nation with only a few strategically placed ranged units.
- You can't build Sydney Opera at a lake
- Puppeting is extremely effective for a cultural victory, since it gives you so much of the needed money a small empire normally doesn't have
- Exploring is quite important - when an enemy finishes for example the sistine chaple before you do, and you would know who built it, you can conquer it. If you don't know the city at that point you just can guess (and be wrong 'til the end)

so, where do i find that file i have to attach? should i have saved the game one turn before i finished?
 
:wavey: Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Your final save should be made on the turn after you achieve victory, or the turn before you get conquered. After the victory celebration, a screen should come up that asks if you wish to play one more turn, or something to that effect (I think it says "lemme play one more turn".) If you click that, you can then make your save and post it in this thread using the attach feature of the forum.

If you look under this window, you should see one that says "Additional Options". Within that box, you should see "Manage Attachments". Click the box and it should allow you to go and find your save game file. The save game file should be located in "My Documents => My Games => Civikization5 => Saves => single =>" You should find your save here, click on the save and then attach it.

Hope that is clear enough. If not, please ask.
Good Luck. :thumbsup:
 
ok, so i replayed it from turn 340s autosave, and saved it after the victory. Thought at first there would be an autosave after i won and of course didn't find it.
Great, now i have 2 identical entrys in my hall of fame - of 4 entrys at all ^^

thanks for the detailed information :)
 

Attachments

  • Montezuma_0346 AD-1926.Civ5Save
    673.1 KB · Views: 99
:goodjob:

Once we begin playing Civ5 for competition, your autosave interval should be 1-turn. To do this, from the main entry menu of Civ5, you click on "Options", then "Interface Options" and on the right hand side you should see "Turns between autosave". Change this value to 1 and you will be all set. Changing the autosave to 1 allows you to recover from a crash and minimize replayed turns. :)
 
I know this is now past the due date but I finished, might as well share. I got over my crash frustration and finished it in strategic view.

Win was in 1969, 2 cities and 3 puppets early on, lost one puppet to Cathy midgame and ended with 2.

I didn't hold off on social policies ( I don't like that style of play personally ) and wait for Cristo, so hard to judge my result. Feels good that I got a win, but I could have done much better for sure.

I went for a bee line to the typical early wonders, stonehenge, great library, oracle, etc

In the end, I had Napolean go superpower, and he had a very steep tech advantage...but somehow he didn't attack me when it would really count. Starting in around 1900 if Napolean was a human player he would recognize I was on the path to a culture win and wipe me out and gain the tech win. He had jets, tanks and gunships to my infantry. But somehow he didn't even build the Apollo project! He just gobbled up cathy and didn't seem to pursue any particular victory.

Look forward to the next one...hope its a conquest victory :mischief:
 

Attachments

  • AutoSave_0388 AD-1968.Civ5Save
    733.9 KB · Views: 68
I've just checked out the saves you've posted here. Three Four of the saves do not include the victory turn details, so I can't extract the final result, or the time played, for these submissions. I have to manually enter the information you provided in your post (and we have to believe you!).

For future reference, players should post a save made AFTER the victory ceremony. Use the "Just a few more turns ..." option to get there.
 
This is my first GOTM, I'm going to try 6 in a minute if I can get past my hate of the island maps. Even thought it's weeks after the deadline for TOGM5 I figured would check it out.

The thing I learned most was to read the actual game description first! I was at work one day after having played about 100 turns when I read that it was cultural victory required. I was going on domination/conquest up until then, needless to say it was way too late to change direction for CV.

Anyways, in the end I won on turn 240 - 1650 AD by Conquest. 3508 base score, 6912 HoF score. Was 1 turn from finishing Statue of Liberty as well. Not sure how this score matched up to anyone else replaying in Conquest.

For those that did conquest:

- To start I went scout - settler - bought worker. Luckily found el Dorado without knowing it existed bought a warrior and settler number 2. Expanded to 4 cities then started war with China a turn after upgrading Jaguars to Swordsman (By the end of the game I had Infantry with 3 Rough terrain bonus, blitz, March and woodsman + heal per kill since the Jaguar Bonuses hold through the promos! Awesome!)
- Settled a 5th city and then the rest were via puppet. Probably could have shaved 30 - 40 turns off if I went straight for capitals, but by the time I saw it was CV only I figured I may as well puppet EVERYONE! I went through China - Russia - Japan - England then Germany and the red AI last (who did I forget?), straight to their capitals due to boredom. By this time I was allied with most CS's.

Did maybe 4 or 5 RA's total, none manipulated.

See you for GOTM6 or 7!
 

Attachments

  • TSG5 - Monty done - 240 - 1650AD.Civ5Save
    661.9 KB · Views: 73
b) Would greatly prefer we don't mandate a game victory condition. :crazyeye: (I understand for now we are still in 'testing' phase).
c) Victory should be determined by 'score' - not date finished :crazyeye:. Using ONLY time to determine victory will vastly dumb down the game to mechanics, not play.

Game attached...

I agree to an extent that it should be based on a couple factors not just score or JUST time.

On one hand, time is based heavily on certain mechanics, but on the other hand if it was based on score it wouldn't be much fun wiping out the AI then teching to Future tech 123230909 just to jack up the score.

So maybe an average score per turn or something would work? Or some other formula that takes both into account.
 
Top Bottom