TSG128 After Actions

Welcome to the TSG128 After Actions Report. 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!

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- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?
- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?

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Loss turn 293.

I overestimated how little science you get for great scientists on deity difficulty.

Ashurbanipal ran away with it and conquered the whole world, but for their friends Sweeden. I just could not keep up. I would have needed at least another 50 turns to win a science victory, and that just simply isn't good enough.

I was peaceful up untill turn 290, when Assyrian science, or cultural victory was imminent. I DoW'ed in desperation, but 3 turns later ....

Lesson learned is: Don't let anyone conquer the whole map

-I was happy with the start, El Dorado and 2nd settler on turn 3 is awesome.
-I used Poland's UA to fill in rationalism, and then picked autocracy-policies (yes, I know, but order and freedom would lead to other civ winning cultural wins).
-Not really.
-Liberty, in order to expand fast and establish network of cargo ships. Later rationalism and esthetics.
-I'd say it was easier than a random Deity game. Just a pitty I let Ashurbanipal take over the world

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-02 09:27:41
Reference number: 33872
Your name: J_Kovic
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1745AD
Turns played: 259
Base score: 1214
Final score: 2380
Time played: 5:13:00
Submitted save: TSG128_Start.Civ5Save
Renamed file: J_Kovic_C512801.Civ5Save

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
Settled in place, although the dirt around the starting place wasn't anything special. Terrain was good otherwise, I settled one city east by the river and coast and one straight to west from capital. After NC (turn 90) I settled one more city southeast to the place with lots of bananas.

I did steal 5-6 workers from city-states and barbarian camps, which helped to create much better terrain for me

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
Aesthetics, Commerce, Freedom, Rationalism, Commerce

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?
Ducal Stable did provide little bit of money but otherwise no.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
Usual Freedom Science game (with Aesthetics opener to counter ideological pressure)

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
I have won once before on deity so it was quite easy. Didn't have a single war.

Your name: InaneObserver
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1655AD
Turns played: 241
Base score: 1346
Final score: 2804
Time played: 7:17:00

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
Very, the free Settler from Eldorado is a big boost, and the NW north-east helped with fpt. The cap location was a bit slow, and ruled out early wonders.

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
2 Piety, 1 for Ratio, 2 Commerce, 2 Freedom.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
I made two HUGE mistakes First, I went Piety. I thought I could make it work this game, but didn't take into account how strong the other civs were on faith. With Patronage or Commerce instead the game would have been a lot faster. Piety is a bad habit for me. The second was Interfaith Dialogue. Spending faith on an early missionary saved me 3-4 turns on Civil Service, but pushed back the enhancing.

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
Easier, cause Poland.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-02 16:34:10
Reference number: 33874
Your name: Taeloz
Game status:Conquest Loss
Game date: 720AD
Turns played:146
Base score: 173
Final score: 173
Time played: 2:29:00
Submitted save: Casimir III_0146 AD-0720.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Taeloz_C512801.Civ5Save


Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
It was ok. Didn't get any wonders and never got a chance to use the jungle for science.

Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
Mostly Tradition and Liberty for settler/worker and growth.

For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
First time on deity. Was overwhelmed by Assyria very quickly once he found me. My next deity might be easier, but I would still predict a loss.

Taeloz said:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-02 16:34:10
Reference number: 33874
Your name: Taeloz
Game status:Conquest Loss
Game date: 720AD
Turns played:146
Base score: 173
Final score: 173
Time played: 2:29:00
Submitted save: Casimir III_0146 AD-0720.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Taeloz_C512801.Civ5Save


Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
It was ok. Didn't get any wonders and never got a chance to use the jungle for science.

Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
Mostly Tradition and Liberty for settler/worker and growth.

For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
First time on deity. Was overwhelmed by Assyria very quickly once he found me. My next deity might be easier, but I would still predict a loss.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CFC and GotM! Thanks for playing and posting about it. Good luck in the future, they aren't all deity level games.

HR

Your name: Yarin
Game status: Science Victory
Turns played: 290
Base score: 1192
Final score: 2055
Time played: 5:00:00

Pushed for early religion which didn't turn out so well. Got beaten by Sejong on SH, was last to find a religion on turn 54 or so (like seriously? even Sejong with SH didn't manage to find a religion). All this for jesuit education ... surely enough Cathy who was the first to reform made no mistake and chose exactly this one. I bounced back with T169 scientific theory only to suffer from unhappines due to ideology for most of the rest of the game. Oh well, made it across the finish line at least

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-05 20:56:31
Reference number: 33894
Your name: SooHongLoo
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1848AD
Turns played: 294
Base score: 1387
Final score: 2391
Time played: 3:53:00
Submitted save: Casimir III_0294 AD-1848.Civ5Save
Renamed file: SooHongLoo_C512801.Civ5Save


- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
Not really happy it didn't look great but Poland doesn't need it and Skilldorado fixes any troubles.

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
6 into Freedom and 4 into Exploration and 3 into Comm.

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?
Easy game for RAs for me and Poland is always good for fast Ratio.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
Full Traditon for growth and gold. 2 into Liberty and Exploration for xtra Production.

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
Same old same old since I started on Deity and really never moved down except for fun games on GOTM or ICL.

Your name: RincewindOtti
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1620AD
Turns played: 234
Base score: 1276
Final score: 2773
Time played: 9:12:00

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
Well I don't know...El Dorado was a nice surprise.
It was strange that I wandered around for a few turns and it was very very said that I did not have any mountain spots for observatories

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
I did invest one more SP into Patronage to reach Scholasticsm after opening Rati. CS quests came in nice, don't know how many allies I had back then, but it felt ok. I did eventually manage to ally everyone without investing too much.
After that, full Rati (finisher into Radio), 3 in Freedom, 3 Commerce (mercantilism), freedom for buying parts (my favourite way of building a space ship) and then another 2 in patronage.
I hoped that I could use the Modern era SP for ideology...well, sadly not.

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?
Not particularly, obviously the stables can be nice.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
see above...ahem - I see THIS question is for SP in general

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
It turned out rather (or surprisingly) easy.
I guess mainly because I was able to pay Assyria to attack the Celts for a bargain and they stayed at war for a very very long time.
In the meanwhile Russia warred against Austria and Songhai from time to time and left me alone.
Got early DoF from Sweden, Austrai, Songhai and the Celts and kept these until the end. For a while even Assyria joined but obviously that did not go too well with the Celts.

I did loose my religion though, AI prophets are really a pain...my units danced a very annoying dance with two prophets from the Celtics, when another one from Austria showed up - turned out ok as it would allow pagodas to my already existing mosques. So I tried to focus the Austrian prophet to my other cities while holding off the Celtic ones, with the intention to let these in later as their religion would allow me to faith-buy scientific buildings....bwahh blabla...after a while of trying to control this, I simply conceded

Looking back I should have probably built a 4th city to speed up the winning time, but I just did not feel like it....maybe it would have turned out completely different due to triggering a war...who knows?

Enjoyed Poland and the map very much.

I got my first deity win ever (including Civ4) from this game! Too bad it's not really eligible, as I had to reload due to very bad luck with barbarians and losing a settler. I could have even recovered from that, but something strange happened and the settler ran away and was transformed into a worker, which meant I could not recapture it. Probably it was captured by the AI a few tiles away. This happened because I was trying to get the culture natural wonder but I did not see that my intended settling place was too close to a city state and also a barbarian camp spawned on top of the only possible settling place, which delayed my settling and got my settler lost, didn't even have archery researched early enough.

After reloading I replicated my early moves almost exactly, but avoided losing units and especially settlers to barbarians. Still did not get cultural NW, but settled 3 very good city spots after my capital, and in fact almost the whole game, including the ending, my capital was the smallest of my 4 cities. I got a religion thanks to Mt. Kailash, but it was very weak all game, at some point there was not even a majority religion in my capital! I decided to build one school of GP to each of my other cities and focused on building wonders in capital. Probably not optimal, but it turned out OK. I got almost all wonders that I wanted in the end, AIs were too busy waging wars with each other and wiping out Korea and Sweden early and later leaving only Assyria and the Celts. I made a mistake with Uffizi, as my spy saw that an enemy would finish it before me, so I used an engineer and thought I would get it, because my city's production was higher than his, but it did not happen and I wasted the GE quite early.

Assyria was maybe less than 10 turns from science victory (which he did not optimize at all during the game) in the end, but I finished with a turn 350 cultural victory without being even 1 turn in war during the game. Managed to have a few units all game and played diplomatically quite smart to stay out of war. I realized I can't win a SW with that kind of terrain, so decided to push for culture. I was not behind much in science the whole game, which I learned from a few previous cultural tries.

Policy wise I went liberty to secure best city spots early, then aestethics/rationalism both, then freedom (though only Russia followed me, others were already in different ideologies, mostly Autocracy) and then filled up with Piety and Exploration.

I am glad I got my first Deity win even with cheating a bit with a reload. I have played a few Deity games lately and in the previous one I was already very close to a Domination win, so now I achieved it finally. Looking forward to improving my Deity strategies, though I don't really like it so much, as it is almost impossible to beat without abusing the flaws of the AI quite heavily.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-06 03:47:01
Reference number: 33898
Your name: bigwillystyle
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1725AD
Turns played: 255
Base score: 1349
Final score: 2645
Time played: 4:50:00

This was fun!

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain? Start was solid ... hard to argue with the nearby natural wonders.

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras? Used to fill in Rationalism and Aesthetics. I hit Internet around T210, which was great.

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV? Not really.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why? I went Rationalism thinking this would be a SV ... I switched at the last minute in the 180s post Research Labs. I hit Archaelogy on a lark and found a whopping 10 sites near me, including five (!) within my borders. I said to heck with it and started down Aesthetics too. My theming wonders: Oxford, Hermitage, Broadway (!). But with early hotels, Internet & airports by T230, cultural victory was not an issue.


- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal? Slightly easier.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-09 00:02:55
Reference number: 33913
Your name: Sempronius
Game status: Science Loss
Game date: 1910AD
Turns played: 330
Base score: 832
Final score: 832
Time played: 36:02:00
Submitted save: Casimir III_0331 AD-1911.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Sempronius_C512801.Civ5Save

AAAARrrrrggggghhhh! 5 more turns.....

It was a fun game, I don't play deity often and I had no expectation of surviving, let alone winning, until I realized I was the 3rd to the Modern age and first to the Information age. My biggest mistake was not changing my cities back to production focus near the end, I left them on food and that was pretty much my reason for losing.

Don't know if I would play that one again, but it was a good setup. This was probably my first 100% peaceful deity game, no wars, and only 2 denouncements after I bought a nuclear missle (to ward off an encroaching Bouddica).

Date submitted: 2016-02-10 02:02:54
Your name: strake
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1842AD
Turns played: 291
Base score: 1204
Final score: 2075

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
It felt like a slow start. I crossed the river for a slight improvement to my land. I opted to keep most of the jungle for the late game, and do jungle trading posts. Not sure if that was wise. I was later pleased to get a coast city to east (for the wonder mountain), and the west (for the many water resources). Austria was already forward settling me, so I decided to settle in with 3 cities and hope for the best.

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
I retrospect, I did not plan for my bonus SPs, which was kind of silly, since it was easy to know when I would get them. I ended up first to Freedom, but almost everyone else took Order, and my happiness was getting pushed hard. I switched ideologies after building the Statue of Liberty. Used the bonus policies to get caught up again.

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?
Stable was a small boost

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
My policy trees were Tradition, Patronage, Rationalism, Order with a few late extras tossed in Commerce. Tradition is my comfort zone, and I was hoping to be mostly peaceful and stay in my corner. Patronage to make it easier to get the food and science boosts from city states.

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
No idea, I rarely play Deity - this is like my 3rd win ever at this level.


A couple other notes. I spent pretty much the entire second half of the game paying Assyria to go to war with someone other than me (I kept getting warnings about him planning against me). By the end of the game, he seriously owned half the world. Between his conquering and Austria's marriages, there were only 8 city states at the end. Which were all my allies. I wonder how bad that would have been if I hadn't taken Patronage.

Being the first to build a nuke completely changed Assyria's attitude toward me. Two turns before I completed it, he's all taunting me for the size of my army. And he hates me, and has denounced me, and won't trade my any of his 7 luxuries for less than like 30g/turn. At this point I had 1 city kicking out nothing but troops because I know he's coming for me, soon. Then I built the atomic bomb, and everyone is afraid of me, even Assyria. Now he will trade me luxuries for 9g/turn. A few turns later he even asked to be friends again. What a difference a nuke makes. From there it was an easy race to build my spaceship.

Sometimes everything goes right.

I got DOW'ed by Boudicca shortly after t100, which proved to be a very good thing. Her capital was on vulnerable land and had five wonders, including Chichen Itza and Temple of Artemis. CI is possibly the #1 best wonder to capture on these settings. I bribed Assyria into DOW'ing Boudicca, and once it was two-on-one Sweden joined in too to make it a totally unfair fight. I was able to capture two Celtic cities with ease. Eight cities was enough.

Midgame I was faced with an interesting dilemma. In order to propose International Games for the second congress, you need to get to Radio before the first congress happens. Ordinarily you'd do that via Oxford, but with eight cities in my empire Oxford took a prohibitively long time to build. I made a bit of an unorthodox play and used two Great Scientists, one for SciTheory and one for Radio. Oxford was saved for Radar.

I did use Futurism, and that + Hotels + Airports was enough. No need for Internet. I actually had two full policies and one Great Musician to spare. Top culture AI had less than 12,000 culture.

I could have won a turn earlier if I wanted to give Russia Prague or Dublin (and hope she didn't liberate either), but I decided I wanted to keep my borders clean. Waited a turn so I could walk my Musician and settle Gdansk for Russia's benefit.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-11 00:56:29
Reference number: 33922
Your name: Turskis
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1735AD
Turns played: 257
Base score: 1154
Final score: 2262
Time played: 8:54:00
Submitted save: Casimir III_0257 AD-1735.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Turskis_C512801.Civ5Save

I've played GOTMs every now and then for a long time but this is first time I actually bothered to send the results.

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?

Settled on the hill southwards and found Eldorado, settled 2nd city by Mt. Kailash. 2 happiness from it really helped since there weren't too many luxuries around before getting the whales to the west.

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?

Rationalism and Freedom.

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?

Didn't build any UBs or UUs.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?

Tradition opener -> Liberty to Collective rule -> Finished Tradition -> Representation -> Rationalism opener -> Finished Liberty for GE to Porcelain Tower -> Rationalism

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?

I think this was my best Deity time (more often I lose), so definitely easier. Had some luck though since no one DoW'd.

Forgot to copy paste log.

Went pretty well counsidering no AI war until 5-6 turns before end. But i got rekt with unhappiness many times i think i've been unhappy for like 1/3 of last 120 turns especially when AI took different ideology than mine(Order).

So cities didn't develop as fast as i wanted(and lost some science from 1st rationalism policy disabled during these turns). Also, since i'm pretty rusty(2 years) dealing with AIs i forgot to use clever stuff like buying raw gold from gpt for faster science buildings production. I tought about it only when all buildings were build

But overall it has gone well i would have prefered a better cap location but the whole map was pretty ''meh'' anyway. Capped around 1360 when i mass bulbed scientists.

First SV since some years too...in multiplayer games rarely go over the atomic era. So rusty also in that domain. The idea was to ''derust'' me

Final pic:

Thx guys for giving me a game that brought me my first diety win ever in any Civ Game (after close to 800 hours civ 5 alone xD)!!!
Game: Civ5 GOTM 128
Date submitted: 2016-02-11 11:17:28
Reference number: 33925
Your name: Ethalydon
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1862AD
Turns played: 301
Base score: 1122
Final score: 1870
Time played: 6:28:00
Submitted save: Kasimir III._0301 - 1862 n. Chr..Civ5Save
Renamed file: Ethalydon_C512801.Civ5Save

- Were you happy with the start? Did you manage to adjust strategies to the terrain?
It didn't look to great for the capital but when I saw dat coast with 4 effing whales (and later even oil), I knew where my production would come from. I founded Krakau there and went for the god of the sea pantheon. With celts and austria next to me, I didn't bother with religion, let Austria send missionarys to me and tried to get on their good side given they were the only ones not seperated from me by either city states or ocean. With Austria as a friend (through the whole game) nobody could really attack me. I think, this was the biggest advantage of the start.

- Which free SPs did you use Poland's UA for in the later eras?
I used them to unlock patronage and rationalism as soon as they were available.

- Were their other Unique attributes useful for either SV or CV?
Not really. The stable boost didn't bring much and the UU wasn't used at all because i tried to keep peace.

- Which Policy trees did you choose and why?
I went full tradition, patronage left, full rationalism and freedom. I lost the advantage of getting more policies when it came to ideologies, because freedom was already taken by celts and austria and i wanted to keep them as friends and i didn't want to suffer the happiness-loss. Assyria went for order, but had to change to freedom later because of 3 neighbor freedom civs.

- For Deity difficulty, was this harder or easier than normal?
I tend to say it was easier. I never won diety before, had a start where I was hard to attack, got lucky when Korea was already taken out by Assyria in the classical ära, and the celts took all the beating from warmongers everywhere while I could develop without being disturbed. With all city states on my side, I could have won earlier with diplomacy, but given the victory conditions, I used them to slow down Assyria with Embargos, army taxes and forbidden luxuries. So all of this coming together made this win possible.

Thanks, Ethalydon! Glad you got your first deity win and posted about it. Welcome to CFC and the Game of the Month.

HR

Awesome Manpanzee

I never been able to focus culture victories in deity games...

Very impressive Manpanzee, and thank you for demonstrating some unorthodox techniques!