TSG1 After Action Report

I started by settling in place, researching AH and finding the horses to the south and then scouting around and I discovered Budapest and Venice fairly quickly, along with Bismarck. I settled a city in between Rome and Venice, and got a little lucky with the fact that when I discovered Iron Working a few turns later that my new city had Iron just outside it's radius. Then I took out Budapest at Venice's request and got their Iron as well. I quickly got horseback riding and sent a force of Legion and Horseman up to Bismarck taking him out before he could expand.

I met the rest of the Civs quickly after that as I explored east of Berlin, but couldn't find their homelands for a long time, I did after wading through all the city states in the middle of the map, and spending a little time embarked and sliding along the northern cost until i found the Japanese empire. He was the biggest of my remaining rivals, and my first target. I used a Great General, 2 Legions and a Ballista to whittle away at his northern cities, and 2 horseman attacking from the area where China and Montezuma were in a pincer move taking them out.

I discovered Steel and Chivalry right after the last Japanese City fell, so I upgraded my 2 Legions to Longswordsmen and my Horseman to Knights, stopping only to heal my units, i attacked China next, she only had 2 cities, which fell quickly, then I hit Montezuma and his 3 cities, leaving only Darius until last.

I bribed Darius into opening borders with me, and i slowly moved my Very Experienced Ballista, 1 Knight and the 2 Longswordsmen to just outside Persopolis, bypassing his other cities. When i could get my forces no closer, I declared war on him, and used my 2 attacks a turn Ballista and other forces to take Persopolis in 2 turns.

EDIT: I wasn't aware that this was a bug, I thought with the temporary Open borders that this was intended, so that you had to be aware of who you opened borders with. Oh well, I would've won anyways, just delayed a few more turns is all.

This was a very tedious map. Didn't really enjoy all the bottlenecks for 'pangea' but finished it anyway.

I completely over estimated the AI at this level. I've been playing on 'King' and did not play down appropriately. Should have just wiped Germany off the map with spears/archers and researched to IW asap...then navigation.

No real thought is required at this level with legions. Get them asap and keep moving. Use your promos for heals. I went:
pottery-sailing-mining-BW-calendar-IW-archer-optics...then on to navigation. Then it really didn't matter. Even navigation wasn't necessary but I wanted to embark some units across the ocean for giggles.
scout-monument-wb-buy wb-worker-barracks-buy wb-trierme-purchase spear-stonehenge-spear-purchase spear. Then some warriors for legion upgrades. Library and a couple of wonders for kicks...also not necessary. Thought I could upgrade spears to legion, but you have to use warriors. Stupid.

Took out the nearest city state with spears because they had iron (only Qty2) and I didn't. then marched on germany and continued east. Germany-Japan-China-half Persia-Aztec-rest of Persia. Did not destroy any other city states than the one next to us for iron.

I see they fixed the DoW with open borders nonsense in the latest patch. I think I pulled that on Monty just to test it. Otherwise, did not use that exploit.

Already a pretty lopsided game with me all the way on the other side of the world from the rest of the people. I kind of wish there was just more than me and backwards Germany on our side. I also decided to go for honor. I wish I could say why -- the upgrade at half costs just seemed like a nice perk and I figured it was the best military option of what was available.

First, my military superiority:


I pushed forward and was a little bit of a shame I didn't take a picture before I took my first Persian city. I moved my far more advanced units (Musketmen and Longswords). We steamrolled down Persepolis real easily.


After freeing Genoa and leaving the Persian empire in tatters this is what the overhead view looks like:


Eventually I run out of cities to attack from Persia and decide to go after the Azteks then the Chinese. Persia was the only other Civ in the Renaissance when I started this last push, so you can imagine how this goes...

PEW PEW PEW


I ended up destroying Monty on accident, which meant I could have finished a little earlier. Oh well.

View right before I finished the game and steamrolled Beijing:


View of my Cities. I had a lot of puppet states. A lot more than I would have liked but maybe that's the way to go in this Civ:


My Empire:

And I was rated as Julius Cesar. Hey, wait a minute!

First build was scout, then a monument. I like getting a few social policies early, and hitting up honor quickly seemed like a good idea for warmongering.
I build a worker next, then stonehedge for more policies. When I get the gold I buy a work boat, and then a settler eventually.
As for tech, I went to grab calendar as fast as possible to get the happiness rolling. After that I went for sailing, then writing for the GL, though I messed up the slingshot because I hadn't researched trapping yet. Iron working was next.

I found Budapest, German scout, Venice, Berlin in that order. As soon as I found Venice I pumped gold into them to make them an ally so that I could get the free food.

I pump out a few chariot archers, 1 legion, and was gifted 1 swordsman from Budapest (in my exploring/gold hunting/exp hunting I killed a barb encampment for them) and head towards Germany. Raze his first city, annex Berlin and Hamburg as both had 2 lux tiles I wanted bought and improved asap.

As I had never gone past Germany I had no idea where anyone/anything was. A Persian immortal wandered into German territory, so I thought they were close. Boy was I wrong. I spent the rest of the dark ages uncovering the section of largely empty land. For a while I thought I was on an island, and eventually I realized I had missed a small passable tract of land south of Singaporean territory. When my exploring chariot reached it, the world was alive again.

The first thing I see after crossing the tract of land is an Aztec Scout and I meet Monty. He is quite arrogant. Shortly after that I see the Monaco border and find it under attack by Japan. At this point I had upgraded my other chariot archer to a knight and upgraded to 2 longswordsmen as well as having a ballista, I had started their trek once I saw the tract of land, so they were 4-5 turns away. I notice several severely weakened troops of Japans, decide that right after our first meeting, it was time for war. Using my chariot archer, I took out 3 troops, got a couple promotions, and now Monaco was an ally. This meant I could upgrade to a knight and really tear up the spearmen and archers Japan had. About this time Monty asks for a MA against Persia, I say wait 10 turns. I meet China, and both Monty and China ask me to do a pact of secrecy against Japan....who we are all at war with.

My knight gets a few more promotions (he can now blitz and heals some every turn regardless) and my other troops arrive. I get a number of promotions for my other knight and the Japanese cities fall easily, I didn't even lost a unit. He gives me everything he can including his last city that isn't his new capitol. The 10 turns for Persia comes up, and my troops head there. My knights get even stronger attacking a 1 pop Persian city, they both blitz and heal every turn, and one of them has 4 movement points. These two cross quickly to the Persian Capitol, and take it in 2 turns. I'm up to riflemen and a cannon for my other troops, and have purchased two more cavalry.

During this time, I also allied with Helsinki and Genoa, both maritime. I took out Singapore to make me not have to pay Helsinki for a while which got me Tyre as well. The maritime states at this point are giving 5 food for Rome and 3 food for each city. So 15 bonus food in the capitol and 9 in every city. Maritime=awesome.

This part is actually somewhat boring and anti-climatic. I wait to upgrade my uber knights to uber cavalry. Once I do, the two of them race ahead of my troops and finish off Monty's capital in a single turn. Not too much longer until they reach Beijing and take it down (with the help of a normal cavalry, he wanted to feel involved). By the time I take down Beijing, I have built 15 wonders (I hadn't actually built a military unit in a while) and am in a 30 turn golden age!!. I had the policy for 50% longer GA's, had the happiness one trigger, and finished the Taj Mahal shortly after the happiness one started. 4k gold in the treasury pulling down 250 a turn. A rather good ending for my second finished game I think.

Build scout-monument with idea to get culture. Got map from ruins. Believe I need workboats to use sea resources. So research went to sailing. build wb and what? It does not improve food yeld, only gold.. hheeh. Beling to iron working next, but no iron is city and I was a bit afraid to found other cities. Belign calendar and build stonehenge, thinking +8 culture must be good.

after that went education - trapping- philosophy and took civil service from GL.

Still at one city. Build oracle to and after that was belign to chivalry and use knights, as distances seems huge. Had barbarian invasion, as my scout and warrior die.

But eventually build barrack, stable and start to crank knights. wen took berlin, made peace and went to seek others -had no scouting pass Berlin.

About that time start to sort out how city states work. Got some going.

Took long time before find Japan. Took there capital, made peace.

all capitals I annexed straight away and see I still have a lot of happiness, so build city next to berlin, away form remained of Germany. But there bug? Bismarck come ant tell me not to build city near his borders. But I owned Berlin and it was far from rest of his cities.. My guess civ alway think form there original capital, even if they lost it.

Finally found other civs.. Mounty and CHina was small, but last one had 500+ score when I had 480.. went after big boy, took some time, had to make peace for rest of his cities, which I raise and wait for reinforcements. Eventually I took him and come with overwhelming forces again china and last Mounty..

At that time I found a lot of cities and still had something like +6 happiness and finally got into positive gold income.

After starting game i saw 2 viable tech paths:

• Econ path: Pottery into Sailing
• War path: Focusing on Iron Working

I decided upon war path for maximum effectiveness of Legionnaires, and even extended concept for fast Mathematics to grab Ballistas.

As for build order:

1. Scout - to support warrior and make scouting faster
2. Warrior - to increase my fighting strength
3. (Upon earning 140 gold buy scout)
4. Worker - to start working tiles
5. Settler - to grab iron deposits

I was planning to update build list upon timings

Social policies: Honor 1st for visible barbarians, then follow up for double experience.

Well i started pursuing my basic plan, scouted with 1st warrior abit to south, and upon finding tundra moved to the north. Meanwhile my 1st scout poped up and both of them went north. Found map in ruins, destroyed 2 camps and stumble upon berlin. Meanwhile i got enough cash for my 2nd scout and sent him south, found another camp and cleared it when 2nd warrior popped out.

Left 1st scout North to observe Bismarck and wait for open borders to get through. Meanwhile i meat a Chinese scout and sold him open borders for 50g since i didn't expect to stumble upon him early.
My second scout was fog busting south since there was nothing to do at the time, while my warriors did relentless hunt for barbarians, and even earned me some early influence with Budapest.

My 1st worker got built, built a farm, a mine and was forced to sleep till i get more improvements tech.

My settler pop out about same time as iron working and i went north and made city exactly on iron source(2) for instant claim, since bismarc just created his city in my direction I decided to hasten invasion. I got my warriors into Akvinion border upgraded them and started marching north. Meanwhile I decided to expand second time for more iron and built second settler. He created city due west from Rome but was to late and Budapest managed to get it 1st. Wasn't paying attention and built city nevertheless.

Meanwhile Animal Husbandry finished, and after land buyout i was able to get new job for my and build pastures. <- at this time i found out my 1st big mistake total lack of culture and small cities.

Rome meanwhile built barracks and armory and with horses started to build 2 chariots.

Meanwhile on battle front i conquered 2 German cities and wiped 1st opponent from existence, and here i found my second mistake total lack of happiness buildings and even tho i puppet both cities i was -1.

Luckily i was starting to get early tech and could buyout work boat and grab whales.

After considering my options I decided to press on and burn China to ground before they catch up with tech. With my 1 scout 2 legionnaires and 2 chariots I started to go explore the WAST space beyond Berlin, and found 4-5 City states but no civilization. When all civilizations where in Classical Age i found 1st sign of.. Japan, sent my chariots North to check, and finally found someone, Japan to the North and Persia to the South. My 1st question was: What happened to China, did i miss them. Well i was going to toss coin to decide my target when Persia got Medieval on me... same turn I did - phew. After brief encounter with my 2 Legions (chariots were still in Northern hills of Japan) versus his city i lost one of them to 3 warriors and city barrage... and was forced to backtrack my remaining legio, luckily for me Persia wanted 10 turn peace and they payed A LOT (3 luxuries, cash, cash per turn). I agreed and hopped to use time to bring reinforcements -> legio and balista via water from Rome, chariots from North.

At this time i basically stopped caring about my empire, and was doing only some basic maintenance, some roads, trade post improvements everywhere, new town to grab more luxuries, and annexing both German towns so i had some control over them and to get 6Iron nearby Berlin.

On diplomacy side i sold excessive luxury goods to china, japan and Aztecs for fast cash and at same time started buying influence with city states to get their luxuries and food/culture.

When 10 turns passed i had my army positioned around one of Persian towns. I started new war and marched into Persia, both my chariots did their strikes on town, then my only legion entered and almost decimated his town, and upon end turn i lost both my chariots one to Darius's Immortals and second to... Genuan spearmen ( i didn't know that peace with Darius wasn't same as peace with his allied city states).
Tho city was mine, i hastily annexed it and upped my last Southern legion to longsword, rushed buy 2 more... and meanwhile lost my balista to Monaco who suddenly allied with Persia and back stabbed me, luckily my Legion was able to survive.

With my 3 LS i swiftly got both remaining Persian towns and wiped him from face of earth. Upped my last remaining Legion to LS and with powerful force of 4 LS made a slow walk to victory conquering one town after another, and swiftly wiping remaining 3 civilizations - Aztecs, China and at last Japan.

Only regret is that Japan didn't accept my peace offer (Their capital is under 50% HP besieged by 4LS) 10 turns of peace for all their remaining cities.

In home front i was building Happiness buildings like crazy and hovering whole time around 0. Gold was +100 or more due to large numbers of Markets and Trading Posts and some Wonders.

Social Poliecies where a total mess, i wasn't really planning to much and tried to get SPs that would help me solve issues i had at a time they were given.

What i learned:

• Culture is important, more tiles to work on and more social policies to help expand
• Happiness is even more important, don't neglect tech to get it
• Enemies aren't willing to trade luxury goods 1 for 1 but usually at least 3 to 1
• Making peace with city states is cheap and easy, so unless i plan to conquer them in near future why not
• Gold is easy to come by, and gives easy access to units
• If you're long away from home it might be wise to conquer a City State to get a proxy city for unit production/ upgrading
• High experienced fighters are worth a lot more then untrained.

City states are very nice addition to keep allied, especially as Greece or with patronage. Both cultural and maritime give nice bonuses for whole empire (cultural - social polices). Meanwhile militaristic are somehow odd, unless I'd need one of resources they provide I find it more useful to field units in my "army town" with gold and added bonuses (Morale/15/30exp). Tho it might be useful late game where units price will be much higher than 500gld.

And last thing if you're at war with city state you need to end it manually, since they can't even propose it.

I expanded reasonably early a little to the north, some nice hills with lots of production.
Encountered Germany early, didn't have too many problems with them.
Started to explore a bit more. The middle 'continent' was completely empty, wasted a lot of time there. Finally found the other civs, took a few cities but I didn't have enough units and they were too far off to get reinforcements there quickly.

I retreated and waited to research Astronomy to attack from the east side of the land. I defeated China and the Aztecs. Japan was very well defended by that time in the middle of the mountains, very hard to get to. Got two cities from Persia but the unhappiness by that time was about 15 and those cities take a long time to raze. That is definitely something to keep in mind the next time.

I was also too focused on the attack so I let the homeland slip. Lots of barbarian ships blocked my cities and destroyed my improvements so I had a few starving cities. Since the borders don't expand as fast as in Civ 4 there is always lots of room for barbarians to spawn, very annoying.

After a while I had Rifling. I could upgrade my Musketmen to Riflemen which was overpowering enough to capture Persepolis and Kyoto.

Persia's remnant immortals killed quite a few of my knights in the late battles.

I settled in place and grew my city normally.
I allied with the neighboring city-state and built two more cities to the north.
Immediately when I discovered iron working, I built two Legions and other supporting units.
I positioned my army on Germany's border before I declared war.
Bismark asked me about my intentions with that army.
I told him that I was going to invade.
He thanked me for my honesty.

I quickly conquered Germany and sent my army east to search for new civilizations.
I initially did not find any until a Chinese scout wandered along.
I discovered the small isthmus to the rest of the continent.
I embarked my army and landed next to the Japanese city of Kyoto.
I launched my surprise invasion and overwhelmed the Japanese forces.
I did the same to China.
With the help of the Great General Hernan Cortez, I besieged and conquered the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
Persia was ready for me.
When my Legions pushed into their borders, I was flooded by Persian immortals.
Siege equipment won that battle, the Persians could not stand up to cannon fire.
Victory!

A few notes from the game:
- 2 legions along with a great general can take a city at this level
- 2 Knights can do it by themselves
I could have finished sooner, but had a few knights and legions following the main attack force around the map. After Berlin, I went after Persia, Monty, China and then Japan. If I would have split the attack and gone after Japan with the second wave of troops, it would have ended sooner. Catapults are great, but I think I only got 3 attacks the whole game from them as they could not keep up with the knights. I also likely could have finished a bit sooner, but I was wiping all the cities out and completely eliminating the opponents instead of just taking their capitals.
Embarking is great. Shortcuts across the ocean and lake sped up the attacks.