TSG1 After Action Report

This is my 2nd complete game of civ 5 and looking forward to more games of the month. The biggest pain in the game was the long trek to get to the last few capitals. I started off exploring south and quickly realized how the map was probably configured. My goal was to get a city busting force built up as quickly as possible. This included a couple warriors and a couple archers.

I conquered Germany when he still had only one city. I only founded two other cities both between my capital and berlin. I beelined stonehenge early to unlock some quick civics. After that I focused on getting a road built as far towards the enemy as possible to cranking out a mixture of units.

My main force encountered the Aztecs next and easily took him out. I was upgrade my force inside the newly conquered territory and then split up to take the Chinese and Japanese to the North and Persians to the South. Most of my reinforcements coming towards the battle got routed towards Japan.

I like the new combat in this civ game, I just hope that the AI gets better in future patch. My main complaint in this game was the frustration around the channeling of forces through narrow lanes.

* Nice map, and interesting game despite the GOTM did not have world builder to help.
* Choke points, and hilly terrain were frustrating, especially in a domination game. Many times I debated about just bee-lining to navigation, so that I could embark across the ocean. AI seems to be really hampered by this type of terrain.

* I love 1 upt. I hated building stacks. It made no sense. Now I can use tactics.
* I love how cities can defend themselves, definitely helps in the early game
* I love the settlers and warriors now both move 2, now i won't throw my mouse at the monitor when my GOTM submission is shot, because I had to move that unprotected settler just one more square, and got eaten by a puma. BTW good riddance to puma's etc. (why is my whole war party destroyed by a puma, nasty little bugger ?)
* I love the natural wonders, I like the happiness bonus, makes exploring interesting
* City states are pretty interesting, a little tweaking and they can be an awesome feature
* AI is really bad at this difficulty level, i've been playing mostly immortal, and the AI seems less bad at that level. At turn 198 I was in the industrial era and starting to convert my units to rifleman and artillery... AI was nowhere close to that.
* Barb encampments at the end of the game were popping up very often and with rifleman. yikes!

* Legions are really good, liked the build road feature it has a nice historical feel to it and the game mechanic seems to work well, they seemed to get replaced by swordsmen pretty quickly though.
* Ballistas on the other hand, seem to be effective, but their time window is so short i'm not sure you get a good advantage from them.
* I thought the buildings cheaper if built in capital ability would be more powerful then it was.... by mid game i had completely forgotten about it.
* AI might want to be a little more leery of Rome.

* In the early game I adjusted my worked tiles in the city screen quite a bit, there do seem to be some issues. The most annoying is that when your try to optimize for production, and it still wants to produce a food surplus. Hey i told you we really needed that courthouse, stop trying to grow!
* I can't heal my naval units out at sea ? What a pain it is to move your exploring Trireme's back 20 turns to a coastal city so they can heal.
* You get xp from being bombed by archers or artillery. Sometimes this means you'll get a promo, and then you can heal to full and stomp that city.
* The heal to full promo is cool and useful, but seems over powered... sometimes it borders on exploitive, when i know I can attack a unit... get almost destroyed and then heal up before they attack. Simple fix would be to not allow promo until the next turn.
* I had just completed the National College the same turn I captured an enemy city. I was never for the rest of the game able to complete the national college.... maybe not a bug but really annoying. Saying all cities instead of six might be an improvement over civ 4, but it makes it tricky in a warmonger game, because in late game those annexed cities are never going to complete the courthouse let alone a lib, or theater or whatever. Maybe it should be all cities or 6 which ever is less ?
* I hate that I can not see what a city has before I decide whether or not I want to raze, annex or puppet. I hate having the screen zoomed all the way up (with a unit blocking the view) and trying to divine what is in a city. I hate having a puppet that is pumping out buildings that I can't see
* Puppets can cripple your empire with those buildings. Kind of lame.
* Trading post spam is lame, they look kind of silly all over the city boundries (they look better in the industrial age when they switch to towns)... and I didn't like having to set all my cities on "gold focus" just to stay afloat
* AI is really bad, that needs to get fixed. Build some newer units for goodness sake, i'm hitting you with artillery longswords and knights and you are sending out 1 spearmen to attack me ? Why are you attacking me across a river and up a hill ? Maybe you should build some horse units and flank your attacker to hit those soft "artillery" targets
* Diplomacy needs work. I don't mind not showing the numbers, but right now the AI is completely mysterious, asking you to join up for a war ( i need 10 turns) ok then i'll set up a research agreement with my worst enemy ever, and then declare war on him in 10 turns, and oh ya thanks for joining me in that war, no I won't trade you some wheat for 3 other things.... but i will trade you some of this yucky iron and horsies ?
* Need to fix the research agreement, dow, instant gratifcation bug/exploit it is almost like the AI knows it is an exploit and uses it.
* Why does my best friend CS want to kill my other best friend CS... for 2000 years, give it up already move on a pick another quest for god sake.
* I have to micromanage my workers cause if not I'm going to have 20 trading posts per city and my roads are going to be all over the place (build road to x needs to be fixed since now roads cost you 1 gp per hex).

I settled in place and planned to capture Budapest as soon as possible, even before founding a 2nd city. I went for the honour tree, introducing discipline first.
Well, I was so enthusiastic about this +15% damage bonus to friendly units in neighboured tiles, that I was sure 2 warriors should be enough to capture undefended Budapest, which in fact was a huge mistake ending up with 2 dead warriors and Budapest with 10-20% hp left.

Thus I was unable to capture Budapest for a very long time due to the fact that I only had warriors and Budapest defending with an archer soon after, so I decided to found the 2nd city first (in the south next to the deer).

I stayed at these 2 cities for more than half of the game I guess, founding only one more city in the north to get the iron.
I built the Stonehenge, the Great Library (giving me civil service) and the Oracle in the capital city.
With Stonehenge and Oracle, I was allowed to introduce a lot of the social policies from the honour and patronage tree pretty early soon. From the honour tree I introduced discipline, military caste and professional army (to upgrade my huge amount of warriors relatively cheaply), from the patronage tree I took the first two philantrophy and aesthetics.
Well, I didn't realize that I should not have to wait for my 3rd city to get iron and finally be able to capture Budapest with swordsmen. I could easily have 12(!) pieces of iron from genua if I had noticed... Thus my unit production started relatively late, and I built way too much I think, these two unique units conquered the continent nearly as fast as they move, ending up in a Domination Victory at 1300AD.

I lost my scout early when he got caught between a bunch of barbarians. That meant that I only knew where Bismark was initially. I took him out around turn 90 and then went searching for everyone else. If I had known where they started at, I would have been able to move directly to them and could have shaved 20 or 30 turns of late exploration in finding them.

I've included screenshots of the Ranking and Hall of Fame shots, since there are two different scores depending on the screen. Incidentally, the screenshots are from a reload because I didn't notice where the scores were initially and was too lazy to figure out where the info was after the fact. That's why it shows duplicates on the HoF screen.

Very interesting map. I didn't discover how interesting until about turn 120, by which time Germany was a name in history books alone.

Perhaps it is merely the difficulty setting, but the primary thing I noticed was a lack of military and very restricted growth by the AI. When I attacked Germany around turn 100, he had ONE WARRIOR and only TWO CITIES! I was astounded. I found Montezuma about twenty or thirty turns later and he also had ONE WARRIOR and ONE CITY.

Darius (Persia) was the only Civ to have expanded to three cities as well as having conquered a City-State. He had decent military to protect his home, but just before I attacked he decided to try to conquer a different city-state. He cleared out most of his army and I swooped in for the win.

Looking forward to the next challenge...

4000 BC- Founded Rome in starting location
3680 BC- Discovered Mining
3440 BC- Unlocked Honor social policy, met Budapest
3400 BC- Met Germany
3280 BC- Discovered Bronze Working
3040 BC- Met Venice
3000 BC- Unlocked Discipline Social Policy
2400 BC- Discovered Iron Working
2200 BC- Discovered Pottery, Founded Antitum near northern iron source
1920 BC- Discovered Sailing
1600 BC- Discovered Optics, Entered Golden Age
1480 BC- became Allied with Budapest
1200 BC- Golden Age ended
925 BC- Declared war on Venice
875 BC- Captured and annexed Venice
800 BC- Met Japan
775 BC- Declared War on Germany
750 BC- Captured and puppeted Hamburg
675 BC- Discovered Compass
625 BC- Captured and annexed Berlin (Germany eliminated)
500 BC- Discovered Calendar
425 BC- Met and became allies with Tyre
375 BC- Discovered Philosophy, met Singapore
325 BC- Discovered Animal Husbandry, met Monaco
250 BC- Discovered The Wheel
200 BC- Discovered Archery
100 BC- Discovered Mathematics, Completed Great Library, Discovered Metal Casting
0 AD- Declared war on Japan
25 AD- Unlocked Warrior Code Social Policy
75 AD- Met Aztecs, Captured and annexed Kyoto
150 AD- Captured and puppeted Osaka
225 AD- Entered Golden Age
250 AD- Discovered Steel
275 AD- Met and became allies with Almaty, Met Persia
300 AD- Discovered Trapping, Met China
375 AD- Almaty captured Tokyo (Japan eliminated)
425 AD- Declared war on Persia, met Helsinki
500 AD- Almaty captured Pasargadae
525 AD- Discovered Civil Service
600 AD- Captured and puppeted Susa
620 AD- Completed Oracle, Discovered Theology, Unlocked Patronage social policy
660 AD- Declared war on Aztecs
740 AD- Captured and annexed Tenochtitlan (Aztecs eliminated)
800 AD- Discovered Education, Discovered Astronomy, Declared war on China
820 AD- Unlocked Military Tradition social policy
860 AD- Captured and annexed Beijing
880 AD- Entered Golden Age
920 AD- Captured and puppeted Shanghai (China eliminated)
1020 AD- Met Genoa
1030 AD- Discovered Navigation
1060 AD- Met Belgrade
1080 AD- Golden Age ended
1100 AD- Met Warsaw
1170 AD- Captured Persepolis (Persia eliminated, game over)

Made a tactical error that cost me some time early by shooting for Navigation after reaching Iron Working, then realized that the map was a Pangaea and I wouldnt have much need for it. That time could have been better spent continuing to gun for Steel. I made sure to ally with every militaristic city state I came across and it really paid off with Almaty as they were instrumental in finishing off Japan and in the early part of my war with Persia. Lost a ton of time trying to track down Persepolis (30-40 turns or something like that!) or the game could have been over well before 1000 AD. Overall, I am happy with my performance.

My only previous play was a 100 turn demo game as Persia.
I loved it! The game was not working very smooth on my laptop (from work), but it runs and I am very happy because of it.
So now I bought the game and will try my first go as a Roman emperor. Who knows what I may find? The demo was going well so I hope to continue on that way and use the things I learned there and by reading Lemmy’s story!

As I see the starting point is rich in fish and other resources, I settle immediately. No reason to think too much about it. Because of the fish I will like to research sailing very soon so I start on pottery. My city starts on an explorer to find about the surroundings. The warrior is set to explore the immediate surroundings.

3800BC Rome has grown already. Very nicely it is now working 2 fish tiles making sure it continues to grow rapidly! And who is that having ivory?
The next turn I contact them, Budapest they call themselves while they give me 30 gold in greeting, and they seem to be militaristic.

3720BC and my scout is ready. I start on a monument, but actually want a settler. That will have to wait until the city has grown to size 3. After the settler and finishing of the monument a worker will be next to develop the lands and making a traderoute. Remember to research the necessary technologies though...

3680BC we find the first ruins and barb encampment to the north. The ruins give me 65 gold, very nice! A few turns later I attack the encampment with my warrior, using the scout for flanking bonus. I need two attacks to finish them off, but it nets me some more gold and gives the warrior necessary experience for future fights.
Surprise! Instead of being able to finish the encampment off with my warrior as planned above, I need to think again: a brute spawned on the swamps below the camp... so I first finish of the camp with my scout and then the brute with the wounded warrior, which works nicely since the brute is with its feet in the swamp: a kill in one attack!

And then 3440BC I meet Bismarck! Will he be as annoying as he was to Lemmy? Probably not, we immediately sign a pact of cooperation.

At 3280BC I learn sailing, and the next priority is to be able to build roads... or do I want to be able to spearman? As I also need to put workboats in the building queue. I decide to go to bronze working first, and after that I will go for the wheel.
The next turn Bismarck already starts acting hostile and ends the Pact of Cooperation. What is he playing at?
Also (it is 3200BC) I adopt Honor as I expect encountering some more barbarians. And of course it will help in conquering all the capitals.

At 3080BC a Brute shows up near Rome. I had my warrior remain in the city since I wanted to be prepared for something like that. First I have the city bombard the brute (-5) and then let the warrior finish him off. The settler also is finished and finds a spot near some nice resources. We are started to first finish the monument (so we can also built one in the new city using the Romans special bonus!).
By 3000BC my new city Antium is founded northwest of the cows, to include some more fish and speed the growth. Science will be quicker now, but happiness less. First I start on another warrior as I will need to be able to defend this new land. Then a monument is next.
Venice is met: being maritime would make them superb allies. The food you get is amazing for growth of your empire!

2600BC a lot of quiet turns, building in my cities, discovering bronze working and getting to know the map. After noticing I couldn’t find any more land in the north I went south with the scout thinking that behind the Budapest land would be more mass. I am surprised to see there is not: so if there is not passageway of any way in the south, that means the land is behind Bismarck! I need to either get open borders with him or conquer him to get to know the others. Or make some boats... yes, lets put in another boat in the queue for after the worker! Well, looking a bit better at my hoarded cash: I can simply buy the boat now. One trireme on the double please!
Darn I was expecting the workboat would give me extra food... instead it gives me gold. Remove the second workboat from the queue. Differences from Civ 4 are annoying when you don't expect them.

2440BC indeed there the fertile lands are: behind the Germans! Lets explore them with my nice trireme. Should be quick with these 4 moves each turn. Meanwhile the worker is almost finished. Happiness is my weak spot if I want to expand, so I will need to connect some wine soon. Research will be set accordingly.

The first new leader I meet is Oda of Japan in 2320BC. Again I try to be friends. Meanwhile I am thinking about my path to glory. Since I will be militaristic I will soon need to discover archery after Calendar and then go on to iron working and mathematics. I will built an archer or 2 that will together with the warriors take out Budapest. When I have built a catapult and 2 legions I should be able to take on the Germans.
Then Wu is met from the Chinese, she just as Oda won’t sign a pact of Cooperation, but she does give me open borders.

Venice request assistance against invading barbarians. Let us see what we can manage. I did kill a brute this turn with my trireme, but I didn’t get any influence for it: probably it must be a barbarian near the city state. Speaking of the trireme: it is enclosed by land! I will keep using it to attack some barbarians and then maybe gift it to a city state to gain some more influence.

In 1920BC an unmet player enters the classical era, so I am still behind in technologies to at least one player.

1680BC I destroy the camp that was menacing Venice, returning a worker to them earning me 30 influence. I didn’t need it myself as I already had two (bought one extra in Antium). In the south a new camp spawned and Budapest immediately asked to remove it. There were already units en route so I will.

1520BC I research mathematics and finally enter the classical era myself. If I remember correctly as the fourth after unmet player, Oda and Bismarck. Also I see a notification of a research agreement between Germany and Japan. I need to find out how to get one of those! Budapest is friends with me and I will first pay some money to become friends with Venice as well as I can use their food.
Start Stonehenge in Rome to be finished in 17 turns.

1480BC as my scout approaches the German border we agree on an open border agreement. Finally we will be able to search out the lands!
1400BC my first golden age! That should make a nice impact on gold and production.

1200BC right after receiving a warrior from Budapest I declare war on the city. I need more space and the units aren’t good enough. Ivory will soon be mine!
Meanwhile I finish building Stonehenge. Hopefully the culture is going to help me a lot! Also I am curious what the great people will be able to do and how long it will take me to get one. Hmm 100 turns is a long wait! I mostly used them on starting golden ages by the way, they are powerfull!

1000BC Budapest is conquered, I leave the city a puppet state as I am concerned about my happiness. Now it is 7, and a settler will soon be produced so I can build a city on the iron. Oh yes, another thing I missed: first I researched mathematics for the catapults, to discover that I need iron for them and I don’t have it until I research iron working. Now that I have this I see iron is outside of my cities! Ok, it is close to Busapest, but I will build another city anyway to the northeast of Antium near the cloth and cows. But first the camp here needs to be taken out and they have spearman. My archers will be able to target them.
Anyway, I leave Budapest a puppet state until I have more happiness and I am curious how this will affect my empire.
Last but not least I have adopted Discipline while fighting Budapest but it didn’t help me much as far as I could see. Now that my golden age is over, I also adopted Piety for the extra happiness bonus.

925BC I found Cumae near an encampment: it can immediately Bombard! Nice way to remove barbarians.  Happiness down to 4, my next golden age will take a while… O no, it is 5 since I just see the Barringer crater so happiness jumps up 1.

875BC Bismarck is worried that I am settling to near his territory. As well he should be! But I tell him to not worry, we will settle where we want and assimilate his people soon. Right, didn’t say that last part, yet!
Optics discovered! Embarking looks like fun. But I mostly want to have lighthouses in all these coastal cities of mine. To get the ivory at Budapest to work I still need to research trapping. I started on roads to connect Cumae and Budapest to Rome. Antium already is connected. Then I leave a warrior in every other city who can be present to solve any problems pretty quickly.

I now see that Hamburg is going to be a nice city as well with sheep, sugar and fish, with marble, horses and cow nearby. It will be my first target… but still no iron! Shall I try with two archers and two spearmen instead? Well, I guess so! As I now would like to get philosophy so I can enter research agreements I start on writing.

775BC after another archer shot on my scout my first great general Lysander appears! He quickly moves to the army up north that is assembling by Hamburg. He will be able to give them the edge in the battle. Or at least I hope so!
Then I meet Helsinki who have 6 iron! Now there is a city state I like to ally with… unfortunately I am out of gold now, just 64 pieces in my chest (befriending Venice is costly).
Bismarcks asks if I want war already, but actually I like to wait for the great general, so I tell him I am on a friendly mission.

By this time I find that there are a lot of city states at the choke point in the middle of the map. It made sure it took a long while moving units about. It was a small drawback in an otherwise fun map, but it also made sure you paid attention on moving your troops which is a lesson well learned!

675BC After the lighthouse, Rome starts on a library: still no iron available!
My trireme is getting useless and I gift it to Warsaw. Hmm, just 2 influence or something??
650BC I finally declare on Bismarck! Wu feels I am picking on the weak… her time will come! Oda now feels it is time to end our cooperation. Also Oda seems to be attacking Monaco! Why would he be doing that?

600BC I have lost a unit! A spearman was destroyed after an attack from the city by a German warrior. Ok, it was hurt a bit, but I had not expected it to get killed!
Philosophy is researched, but I don’t have enough gold yet for research agreements. Also I need the gold to keep Warsaw as a friend in a few turns. It is getting difficult what to do with my gold! Next I research horseback riding so I can at least go for horseman if not legions. Somebody just built the hanging gardens. Still 7 turns for me for the Great Lighthouse!

575BC Oda and Bismarck both enter the Medieval Era! Coincidence or because of their research pact? I am not happy about it of course. Monaco asks for units, but I don’t have any to spare.

550BC finally I start a mine for the iron now that a trade route is finished to Cumae. This should have been done otherwise; just build the city on the iron or immediately build the mine and then do the traderoute would probably have been quicker. In 10 turns I will have the iron connected! I capture Hamburg and make it another puppet.

425BC The Great Lighthouse is built. I didn’t expect or plan when starting that I would be able to built two wonders!
In 375BC it is shown that besides me also Darius has built 2 wonders. Wu has one, the others none. Also I defeat Germany this turn, the old man being quite grumpy about it. I was wondering if something is wrong with AI. My very wounded scout was exploring and multiple times German spearman or scout was in view. Probably they could have taken out my scout. Why wouldn’t he have done this?

200BC As I research civil service I am now also in the Medieval Era. My next target is machinery, so I start on Masonry!!
A turn later I remember I was waiting to take another social policy for when I was entering the medieval era. I take patronage.

150BC Hamburg starts on a temple which I dislike, I take over the city and start a lighthouse. Persia has allied Helsinki, which is a shame since the city is marvellous!
A few turns later they attack and conquer the other city state which has a lot of resources (12 iron)... that is a pity, Persia might become very strong indeed.

A time follows where I am moving my units to the east after healing them, not sure what I will do. The nearest opponent seems to be Oda, who also is the most advanced as he is the only Medieval opponent remaining. Oda has been attacking Monaco, who therefore requested help that I was not able to supply. Now however, I get near with my two archers and two spearman and a horseman approaching fast and I decide to intervene: within a few turns I get my bonus from Monaco making them my allies and taking Kyoto from the Japanese. I am offered peace, with Osaka included in the deal, but I decide I can best just move on. My archers and spearman are promoted to Crossbow and Pikeman respectively, the horseman following a bit later to a knight and I move on to eliminate Oda from the game.

After this everything goes pretty smooth and I take out China, then the Aztecs and finally Persia. China only had one city, Persia was doing quite well but my units were more advanced (a cannon, several crossbows, two knights and some (long)swordsman against swordsman and immortals is pretty easy). The only difficulty I had in the end was my happiness as I lost the gems from Venice after a barbarian raid on the city and in the same turn I conquered the Aztec capital and lost pearls because the allied status with another city state was lost. It was easily repaired, but it took me some turns. I should have managed that better, and started on courthouses sooner in the cities I took in my empire. Only did that with four cities though; puppet states are generally the way to go!