TSG3 After Action Report

This was my first cultural victory. I had tried for the India achievement on a Pangaea map and had my capital captured 1 turn before victory. That was another game, though. What I learned from that game is that powerful enemies on your continent will eventually try to wipe you out. Knowing how inept the AI is with regards to overseas offensives, I made it my mission to wipe my side of the map clear, then go all out culture.

I had no idea that puppeted cities contribute culture and don't raise the policy requirements. I had already razed 2 cities by the time I figured that out, so I kept everything else I conquered. I went for Egypt, then Iroquois, then some of the useless city states. As expected, the AI on the eastern continent didn't even land a single vessel on my continent even though there was ample room for expansion.

One interesting thing I noticed was a Siamese Foreign Legion unit running around in the east. How did he get MY UU when I hadn't gifted any units or even have the technology to build a Foreign Legion? I have a screenshot but I'm too lazy to convert it.

Educational game and fun (if you consider pressing 'Next Turn' over and over and...)

Cultural victory in 403 turns
HOF score: 2646

I just finished my game on turn 241 (1655AD). I only settled my first city and then puppeted the rest of my continent. I did save most of my SP until I built the CR, but I did not use the gift/raze exploit for this attempt.

Good thing this wasn't a domination game because Rammy ran away with the other continent and even declared war on me and all my CS allies... the jerk actually puppeted Kuala Lampur so I was missing out on 20 cpt for about the last 40 turns or so. I couldn't believe how far ahead he was in this King-difficulty game. I've been playing mostly Immortal lately and his playstyle reminded more of Immortal than King.

I played this one without settling any additional cities to Paris and strictly relied on puppets. This hurt a lot as far as science goes, but otherwise worked out ok in the end. Highlights on my strat are...

Obvious start was to settle on marble, beeline Calendar, build Scout to explore, queue monument, then Stonehenge, then researched mining, purchased a worker, selling resources as they became available. I researched writing, purchased a library, researched masonry, then beelined for Acoustics.

By turn 67 I had completed the oracle and great library, researched up to theology and with free GL tech and GS I bulbed Acoustics. Went do the freedom tree for Free Speech. By turn 75 I had enough SPs to get Philantrophy allied Venice for maritime bonus and HORSES! By turn 85 HBR researched and by turn 103 my slow path to conquest began. Egypt conquered by turn 123, Askia wasn't pleased and he declared war soon after so I took a few of his cities then made peace in hopes of future research agreements. By turn 194 Hiawatha was defeated (I did say slow path to conquest?) although his empire was the largest doubling both Egypt and Askia.

During my 100+ years of war and preparation for it I continued to build a few wonders and research some key techs which I'll highlight.

Turn 77 - Pyramids completed
Turn 118 – Hagia Sophia completed
Turn 129 – Porcelain Tower completed
Turn 142 – Completed Astronomy (used 2 stored up GS to bulb Navigation, and Archeology)
Turn 196 – Forbidden Palace completed which kept me out of my continued struggle with unhappiness.
Turn 215 – Steam Power complete. I also timed this with the completion of Oxford University and a Great Scientist and Engineer waiting in Paris. Since I new this would be the end of the UA I felt it advantageous to be able to complete Cristo Redentor soon after.
Turn 221 – Cristo completed. At this point I'd saved up over 16k culture. Went with Order tree to Communism, the remaining 2 policies in Patronage, Theology policy to finish off Piety, and then Legalism and Oligarchy which leaves me with 4 remaining policies to begin Utopia. 263 Culture per turn and 2 turns away from another policy I won't end up needing the Sidney Opera House which is good because I'm far from able to research it anytime soon.
Turn 223 – Begin Taj Mahal construction
Turn 225 – Radio research complete, purchase tower, 332 culture per turn
Turn 230 – Taj Mahal complete. 2 SP left.
Turn 237 – Himeji Castle completed yay +4 culture =P
Turn 242 – Kremlin complete. Just a couple turns to final SP
Turn 244 – Utopia Project started.
Turn 255 – Utopia Project completed!

Some big changes I'd make if I played this one again would have been to conquer my whole continent before making it across the river. Seems even though the east didn't know ANY of my continents civs by then they still got pissy when I was warmongering making it hard to trade resources for happiness and research agreements required 100+ gold + open borders. Trades were nearly impossible with except with 2:1 sometimes 3:1 with China but at least they were 2-3 of the resources I had multiples.

I also would've chosen a few more happiness policies before Cristo Redentor. I went from barely keeping myself at -9 to +45 after spending policies at Cristo. Maybe just finishing Patronage for +happiness from CS resources /shrug. My empire could've been higher population and thus more research which is where I struggled more with only 1 city.

I had my 3rd warrior die to barbarians 2 turns after it left my cultural borders. After building 2 more up to 4, I lost 3 of them taking my first 2 cities. Then, I lost Great Library by 1 turn. This caused me to rage quit.

I don't really understand how people take early cities with only 3 units. Every time I've ever tried it, it's failed, which is why I always build up to 4. I mean, I can take a city with 3, but one of my warriors will die for sure and I won't be able to take a second.

Anyway, please do not ever turn off the animations again. I found it very upsetting that I didn't even get to see my warrior die to the barbarians. My next turn just started and it said he was dead. No idea how many barbarians were over there attacking him. I can't imagine why anyone would want this feature turned off. You end up giving away a ton of information about enemy troop movement.

Here's my save. T312, 1884, "one more turn". I think my score was 4598.

HOF score was 7387.

First GoTM here. Ended up losing to a Iroquois Spaceship victory by 1 turn at ~ 2020.

- Early game strategy was mostly peaceful, although I did gang up on Egypt in order to pluck up a couple of their better cities. I max'd out at 5 cities, deciding to try to keep the empire small - I think this was a mistake, I'm confident I could have conquered the west continent if I had tried.
- Eventually, Japan and the Iroquois wiped everyone else out except for a small vestigial nub of Siam cities. Because of this, I was sandwiched in between the two biggest powers, with about 1/5 of the number of cities of either.
- Inevitably, they both declared war due to proximity. I was unable to maintain enough money to maintain support with the city states, so they ended up being against me as well. I ended up fighting Iroquois off and on for the latter half of the game, yo-yoing between 4 and 6 cities as their army size fluctuated.
- Curiously, Japan seemed to be trying to "blockade" Paris (according to my advisor), but the AI was clearly broken as they never even approached my cities or landed on my continent. I suppose it's a good thing as I wouldn't have survived a two-front war.
- Near the end (2 or 3 SPs to go), it became apparent that I wasn't going to survive another attack without getting into an arms race, so I began building army units at max capacity.
- Maintenance costs went through the roof, but I was able to push to within 1 turn of completion of Utopia project via multiple Special People driven golden ages, and by selling various buildings.
- On the final turn, Iroquois completed half of his spaceship at once, leaving me bewildered as I looked at the defeat screen, thinking, 'this must be a bug', before I read through the notifications and it became apparent what had happened.
- Oh, and I replayed the last 5 turns (not submitted), attacking Iroquois to divert his attention from the spaceship, and this allowed for a cultural victory.

For some reason I tried out the ICS strategy early in this game. Built 11 cities, captured 17 more and conquered my entire continent shortly before the end whilst remaining allied with the majority of the city states in the vicinity. When the opportunity for a diplomatic victory came I still had 3 policies to get in 59 turns. I wasn't sure if my 860 cpt was enough to finish them off so I took the easy way out for my first Civ V victory. woop.

Continued from the In Progress thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=394776&page=2

Things went pretty much as planned for quite some time. I acquired all of the Patronage track except the bonus resources as quickly as I could, and spent my money on getting the 2 Cultural civs to be allies. I also bought Almaty as an ally for the bonus Science and the occasional free military unit and great person.

I generated a bunch of Great Artists, I think 7 or 8 total, and built landmarks. Most of these went near Orleans. This included 2 artists from the Louvre.

After getting the Patronage stuff I held off on social policies as I teched along the top of the track to Biology. This unlocked Order and I quickly adopted the three central policies from that for the reduced maintenance and enhanced production. Then I once again saved my culture as I tried to get Cristo Redentor. I used a Great Scientist to bulb Telegraph for that, and Oxford University to get Radio a turn or so faster that. I directed further research toward the Sydney Opera House without really beleiving I'd get to build it.

Lyon was my best production city thanks to a purchased Factory and a Windmill. But even going full tilt I missed Redentor by a number of turns. That really hurt. Still, the AIs had been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for a long time so maybe they'd keep doing that...

Or maybe not. Hiawatha would attack around 1960 or so, and use Mechanized Infantry and Rocket Artillery to swarm over my Musketeers in a matter of a few turns and capture Lyon and Paris. He then agreed to peace in exchange for my gold and resources. Orleans was my best culture producer, so my pace of policy adoption actually speeded up after losing my other cities. Perhaps if left alone all the way to 2050 I might have pulled out the win. But Hiawatha had developed a taste for blood, and after knocking Askia and Ramses out of the game he came back and finished me off in 2008.

So... The peaceful strategy didn't work. Even if I'd managed to get the Oracle and the Redentor I think I still would have lost out. It looks like a more aggressive approach really is the way to go.

First time playing one of these since early CivIV, and my first win in a cultural game. I had 2 or 3 crashes early while starting a war with Hiawatha, realated to my video drivers. Switched to DirectX 9 and I didnt have any more problems.

I made some big early mistakes, missed both oracle and stonehenge by a few turns each.

I went with 3 cities and tried to puppet as much as I could. By the end I had all of my continent minus the cultural and food cities, and I had conquered all of China on the other continent. Both Japan and China had declared war probably because my military was horrible at this moment from wars on my own continent, but I had 1 caravel and 1 frigate that just slaughtered their troops.

Utopia Project was finished on turn 215 - 1525 AD.

Edit: I just realized the Ironworks could have saved me a couple turns on Utopia Project. Doh!

I had a cultural win in 1900 with 5807 points. I'm happy because I knew nada about cultural wins before this game was posted. After I killed off the West, I got attacked by Siam and China, which was a joke.

By the end, the French empire was wall-to-wall trading posts. Well, they do call France a "nation of shopkeepers."

434 turns and 5026 milky score!! \o/

First I have problems with some wonders, that I didn`t win. Then I had happiness issues and need to build the second city on the ivory to give me some calm to think on the strategy.

After that the Iroquois, that were to close to my second city came to war and I was too weak. Lost my second city, but then I got mad and start a military game to win later in culture.

After some units and some city changes I took 4 cities from him in a peace treaty, but I got confuse in what to do with all the cities and annex one of than to the empire (3 cities took me forever to win in culture)

After that I just start puppet cities on my side and liberating the CS.

Later on the game the Japanese got furious and attack Tyre, my only source of Spices . So I have to go to the other side and puppet some cities until I got the Utopia project done! =D

My first TSG and I hope I got good. At least I`m Augustus Caesar on my HOF!! \o/

My current REX/light ICS approach could give me a win at turn 210 (including gifting cities), but I have gotten the feeling that I should have continued spamming cities for an earlier win.

I doubt that I will found as many cities as Dave did in his game, but it will be close. Since I have to admit that I am starting to get a bit bored by this (now fairly familiar) map I will continue my current game from an earlier autosave, due to this it will still be no hardcore ICS which might even shave off a couple of additional turns.

Maybe this is the way to get really close to the 200 turns barrier or even break it. But again, those low turn number would be impossible IMO without using the cheesy gifting.

CharonJr

Well, I lost again. I think I failed because I didn't realize you could puppet cities and they wouldn't add to your social policy cost. So I had 3 cities pretty much the entire game. I was one social policy away from building the utopia project when 2050AD came and I lost to Montezuma as a time victory. Hey, at least I wasn't conquered!

Alright, in at the buzzer. Won a Cultural Victory at 360 Turns with a Score of 4037, taking over almost half the world in the process. Short summary, since I'm short on time:

Founded 4 cities in an X pattern around my starting location. After the Iroquis to the west decided I was tempting (and I lost a city due to lack of military), I went on the full offensive, capturing multiple cities from the Iroquis and eventually the Egyptians. The latter seemed to push people too far, as Askia, Japan, and Persia all decided to declare war. Luckily, Japan & Persia were across the channel and were easily held off by a single frigate, while my horde of Musketeers wiped my former ally Askia off the map. After that, I just rushed to the Monte Christo and pushed for the Utopia Project, with 2 dozen heavily-armed units lining the coast in case my neighbors on the east side had any smart ideas.

By the end, I had 4 founded cities and about 12 puppet states. I relied on the latter for money & the former for production; it worked out quite well, and Napoleon's bonuses ensured they contributed bigtime to my culture without increasing the policy cost.

My highest scoring game yet, and very fun.

Oh, and after winning, I nuked Monty. Just for giggles & achievements.

(Note: Saved on the turn just before victory, not after, then quit & realized my mistake. Hence my save file replayed the very last turn. Hopefully that isn't a problem.)

PS: I appreciated the No Animation option; my computer runs Civ5 very slow, and it would've been murder to sit through all the combat animations.

in game score: 6318
hof score: 9560

Have no idea how to play a cultural game well. Simply puppet all the cities except Beijing, and waited for victory

I won 1906, without selling cities.

My plan was to settle on all marble spots to benefit later from the "City with Wonder" SP.
As I also went for the Oracle, this didn't work out. Ramses settled on that great sugar/marble spot north of French capital, so I decided to clear my half of the map after the Oracle. Without reading much before the game, I wasn't sure what influence puppets have on the cultural score, so I decided to only keep cities on good spots and raze the rest. Founded two cities on the other marble spots, though, and built wonders there. I could built Utopia with no need of the Sydney Opera, but still it took me a while to get there. I guess the ICS/sell cities way is MUCH faster because of the high research output there.

Dang, just had to realize that using a GE on the last turn of a wonder being build will not carry over any hammers for the next project (was building Christo and wanted to use the excess hammers for Utopia).

Is this always the case or will this only happen with GEs since they will only provide enough hammers to complete a project? I was under the impression that a GE always generates 300 hammers + a bonus per pop. Obviously I was wrong.

Do hammers carry over at all or are they wasted just as research?

Oh well, reload-time. I doubt that I will be able to finish before turn 200, but around 205 should be possible (using ICS + gifting cities).

CharonJr

I don't know about the carryover of hammers, but I don't think the GE works on the Utopia Project in any event. It least it didn't for me.

For sure, hammers and food both carry over. That's (for me) why it is so infuriating that beakers don't; they have the code for the mechanic in the game, someone actually made the deliberate decision "let's not extend that principle to beakers". Incomprehensible.

Anyway, not only do hammers carry over in general (but I don't know about excess GE hammers carrying onto a non-Utopia/SS build - I guess they don't), but they seem to remain upscaled by any benefits in that city, such as marble for wonders, forge for units, etc. Worth microing maximum carry over from your wonder build when playing with Aristocracy and marble?