TSG5 After Action Report

Score of 1802, HoF score of 1797

I have a few posts in the in-progress thread going up to about 250.

Lots of clicking 'next turn' waiting for the policies to roll in; I was getting about 560 culture per turn. Geared up my El Dorado city for production with lots of lumbermills but was only able to get 101.5 out of it with 11 population.

Mostly peaceful game, had to attack Wu early for Shanghai but nothing other than that. Started the Utopia project on turn 330, had entered a GA on turn 327 and used 2 GPs to add another 15 turns so the project was completed entirely during GA.

A few things that slowed me down and probably could shave a few turns off the score.

- Accidentally annexed Shanghai and added 30% to my SP costs
- Two allies, Brussells and Geneva, were puppeted France and Japan, respectively. Tried getting them to sell, but no luck
- Forgot to build a hermitage in my capital until pretty late. Was churning out 177 culture without it so that definitely would have sped up SP acquisition.
 

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When I saw this game posted, I thought it would be tough -- emperor, post patch and a weak civ -- and it felt that way for me in the beginning. I did the CS slingshot with the GL and the Oracle, but, fearing an early end when China plunked down Shanghai on my doorstep, I built a few jags, and then a settler and another worker to hook up iron. Eventually, I eliminated China and took two Russian cities with longswords and cats. At that point, both England and France Dow'ed me. I was able to fend them off and made peace. However, the warfare took it it's toll: I was last in tech and most other categories.

I thought I would spend some time on the infrastructure and then return to the attack. I was able to build up the cities, ally with the cultural CS's and move ahead in tech, but I never resumed the attack did and never was at war again. I stayed at two cities and four puppets.

In terms of policies, I openned Tradition and aquired Aristocracy early, and then nothing until the Free Speech discount. I also obtained a number in Piety and Patronage soon after. After Christo, I finished Tradition, Freedom, Piety, and Patronage, and the Commerce. I would cast my vote for continuing to allow saving policies; deciding between benefiting from the policy or getting it cheaper is an interesting judgment call.

Overall, thanks for the game and looking forward to the next.
 

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He finished Rationalism branch first then he entered anarchy and finished piety branch. This way we can only see 4 branches completed, Rationalism is not shown as completed, but it does.
 
He finished Rationalism branch first then he entered anarchy and finished piety branch. This way we can only see 4 branches completed, Rationalism is not shown as completed, but it does.

Ya know it never occurred to me that you could have inactive policy trees count towards a cultural victory. I always just assumed you had to have 5 ACTIVE trees. As a result I went for Order towards the end instead of swapping out to rationalism which would have served me much better.
 
Oh well, in the beginning I thought I was having a good game, but later I was in total war with all other nations until the end of the game.

Crazy I was first to find El Dorado. Rushed Warrior and Worker. My idea was to go to 4 Warrior, conquer a CS, upgrade them to Swordsmen and puppetize some cities.

Actually I took the maritine Cape Town in the south west as the spot looked pretty nice with the lake (turn 24). But city almost never grew to more than 2.

I have lost 3 wonders only by 1 or 2 turns (including great library).
Build a second city for the iron (south east; build it on top of iron to speed rush up).
I had 4 Swordsmen by turn 75 and went to china and later to russia. France wanted me to go to war with him against russia.

Lost also a Great General due to misclick... By turn 108 I had 6 puppets.

Then the crazy thing started: In turn 113 France, Germany, Persia and England declared war on me! With a few interruptions we all were in war until the end of the game.
I was able to conqer France, but that was it.

The last turns I changed to Strategic View and just clicked "Next turn".

Policies: Got Tradition, Aristocraty and Constitution. Saved until Christo Redentor, but then had to wait about 20 turns for the last policies plus 11 turns for Utopia.
 

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Thanks for another fun game. :)

Turn 0 founded in place and started on a Jaguar

I wanted to puppet as much as possible and the first civ I found China first so they were first to fall on turn 157. I forgot to write it down but I think I did it with upgraded swordsmen. The Jaguar’s healing when killing helped a lot.

Late Medieval I had just taken one of Russia’s cities and made a few mistakes so I sued for peace and a few turns later everyone but Persia and Russia declare war on me.

I was worried but it ended up ok. Only France was close enough to pose a threat but not enough to take any cities.

I get France to make peace and a few turns later Russia declares war, saving me the trouble.

Turn 241 Russia eliminated.

Now at riflemen with everyone just at gunpowder so I attack France while they are fighting with Germany. Upgrade to infantry before I can finish to make it even more lopsided and go after and eliminate Japan after France.

More puppets are better, and I am running positive happiness, so I attack England and Germany. England never built a second city so weird. I make my first modern armor while Germany is still at infantry. I only get to attack one city with it before I make peace.

I leave Persia alone with their two cities so I can get a cultural win, and leave Germany with one. Give them both gold and make useless research agreements since I finish the game before I can cash in on them.

Cultural Win 1937 Turn 357 Score 6329 HOF 6304

I probably just need to look in some posts, but why is the final score different than the HOF score?
 

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Does the Aztec UA not scale? It didn't appear to. Very useful to pick up SPs in the early game by killing barbs and whacking on a weak city state, but later in the game it seemed killing units yielded far less culture than did culture buildings and Artists.
Sacrificial value scales with the quality of the victim I think, though I don't know whether quality is measured as cost, strength, or some other factor. At the end of this game I was getting 10-15 culture per kill, fighting modern units. It is a comparitively minor source of culture, true, but will still have been enough to save me a couple of turns in the final date. And I was having a pretty awful time on the battlefield.

(Artie can't get the Blitz promotion, am I correct?)
No, they can get it. Seige units' "interesting promotion" after 2 open/rough buffs is indirect fire, and after three open/rough buffs, they have access to range+1 and blitz.
 
Snatching Utopian Victory from the Jaws of Nuclear Armageddon

Aztec history in territorial expansion. And contraction
I founded Tenoch 2E of the start, built a couple more jags to go explore, and earn cash, culture and promotions. They notably failed to find the South American wonder on my doorstep, meh. I delayed the production of my only settler until after Ironwork, so I would know where to go to get decent access to iron; Teotihuacan was founded on top of the 6-iron SW of Tenoch.

China was as slow to expand as I, and the victim of my first campaign, lasting all the way from 400bc to 580ad. This earned me only two cities, which I puppeted. As ever, my military performance was woeful, and my dreams of a solid force of heavily-promoted jaguar-upgrades ended with plenty of two-hit kills by Chinese cities and their defending units. I still can't figure out how to entice the AI units away from the safety of their territory so I can fight them on my terms...

So my native cities spent a lot of time replacing lost units, and after the Chinese campaign the army was still pretty green. Accordingly, their attack on Russia in 740ad wasn't a great success either. I eventually took two southeast Russian cities, and found myself confronted with an army far better than mine in size and tech; fighting rifles and artillery with longswords and trebuchets is a losing game. Cath wouldn't give me peace until after she had retaken one of the towns (1370ad). I regrouped and tried again in a join venture with the French in 1545ad; France was gobbling up civs and city-states at a frightening rate, and annexed some northern Russian cities without much trouble. Despite my army still being archaic, I managed to grab two more southern cities before we all fell to peace again in 1670ad. My third and final Russian war was to be riding the tailcoats of a Japanese attack, but Cath decided to dow me first; suited me fine. Japan took one or two cities in the west, while I grabbed the remaining three, including Moscow itself. Cath was finally eliminated in 1892ad.

This left me with the problem of a significant land border with France. Luckily Bony had a solution to this problem: my annihilation! He went from friendly to hostile almost the moment our border through Russia was decided, and his legionaires and artillery started lining up. I nervously readied my weary troops for the inevitable dow. It came in 1911ad, and it wasn't pretty. Tanks were rolling, jets were strafing, and his artillery were rapidly upgrading into a swarm of rocket trucks that flattened any units I might leave stranded outside cities. It quickly became clear that the Russian front line was a liability, not least because those cities were all very close together, so I sold Moscow and Rostov to neutral Japan, to act as a buffer zone, and hoped France would cool off.

No such luck; France simply dowed Japan and rolled right through the area anyway. I still had about 20 turns of culture accumulation to go when Bony offered peace for all my assets. I couldn't do it, and was wondering whether I could last long enough to even start Utopia, when Enola Gay lazily drifted across the Novgorod skies. Little Boy went down, and I almost quit the game. But I figured why not play it out? After all, that city was pretty unimportant. The Aztec people agreed, and immediately went into a golden age :lol:. Bony had other ideas, and a couple of turns later, Fat Man hit Tenochtitlan. Okay, that seemed bad at first, but after recovering from the shock I realised Teotihuacan wasn't too shabby either, and the French had actually stopped mounting a credible push through my Russian province, perhaps amusing themselves with their Japanese campaign. So I hung in there, taking a third nuclear strike to my uranium town in good humour. Bony offered peace on fairly reasonable terms (>200gpt and resources, but no cities) in 1927ad. I happily accepted, finished up my policies in 1929ad, and before he really had time to think about restarting the war, Teo put together Utopia for a 1939ad win.

Aztec history in techs
My first goal was Writing (3200bc) for library, then Wheel (2640bc) for gardens - an incomparably good building for its cost/era, except possibly for the National College. Calendar (2160bc) was next, to get the silk and wine hooked, but I was beaten to Stonehenge. At least I could put the fail gold to good use, as I was spending my cash on territorial expansion. I went classical with Philosophy (1520bc) and manage to snag the Oracle. Ironwork (1040bc) showed where to put Teo, and thereafter I focused on the lower branch of the tech tree as far as Steel (275bc), Physics (50ad) and Machinery (475ad), hoping to get a decent army rolling.

I hit the Renaissance with Acoustics (1040ad), and used a g.eng to rush Sistine Chapel in Teo (so both cities would get double culture), and then finally filled in the naval branch from Sailing (1050ad) to Navigation (1220ad). I built Oxford uni to get Archaeology (1390ad), while filling in other missed techs, and went industrial with Steam (1665ad). A g.sci got me Telegraph (1760ad) and Tenoch built Redentor. I deviated a little before getting the last important tech, Radio (1838ad), as by now my main focus was on improving my military enough that I could go toe-to-toe with the AI, who were all looking pretty dangerous. Rifling (1854ad) and Dynamite (1874ad) brought my units up to the level of my arch-enemy Russia, but France was still an era ahead. In the end I got as far as Electronics (1808ad) for mech inf, Combustion (1896ad) for tanks, and Fission (1905ad with a g.sci) and Ecology (1933ad) for their power plants.

Aztec history in social policy
I started with Tradition (3960bc); now an incredible growth boost for the capital, then took Aristocracy (2960bc) for wonder building. I was classical by the time the third policy was out, and went Piety (1160bc), and stuck with this tree all the way to Free Religion (1180ad), taking Freedom and Constitution (double culture for wonder cities) as my bonus policies. Free Speech (1280ad) was next obviously, for reduced policy cost. As I never got a really solid income going, Patronage was looking useful as a cost-saving measure, and I follwed this tree up to Educated Elite (1730ad) for free g.people. After this, policy choices were less important, but I still picked them as I earned them, except for delaying a couple of turns on the policy that came just before Redentor. For my fifth branch, I chose Order, not least because it's a branch I've never completed before. Communism (1874ad) would be a help with Utopia, of course. I hit a level of getting the last dozen or so policies at about 8 turns each, finishing the mopping-up with the thirtieth policy in 1928ad.

Utopia was built in ten turns in a constant golden age, starting with the end of my fifth(!) smile-induced GA. I had more than enough great people available to keep the GA going, despite losing at least one in the nuclear attack on Tenoch.
 

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cultural win in 1937 AD - turn 357.
settled 3 cities (managed to grab el dorado before tyre), then went puppeting china, russia and parts of france. all in all it was going as planned - to finish earlier i think i should have started warring in the BCs, but i realized this too late...really strange was england and persia who both did a rather unmotivated OCC during the whole game :crazyeye:
thanks for the game, it was a lot of fun :)
 

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This was an enjoyable outing bar the long endgame to claim final policies and Utopia. I decided NOT to store policies or promotions from the start. I settled at the start location and took the National College Capital start route, then quickly added 2 more cities (for iron and El Dorado). After writing I beelined to Longswords which, backed by 2 cats and 3 horseman, took out China then Russia (generating 7 puppets). By 500AD, I was already clear of the field and had switched to culture-based economy. I generated several GE, GG and GM for Golden Ages and 5 GA (all used as Landmarks in capital). Culture was kept turning over by successive conquests of France, Japan, Germany (partial) and Persia, leaving England as my grudging ally. I was allied with all cultural city-states from mid-game and took the Tradition, Honor, Piety, Patronage and Freedom tracks. I built no early Wonders, but took Sistine Chapel and Christo Redentor. I gradually accumulated most other Wonders by conquest. I was running at 1200 Science and 660 culture at endgame and built my first GDR, but never got a chance to use it! I mismanaged the late-game a bit, going for Globalization for SOH then, after realizing I didn’t have a coastal city to build it, annexing a French port. Even using a GE, I lost a couple of turns because of the increased policy costs. I also wasted a couple of GM on money when Golden Ages would have shaved a couple of turns of the Utopia build time.
The game changes didn’t really affect me much:- cities still fell (although to melee rather than mounted units) and money still ruled. The AI was improved, showing less suicidal military tactics.
 

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No Eldorado gold.
2 cities + 1 puppet
Boring. I mean Civ V is boring.
Not sure I will play again before the next big patch.
 

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Hello guys.

This is my first time playing Game of The Month, so I hope I did everything by the rules.

After reading some tips on the forum I decided 2 join this challenge, since this was my first game playing on Emperor difficulty level.

About the game...

First city was founded on the spot that settlers spawned, found El Dorado, got 500 gold which I used 2 buy the library & built NC, then founded 3 more cities, 1 next 2 El Dorado for cultural bonus, 1 NW of the capital so that I could grab Marble and 1 South of the capital 2 get 6 iron before China. I used the capital for GE farm, rest of them were building units, happiness & gold buildings. My first war was with China, puppet all 3 cities, then I took 3 cities from Russia, she wanted peace, didn't accept since she didn't offer anything, took another 2 cities, she offered peace, all her resources, money & all her cities except Moscow. Since I had about 70 happiness I accepted & puppet all the cities. Then next turn Napoleon declared war. Had a bit longer war with him, since I lost some units 2 Russia, but eventually i managed 2 capture all his cities, puppet all of them but one that I annexed, so that I could build Sydney Opera. Been Friends With other countries most of the time, England denounced me & was insulting me a lot, but didn't do much since got her ass kicked by Germany & Japan. Got denounced by all other countries about 7 turns before I finished Utopia project. Also Germany was very close 2 completing the space , but I had a few atomic bombs ready just in case. Fortunately I didn't have 2 use them :)

Also experienced a game crash, so I had 2 reply 4 turns.
 

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Note:
1) I used steamcloud for most of my saves because I was switching between two comps whenever I was playing.
2) The game crashed in 1916AD and I had to use an auto save from 1910AD.
3) I loaded the game 3 times(twice on one comp and once on the other) on the turn before my victory to review my score break down at victory or have the game entered into the hall of fame on each computer.

Game summary:
Over all I had a lot of fun playing the game. Started out with an early war when Russia asked me to help them battle China and of course after seeing all the silver that China had, I couldn't say no. After taking China out, Russia instantly hated me. I guess they really wanted all that silver to themselves.

At that point in the game, I realized that I had to keep France from running away with the game, because they had a pretty good lead in score as well as economy. So my strategy was to become the merchant king and prevent as many research agreements between France and the other countries as I could.

That strategy worked out pretty well and I had taken the lead in score and economy by the beginning of the late game. Then France went nuke crazy and went about blasting Japan and Russia to hell and back. After the nuke spree, he quickly took them both out and I spent the last 20ish turns crossing my fingers that he wouldn't go nuke happy on me before I finally won. Luckily he seemed to remember how close of allies we had been all game long, from me trying to keep him at 0 gold by selling him stuff ;P, and he let me with the game.
 

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Really enjoyable game. It was nice having the auto-healing ability and free culture when you kill an enemy. I don't think the free culture contributed much overall though.

I played this game pretty well and I got all the main cultural wonders (Henge, Oracle, Sistine and Cristo). I made one error though that I feel was a little unfair. I puppetted a chinese city that wasn't making any culture so I wanted to get rid of it. I forgot that when you raze a puppet, you irreversibly increase all future policy costs so I would have been much better off keeping the city as a puppet and not razing it. This I think is a problem with the new system that policy costs cannot go down. It must have cost me quite a few turns overall. :mad:

Looking forward to the next game.
 

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As I have not played civv for a month or so, I was surprised by new features, especially Eldorado ;) I like culture games the most and this time I tried to puppetize the world instead of sitting in the cocoon. The result is victory at 1929.
 

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Was a dozen turns from victory in the 1900s and the game crashes every time on a specific turn for some reason...I'm annoyed enough that I'm throwing in the towel.
 
I haven't played much Civ since a certain expansion for a certain MMO came out, but I wanted to finish this GotM since cultural victories are my favorite. I started out with a plan to go for Stonehenge, GL, and Oracle, then tech some offense and try and puppet my nearest neighbors. I was hoping to get the war machine up and running by turn 80-90, either with swordsmen or Horsemen.

Spoiler :
I settled NW so I would be next to the Oasis and the Desert, as I knew I would want Solar Plant at the endgame. Since the Settler went NW, I sent the Jaguar SE, found a hut with +1 pop, yay! Moved him a bit more SE, and found... El Dorado.

At this point, my plan shifted. I bought 3 more Jaguar Warriors (got an 80 gold hut as well) along with my first build, a scout. The Scout I sent SW, and he found a hut with Archer Upgrade, and then China almost directly south of me. With the 4 Jaguars and an Archer, I managed to take out Wu Zetian by turn 20. I didn't think I'd be able to take out any other civs so early; by the time I found them and got the slow Jags over there, the defenses would be up, so I sent the Jags and former scout out exploring the world.

The Lakes map feels smaller; perhaps it is. I discovered the cluster of City-States to the east, and Russia to the west. I ran into all the other civs by turn 50, and decided my best plan would be to take out France and Russia, and stick with them. That would make a nice little box of territory.

Initial Build was Scout, Monument, Worker, Stonehenge, GL, Oracle. Managed to get all three thanks to Tradition and Aristocracy. Research was Pottery, Calender, (Writing from Hut), Philo, AH, Trapping, BW, IW, CS from Great Library, then I just filled out stuff.

Around turn 50, the CS quests started popping up. I deliberately left barb camps alone while exploring, hoping for them to be the subject of the CS Quests, which many were. About this time, I got Aesthetics from the Patronage line, so if I finished a quest, I was allied.

Social Policies were: Tradition, Aristocracy, then I filled out the Patronage line. I stopped here, then when I finally got Acoustics, I grabbed Freedom and Constitution, and stopped. I didn't take any more policies till I had Cristo.

Around turn 75 or so, I was finally in position to start my conquest. I upgraded all my Jags to Swordsmen and marched them at Napoleon. He was nice enough to DoW Russia about 2 turns before I got to him, so I watched his army flow to the south then swooped in and took his three cities. He was kind enough to have built me the Hanging Gardens, which was nice in that it dbled the culture in Paris.

By the time I finished with France, Russia had cranked out six cities. I had just hit Chivalry, so I bought a Horseman and upgraded it, and upgraded a horse that one of the military CSs had given me and marched on Catherine. That took quite a while; I don't think her last city fell until turn 135 or so. After that, I just hunkered down and shot out the culture.

Fought a short war with Japan when he tried to take Kuala Lumpur, but other than that, the last half of the game was uneventful. I burned 4 GS + Oxford to blast through to Telegraph, then GEd Cristo (I could have done it sooner had i planned better).


And that's that! Overall, I like the changes to the game, but saving promotions is still a bit overpowered. Saving Policies is fine, it's a fine line between savings later and usefulness earlier.

Looking forward to the next GotM!
 

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