TSG88 After Actions

T193. 3 cities Tradition/Rationalism/Order. 6 caravans for fooding cities + terrace farm = 3 cities with size over 30.

glory7 said:

I played this game pretty bad.

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Not as me : I built Musician's guild thinking it was Writer's one. I realized my mistake when a GM born : I could not see how many culture he generated by bulbing.

Also forgot the number of civs and wonder a couple of turns why WC didn't trigger («what's the problem, it's standard size and I met all other 7 civs ?»).

Forgot building Oxford to reach radio, so I lost a SP in ratio instead worker's faculties.

I ended the game in Future tech 2 or 3. Spending my faith for GE. Forgot 2 GS sleeping in Machu and Cusco.
It's the first game, I regret to had built Hubble.

And last but not least, took Spaceships pioneers over Iron Curtain first.

My main mistake was religion. With this map and Incas, not need of religious community or sword into plowshares as I finish Tradition (3 cities with each beyond 30 pops). Pagodas and religious center could have be better.

In the initial phase of the game like everyone I had trouble with happiness and barbarians, but thanks to early religion (HS +tithe + Borobudur) I had no problem with gold.
From faith I bought GEs not GSs because the science was easier than normal thanks to advanced start.
I am quite glad that I finally managed to beat a few turns of glory7, though, as he said it was not his best game.

Game date: 1100AD
Turns played: 170
Base score: 1488
Final score: 4376
Time played: 4:44:00

Just went traditional tradition with caravans start.

Didn't get enough culture CSs so ended up taking a lot longer to tech up, only went 2 into Rationalism before going with Order policies. Just wasn't lucky with culture CSs, requesting wonders I didn't want to build or great admirals. Hah.

The Ai was just worthless for most of the game except what appears to be some diplomacy bug in the screenshot.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=378140&stc=1&d=1404074764
(Note: I wasn't able to get any of that GPT so I presume it was just a graphical error.)


I eventually had 4 lux trades going with the Ai, although had to dance or buy some CSs during times when barbs destroyed their improvements. Almost tried to setup some RAs but it was just too costly by the time I had a good GPT to even think about it. Most times rush buying a science building just seemed a better idea.
Also spent a lot of money on tiles, the default choices were just bad considering the terraced farms, which the city expansion *obviously* does not consider. lol
It thinks an improved 2/2 river tile 3 spaces out is better than the hill 2 spaces away that will end up like 5/2 improved. Just awful.
Actually the city setting should play a part there its always picking boring grasslands over hills even when production is chosen. Or the city already has a dozen grasslands, hills are still under prioritized.

I seldom finish and submit, but thanks staff for a fun game. I've been playing Sv recently so gave this a try. I hardly ever play this far into a game with the AI, except maybe on deity.


Oh and don't get me started on the spying. I wish there was a setting "Allow Ai to steal without prompting me about it AT ALL!!!". And, really, after forgiving the AI for stealing the 10th time or so, that dark green diplo bonus should become bright green.

SV T271 1802AD
Terrace farms are so OP on such a map!
4 city tradition, rationalism, order, food caravans
AI was so dumb and weak it felt lonely in this world
Managed to steal only a couple workers, did not build enough workers during early game
Did not build the Watt early enough for optimum growth
Cash was tight, had to hard build some science buildings
Had more than enough leftover faith for a great person... bad timing of end game GS bulbing

Game status: Science Victory
Turns played: 192
Base score: 1381
Final score: 3634
Time played: 2:35:00

I played a 3 city tradition game and added a 4th city to capture the aluminium. With the medieval era start, I tried to focus on growth by building granarys and internal trade routes. Unfortunately, this meant that I had very limited money throughout the game and could barely afford to buy anything, including totally wasting my final policy choice in freedom (buying space ship parts). The cultural border expansion method the AI uses does not take into account the huge power of terrace farms so I kept having to buy those tiles, which kept me even poorer. Shockingly I don't think I built a single military unit in the entire game and only used the ones that were gifted.



The highlands map synergised very well with the Inca because of the large number of mountains. I put my capital in the desert to the east and built petra resulting in a 63 as well as numerous 8 yield squares and another result of the mountains was that every city I built had an observatory.

However, as a result of the mountain ranges I didn't meet the final 2 civs Shoshone and Mayans until after I had discovered satellites.

Because of the terrace farms I was able to build very large cities that had good production and run a lot of specialists.

I made some mistakes throughout this game including, but not limited to keeping my specialists working when I was building parts, accidentally getting an additional unneeded great scientist from faith, not working the correct tiles immediately following border expansions (possibly for a few turns) and never initiating a single deal with the AI. I was far too lazy and so annoyed with the amount of times they kept apologising for having their spies killed trying to steal my techs.

It was quite entertaining having barbarian warriors invade my territory only to be crushed by infantry.

T125 Medieval start
T265 Spaceship launch
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Played 140 turns


What is there to say?

The cities kept growing, the Workers kept improving the land, and the troops (gifted, except for the initial few, and not a single unit got upgraded) kept killing barbarians in the field...

OK then, some of the highlights.

T125-T200
7 Cities, till Astronomy / Rationalism, see the opening thread.

T208
Borobudur is finished and we spread Taoism to most of our cities and the two cultural City States, expecting Huamanga - small and +36 Taoism pressure (later +54) to get it on its own. It never did until the very end. Weird, but it made little difference as we still ended up with well over 2500 faith for two Great Scientists.

T213
Faraway Corihuayrachina completes Petra and will now quickly catch up.

T214
Spent the first Great Writer to adopt Representation. Took a new one as reward for finishing the Liberty Tree. Our Golden Age begins, which will easily last for the remainder of the game. Tiwanaku is our guilds center (writers and artists), with a Garden and the National Epic.

T217
Fertilizer is discovered, increasing the food yield of a great many terraces and animals. We enter the Industrial Era. Remember, it took 75 turns to get from Medieval to Renaissance!

T219
Cusco finally opens the doors to a National College. The Petra city and the youngest settlement Vilcas (at the Salt) were the last to build their Library. So many things to do...

T222
The first World Congress is held in Cusco. We propose Science Funding, just in case. The game won't be long enough for any proposal to make a difference.

T224
The game is accellerating now. We have Scientific Theory, thanks to spending the first Great Scientist two turns before.

T228
Cusco produces another Great Scientist who is immediately sacrificed to give us Radio.

T229
There is Coal!! 5 at Machu, and another 5 at Huamanga.
So we won't hesitate and choose Order as our ideology. The two free policies are Hero of the People (faster great ones) and Young Pioneers (happiness, which always seems to arrived just in time).

T233
The Coal at Machu is now improved and neatly on the same turn Tiwanaku produces our third Great Writer, providing enough culture to get Workers' Faculties. Five cities begin a Factory. Also in the news, Cusco finishes the Tower of Pisa and again we pick a new Great Writer. This one is worth at least two Great Scientists AND a free tech as he will finish the Rationalism tree, allowing us to buy scientists with all our accumulated desert faith.

T235
Ollantaytambo has improved its Aluminum and the capital plops down a Hydro Plant in one turn, when it grows to size 30. There will be two more, in Tiwanaku and Ollantaytambo itself. Note that this leaves us with only 2 Aluminum to start building spaceships parts.

T238
A new Great Scientist from Tiwanaku teaches us the benefits of Plastics. Cusco was ready and completes the first Research Lab only two turns later. Six more will follow.

T240
A team of 6 carefully selected Workers begin a magnificent undertaking: the Inca Railroad.

T247
The completion of the Oxford University gives a free tech: Rocketry, with enough overflow to complete the Apollo Program in 3 turns.

T250
The Apollo Program is complete. With Great Scientists coming in from everywhere (Cusco, Hubble, Porcelain Tower, faith) the technologies now come at a rate of almost two per turn.
The end is easy to calculate and can't be affected: Cusco needs 6 turns for Hubble and then 9 turns for two parts. We have enough cash to buy one Recycling Center and Ollantaytambo (now with 5x Sheep) sells its Hydro Plant to free up another Aluminum, and still builds a part as it remains the best production city next to the capital.

T253
We finally find Mt. Kailash when Satellites (free tech from the Rationalism tree, completed with the fourth Great Writer) reveals the entire map. Some of the AI (Greece, France) almost seem to have gone backwards since the start of the game...

T265
The end. We fly to Gliese 581.

@Ribannah

Nicely done

Your game was what I was trying to do -- only much, much better.

Question: How the heck do you survive the happiness crunch pre-Ideologies with:
no Monarchy, minimal happiness from religion, no Notre Dame, and no Mercantile Allies?

Maybe you pick up Monarchy after Secularism? Or Maybe the CS allies + excellent exploration are just enough.

Edit: Getting those extra writers was a very good call too. Impressive. I could have spent my faith by copying you.

No, that's not enough. You need to combine a number of strategies while not going overboard on anything.

Some of the things to do:

#1 Settle at different luxes.
#2 Settle at horses, so you can build a Circus.
#3 Explore to find the Wonders of the World (as well as the rival tribes and City States).
#4 Help City States against Barbarians.
#5 Prioritize some happiness policies. In my game: Aristocracy (T173) and Meritocracy (T189).
#6 Use religion for additional happiness. In my game: Mosques. Pagodas are twice as good but they were taken.

Ribannah said:

#1 Settle at different luxes.
#2 Settle at horses, so you can build a Circus.
#3 Explore to find the Wonders of the World (as well as the rival tribes and City States).
#4 Help City States against Barbarians.
#5 Prioritize some happiness policies. In my game: Aristocracy (T173) and Meritocracy (T189).
#6 Use religion for additional happiness. In my game: Mosques. Pagodas are twice as good but they were taken.

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I missed the Aristocracy pick. Combined with the fact that you reached Ideologies so early, that helps explain it.

Why Mosques/Pagodas over Religious Centers (+2 Happy per temple?). Faith generator instead of a Faith sink.

Then (a) you have to take the time to build Temples, and pay for their upkeep, (b) you miss out on culture (big difference on this map to have 5cpt instead of 3cpt), and (c) your faith gets dumped into Great Prophets, while this is a Science game. Once the Industrial Era starts and you can actually save your faith, all these buildings of worship are generating just as much faith as your Temples.

I don't think I've ever taken something other than pagodas if it was available that's 4 extra specialist if you are playing with freedom. And added culture and faith with no upkeep. Pure win...

Finished in 157 turns. Got so terribly bored half way through and proceeded to just spam turns to end it and play something else, so I don't want to do a write up. The AI is just broken on these settings and I didn't really enjoy fighting barbarians for the whole game. At least it took me only 2 hours.

My opener was weak I think, not enough cities although there was room and my religion was terrible. Should have pushed faith a lot more in the beginning. Better faith would have allowed me to buy an engineer and finish 5-6 turns earlier.

After winning in 283 turns (408) it looks like I'm less than halfway to being competitive, though it all felt efficient with no unpleasant surprises.
With the World Congress I knew the Inca could get Sciences Funding, being an era ahead, but on the same turn the Inca holy city was proposed for the world religion. I realized Pachacuti had to vote against it, otherwise 5 other civs would get two extra delegates each.
Later I proposed the World Fair to guard against a Cultural victory and found International Games for tourism on the same ballot. They both passed, and were built entirely by other civs ten turns before the Inca spaceship.

looks like there is a problem with the game dates reported by the submission system for this game (maybe all advanced start games). my game was at 1850AD, but the submission system is reporting it as 1100AD. maybe it's taking the turns played and calculating from the normal start date instead of the advanced start date?

Arnold_T said:

looks like there is a problem with the game dates reported by the submission system for this game (maybe all advanced start games). my game was at 1850AD, but the submission system is reporting it as 1100AD. maybe it's taking the turns played and calculating from the normal start date instead of the advanced start date?

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Yes it does that.

Doesn't has an impact on results though.

[yeah, I know I'm more than a year late] Science victory in 239 turns.

3-city Tradition+Rationalism+Freedom(6), with 3 filler policies in Commerce. I should have opened Honor (like I usually do) just for the barb notifications. They were still a nuisance even at the very end because there were so many shadows where they could pop up.

AFAIK, nobody ever declared war on anybody the whole game, not even Shaka or Ashurbanipal or Alex.

I could've shaved at least 10 turns off of that but I didn't time things right. Hard built Hubble and Apollo at the same time rather than use a GE for Hubble, had too many GS's saved up and overshot the tech tree (one of them should've been another academy). Had to wait 3 turns for the last 2 spaceship parts to finish building when I had enough gold to just buy them, etc.

I ended over 30 techs ahead. It got kind of boring because it was like the AI's weren't even trying.

The UN met for one session, just a couple of turns before I won. I voted for both the Worlds Fair and the International Space Station resolutions, and then ignored them.

I remember this map -> it was tricky to explore fully before Satellites. How did that go for you?

Olodune said:

I remember this map -> it was tricky to explore fully before Satellites. How did that go for you?

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I didn't. I had enough AI's to trade with, finding the last ones would just trigger the World Congress (annoying) and would be two more civs to steal tech from me. Eventually Assyria found me, and founded the WC or UN, whichever it was. He proposed the Worlds Fair and I proposed the Space Station, and they both passed Then I launched a turn or two later.