TSG89 After Actions

@Acken
Finishing Apollo at 215 for a 220 win. Yeah, I like this. Even with Order I usually end up production constrained, and this approach avoids that problem. Going to try it next time I go SV.

Edit: This will also work well with non-Tradition openers since you can't faith buy Engineers anyways.

Better late than never I suppose... Turn 356 (1936)



How did you use spying to your advantage?

Some initial thefts for bottom tree techs then levelled them up catching spies then rigged elections.

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

Thought I was safe behind the mountains but then I met Dido.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Knew I'd need an early edge so went all out for the GL. Should have played it safe perhaps?

What did you learn from your defeat, should you be defeated?

Wasn't defeated but nearly quite. Even when things go horribly wrong at the beginning, it's possible to play through.

Synopsis

Essentially, I gambled and (nearly) lost. I thought I'd sacrifice a scout for a chopper and try for the Great Library but missed by about 3 turns.

Flipped over to Plan B and got ToA to get growth going a bit - a minor success there at least. Hanging Gardens well and truly gone so the next play was for Oracle which I again missed by about 3 turns.

Scouting with a leaky boat and one scout was pretty poor but showed that my mountain range wasn't going to be good defence with Dido around.

Settled three expos eventually. Busan near the marble next to a mountain river. Jeonju in the jungle by the sugar for another mountain river. Didn't bank on Ashurbanipal and Gandhi planting cities to cut it off so no road or rail link to that one. Daegu was a gamble on the coast near Uluru to get silk and two gems and a bit of cheap faith. First settler died with its bodyguard so burned gold for another one and got in just shy of turn 200... Not the 100 turn four city start I had in mind.

Eventually picked up as science focus kicked in. Got first ideology and took a gamble on Freedom. Gandhi was clear culture runaway and building tourism. I had no tourism and was last in culture so hoped he'd pick freedom too. This gamble paid off. While I started getting pressure from Dido (Autocracy) that quickly changed when Gandhi took Freedom. Gandhi = BFF.

Ashurbanipal bit off more than he could chew when he went after a piece of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans got a taste for blood after leaving Assyria at one city. The one city they had left was the one cutting off my jungle science moneymaker...

Ottomans went on the rampage warring in all directions but mine. Amazing what they'll do - and for how little - when they've got the biggest army.

Everyone was at it - except me and my buffer chump (Ashurbanipal). For one salt Dido kept going at my BFF (India) until she vanished under the mighty Ottoman empire's attack from behind.

At around the same time Arabia (with some encouragement) reduced the Mayans to a rock off the coast.

Ironically the entire bloodbath - including the war against India - was funded by India's lust for various congress votes and world leader votes.

Not a quick game by any stretch but one I was eventually happy to finish with a win - I've lost off better starts.

Olodune said:

@Acken
Finishing Apollo at 215 for a 220 win. Yeah, I like this. Even with Order I usually end up production constrained, and this approach avoids that problem. Going to try it next time I go SV.

Edit: This will also work well with non-Tradition openers since you can't faith buy Engineers anyways.

Click to expand...

Yes I only faith bought a GE because I wanted to cut some turns out of the capital when building Statue and BigBen but honestly Statue wasn't necessary I had one extra Policy anyway and I dont need the extra hammers late game since I build almost nothing besides hubble and appolo after plastics. If I had more faith, like with more cities, I would have gotten a 3rd GS instead and finished 3-4 turns earlier I'd say.

I'm pretty sure a wider version of the strategy is very good, which I may give a try (with a Trad/Lib mix, I dislike full Liberty). I'm just a little bit worried about the happiness, it's not easy to manage the happiness with cargo growth and no early CS. After T130 or so it's alright when you get your collosseum, faith buildings etc but I know it was sometimes difficult here on this map during the 100-130 period.

Acken said:

But after a test, I felt a good freedom strategy would be instead to aim for the food techs and additional routes first. So I went railroad and Penicilin first and grabbed Rocketery very late, T205 or so. I ended finishing appolo around T215 and Hubble also around T215.

Click to expand...

It's also my conclusion after many science games on low level. Mainly because, at first I had no coal, so I tried Liberty.
I wondered if it will be a good strat on Immortal or Deity. I forgot on this gauntlet that ideologies pressure are low on immortal. So, order.
But, now, if I can, it's railroad -> Biology -> Penicillin -> Satellites (if I'm easy a detour through Atomic theory for academies).
I realize, the time you win with order before or just after Sats is lost for 1 GS or some production problem. With a fine tuned Liberty, everything is just in time.

Since they should have been more land, I tried the liberty way since I'm an avid liberty player

Didn't even tried for GL, was gone t35 or something. Expanded right in the face of Gandhi but took me more time that I though to get Delhi

I tried the piety approach to keep with unhappiness. Managed to found a religion: took the salt faith pantheon, then +1 smile for 2 cities converted, then, the first time I've ever tried, the +2 culture from temples.
And boy, this was my biggest surprise, Piety ROCKS, at least with liberty. And even in Immortal or Deity (tried this approach in 3 other games afterwards, with great success on the religion aspect at least.)

What I learnt from this approach?
1. You can have a strong religion even on higher difficulties, the key is not having any faith purchased building. You need faith to get missionaries rolling.
2. Piety is a very powerful second tree: you ONLY need 2 points to make it so: the opener and the +1 faith. And this let you the flexibility to take or not the +25% gold from temple if you really need it or not. Sadly, on immortal+ I don't really thing it's wise nor effective to finish the entire tree.
3. The +2 culture from temple is very good since you usually lack culture in the classical/medieval times.
I had no problems having my religion dominant to Assyria, India, CS and a few more civ cities.

As a result, I managed late game to get 6 GS from faith! the 1000, 1500 up to the 3500! Sadly, I'm really bad at SV in general, especially in the latter stages but I think this approach has its own merit and might be competitive here.

On retrospective, I took too much time to destroy India, since they settled where I wanted. I took this too personal lol.
Then, late game I don't really know what is the best way to bulb: straight to satellite then what: robotic next?

Cheers,

4N4

Game: Civ5 GOTM 89
Date submitted: 2014-07-14 09:13:59
Reference number: 31391
Your name: Zedseayou
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1806AD
Turns played: 273
Base score: 1300
Final score: 2407
Time played: 6:11:00
Submitted save: Sejong - GOTM 07-01.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Zedseayou_C508901.Civ5Save

Could have been better, but I have a better gauge on what science victories look like, now. I was surprised to take the tech lead so early, having started wonderless mostly. Followed Tradition's 3 cities start, never built any more. They were growing fast enough that I had happy issues for a while and later it didn't seem worth it - didn't want to forward settle Gandhi nor take the marginal land to the west. Education --> Pisa, PT --> Schools --> Labs. Food became scarce towards the end, esp without food ships. Planted 3 GS and a prophet before Schools (which went up slowly, since i was CS buying and wonderspamming). Eventually went Freedom on hitting Radio, and then it was fairly plain sailing.

Policies: Filled Tradition, opened Patronage, Left Rat1 and both right, 6 freedom, the CS science policy, and finished rat (might not be the right order). Probably should have burned by 4 great writers earlier, but I wasn't thinking.

Religion: Got a dominant one. Shrine + Kathmandu meet --> 2nd or 3rd pantheon, took the salt faith one. Kathmandu quests got me Religious Texts, Pagodas, faith from wonders and Tithe. Went straight for Theology after early techs, built Borobodur because I could see it was going to keep me solvent if I got it. 3 early missionaries to mostly small cities when Ashurbanipal, Suleiman and Dido were all religion-free? close to 100gpt near the end, and I didn't really do much spreading after that. Was still able to get one renaissance missionary, all 3 pagodas before renaissance, a settled prophet and about 6k faith for GS and GE in endgame.

Wonders: Colossus, Oracle, Borobodur, Forbidden Palace, Globe Theatre, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Porcelain Tower, Brandenburg Gate, Broadway, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Cristo Redentor, Hubble Space Telescope, CN Tower. Also wasted hammers on missing out on Notre Dame, Hagia Sophia, Taj Mahal, World's Fair and International Games.

Didn't realise how obtainable the cash for spaceship parts was. I ended up buying three of them, since my high growth cities were relatively hammer starved (not really, but 9 turns to build a part vs 5 to get the undiscounted cash to buy one). I also wasted many turns on mostly useless wonders, and also both world fair and international games (i thought i might not get enough culture to finish rat, but I didn't need to finish it anyway frankly). Only 3 cities meant I didn't win either project, and arts funding was passed first round so I had fewer GS than I would have wanted, but still found 5 to burn after labs + 2 bought + 2 hubble. Not wasting hammers on those buildings and instead getting gold/beakers would probably have helped me shave off 10-20 turns. Not sure how much my many RAs helped, but I normally managed 3-4 at once. Also should have deleted most of the units that the CS gave me, since it cost me ~100gpt maintenance by endgame which is equivalent of rushbuying labs or schools. Was never DOWed, no one even really disliked me, since Dido was early aggressor and eliminated and then there was just a central continent cluster.

Will do better next time.

I followed glory7 path (T39 GL, T114 astronomy - I didn't believe it was doable), then freedom. I expected a better finish than T248 (15-20 less); maybe something went wrong or, more likely, I'm not skilled enough to manage mid-late game properly. I completed apollo T204, but techtree seemed endless ...

Details, as usual, will follow in the next days

Game: Civ5 GOTM 89
Date submitted: 2014-07-20 13:44:19
Reference number: 31431
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1820AD
Turns played: 280
Base score: 1566
Final score: 2796
Time played: 8:03:00
Submitted save: TSG89_Science_Victory.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C508901.Civ5Save

I finally got around to finishing this one. I don't recall everything I did before taking a long break from it. I ran every specialist slot I could fill in my 6 cities as soon as they became available.

I went with Freedom instead of order mainly because I didn't have any coal for the factories yet. I ended up building a 6th city just to get the nearby coal hooked up after choosing an ideology.

On the next to the last turn the Ottomans annoyed me too much with their coups. So I got all the cash I could to take back the last CS they had allied via coup, bribed them with gpt and salt to DoW everyone. Then I got one of the other AI's to pay me to DoW the Ottomans. That put a stop to their couping. Then after launching the SS and creating my submission save, I queued up a bunch of X-Com units to go have fun with the war if I decide to continue playing from that point.

I know I could have don't better, but a sub 300 it still good enough in my books, especially for this difficulty level.

First 100 turns - opening action thread.
After that really nothing special - order, rush bought four labs, 200- finished apollo, 208 all tech for spaceship parts. 1GS +2GE from faith.

Here is a new attempt at this map, refining my freedom strategy.

Didn't even had time for my 2nd faith GS so I guess there was even a little room to cut a few turns.
6 cities, Tradition (6) Commerce (3) Rationalism (6) Freedom (6)
3 cities NC +2 at T80ish +1 at T150ish
Collossus Oracle Borobodur Pisa TajMahal BigBen StatueOfLiberty Porcelain Hubble
WC: World Fair, International Games (for people to keep liking me)
Religion: Mother earth, Tithe, Sip, Religious comunity, IP

T209 SV

Game: Civ5 GOTM 89
Date submitted: 2014-07-27 10:54:01
Reference number: 31466
Your name: Swissy
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1854AD
Turns played: 297
Base score: 1148
Final score: 1945
Time played: 3:20:00

I used spies to steal the upper and lower tracks of the tech tree, while I plowed through the middle to Satellites and Advanced Ballistics. Near the end, I used them to hold onto so CS, as Arabia was threatening a diplomatic win, he had around 35 votes with Dido starting to pick off allied CS of everyone but Arabia.

The map was great through half the game. But, the lack of close-by endgame strategic resources forced me to put a city out just to get coal and aluminum. Also, I never met all the CS, due to them all being scattered out at sea.

The difficulty really made happiness maintenance a tedious endeavor until near the end. I took Order more for the easy happiness, than the science boost.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 89
Date submitted: 2014-07-27 11:29:41
Reference number: 31468
Your name: vra379971
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1902AD
Turns played: 323
Base score: 1615
Final score: 2523

Fun game. 3 Cities Trad, had fun at the end taking Assyria's war declaration seriously and repaid his pillaging of 2 tiles and defeat of 4 troops with a full invasion that ended up with two citadels and mech infantry outside Assur.

I'm amazed how you folks just blast though the tech tree. I had Freedom, but not control of the World Congress, so in fact the Int. Games came at the last, after I'd bought my final part.

Basically, I burned my GS' too soon. Last 20 turns were...End Turn. Shoot Assyrians. Repeat.

Acken said:

Here is a new attempt at this map, refining my freedom strategy.

Click to expand...

Nice game Acken

However I'm still pretty sure order is better than freedom for sub 200T victory.
This map would be almost perfect for it if start was on south (Busan on my screenshot) -lack of mountain in capital really hurt.

IronfighterXXX said:

Nice game Acken

However I'm still pretty sure order is better than freedom for sub 200T victory.
This map would be almost perfect for it if start was on south (Busan on my screenshot) -lack of mountain in capital really hurt.

Click to expand...

I'm not so so sure about order superiority to be honest. Don't forget I missed a faith GS in my game, a better faith game would definitely have allowed me to push very close to T200. I'm tempted to reload my game in the T130-140 region and just buy one less missionary and make quick grand temple.

Acken said:

I'm not so so sure about order superiority to be honest. Don't forget I missed a faith GS in my game, a better faith game would definitely have allowed me to push very close to T200. I'm tempted to reload my game in the T130-140 region and just buy one less missionary and make quick grand temple.

Click to expand...

OK but for me ultimate goal is to get sub 200T deity victory in HOF rules

Yes I know but it's still interesting experimentation.

Keeping pangea plus though may be the solution to have a lot of free space on deity.

Nevermind pangea + isnt allowed on hof.

It's been a tough but fun game for me. I never won an immortal game before, so this one was quite above my usual level.
I decided to go for tradition to get early wonders and planned to focus later on rationalism. I have been lucky with exploration (if I remember, +2 pops, 1 tech, culture...), due to the high number of ruins in the surroundings. This allowed me to rush to the GL, but I've been beaten by just 1 turn at turn 33 (!!!). I considered abdicating after this dagger stab, but decided to carry on for a while.
I wanted to try an economy of specialists, that would make a good use of korean special ability. So I aimed for the HG (nice bonus for specialists), that were completed at turn 64.
Then I started to expand. Busan was founded on the shore south of indian territory near the wine. I consider this was a mistake, as it was not a very good spot actually, but I was worried about Gandhi's expansion. Next cities were fonded close to mountains to get observatories later : Jeojong at the "pasture magical southern spot", Daegu at the place with iron North West of Seoul, then Pyongyang near the marble.
I finished the Mausoleum (turn 87, a nice to have with GP popping), then the Oracle (turn 98, just because it was cheap).
I chose to completly ignore religion at the beginning, and I would regret it later, because I would miss a GS at the end.
I used spies to get a few techs and tried to protect myself at the beginning, then switched to CS voting when I took the lead in tech. I signed as many RA I could, as I was at peace with everyone. I built the Porcelain Tower (turn 177) to maximize them.
Kaesong was founded at turn 217 on the southern shore of the continent to secure the aluminum I would need later. And finally Suwon on the small island just south of Kaesong, that would reveal very useful later.
With many specialists in each, my cities made good use of the +2 science bonus. Appolo was finished at turn 283, then Hubble at turn 287, thanks to a GE. Everything was going fine. Until other civ started to choose ideology. And things started to go wrong.
First, I had chosen Freedom, hoping Gandhi would chose the same. Unfortunately, most civs chose autocracy, so I got a bad happiness bonus (-21, I think), throwing Korea into chaos. I had to face some internal revolts and sent a few troops to restore order. I bribed some mercantile CS and signed some luxuries deals that costed me much to restore a bit of happiness and avoided cities to revolt and Korea to collapse.
I had hardly stabilized the situation that Assyria and Ottomans both decided to declare war on me at the same time ! Fortunately, I was nearly ready, because I had noticed some suspicious Ottoman troop moves. And the many mountains were a nice help for turtle defence. A great naval battles happened near the island of Suwon where my submarines teared apart the obsolete Ottoman navy and units. I almost saw the sea becoming red. I managed to repell the ottoman aggression and to secure the strategic aluminum spot of Kaeson that was separated from the city by mountains and ottoman territory. Assyria was not a big deal, just a bit annoying with a few troops I had to chase from my land. Korean UU were almost useless here, as the war started with modern units.
I was sure to get to victory, but then I faced the third and most serious threat : my best ally Harun was 10 turns away from a diplomatic victory, with just enough votes ! And I could not finish my spaceship in less than 13 turns. This is where I really needed an extra GS that I could have bought with faith, but I had not enough. So I decided to change all my plans : maximize economy (built some more merchant ships), send more spies to CS, sell a few units. I even stop building starship and started to build Neuschwanstein to please one CS. 1 turn before the congress met, I used all my money to bribe the CS, then attempted 4-5 coups in the CS. And they all succeded !
Korea was saved. After this, although the war was still raging on, it was just a matter of a few turns to finish and launch the korean spaceship into space !
I am not as good as many other players here that ended with 200+ turns, but I had a good fun on this game !

T314 SV

3 city, tradition (6), commerce (2), rationalism (6), freedom (6), had 5 merchants and therefore less GS, rush bought all parts

I just started playing this one last night, after seeing it float to the top from Santa's post. I haven't finished yet, but I'm well past 100 turns (285, I think) -- and posting in this thread I don't have to worry about spoilers.

Mostly peaceful the first 250 turns, but a lot of passive-aggressive going on. I settled on the coast but not on a river, so Hanging Gardens was a high priority and that means Tradition. I got my first expo out very quickly and settled to the west next to a river and mountain (marble in the 3 ring) Played a mostly boring 2-city tradition game, taking the honor opener to deal with barbs cuz this map looked like it could spawn a lot of them. I built quite a few wonders; HG, Oracle, Pisa, Big Ben, PT, Brandenburg, Eiffel, SoL, Christo, and I don't remember what else. I tried to go for ones with some strategic purpose and ignore the rest. When I hit industrialization I had coal, so I settled a third city on the south coast and rush-bought a workshop and factory to take the first ideology. Next turn, India takes Order and my happiness drops (but not too bad with only 3 cities.)

I planned on taking Treaty Organization for my 6th Freedom tenet and use it to take-over the World Congress. They embargoed the city states as soon as I picked Freedom. Most of the AI's picked Order; Dido picked Autocracy. Dido is hosting the WC (I voted for her) and has the most votes. Gandhi proposed Order for the world ideology, and Dido and I had enough votes to block it but she didn't vote against it!

Gandhi declared war on Dido and has taken one city. I declared war on Gandhi and I've taken Vijayanagara and Delhi. As soon as I declared war, everybody denounced me (I did not have a declaration of friendship with India, I had let it run out, I think some of the denouncers backstabbed me but not sure) I plan on taking Mumbai next, unless my CS ally next to it that he's been hammering-on captures it. I may gift them a destroyer or a marine after I bomb the city to rubble. Then I'll liberate Dido's city and in doing so exterminate India.

It's nice to finally have some aluminum.

Not sure how I'm going to fight the World Congress; I haven't been able to propose anything since the first vote (World's Fair, which I won.)

I'm going to try to time the Rationalism finisher to get Satellites for free. I could have finished R with my last policy but there was nothing really good to grab so I took another point in Commerce instead. I'm going to need Protectionism. I'll post a followup when it's over.

Science victory on turn 327. It could have been a few turns earlier but I was waiting for the last booster to build (that I had enough gold to buy.)

- How did you use spying to your advantage?
I never stole any techs, and my spies were not very good at catching thieves. They were immensely helpful with staging CS coups to undo some of the World Congress shenanigans. I may reload the last turn and play until the next WC vote to see what happens when the world ideology gets repealed. The order civs should be in a panic w/o Gandhi around. It's about time for Dido and me to hunt them down.
I did use a diplomat for a while to exert extra ideological pressure on India and to watch what wonders Delhi was building (I faith-bought a GE to finish Brandenburg because he was building it too.) He was also using a diplomat on me.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
BIG hindrance because I could only find 1 or 2 CS's before Navigation, and they were all spoken-for by then.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Immortal is still a stretch for me. I knew Stonehenge and Great Library would be huge gambles at this level, so I didn't even try for those. I did get the early wonders that I focused on; ToA, HG, and Oracle.