TSG1 After Action Report

Domination: 700ad (turn 145)
Score: 3527 (1098 in-game)

I have no clue as to what to do with that replay file either...

Victory could have been sooner still had we known in time that Persia in their far corner had no military units at all to protect their world wonders. Off all the AI, Germany resisted the longest. Japan had a lot of units, but we cut through them in two turns.

Our army started out with 1 Ballista, 3 Legions (including the upgraded initial Warrior) and an Archer, and grew to 1 Great General, 1 Ballista, 4 Longswordsmen, 3 Knights (only upgraded at the very end), and a mix of Archers and Chariots. We lost just a single unit: a superfluous Scout that was used as bait. The traffic jams were horrific at times, and often some of our units had to plunge into the water to make any headway at all.

Staying happy was a problem towards the end, or we could have grown a bit more. Gold was plentiful, even with a long road from Rome all the way to Arretium, and got us the luxuries of the city states. An opportunity for a research pact never arose.

I am quite happy with my initial strategy of rapid expansion (including aggressive tile acquisitions) to a good number of cities and then building the Hanging Gardens. After that, I was a bit at a loss, the choice of techs and policies didn't seem to matter much. Perhaps we will learn more in a second test game!

My first GotM evar!

I put off playing the Romans for the first time till I could play this through and I really enjoyed their UUs, all fell beneath the might of my legions. Although later on my legionaries had guns. Anyway....

I thought it was quite funny when I kept bumping into lots of warmongers and I was a bit surprised not to see Napoleon instead of the Chinese lady. He's been the biggest and most consistent warmonger in the games I've played so far.

The bottlenecks were quite irritating, especially the places where you could only fit one unit through a mountain pass... When I got there, there was nobody on the second part of the continent which I thought was weird. After Bismark, the Persians, Chinese, Aztec and Japanese were all crammed onto the one (admittedly larger) subcontinent.

Toward the end I found it impossible to keep my happiness up but I just wanted to finish off the Chinese so put up with the negative modifier. I didn't find the penalty much of an issue since my well promoted riflemen-legionaries and ballista-artillery were taking on the Chinese UU crossbowmen. I especially liked the 'logistics' (I think) promotion for my artillery that meant it could fire twice in a turn

Less of this: more of this:

Some screenshots I took at the end behind the spoiler thingy. The fact I showed the qualities of Caesar Augustus having just played as Caesar Augustus made me chuckle

This was my first GOTM. I won a domination victory in 1370 AD.

My reflections:
-Legions are quite effective at taking over cities, as long as you're not outteched. Just conquer one civ and move them on to the next...
-City-states are a good way to increase your empire's happiness as an allied one will give you luxury resources it has access to.
-Chu-ko-nus are pretty cool. Beijing was defended by a single chu-ko-nu when I took it and that alone killed two of my legions. If there had been a couple more (and they kept firing instead of leaving the city to walk around ) I might have been beat.
-If the AI is going to expand so slowly I think civs should start closer together.
-What exactly is the AI doing while I'm building units/buildings/improvements and expanding? I think it must be building wonders because a lot of the cities I took over seemed to have no more than a couple units defending it and barely any improvements but two or three wonders.

This was also my first GOTM. I see that I still have lot to learn as other people finish faster and with a better score. I could have also finished faster but the strange map made difficult to find the neighbors quickly.

I really like the new combat system and the way cities grow. At the beginning it is good to have some more workers but they finish soon and then I do not know what to do with them.
What I do not like is the fact that the game appearance is to simple, but lets hope it will get more depth as we play more.

I would definitely play again a GOTM.

So my path was:
Build the capital on the same spot. Build a scout. Gone for Iron working
Changed my mind and gone for Sailing so I can fish around the capital
Meet Germans in 3520
I choose Honor as to go the path of army
By 3000 discover that I am on a small island with Bismark, which I found later that it was not the case
And what to see iron is not near the capital. Founded a new city near iron.
Bismark fall on 350 BC, lets find the others. Took forever to find the other guys, all over to the other side of the world. Had to go for Astronomy to cut short on to the other side.
Lost some units because I rush into battle with to few of them, those puny Aztecs destroyed my Balista
By 1200 I took Aztec capital and rush to Persia
Darius had couple of units but stud just for a while, another great capital taken
In the mean time three units embarked in a journey to Kyoto, and what to see a defenseless capital, that is to easy...
And last the Chinese, ...

This was also my first GotM. I hadn't won by culture so I tried that instead of my typical strategy of "see stuff, take stuff" domination. I went for a culture victory, which was actually pretty difficult. I think I won around 1900.

-Did that Great Library -> Civil Service gambit everyone's been talking about and managed to build GL, Stonehedge (surprisingly good wonder) and Oracle early
-This game I didn't build a single settler. After civil service I pumped out three pikemen to take out Germany. Because of a tactical blunder I ended up having to replace two during my mini-marcomannic war. I did manage to finish him off and cap off any expansion to my arm.
- Mostly kept to myself. Everyone else seemed content trapped in a forever war until Monty got the bright idea to pick off city state. Most of them were militaristic so it was no skin off my back
- A couple of culture win things: Freedom is super good for happiness. I think was at +60 happiness for most of the game. The name of the game seems to be to stack as many +100% culture buildings/policies as possible. Having to build a museum in only one city for hermitage was very nice. I foolishly allied with a couple of military city states. Eventually I just ended up deleting most of them because the upkeep was killer.

Played this all in one sitting. 1700 AD domination victory, 3950 score, 250 turns.

I didn't focus so much on just taking capitals, but rather consuming every city and turning them all into puppets. Only founded 2 other cities north of my capital. Furthest north was to block of Germany, and then the second to get the iron and backfill.

starting techs were pottery - sailing - calendar -mining - ironworking and then the one that lets you embark (optics?). After that I mostly chose the cheapest tech to tech.

Research agreements seemed bugged. I made one whenever I could. Often though I would take civ's last city and suddently I get a free tech from an agreement I thought I made more than 30 turns ago.

I marched on Germany with just 2 legions, an archer and a chariot archer. After taking all his cities I came back to take care of Budapest. The city state north of Budapest wanted him eliminated, so I made him a puppet and used his iron for my ballistae. Before I was capped at 2 iron, used by my legions.

Japan was next, after a very long search and march. The Aztecs provided the most fight, actually lost one knight. China fell in 2 turns. Their starting position only had 1 or 2 food, and the AI didn't know how to get out of such a bad start. Finally found the Persians and promptly walked over the great wall with one infantry supported by artillery.

Several bugs in the game. Budapest kept losing a trade route, despite being connected by a road, as soon as I built a harbor in Rome. Towards the end, a cannon upgraded to artillery left a fake cannon marker on the map. Units in that hex could not attack, had to move the arty before he could attack.

Went down the Honor path, and then the city-state one. Turned everything into farms to grow as much as possible.

Domination, 1570 AD, score 2561.

First ever GOTM although I've read a lot of the civ4 ones, I just wasn't quite up to the standard to compete but as this is a new game I reckon I might be ok with a bit of practise!

I've been going for Cultural wins on higher difficulty levels than this so at least it was a fresh challenge, I'm yet to finish one so at least this game was my first win.

I wasn't bothered about my score, a quick finish was my aim

I started very brightly, I think I'm getting a good idea of a sensible build order now. Attacked Germany as soon as I got my iron linked up and made mincemeal of him. Made allies of all the nearby City States too and kept it this way for the whole game which worked well. Once I'd finished taking out Germany I had a decent number of troops and a decent gold income so I upgraded all my troops and started to attack systematically across the map. Unhappiness was high throughout but as my income was high I just rushed any extra troops once I got access to the Iron.

Unfortunately the map was a pain, I've obviously not got the hang of moving units through so many chokepoints. In hindsight I should have taken out some of the City States in the way as this would have speeded things up and probably got me a better score too.

If I did this again now I've worked out how to move large armies across the map I could easily shave 500 years off that time!

Would have been quicker if I had scouted Darius better.

No wonders and very little culture, I guess that is why the score was so low? I was just trying to kill as fast as I could.

Thanks for the game folks! I look forward to the next one.

I think the right file is attached....new to all this.

Domination, 2100 score, turn 194 (1340 AD)

I'm also unsure which score to report: 2100 was Hall of Fame score, in game was only 1009.

First ever GotM

Some thoughts:

Won a domination victory on 1585AD, turn 227 with a score of 3335. Yep, very late, but I was careful and afraid, forgot it was chieftan.

I also forgot, this being my first GotM ever, to take screenshots. Really sorry about that. Will do a quick summarize of my path to glory, cause wall of texts are boring:

- Went for Honor tree to get double XP and line bonus
- Did most of the barbarian quests for the City States and went full Patronage.
- Got two early production cities, Rome and one in the very first "chokepoint" with lots of hills, right NW of Rome. Got one Trade Post city near Bismarck (with some smark land buying got the whales as well!) and later did another production city west of Rome.
- Researched up until Steel, got friends with Japan and got in a Research Agreement. Got Steel in that RA! It was like, 17 turns until completion and then BAM! Longswordsman production right away.

Then it was Longswordsman + Ballistas + crappy pikemen / catapult / Knights that I got from City States (I had around 7 allies city states. With full Patronage is ridiculous) taking over the world. Started the domination around 800AD (I guess), ended it on 1585AD. Should've started sooner! Went Bismark, Darius, Montezuma, the Chinese lady and the Japanese guy.

By the way, this was my 3rd game on Civ V, second that I finished. And in this game, I really learned the value of chokepoints. Montezuma and China's capitals were easy as cake to take, while Japan and Darius required a little more, specially Darius' because the freaking mountain would block my Ballistas. Combat in this game is extremely fun. Also, I realized that if you are not a warmongering jerk, you can get some friends. I would frequentely get fair deals from Japan.
One other thing I realized, but have to test it further, is that those outrageous luxury resource deals seem to happen when you try to take a resource that the AI has only one and trade it for one that you have extras. They never traded in those situations

.
Sorry for no screens, I know it's lame. Next GotM will do lots of screens! Very fun to take part on this, even if I'm still on noob league.

I decided from the outset to go for a particular type of domination victory, an anihilation domination ... which means no AI Civ city remained at the end. (An extreme anihilation domination would include taking out all of the city states as well, which could be a real challenge).

Further, I went for a particular type of anihilation domimation, an assimilation domination ... I did not raze any of the AI cites I took. That proved to be a lesson in managing happiness (since I annexed them all, not having yet discovered the value of puppet states). If I had just gone for the capitals it could have been much quicker ... but I thought this kind of game would be a useful data point for planning the VOTM series.

NOW, IF SOMEONE CAN TELL ME HOW TO PLAY A REPLAY ... I could give some particulars. Can't get replays in the folder to open, windows has no idea what program to use. And I can't find civ 5 executable on my drive ... is that only out there on Steam servers? And no in game menu option for replays ... it is shocking how much navigational functionality from Civ 4 is missing from Civ 5!

I think I settled in place, built a scout to go hunt ruins and barbs, and then a worker. So far I like to go early for the social policy that reduces settler cost, and then the one that starts a new city halfway to its second pop. In the liberty track, IIRC. Spread two additional ciites westward for resources, then a fourth NW and I think one more even closer to Bis. When I got to crossbows and swords, I attacked Bismarck and just moved east from there. Eventually my leading edge was one cannon, one artillery, three rifles, and two lancers. The need to build all the happy buildings kept me from making a second army until late in the game.

Japan offered 250 gold and a city to end a war in which all I did was kill one scout. Darius gave me 250 gold and two cities to end a war where I captured one city far away from his others, and not thretening him at the time (too far away). This was before the patch that is supposed to fix absurd AI peace offers, so we shall see going forward.

Two different scores show after the win ... the rankings screen, which tells me what great or horible past leader I resemble, said 3804. The hall of fame says 3724. The game crashed on initial save of the final position, so reloaded the save before final capture to be sure to get a save. Had to reload it again to verity the two score issue.

Saving is incredibly dysfunctional for me (and I am not alone) so hopefully this is the right save. You would think that Firaxis could get saves, screeshots, and replays to work in Civ 5. Maybe all my problems stem from having a steam download version instead of a disk version? I can't load saves from the save folder, can't run replays, can't name screenshots when they are taken (all of which Civ 4 did perfectly) ... it is really inexcusable.

Edit: the 3724 and the 3804 are both some variant of "final score" or "Firaxis Score" from Civ 4, while my in game score is 1902 (from the diplomacy window of the post win "just one more turn" position), presumably equivalent to Base score from Civ 4.

dV

My 4th game in any Civilization games ever

Found the forum today, and thought this is an awesome idea!! And here I am.


Apologies, I was too into the game, all I recorded was:

Cities:
Turn: 1 - Rome founded
Turn:39 - Antium founded

Technologies (chronologically):
Pottery - Sailing
Mining
Calendar
Bronze Working - Iron Working
Animal Husbandry - The Wheel - Horseback Riding
Writing
Trapping
Philosophy - Civil Service
Archery - Mathematics - Currency - Chivalry
Masonry - Construction
Metal Casting
Engineering - Physics (in progress)

Social Policies (chronologically):
Honor - Warrior Code - Discipline
Patronage - Aesthetics - Philanthropy





Thoughts on Rome:
- Roman special +25% production in Capital is not as advantageous as I would have thought it would be.
- Legionnaires are awesome for Speed Domination Victory.
- Ballistae would be more useful in a higher difficulty settings, vs stronger defenses.

Verdict:
- Awesome scenario
- Awesome map
- Good civilization
- Great introduction into the game!


So glad to have decided to join this community! You guys are AWESOME!

At the end the game gave me Hall of Fame Score of 1641, and then a "Ranking" of 2036. Which one of these is the score you guys are posting?

I would say that my first GotM ever went pretty sub par. So far in CIV 5 I have won a game on Prince, Got bugged on Immortal, and played a Deity that I lost. Have a pretty good grasp of the basics.

I was expecting to just roll this over quick, and got a little overconfident. My strategy after looking at the map was to go for sailing to get my work boats out. Once I saw Germany was on the coast I thought it would be fun to use triremes and skip archery for a second. Took down Germany pretty easy with a couple warriors and 3 triremes rotating bombard.

Then it got awful. Found out my boats were all locked in to a little bay and were worthless after Germany. My second mistake was assuming on a "small" map it would be a quick jaunt to the rest of the capitals. A scout quickly dissuaded me of the notion.

I had two towns and no real expansion, and plenty of gold to purchase units. Sent 2 spear-men, 2 warriors, and a scout trekking. Bee-lined for Ballista so I would have some ranged firepower, and sent one of those on the heels of my army. (the liberty upgrade that lets you know when barbarians spawn is nice as you can send units unprotected through fog of war where there are no camps.

After what seemed like forever I pulled up on the capital of Persia. Pretty easy takedown, and then I took out their second city and razed them out of the game. I upgrade a warrior to a Legion.

Short Jaunt to Aztecs and.... WTF! As I move the horde to the capital some Jaguars and Archers come MOBBING to the defense. Before I know what is happening spearmen down, warrior has to flee, and legion is crippled! After some dancing around the next turn I manage to pull back my crippled warrior and kill a jag with the legion to get him an instant heal upgrade so he doesn't die. After the initial onslaught my legion has no problem holding the line. I got way too cocky and ended up turning that into the most fun tactical battle I've had yet.

After that I wasn't ever scared of losing my army again although I played bad tactically just trying to go fast. I had plenty of money to keep buying reinforcements from the capitals as I took them.

Things I learned:
-Don't try and rush things just because the game is on an easy level, might as well just build up your tech and army properly. Will save time and points in the long run.

-On defense the AI with some archers and city bombards can do really quick damage to a single well upgraded unit that I don't want to lose.

-CIV 5 is a really fun game already, and with a couple AI patches I'm never going to do anything productive.

This was also my first GOTM ever. I really like the GOTM concept, and it's fun to read your experiences on the same game.

I didn't take notes, and don't know how this replay-thingy works, but I have a few key lessons I learned:

1. I never was a warmongerer in Civ4, and was a bit surprised how easy it was in this game just to roll over all opponents, by just getting iron and making legions and ballistas and not worrying the least about culture, happiness, economy, science etc.
2. Social policies are harder to get when you get more cities. I only think I get 4 the entire game.
3. Was surprised that there is a max level of units you can have, unless you want your production down by 20%. Must check how that works. I just got a message saying a had 2 too many.
4. Hadn't seen the change in winning conditions, so I spend too much time chasing down small cities instead of just conquering the capitals.
5. Was surprised that if you declare war on an opponent, that you have open borders with, then your units get thrown out. One of my units didn't have a tile to move to, so he got teleported across an ocean about 20 tiles away
6. It seems like a good idea not to attack barb encampments just when it pops up. Wait a while until a city state get annoyed and asks for help, then you get more out of killing barbs.


View attachment TS1_win.Civ5Save

View attachment Augustus Caesar_0155 AD-0900_0.Civ5Replay

Just wanted to say welcome and congrats to all the new GOTM players for your first GOTM victories!

da_Vinci said:

NOW, IF SOMEONE CAN TELL ME HOW TO PLAY A REPLAY ... I could give some particulars. Can't get replays in the folder to open, windows has no idea what program to use. And I can't find civ 5 executable on my drive ... is that only out there on Steam servers? And no in game menu option for replays ... it is shocking how much navigational functionality from Civ 4 is missing from Civ 5!

Click to expand...

I installed from the DVD, but my Civ5 .exe is here:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\CivilizationV.exe

There's also a CivilizationV_DX11.exe file in the same location, but my XP virtual machine doesn't use it, of course.

Saving is incredibly dysfunctional for me (and I am not alone) so hopefully this is the right save. You would think that Firaxis could get saves, screeshots, and replays to work in Civ 5. Maybe all my problems stem from having a steam download version instead of a disk version? I can't load saves from the save folder, can't run replays, can't name screenshots when they are taken (all of which Civ 4 did perfectly) ... it is really inexcusable.

Click to expand...

Teething troubles

I don't think there is any difference between the two versions. The DVD saves you the download, and gives you a paper manual. Once you have registered the DVD installation, they become identical. I still haven't opened the manual, and I didn't even save the download hit, because I downloaded the demo first while I was waiting for European release.

When and if I ever finish this game, I'll see if I can spot a replay option, but others seem to have failed to find one. Maybe I should try to get my online Replay utility to do it before Firaxis get around to it.

AlanH said:

I installed from the DVD, but my Civ5 .exe is here:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\CivilizationV.exe

There's also a CivilizationV_DX11.exe file in the same location, but my XP virtual machine doesn't use it, of course.

Click to expand...

Hmm, didn't dig quite that deep, (I think I assumed steam apps would not be the place for the games themselves), and did not find it on a search (maybe I goofed the spelling and did not notice?). So I will check tonight, thanks.

AlanH said:

Teething troubles

Click to expand...

More like teeth are missing ....

But I suppose we can always resort to implants (mods, patches).

Seriously, if they had it right in Civ 4, how do they end up losing it in Civ 5? Kind of like forgetting how to walk ... did they have a programming stroke over there at Firaxis?

dV

piderman said:

By the way, I have posted the score that is in my Hall of Fame, but it is higher than the one shown in my savegame (because it included the victory) yet I see other people post the ingame one. Which one is correct?

Click to expand...

For those of you who have not yet posted the results (or if you want to repost/edit your post): please state both the Hall of Fame results and the in-game results (if you have the numbers available that is). This will give us a better picture of how the scoring works in practice. Also, please state both turn number and year date (if possible).

Erkon said:

For those of you who have not yet posted the results (or if you want to repost/edit your post): please state both the Hall of Fame results and the in-game results (if you have the numbers available that is). This will give us a better picture of how the scoring works in practice. Also, please state both turn number and year date (if possible).

Click to expand...

Hmm, maybe there are three places to look for your final score: in game (the diplomacy screen after "just one more turn"); the ranking screen; and the hall of fame.

I know that ranking screen and hall of fame don't match, wonder if in-game is yet a different number, or does it match one of the results screen numbers?

dV

Ok well as you can tell I just registered/this is my first game of the month. I really enjoyed it although for a small pangea unit movement was not a whole lot of fun. Thanks for the game and looking foward to next month.