TSG90 After Actions

I think I've figured out a few of the problems. If I build a settler as soon as I hit 2 pop, steal a 2nd worker then buy a 3rd worker at the 2nd city I can complete both the granary and library in the 2nd city by the time I finish GL. Then as soon as NC is done I need to get the next 2 settlers built and at least 1-2 more workers while saving all my cash, taking loans from DoF'd civs and even demanding tribute from CS's so I can buy the libraries in the 3rd and 4th cities and repeat the cash thing to afford the universities as soon as I hit education.

I also have to beeline to civil service before going to theology so the river farms give a much needed food boost. Plus there's the whole getting food caravans to the capital asap.

Lastly, I need to get national epic and gardens done asap so I generate the GS's quicker.

You don't need to rush libraries in cities 3 and 4 if you already have NC. Rush granaries instead and hard build libraries. Granaries are a better investment for low pop cities.

Granaries will help you get a bit more population in these cities, increasing your base bpt probably more than a quick library would and then you will have enough hammers to get a library before education.

I fell into the same trap as some of the others, waffling back and forth between a tradition and SS attack on this GoTM. Waffling = slow finish time, and after I only got 1 building and no SS, I was out of even a decent finish. Add into this some fun work stress that I didn't relieve before playing, and I ragequit around turn 180 during the first playthough, so no submission.

I recovered my composure and replayed the game focusing on a 2 city tradition approach, and managed to finish in turn 304 with 3 of my musicians being eaten by barbarians. Both Morocco and Ethiopia went straight piety this run through, and Ethiopia had 2 buildings and SS, but didn't ICS or anything like that. I eventually wanted him to get my cities converted for the tourism, and actually had all my cities converted to get the common religion bonus, as he was the last culture standing.

Entertaining game, and I definitely agree with the others on this thread that focusing on SS for the best time is a large gamble, but one that the best times will make. I am still not too comfortable with culture victories, but I enjoyed giving this a run through, thanks!

I've had to pile 8581 points to overcome korea, otherwise I'd finished many turns early ...

Game: Civ5 GOTM 90
Date submitted: 2014-08-02 08:54:06
Reference number: 31484
Your name: ambrox62
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1610AD
Turns played: 232
Base score: 1174
Final score: 2552
Time played: 17:56:00
Submitted save: Alexander.Civ5Save
Renamed file: ambrox62_C509001.Civ5Save

Game: Civ5 GOTM 90
Date submitted: 2014-08-02 22:53:19
Reference number: 31488
Your name: knowtalent
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1848AD
Turns played: 294
Base score: 1370
Final score: 2362
Time played: 9:42:00
Submitted save: AutoSave_0294 AD-1848.Civ5Save
Renamed file: knowtalent_C509001.Civ5Save

I could have played better, could have had some better breaks as well. 2nd pantheon Stone circle. Didnt feel like I had time to clear out the continent, so i played a peaceful 5 city empire. The primary issue was that Sweden was land locked with one city so the world congress took quite a while to start which meant I only got World fair through. I was second in religion ended up with pagoda and monastaries tithe and IP for the other beliefs. Strangely got the first Reformation belief. Ethiopia was the only other one to get one. I planted 3 GP before Industrial age which paid dividends once I got to hotels. Half liberty half Piety then Aestheitics open Science and Exploration. Finished Freedom bought built BT and Hotels. Ended with enough faith for one more GM, so I should have focused more on the top half. Built too many wonders and missed out on too many aswell. Probably should have built more cities, but loosing out on MOsques and or Cathedral made that harder that I like.

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

Congratulations on your first game and victory. Best of luck in future.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 90
Your name: Quizman
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1830AD
Turns played: 285
Base score: 1235
Final score: 2166

My first submission in a while. Things started off OK and I got SS at about T114. I started knocking out settlers soon after, but hit happiness issues quite quickly so had to slow down. Finished up with about 20 cities. I have tried a few pangaea VC's lately but it was a totally different approach needed with continents as I had to push as fast as possible to astromony, but didn't get there until about T160.

After that it was mostly uneventful. I was the clear leader on score but Korea was the most difficult to influence. He was the last to go but just when I thought the end was in sight, Ethiopia and Morocco both declared and I was ill-equipped to hold them at bay - crossbows and pikes against muskets and gatlings. I made it to industrial and bought 2 musicians with faith in my nearest-to-Korea city and that was that. Just lost one city to Ethiopia 2 turns from victory.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 90
Date submitted: 2014-08-06 14:09:45
Reference number: 31507
Your name: Erindel
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1715AD
Turns played: 253
Base score: 1418
Final score: 2836
Time played: 4:58:00
Submitted save: Alexander_0253 AD-1715.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Erindel_C509001.Civ5Save

This is a replay game. As I had not played since BNW, I completely messed up the whole tourism themes and restarted it.

The game was very quiet, not much action except poor Genghis getting eliminated... i could spread a strong early religion thanks to quarries and beat Ethiopia's long enough that CS influence was not degrading anymore (religion + Greece ua + patronage = 0 degradation). I got all the wonders except from Artemis but messed up in the end with the great musicians, I did not know their tours strenght is based on the era the musician is born, so I put the wrong ones in Broadway and the remaining were too old... I did not even need to enter the atomic era, so good result for me

Erindel said:

This is a replay game. As I had not played since BNW, I completely messed up the whole tourism themes and restarted it.

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Thanks for joining us at CFC and welcome to Civ5's Game of the Month!

Seeing that you are new to these forums and our GotM, for clarity reasons, we will be excluding your results due to a replay of the game. We do not allow replays or restarts as stated in each Announcement thread. There are rules for crashes though, so any game interruption won't immediately exclude your submissions. (This is why we request that you set your Autosaves to every turn in the event a crash happens. You can then reload from the most recent save and play it as closely as you can remember how it was originally played.) This series is about comparing and learning from what players can do with the same save on the first playthrough with no do-overs. Multiple play sessions are allowed but you are not allowed to peak at spoilers between session in the Opening actions thread until you have played the first 100 or so turns or look at the After Actions posts until you have submitted.

Since this is a less formal competitive atmosphere I hope this exclusion won't sour you on playing these games and sharing your results. We put more value into the educational aspect of improving player's skills and always welcome players who want to write about their efforts.

Thanks,
HR

Pretty sure I'll stick here with the slowest culture victory around, but hey, I didn't even remember to look up HOW to win a CV in Civ V until somewhere around turn 200. Plus, it's been so long since I played, I'm just glad I won at all on this difficulty level.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 90
Date submitted: 2014-08-09 01:39:06
Reference number: 31515
Your name: Thrallia
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 2029AD
Turns played: 458
Base score: 3368
Final score: 3701
Time played: 24:27:00

Hehe, thanks for joining us Thrallia. We always appreciate a fellow staffer popping in to play.

No problem! Not really sure I can qualify as a fellow staffer anymore given my almost 4 year absence (pretty sure the first couple Civ 5 TSG's were my last contribution), but it was a lot of fun! I need to get a lot better again though

A few highlights from my game: after my opening actions, Morocco declared war on me and I promptly kicked their butt, turning all but 1 of his cities into a puppet then making peace. Unfortunately, this shattered my relationship with Ethiopia as well(apparently he liked Morocco more than he liked me), and over the next thousand years he declared war on me a few times then would promptly sue for peace and give me one of his cities, even though I never invaded him, merely killed off his offensive army.

After meeting the rest of the world, I managed to stay on friendly terms with all of them while building up a massive culture base and fumbling my way through learning what the heck tourism even was. Unfortunately, once I got my bearings in that respect, Indonesia had a massive amount of culture and was going to make it tough for me to win before time ran out. So, after I had reached the goal tourism level with Korea, Sweden and Ethiopia, and after Indonesia had conquered Mongolia and was attacking Sweden(and building up an army for Korea), and while Babylon sat there getting more and more upset at me while trying to win by building his spaceship, I built a nuclear arsenal, navy, and army of X-Com troops to try to conquer Indonesia quickly. He had puppeted or razed all but his 3 original cities and I hoped that by taking those, everything else would fall apart. It didn't, but I learned that an AI isn't going to unpuppet a city even if that's all he has left, and so after that he never built another unit while I closed in around him.

Turns out, I probably would have won by overcoming his culture by around 2040, but I did so want to try out those nukes and other modern troops since I almost never get that late in the tech tree. Also, for some reason, no one else got upset that I nuked Indonesia a dozen times. Or that he nuked me three times in return.

Thrallia said:

I need to get a lot better again though

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I often find that after scraping off all the rust I magically get better than before I took a break. Possibly because it breaks bad habits

I was surprised to waste 59 turns when I attacked Korea on turn 278 by putting Busan in the far south under siege. Korea was the cultural runaway. My three trebuchets got off two bombardments and then pulled back for repairs. 8 moves later, promoted and at full strength, they returned.

Busan immediately destroyed one. I couldn't believe it because the trebuchets had survived two rounds earlier and now had 25% protection against ranged attack. I left the remaining two in place to get off another shot and Busan promptly destroyed one of them. I pulled the last one back and waited to get cannons which 37 turns later did the job.

What suddenly made Busan so powerful? Its city strength stayed at 45 throughout. It was thoroughly blockaded so the only thing that could get into the city was a turtle boat but I wouldn't think that would affect the city's ranged attack.

In the end my victory took 461 turns but I feel I learned a lot. I see I came close to matching Thrallia, so I feel encouraged.

Kendon, congrats on managing to see it through like I did! And I see we both had to take out a cultural runaway to win. I think that was definitely the biggest issue to deal with, was how to handle a cultural AI after it got fed some nice World Wonders and religion.

Olodune said:

I often find that after scraping off all the rust I magically get better than before I took a break. Possibly because it breaks bad habits

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I hope that happens with me, but it often does not!

Went SS. I don't enjoy this way for cultural victory. Despite this, I could not have done better with peaceful no SS.
I need to obliterate Ethiopia (missionaries spammer) and Morocco (a runaway and for room). Indonisia was too far.
Stone Circle - Initiation Rites - Mosques - Pagodas - Itenerant Preachers.
Education - Astro - Machinery.

I haven't played Civ5 for more than 1 year, and I didn't understand why I haven't won after finishing the 5th Social Policy... then I read and I understood that I missed an important matter... Tourism.
So I replayed and I read the wiki section in order to understand how Tourism was working..

Anyway, it was a peaceful world, at some point, I was busy and I didn't notice that good ole Genghis was doomed
Well, I didnt really know what do with my musicians. Should I send them on the other continent ?
Should I put them in the Sistine Chapel ? I had doubt...
Built almost everything possible, tried to stay ahead in the science matters.
Friend with all, and I mean all CS... Easy with Alex !

Went Full tradition, then Aesthetics and Rationalism... then Patronage and the new section... choose order for the 34% booster !


Anyway, finished in 1940, turn 360.
I might have chosen the Sacred Site method. I found it very efficient but quite boring no?
Sorry guys, I don't judge the efficiency, just I don't want to play this way, so I took the hard and long way till I discovered Internet... and what a boost !
Quite long play but really easy.
I like the 2 cities strategy but I quite sure I'd better built a third city on the coast, to reach the other civilizations earlier... and win earlier






Turn 100

airneck said:

I haven't Civ5 for more than 1 year

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Welcome back to Civ5!

BNW changed some of the requirements for each victory except Science which still requires building the Shuttle. Culture Vics are now based on Tourism and no longer require 5 policy trees. Spreading it is a less than obvious pressure mechanic that takes some learning to fully understand. Diplomacy Vics are still vote-based but now involve the World Congress, a more complex system of game bonuses and penalties to garner votes with neighbors and CSs. And Domination now requires you to capture and hold EVERY capital. If an AI takes another cap it doesnt save you the effort. You still have to capture it too.

It very much feels like a new game with so many changes, particularly when you have to alter long-held habits and strategies to win. Welcome back and thanks for playing in this GotM!

HR

Kendon said:

I was surprised to waste 59 turns when I attacked Korea on turn 278 by putting Busan in the far south under siege. Korea was the cultural runaway. My three trebuchets got off two bombardments and then pulled back for repairs. 8 moves later, promoted and at full strength, they returned.

Busan immediately destroyed one. I couldn't believe it because the trebuchets had survived two rounds earlier and now had 25% protection against ranged attack. I left the remaining two in place to get off another shot and Busan promptly destroyed one of them. I pulled the last one back and waited to get cannons which 37 turns later did the job.

What suddenly made Busan so powerful? Its city strength stayed at 45 throughout. It was thoroughly blockaded so the only thing that could get into the city was a turtle boat but I wouldn't think that would affect the city's ranged attack.

In the end my victory took 461 turns but I feel I learned a lot. I see I came close to matching Thrallia, so I feel encouraged.

Click to expand...

It's a known "bug". Cover DOESN'T work from city shots. (and IIRC It's 50%, not 25%?)
I'm not sure but I'm beginning to think that era has some parts. From empiric experience, getting to another age gives like 50% city dmg or something like that.
And for your story, there was no unit inside?