TSG9 After Action Report

Hi everyone and welcome to the TSG9 After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!

Please use the Civ5 game submission page to submit your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file, saved AFTER the victory ceremony if you were not conquered (using the "Lemme play one more turn" feature.).

Please also state your HoF score.

Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay). The game will not be closed as such, but after two weeks, the results will be compiled, and will not necessarily be updated with reports coming in after the closing date.

Good Luck and have fun!

lol, I literally just stayed up all night playing this game after it was posted. So...

I really like social policies, so I decided to play warmonger out of one city and puppet the rest.

I built a bunch of warriors hoping for some iron, but ended up having to rely on war elephants and horsemen instead since Oslo was too stupid to build any workers for their 6 patch! This evolved into an army of knights, cavalry, and even tanks for a few turns in the late game. Was sort of fun to use those for a change, but incredibly frustrating whenever I was up against a hardened city. By the end of the game I'd received way more units from city-states than I'd lost so I never had to build any extras past 500 B.C. or so.

I learned about research agreements from folks here in TSG8 so I decided to leave all of the other civs alone after beating them up and taking their lunch money. By the end of the game I was denounced and hated by everybody, but my economy was so strong that I could force-feed them all the gold they needed to complete my RA's for me! I never got around to attacking Greece, Japan, or the Ottomans, but I did leave Siam, Persia, Mongolia, and China in the game after cutting them down to one or two cities each.

I stumbled ungracefully through the tech-tree at the end instead of RA blocking and beelining the right techs to get to globalism. I'm sure I could have shaved off 10-20 turns if I was thinking ahead more instead of playing with tanks...

Victory Screen:


Social Policies:


Wheeeeeeee sleepy time!

I just love playing Ghandi, the ultimate vertical civ! I ended up playing the entire game with two cities and three to four military units. I really get an exhilaration out of being surrounded by superior firepower and yet somehow weaseling my way thru. Its difficult to imagine why somebody didn't just squash me like a bug, maybe it was my 120 defense cities?

Overall, this game was all about RAs out the cornhole, developing friendships, pacts of cooperation, and defensive pacts to protect myself. It was also about supporting the second biggest threat to balance power against the first biggest threat, pitting the lesser powers against each other, and being patient with my CSs. It took me a long time to get one, longer for two, and so on, but I eventually got there.

I also had a cultural victory back-up plan. I had completed all of tradition, piety, patronage, and freedom. I needed 14 more turns to complete order and I was going to have an engineer for the utopia project.



I feel great just to have gotten the win and enjoyed this one very much. I didn't even have to break the GOTM rules this time. Overall, the game feels better balanced now, but it still doesn't feel like the AI is intelligent at all. On these higher levels of difficulty they have big production advantages and whatnot, but they still let you win in boneheaded ways. I think I need to get into multiplayer, but I have a job and a family so I squeeze these games into some pretty strange time slots.

I also tried and failed once again to attach map files. I saved some map files from my game, but I get "invalid file" errors when I try to attach them using the "manage attachments" feature on this site. I downloaded this IRFanView software per another poster's suggestion, but I obviously have no idea what I'm doing. Any other ideas about how to post map files as jpg or tif or something? Do I need to buy some CiV add on?

Hey Aaronius,

Sounds like you played a little more in character for Ghandi than I did.

As far as posting images goes, they're completely separate from saved games or replays. The images come from screenshots, which you can take in-game by simply pressing the print-screen key. There's no confirmation or anything (though you might hear a very brief hard-drive noise as it's writing the file and the game might stall for a split second), but the images should show up in Windows Explorer under ..\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\ScreenShots and are numbered chronologically for you as you take them. The images are initially stored as TARGA (Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Array) .TGA files. These are lossless (high quality) image files, but since they tend to be rather large you don't see them on the web (where bandwidth is life) much. Before you can do anything with your images you'll want to find a program that can view and convert them. The most common program for doing this is Photoshop, which is ridiculously expensive. That's where your free IRFanView program comes in!

Once you've opened the images with IRFanView and converted the ones you want to .jpg files (slightly lower quality but much smaller files) then you'll need to upload them to the web so you can link to them in your posts. Any site like Picasa, Photobucket, ImageShack, or even Facebook will do. After registering at one of these sites and uploading your images (the sites can walk you through the process) you'll need to copy the URL for each image that you want to link to in your forum post here.

Once you've got the images hosted somewhere on the web and have the links handy then you can simply post them here by placing those links between

This got pretty close at some points. Between all the wars and my sometime weakness noone wanted to have any diplomatic relationship with me exept for the city states. In the Course of the game 5 got conquered by other civs though, 4 because i was in war.

I managed to liberate 2 of them in the end, and to get the upper hand in all 3 wars.



Somehow the whole diplomacy thing eludes me.. I always end up conquering most of the world since it just does not want good realtions.

I missed TSG 8 with my favorite science for a few days, so I was a bit angry when I saw that this round is diplomatic one. I was never good in diplomacy in CIV IV and in fact never tried a diplo win in CIV V too. But then I realized that, it's only matter of science and money and that Gandhi is such great leader for my style of play. I went peacefully with two superb cities at the beginning, I added two more (one for iron, one for 3 fish). I easily survived two dow's by Siam and finished the game in turn 280.
Very good game for a peaceful play.
Thank you.

1909 Diplomatic Victory. Very low score, I only had four cities. Thanks for the game

Date: 1937 AD, Score: 1343, Victory: Diplomatic

I'm kind of in disbelief about this win. It's my lowest scoring win for a non-scenario game. Only Siam declared war on me in medieval era and I whooped their butt. After that, it was just the other major powers and there perpetual battle with Mongolia. It was funny to see Suleiman lay waste to the Japanese empire (though they did scrape out two cities). I'm almost started to believe that the AI has a special dispensation just for Gandhi.

So with perpetual peace I just built up culture to get some of the patronage track (along with tradition and a few liberty in the beginnning) and the 'United Front' policy of the Order track. Then I would just save up to 1K of gold and buyout each city-state. Once I built the UN it was actually a close vote because Greece had 6 city-states allied that I hadn't even met. Still, my 10 allied city-states (plus my two self-votes) gave the win!

Turn 279. Score 1189.

I only fought defensive wars to defend my meager 2 cities. I got messed up 2x with not allowing enough time to tech block properly on a couple RA's so that hurt me signficantly on turns. As soon as I saw Siam I was thinking that I needed to put him on ice so he didn't compete with me for the CS's but I just never got around to fielding a military....it seemed so anti-Gandi!

I decided I was going to do something different this game and just go with the one city. There was all this talk about a vertical empire vs. a horizontal one, so I thought this might be the perfect chance to test it out.

It actually worked pretty well. Delhi was huge. My happiness was 45+ the entire game. I never had to go to war with anyone. Only two civs were hostile toward me in the entire game, and one of them ended up being my friend in the end. I won a diplo victory pretty easily.

I did lots of RAs without any blocking. I should have won 10 turns earlier, but Genghis AND Alex each bribed a CS from me between the end of my turn and the UN Vote...so I was one vote short and had to wait 10 turns. Near they end, I found myself trading gpt for lump sums of gold so I could make sure that I had 12 solid CS as allies, just in case Genghis and Alex tried any more shenanigans. In hindsight, if I would have went for the satelites to get the whole map that would have helped. There were several CSs that noone even found on the map that would have been easy to bribe.

This was my second game with the new patch and I'm still not sure on the impact of the new SPs. But after my scout popped a +30 culture early on, I decided to go for the +20% wonder SP and get a NC before settling the second city. When I saw Siam to the south I knew I would probably need to "acquire" them at some point and I conquered his capital after building some longswordmen. After that I didnt go to war anymore and just kept focusing on RA's and timing the great person production.

For SPs, I went for the Patronage tree and then for Rationalism to get the 2 Free Tech bonus. When I was approaching the next threshold in culture I could see that I needed to stall for 5 turns. So I annexed a small 2 pop city, which Siam gave me in the peace deal and that delayed my next SP, so I could use the 2 Free Tech to get Biology and Steam Power. I later sold the city again

I also managed to get both GL, SH and the Oracle. SH was quite late and it surprised how few wonders the AI build. My final great person from Delhi was an Engineer and he helped me with the UN.

No one declared war on me, but all except Ghengis Khan and Suliman were Guarded in most of the game. I didn't find Alexander until the end and he stayed Neutral.

The following factors played into this game:

1) Initial warrier move was in the wrong direction so I settled in place only to find out that I missed getting a third luxury in the capital's border.

2) Didn't get any culture from ruins.

3) Went with liberty only to find out that by the time I got the free settler Siam had settled the only good spot nearby.

4) Captured a Siam city but couldn't figure out how to raze it. It wasn't quite in the spot I wanted it. However I had to annex it and spend the time in unhappiness getting the courthouse up. (edit: just read the game post and sure enough no city razing was enabled. Have to be more careful the next time)

5) China and Persia DOWed away two RAs JUST before they were due. So RAs mean that nothing happens for 29 turns then on turn 30 a bunch of research gets done??? How is that realistic? RAs would make more sense if you got credit for the time spent on them.

Of all the above the one that I think hurt the most was the settle in place on turn one. It meant that I had a subprime location for the entire game.

Oh well better luck next game.

I tried to find out for a while now but i havent had any luck with that one...

What does NC stand for?

thio said:

I tried to find out for a while now but i havent had any luck with that one...

What does NC stand for?

Click to expand...

National College

I am often perplexed by all the abbreviations people use on this site....

This was really amazing game for me.
Directly after loosing in previous TSG i was able to get my first king level victory, so I think playing these games works good for me.

This i also started with not too much hopes. My target was to stay alive for longer than in previous TSG, so 250+ turns would be great.

Plan was to get 2-3 cities and stay with them only. Grow them vertically, control money income and happiness and try to stay alive.
I settled in start position and build scout, worker, granary, library, war elephant and national college.
My second city was founded at turn 74 east of Delhi at the coast. Turn after i found out that it was a mistake, because only 3 more turns was needed in Delhi to finish NC. Because of that mistake it was delayed and finished at turn 105.
My third and last city was founded north of Delhi at turn 113.

This is how it looks at this point:


At turn 166 there was first war that I know about (Siam vs. Persia). Later also Greece and Mongolia joined and they made peace and declared wars between each other through rest of the game (also joined by Japan later). I was just trying to improve cities and stay out of trouble. I was in dead end in every aspect, but luckily friends with everyone.



At turn 224 Siam (at friendly) declared war against me. I think I'm still felling a bit weird about diplomatics in civ5.
This was the war that lasted through my whole game and ultimately bring my defeat.



At this point i was sure, that it's over. I had practically no soldiers and he's military force at my land was huge. I was disappointed that i won't even get my 250+ turns. But...

He's force crushed on my cities. Not even sure how, but my cities defensive abilities was amazing. Full health infantry attacking Delhi was dying in one attack. At this point i quickly realized, that Canon added to these defense will make them alive and well for much longer and game is not lost yet.

After 250 turns mark i was still there and Siam force was gone. He kept sending some troops but most of the time they didn't even reach my city to attack it. So it was going great



After some time he was trying to make peace, but peace treaty, where i should give all my gold, resources and 2 cities was a no go.

So i kept upgrading while still at war and wasn't even paying attention to it any more. But this was my mistake. At turn 293 I saw, that Delhi was target of air strikes. Make me smile that he tries some different approach, but few turns later i wasn't smiling anymore
It turns out, he has 10 planes in neighbor city to the south and Delhi defense wasn't able to survive that.



It fells a little wrong that there can be multiple aircraft units in attacker's city, but i can defend only with one artillery/anti aircraft unit in mine.

Lost it at turn 298.

I realized my mistake was not having any anti aircraft defense, so quickly start building it in Mumbai, but it was already too late.



It was able to take down one bomber, but with 10+ air force attack it was lost at the same turn. And then... booom:



Siam nuked me!

At this point i couldn't fight with him and he took my 2 cities not much after.

Defeat at turn 314.


Plan was to survive more than 250 turns and I managed to do that. Got a great game and lots of fun with it.

Wow, I got lucky this game, and I guess I'm getting better at RAs.

My submitted game was 224, but I also reloaded turn 180 autosave to see if I could correct a mistake and sure enough I got a turn 208 win.


Anyways, it was fun game. Feels good to have a start that comes together so well. Wish I hadn't messed up at the end though.

View attachment Gandhi_0224 AD-1570.Civ5Save
View attachment Gandhi_0208 AD-1480.Civ5Save

My first post here.
I never went to war.
SP: tradition (--> landed elite), Patronage (all SP except one) and order (two SP).
Start with 2 City - NC (second city to the south, near the gold on the river). I Built 4 more cities to sell more luxuries.
RAs worked all the time, since Mongolia and Japon were friendly most of the time and the rest neutral or guarded. Also, I was able to sold all my luxuries and kept happy (and didn´t built any theater).
Not quite sure If rationalism or declaring on Siam could help me, especially when I got enough units coming from Almaty.

ferven said:

My first post here.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics and GoTM.

There is a lot of good advice posted in the various threads that should help you out.

Good luck in future games.

Wow! That was fun!!! I ended up losing but that was only because I mistakenly thought that once I liberated a CS they were mine for life. I didn't realize they could turn on me again. Especially back to the civ I was warring against and just liberated them from. I STILL don't get why that is but....I guess I'll know better next time.

I submitted my game since I wasn't winning any awards anyway but I had a few restarts after that happened because it basically ended my game so I needed to try a couple different things in order to survive and play on. Either way, it ended up costing me. I figure that cost me about 3-5 turns of screwing around and I ended up 2 turns short of taking Alex completely out so I could buy his CS's for the vote. Because of that, I missed having the 10 I needed for that turn and had to wait for the next vote and I think there were 5 turns left before that happened when Suleiman built the spaceship.

Super fun though!

I can honestly say this was the first Civ V game I've actually been completely immersed in. Mainly because I actually had some competition when warring. I still managed to defeat a far superior army with the few pieces I had but it actually took some serious strategy, planning, and a little bit of luck for a change. Since I was so far behind army-wise, every piece I had was vital so I really needed to think ahead and place each army carefully while still advancing. I got to do my first real amphibious assault against a well-fortified chunk of land. Seriously, it was really fun.

So, I've got a few questions....

1) Why doesn't a CS that I liberate from the Civ I'm warring against immediately declare war on that Civ since I've become their ally when I liberate them? Since they are my ally, they should declare on whomever I'm at war with and it should set that Civ's influence to -60, peace-block them, and stop them from being able to negotiate. It doesn't make sense that 3 turns later they can all of a sudden declare on me out of the blue. Now if a 3rd party outbid me and became their ally and then Greece came in and took it from them, I get that. But I never got any notifications of that happening and it happened with at least 2, maybe 3 of the CS's I liberated from Alex.

2) Am I wrong in thinking that in a scenario like this you'd be a lot better off never meeting Alex? It seems to me I never had to compete with him on any CS's until I actually met him. Then, a few turns later, he was buying up all the CS's. If I would have just stayed in my little land-locked empire as opposed to going out and meeting him and the other CS's, I probably would have been better off. That seems to be the key to the early diplo wins in other peoples' games. Or not?

3) I did zero RA blocking as usual. Seems to me the game wasn't designed with that being a planned on strategy. I could be wrong but it feels a little like cheating to me. I'm pretty sure the AI's aren't blocking their tech trees and must just deal with whatever random I generate for them. Anyway, that aside, is a player able to basically skip whole sections of the tech tree forever? Or do you eventually need to go back and fill in the "blocked" sections? Presumably after you've built up substantial research so you can basically 1 shot most of them?


Anyway, thanks again for the game! When I saw the set-up I was thinking it was going to be a fairly boring affair. Little did I know....