TSG16 After Action Report

Hi everyone and welcome to the TSG16 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.).

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).

Civ5 submission page is still down at the time of writing, but I finished it via Cultural Victory on turn 414 with 3258 points.

After England went the way of the dinosaurs around the advent of longswords no one posed much in the way of a military threat. The Romans postured a little, but their only attack resulted in no city flips either side (I couldn't be bothered) and ended quickly.

This was my first attempt at a cultural win, and I wasn't always sure where I was going. I think I actually missed the Oracle (I know, I know). I knew that if I built extra cities, I wanted them to load up on culture buildings fast, but didn't know if there was a point where a larger empire really became more of a detriment to social policy gains. In the late game I realized that puppet cities don't increase the cost of policies; the discovery didn't go well for Russia.

By the end of the game it really felt as if I could have taken any victory condition I wanted. I was allied with all but 1 (I think) of the city states, had a heaping pile of mechanized infantry, several battleships, and had the tech for space race.

I hadn't played Civ 5 since just after launch, and was actually quite impressed with some of the updates. I was one of those that went back to Civ 4 for a while after disappointment with the AI, and aside from a few derp moments, the war AI seemed to perform reasonably well.

Fun GotM, hoping for a difficulty or 2 up next time!

EDIT:: Oh yeah, rolled the Arabs when I felt I needed more cities. The conflict really isn't worth mentioning.
:: Save file uploaded

Submission page only accepts GOTM 15 at the moment.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-21
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1974AD
Turns played: 394
Base score: 2544
Final score: 3261
Time played: 5:57:00

Finally a game i won again!

The submission page is now updated. Apologies for the delay, caused by the problems with the server. Hopefully these are now resolved.

Please use the submission page to upload your final saves.

Well this is my first time submitting a GOTM though I've played Civ for a while. These are fun!

In this game, I didn't build any cities other than the first and just puppeted everyone else. I conquered the entire continent (except one Chinese city). I wanted to see if not adding cities made a big difference by keeping the policy requirement low. It's hard to say. This strategy would have been much harder on a higher degree of difficulty; here, the opponents were just too easy to beat.

I didn't go Liberty (mostly cause I didn't want the settler). It's hard to say if it would have gone quicker with Liberty (over Order at the end or Patronage in mid-game). Honor and Piety were no-brainers.

Game posted in submission form.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-20
Reference number: 24589
Your name: Attaturk
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1820AD
Turns played: 280
Base score: 1482
Final score: 2646
Time played: 3:28:00
Attaturk_C501601.Civ5Save
----------------------------------

Built total of 3 cities.

2 cities before NC, 1 after.

1 city settled in place
2nd city south, on the dye off the coast but only 3 tiles away from clams which I eventually connected via fishing boat from Persepolis.

3rd city was to the east next to the stone. Getting 3 lux, Gold, Cotton and Spices.

Early build: scout-scout-granary-GL-(settler from policy starts library)-NC
Bought to workers

Research: (no RAs whatsoever)

Pottery-Writing-AH-Calendar-Philosophy-Traps-(GL) - Civil Service - (NC)
Mining-Masonry-
beeling Math- (Pasa starts HG)

Bronze-IW-Theo-Edu-Sailing-Optics-Astro-(bulb Nav, bulb Arche)
...-Acoustics- ... - Economics - (bulb Scientific Theory, bulb Biology)
...-Military Science - (builb upto Telegraph, Radio, Oxford-> Mass Media)
Refrigeration-(bulb Plastics)
... Railroads-(bulb Combustic, Atomic Theory, Nuclear Fusion)

Pasagrae had Factory, Hydro, Nuclear Plant and was able to build Utopia in 8 turns

(I might have overresearched. If I stopped research earlier, I might have finished sooner with slightly longer Utopia build)

Policies:

2 Trad (faster wonders)
2 Liberty (free settler)
Full Piety
1 Pat (did not want it, but astronomy was 2 turns away)
2 Freedom (faster great people, culture for wonders)
+2 in liberty (%33 reduction in policy increase due to cities)
all but 1 in Pat (to get great people generation)
finish Liberty (got Great Scientist)
finish Tradition
last point in Patronage

-----
I built 2 swords and 2 catapults and sent them for training to the military CS down south beyond England and Arabs.
Training was going well, England declared on Harun, I took the opportunity and took two Lizzy sities including London. I burned the other one.

China declared on me, I marched west and took Bejing. I took piece with China with two extra cities, one I kept, another I sold to Rome.

I hit Scientific Theory and started looking for coal. The only settled coar was in the military CS I was using to train my troops. I took that CS and was very peaceful afterwards.
----

Wonders:

Got most of them.

Early on got tradition and liberty policies as needed. Build 4 cities.

Probably should have stayed on 4 as at the end my capital provided > .5 of all culture, but I was thinking more cities will increase my culture faster then penalty - wrong.
At the end I have 7 cities as own and 2 more puppets.

All my cities had a wander, for 33% piety bonus - at the end did not make mach difference because of other bonuses available.

Nice to see you still play Mutineer.
I enjoyed a lot reading your crazy Deity succession games for civ 4.

Yay! My first gotm in awhile that I actually won! (I think the last one was with Greece for a Diplo-Victory or maybe it was India)

Won in 1967 AD with the Cultural Victory at 2505 points.

Took out Elizabeth to the south (with the help of Arabia and Rome who didn't like her). Went on to focus on buying up cultural city-states and building culture buildings / wonders / culture policies. Kept my core cities at 3 to keep culture costs down.

Around early 1900's, Rome decided to commit suicide and DOW'd me. I eradicated them quite quickly with fighters in the sky and tanks on the ground.

Greece decided to DOW on my city-states (Brussels / Warsaw) and I sent my carrier fleet and a couple of tanks to swat them down.

Was a little worried that Catherine had built the Apollo Project and the SS Cockpit but by that time I had all my policies and got the Cultural Victory in no time. Huzzah!

Got off to a horrible start (first 100 turns or so), but managed to pull it together in the end. Contemplating re-playing this one for fun/revenge, heh.

Won a domination victory on turn 333 (the turn after my victory/defeat for uploading purposes), so I think the submission system got confused and counted it as a domination victory instead of a cultural victory. Whoops! :-S

Slightly off-topic, but i played another culture game for the fun of it, where i got this really superior starting position for a one-city game.
Although i got every important wonder, plenty of great people and 5 allied culture city states. I just don't know how people can finish culture games so fast.. It'll take longer to complete than this GOTM where i had 3 cities and lots of puppets.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-22
Your name: xerex
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1923AD
Turns played: 343
Base score: 1181
Final score: 1736
Time played: 4:03:00

Click to expand...

I got a great start, building all Great Library, Oracle and Stone Henge, but failed to capitalize on it.
Probably built too much military, has the successive invasion plans of China and Rome were too easily thwarted. I pushed back and took some Roman cities, and liberated a CS, but I guess the benefits didn't outweigh the costs of building the army in first place.
I resented a lot the lack of cultural CS, but was slow to get Navigation. I also didn't explore fully the south, as my explorers had died.
Two cities, one English city puppet-ed early then annexed, later I took England's capital. I think that was fine.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-22
Reference number: 24606
Your name: Sanuk
Game status:
Culture Victory
Game date: 1978AD
Turns played: 399
Base score: 3675
Final score: 4651
Time played: 10:26:00
Submitted save: Darius I_0399 AD-1979.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Sanuk_C501601.Civ5Save

Went Liberty then Peity - ended up allied with every city state - eliminated all but Russia and Germany but by the end they were both down to only a handful of cities - I could have easily put them down but waited for the Cultural Victory at turn 399.

turn 306

Settled south west and second city went east at river. London seemed a fine city for sea access. Annexed it after some time as third city. Build Sydney Opera House in it using GE when only 2 or 3 SP's were left. As I was focussing on getting all cultural wonders as soon as possible, I wonder whether other players got more effect out of this late wonder.

Should maybe have focussed on research more. A lot of my RA's were terminated because of DoW. Beelined for the Louvre for GA's and the broadcast tower. Mass media took around 20 turns.

As to SP, I focussed on getting Freedom finisher to double GA landmark output. Had around 7 landmarks at that time (including 2 from Louvre) and Hermitage (used Legalism for free Opera Houses).

Had factory and Hydro plant in capital, production of Utopia Project took I think around 15 turns.

I should have annexed the city of Harun at riverside with spice access, but left it a puppet. Yes, Harun DoW-ed me when RA almost finished.

With one extra developed city I would have had more gold and research available. Then I would have had more profit of Sydney opera house and faster production.

Generally followed the strategy as set out in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=429846

Nice game!

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-23
Your name: StrideColossus
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1998AD
Turns played: 418
Base score: 1230
Final score: 1481
Time played: 5:45:00

A victory but hardly stellar, suspect I'll be last in score (again)

Think I got a little greedy with wonders early on at the detriment of expansion / development. By the time I was expanding Arabia was on my doorstep meaning the third city had to be founded miles away to the west.

I also didn't make any use of our UU even though we had England to the south who hated us (and everyone else), should have probably gone military and puppeted London, which I did anyway later in the game.

Rather stupidly built a Monument instead of using the SP and a worker when the next SP could give me a free one.

Initial techs: Mining, Archery (ruin), Masonry, Pottery, Calendar, AH, BW, Wheel, Currency.

SPs: Tradition, Aristocracy, Liberty, Collective Rule, Legalism.

Build: Scout, Worker, Monument, Pyramids, Settler, Stonehenge, Stone Works (buy), GL, Oracle (failed).

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-23
Reference number: 24611
Your name: Aaronius
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1928AD
Turns played: 348
Base score: 2991
Final score: 4334

This was an enjoyable lazy sort of game. With the lower difficulty money was flush and military campaigning was easy. I didn't target Elizabeth until turn 180 and my longswords alone were enough to take her capital.

Also, this game was all about Happiness and Golden Ages. I had a golden age for about 1000 years in this game and then two other pretty long ones. The extra movement for units during GA is so incredibly amazing!!!

I tried timing my great people to pop in multiple cities on the same turn like Tabarnek, but it never worked for me...

Aaronius said:

I tried timing my great people to pop in multiple cities on the same turn like Tabarnek, but it never worked for me...

Click to expand...

It works for one city only. You can't do that in multiple cities at once.

Tabarnak said:

It works for one city only. You can't do that in multiple cities at once.

Click to expand...

OK. Thanks!

Turn 288 on my second playthrough! Now I feel better...

This was my first submission. The no-reload rule affected me quite a few times as moving workers sometime can lead to problems. Here is the summary.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 16
Date submitted: 2011-07-24
Reference number: 24619
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1920AD
Turns played: 340
Base score: 2004
Final score: 2947
Time played: 7:57:00

Built two cities after a NC start. Built GL, Oracle and Stonehenge.The first 100 turns were largely quiet, with a single war against Liz to raze the cities close to my border.

Attempted to sieze London, but its location was extremely strategic. It was quite difficult to get three LS near the city to attack simultaneously. Eventually, abandoned the idea and waited till Rifles.

To use Darius ability to the maximum, I built CI. 2 turns later I got a Happiness GA. Another GG was born due to the Honor policy who was also converted to GA. Finally Taj Mahal was built, which again gave a GA. All in all, I had a non-stop GA for 50 turns, which truly helped me build things at an enormous pace.

Once I got Rifles, Harun and Liz fell (Liz wiped out). Sent out Frigates around the same time to meet Alex, Cathy and Bismarck. By this time, bismark had already lost the capital to Alex and was reduced to a single city. Caesar had not expanded much, as he was constantly in war with Wu.

With a combination of 3 Rifles + Cannon, seized Cumae and signed a peace treaty. Caesar had built GW so, it was imperative that I heal before the onslaught. Bought one more cannon and 10 turns later attacked and siezed Rome. By this time, I was in Industrial era with the arrival of Dynamite. Upgraded both cannons and attacked Kualalampur which was under Chinese oppression. Liberated KL to gain culture. By this time all maritime states and all cultural states were my allies.

Upgraded rifles to Infantry and took out Ganzhou and Beijing. Liberated Capetown from Chinese. Signed peace treaty.

At around this time, Bismark, Cathy decided to declare war on me and started attacking my city states (Geneva was vulnerable). Sent highly upgraded frigates and battleships to fight them. Did not lose either Geneva/Hanoi. Cathy gave up and wanted peace. I politely declined and tormented her cossacks for some more time. Bismark in the mean time was wiped out by Alex.

By this time, I was producing 700+ CPT, with policy coming my way every 7-8 turns. Eventually waited out to complete Honor, Piety, Tradition, Freedom and Patronage. Finally constructed Utopia in 15 turns.