TSG21 After Action Report

I left the story at turn 295. I was the weakest military in the world, technologically lagging behind four other nations, my empire was utterly indefensible from a geographic point of view, and culturally I was barely in third place.

I was debating trying to penetrate further into Greece’s territory. I was at war with Greece and Allied with India Persia, and most importantly Mongolia. Greece had been beating Mongolia who was my buffer against Greece, so I joined the fray and amazingly was able to take four cities against the much larger and more advanced military. My attack had stalled at the remnants of the Arab empire which were now heavily defended Greek cities. Other than continuing to attack Greece, which would have meant the death of many many units, I thought maybe I could pull off a cultural victory.

I had a city (Antium) that directly bordered Mongolia’s capital. I thought to myself: “why should I kill all my units fighting Greece and everybody else for that matter? I can simply support the Mongols as their best allies I can be, and then sneak attack their capital in a single turn to end the game!”

I thought I was a genius , but two things went wrong . 1st of all, Mongolia were unfocused in their campaigns . They kept wanting to split their forces to go after this or that city-state . They showed none of the killer focus going after Greece’s cities that Greece had shown against them . Secondly, Persia and Ghandi wised up somehow. I did absolutely everything in my power to create the greatest coalition in the game. Ghandi had been my super BFF since the beginning of recorded time. Darius was nearly as close. I brought Khan into the coalition later, and altho there were some initial issues especially from Darius. I got them all trading and RAing with each other and I thought we were all good.

However, Darius went nuts. He killed off Suleiman , got filthy rich , entered a neverending golden age , shot up in score, denounced Mongolia , denounced India , denounced me , and went to war with Khan in the span of 15 turns . I tried my best diplomacy but Darius simply would not listen to reason .

My plan was failing. Everything in my game depended on keeping my coalition strong. I needed a new strategy ASAP. I saw it happening and recognized I would never be able to defend any of my cities if any of my allies attacked. So first I made peace with Greece. Then I systematically sold off every single city I took, and pared down to my original two city empire. I deliberately sold cities to players that were right next to another nation’s territory. I had research agreements with everybody but Greece and Rome (rome was just an island city at this point). I did what it took to get RAs with both and traded every luxury and strategic resource I could. What was the result of all this? I am proud to say I made every single player go to war with every single other player in the game. India Persia Mongolia Rome and Greece were ALL AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER, and none were at war with me. All of their RAs were broken, and all of mine were on.

So my original plan to help Mongolia dominate, only to backstab them failed. But suddenly I had a shot at a tech victory. My attempts to stay militarily relevant had me well set up for science victory, and even tho my science was a pathetic 292 beakers at turn 362 I still had a shot at building a spaceship first if my RAs held up.

As it turned out things could not have been any closer at the end. My spaceship launched on the same turn as the UN vote. I had to go to war with Alex and break one RA b/c he was buying every CS on the map and starting to kill Mongolia again. I actually had two more RAs than I needed (you can’t be too safe) so breaking one with Greece didn’t ruin my strategy. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to launch my ship before the UN Vote, since they were going to happen on the same turn, so I was warring Alex and I was going to take one of his CS by military force if I had to vote before my spaceship launched. As it turns out I was able to launch without having to vote, so I WON. I WON I WON I WON.

I've not played at immortal level before. I've never really gone out for a domination win from the beginning before either - my gameplay is more suited to quick teching. So this has turned into a right slog and I can't see myself finishing in time, unless maybe I go for a different victory condition.

Turn 175 and I'm about to capture a capital (Karakorum) at last, unless the constant waves of keshiks whittle down my riflemen too much. In this push I've lost three pikemen already; I'd love to have been able to upgrade them all to rifles beforehand but I just don't have the money. I am just about first in science, but way behind in most other aspects - I think my largest city is size 11, whereas Mecca is size 21. It's like I'm playing a completely different game to the AI, and to be honest it's not particularly enjoyable.

Historical events:
I settled on the riverside silver so I'd have an early luxury sale opportunity.
I didn't go for the Great Library early, on the grounds that I should avoid such luxuries. Ended up building it anyway after no one else did.
Caesar signed a research agreement with me on turn 58, then declared war five turns later.
I settled three additional cities then hit Legalism to get four free burial chambers.
Khan declared war on India, then shortly after declared war on me and Arabia in the same turn.
Because of the AI advantage in numbers, it took ~100 turns before either Caesar or Khan would make sensible peace offers. A few turns ago, I took a straight peace deal with Rome to focus on Mongolia.

I did build a war chariot but couldn't really see the point - it can move very quickly then shoot, at which point it's incredibly vulnerable to being counter-attacked by whatever you shot at. Somehow, I managed to keep mine alive and upgrade it to a knight.

Edit: played on two turns, captured Karakorum (with Hanging Gardens... pity the luxuries are copies of ones I already have) and idly clicked on Genghis to see what he'd offer for peace. ~500 gold, 89gpt, 4 luxuries and 2 cities. Crikey again. Will have to work out which cities I would take (one he's offered is a captured city state, I presume I could liberate it) and hammer out a deal next time I get the chance to play.