TSG53 After Action Thread

Welcome to the TSG53 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!

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game.

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.).

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

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).

Would be interested to hear any thoughts on game setup.

Reference number: 28106
Your name: Moriarte
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1816AD
Turns played: 278
Base score: 1243
Final score: 2260
Time played: 3:39:00

Kinda expected a faster finish with such a nice map, but took a wrong turn somewhere, apparently

Settled 3 more cities, one on top of gold, the other - next to Sinai (hence picked Judaism), last one - to the east, between 2 mountains, reaching the cotton.

BO: Monument, Scout, Granary.

Went for GL after researching initial techs and settling satellite cities. Unlocked Drama with the free tech from it. NC was finished by turn 81, so i switched 3 cities to ampitheaters. Next, each satellite city built a wonder.

Few early alliances (including cultural) were rather helpful in growing my cities to sizes: 11 - 8 - 8 - 7 by turn 100. Could be better though, as usual..

Policy path was: Tradition - full Piety - Patronage opener - full Freedom (opened t.159) - Liberty's representation - finish the rest.

Tech path was: lux techs. - Writing - Civil Service - Acoustics - Chivalry - Architecture - Archaeology - Radio - Plastics - Chemistry. Stole 5 bottom tree techs from Alex.

Religion was legendary (120 fpt in the end) with Desert folklore, Ceremonial burial, Cathedrals, Divine inspiration and Reliquary. Bought 4 artists with faith, 20 cities were under Judaism.

I guess the lack of cultural CS did slow me down quite a bit (i only found 3 total). More emphasis on early units and i could capture few cities with ease. But, somehow, i felt i should concentrate on what i have.

Made two attempts at capturing Delhi and failed both times . I didn't want to divert any resources towards war, so used 2 gifted legions and 2 crossbows. Gandhi was lucky, killing my last meele unit one turn before i could capture him.

Puppeted two cities, one from America, another from India. Both came with peace settlement.

Built all crucial cultural wonders, yet LtoP was very late, after t.200. Cristo was finished with liberty engineer 2 policies before end. Settled 11 artists and 3-4 (i think) were burned. Also settled 3 Prophets.

All in all, i wasn't too attentive and could have done it much better. Peak culture - 1100 cpt.

Did like Ceidlih halls, extra happiness is always great.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted: 2013-01-16
Reference number: 28111
Your name: Wargizmo
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1800AD
Turns played: 270
Base score: 2217
Final score: 4105
Time played: 7:03:00
Submitted save: Boudicca_0270 AD-1800.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Wargizmo_C505301.Civ5Save


Went 2 city tradition early and grabbed great library for an early NC. Settled capital next to the mountain to the south for obs and access to the marble, settled Dublin on the mountain next to the northern desert for petra and for the double observatory, petra city ended up being my production city, capital was mostly for great person improvements but still a powerhouse.

Got a bunch of the Pictish warriors early and declared all the AIs on sight, exploited peace treaties for gold and later for cities. Conquered a few cities, annexed one of russia's around turn 100, annexed Delhi very close to the end where I rushed Sydney Opera House. Ended up getting the last two policies on the same turn with good SOH timing

Managed to get all the important culture wonders, had great science for most of the game thanks to double observatory. Pretty much had unlimited money from about turn 200 onwards thanks to all my muppets so I was pretty much able to rush buy most of the important buildings (museums, labs, broadcast towers etc). When I annexed Delhi I dropped about 8k on buildings instantly.

Social policies: Tradition -> Piety -> Freedom -> Patronage -> Commerce

Tech: Pottery -> Calendar -> Writing -> Mining -> Bronze working -> Math -> Petra tech -> Civil Service -> Universities -> Astronomy -> Public Schools -> Plastics -> SOH tech (bulbed with oxford) -> Railways

Religion: Desert folklore, Tithe, Cathedrals, Monastery, Itinerant Preachers.
Had just about every city on the map by the end.

screenshots:

Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted: 2013-01-16
Reference number: 28112
Your name: budweiser
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1910AD
Turns played: 330
Base score: 1041
Final score: 1577
Time played: 2:30:00
Submitted save: Boudicca_0330 AD-1910.Civ5Save

I wish I could really figure out why it takes me 300+ turns on these. I think this time it was poor ealrly game growth and it took forever (t200) to get to Industrial. Another mistake was I didnt make any GEs at all so I could not rush wonders in my other cities.

I did not attack anyone and they never attacked me. I just had 4 cities. I went Liberty to Piety, then some Tradition and Patronage until Freedom. Free museums from Tradition.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted: 2013-01-16
Reference number: 28113
Your name: RedRover57
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1852AD
Turns played: 296
Base score: 1275
Final score: 2161
Time played: 10:54:00
Submitted save: Boudicca_0296 AD-1852.Civ5Save
Renamed file: RedRover57_C505301.Civ5Save

I came in under T300, which is good for me for a cultural VC. I did not have a single war, so clearly a puppeting strategy leads to a faster win (e.g., Wargizmo). My science rate was too low and I should have grown my capital larger earlier. Completing Tradition earlier would have been better as I had plenty of cash to rush buy culture buildings, so the late Legalism (for museums) wasn't needed. I ran into a situation where I couldn't work all of the tiles/artist specialists that I wanted to in my capital without growing more first (I had a total of 5 artist slots and 13 landmarks/religious buildings to work at the end). I also missed out on Alhambra to Ghandi by one turn as I waited too long to build it. I ended up allied with all city states, except for one that I couldn't find. My peak cpt was ~1150 and fpt was ~150. Fun game.

Game:Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted:2013-01-16
Reference number:28117
Your name:glory7
Game status:Culture Victory
Game date:1700AD
Turns played:250
Base score:2154
Final score:4308
Time played:6:52:00
Submitted save:glory7_gotm53_0250 AD-1700.Civ5Save
Renamed file:glory7_C505301.Civ5Save

After gotm 49, I decided to use tommynt's strategy. I followed his sp too - full tradition, liberty till reduced sp costs, piety except temple +10% gold one, full freedom, patro left 3 sps, and fill remaining ones.

I realized that I should put artists whenever possible (in gotm 49, I didn't do this...). This helped a lot as it provides cultures earlier so that I could open sp earlier and get GAs (landmarks/Golden ages) earlier. I think I had 11 landmarks and one GP site (this one was from russian GP in the end.

Usual BO for first ~ 150 turns. I did not miss any key wonder this time. Losing alhambra last time was painful. Also, I made sure that I could open piety reformation one earlier. I think I opened it at t136 and rushed taj mahal at the same turn. I opened archaelogy t156 with oxford and I still had 20 turns of golden age to go. After this point, it was perma-golden age. cpt was 439 - I had 2 maritime, 2 culture, 1 mer, 1 mil CS allies. opened freedom at t159 and finished at t185: cpt 762. At that point, I had really high gpt and all CS were my allies.

t188, radio - bought 2 B towers. cpt 861. t191, 8 landmarks - cpt 904. t200, all 4 B towers - cpt 993.

Using 2 scouts, I jumped into the sea and explored - unfortunately, I found 2 culture CS as the last ones... I found other ones first. It certainly delayed my finish time. If I had found them earlier, I could have saved about 5 turns. I met kuala rumpur at t220, which was pretty late. my cpt was over 1100 at that point and peaked around 1250.

with gifted units and bought ones (I bought/upgraded several archers when I got DoWed by 4 civs) I took delhi and eventually american cities. I took sweden cities at the end of the game too. Sweden was my only friend for first 200 turns (it helped for GA generation) but he backstabbed me without apparent reason. Well, he paid the price.

with some pre-buliding, I could build utopia in 7 turns. (edit: by "used", I mean planted it for manufactory) Used GE from the liberty finisher. I bought 3 GAs with faith.

I started perma-golden age around t135 and I think it was not early - it might be late, but definitely not early.

Any comments are appreciated in advance.

I started with the intent to cultural victory

I used religion aggressively w/ festivals, choral music, culture per foreign city and +2 happy on temples

I had a crappy time diplomatically and screwed up any possibility of playing it peaceful but I kept enough friends to get by

I usually play on emperor so being on prince probably caused me to puppet a few border cities I might otherwise have been more cautious

Some screenshots below: I settled one to the right, then near sinai, then south west near the copper for a great production city, and finally up north between hanoi and antwerp

I kept hanoi, antwerp and capetown allies most of the game

My policies were tradition, liberty, piety, patronage and freedom

dropped alot of holy sites and landmarks especially near the sinai desert where i had built petra

I basically puppeted enough to grow in keeping with sweden in case he ever turned on me, I annexed washington at the end so I could build sydney opera house but I reckon I was so close anyhow it didnt matter

*apologies I did not see to copy paste that submission info not sure how to get it now srry

glory7 said:

Game:Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted:2013-01-16
Reference number:28117
Your name:glory7
Game status:Culture Victory
Game date:1700AD
Turns played:250
Base score:2154
Final score:4308
Time played:6:52:00
Submitted save:glory7_gotm53_0250 AD-1700.Civ5Save
Renamed file:glory7_C505301.Civ5Save

After gotm 49, I decided to use tommynt's strategy. I followed his sp too - full tradition, liberty till reduced sp costs, piety except temple +10% gold one, full freedom, patro left 3 sps, and fill remaining ones.

I realized that I should put artists whenever possible (in gotm 49, I didn't do this...). This helped a lot as it provides cultures earlier so that I could open sp earlier and get GAs (landmarks/Golden ages) earlier. I think I had 11 landmarks and one GP site (this one was from russian GP in the end.

Usual BO for first ~ 150 turns. I did not miss any key wonder this time. Losing alhambra last time was painful. Also, I made sure that I could open piety reformation one earlier. I think I opened it at t136 and rushed taj mahal at the same turn. I opened archaelogy t156 with oxford and I still had 20 turns of golden age to go. After this point, it was perma-golden age. cpt was 439 - I had 2 maritime, 2 culture, 1 mer, 1 mil CS allies. opened freedom at t159 and finished at t185: cpt 762. At that point, I had really high gpt and all CS were my allies.

t188, radio - bought 2 B towers. cpt 861. t191, 8 landmarks - cpt 904. t200, all 4 B towers - cpt 993.

Using 2 scouts, I jumped into the sea and explored - unfortunately, I found 2 culture CS as the last ones... I found other ones first. It certainly delayed my finish time. If I had found them earlier, I could have saved about 5 turns. I met kuala rumpur at t220, which was pretty late. my cpt was over 1100 at that point and peaked around 1250.

with gifted units and bought ones (I bought/upgraded several archers when I got DoWed by 4 civs) I took delhi and eventually american cities. I took sweden cities at the end of the game too. Sweden was my only friend for first 200 turns (it helped for GA generation) but he backstabbed me without apparent reason. Well, he paid the price.

with some pre-buliding, I could build utopia in 7 turns. Used GE from the liberty finisher. I bought 3 GAs with faith.

I started perma-golden age around t135 and I think it was not early - it might be late, but definitely not early.

Any comments are appreciated in advance.

Click to expand...

Great finishing time for Culture... Amazing.

How does 'pre-building' work exactly? Is that where you engineer rush a worker or something and the hammers overflow to the next thing you build?

glory7 said:

Any comments are appreciated in advance.

Click to expand...

Yeah, could you shed some light on pre-building please. I read the hammer overflow article, which says i have to get some buildings/wonders within 1 hammer of completion & que them in some peculiar order just before Utopia, yet i can't figure out which exact buildings are needed (and in which order). Thanks in advance.

Solid result, well done, glory!

@ glory7 Impressive result! How many cities did you settle and how did you manage to open Freedom (Industrial era) on T159? This was almost 50 turns (!!) before I was able to do this in my game. Your science rate must have been very high (or did you use RA's?).

t250 as well. managed to save my golden age fail for utopia by chopping 3 forests - i hadnt thought of the liberty GE increasing costs for my next GA by just 1 turn too many.

tradition 4 city into piety until reduced sp costs - timed GA from policy with chichen itza. freedom ~t156, radio way too late (~205). i should have bought schools sooner, rather than workshops. didnt have enough science to get to CR in a timely manner, as i had no puppets whatsoever.

biggest mistake was probably to build SH instead of petra as my first wonder in the desert city. petra would have paid off later on and the gold i spent on the amphitheater there came back to haunt me later when all AIs were broke.

prebuilt a little sloppily too, brought it down to 7 turns but should have been 6 or 5. used 2 GEs for manufactories (GE from pisa was a waste too, should have definitly taken GS or GA there).

Moriarte said:

Yeah, could you shed some light on pre-building please. I read the hammer overflow article, which says i have to get some buildings/wonders within 1 hammer of completion & que them in some peculiar order just before Utopia, yet i can't figure out which exact buildings are needed (and in which order). Thanks in advance.

Solid result, well done, glory!

Click to expand...

whenever you complete a building with more hammers than actually needed, the next queued item will profit from the overflowing hammers. not only this, production modifiers applicable to the building you completed will also get carried over (for one turn).

max overflow is either hammers required for the building or your own production, i think whichever is greater.

to abuse this mechanic properly, it is advisable to get into very low range of completion, as in almost to 1 hammer. for example, in this game, in the last 7 turns before utopia, i completed mint (100h), colosseum (100h - useless - miscalculated turns so i needed almost done filler), constabulary (165h), national epic (245h, dont ask why i didnt get it earlier..), arsenal (300h), angkor wat (400h) with a 165h city. added up to about 600hammers of overflow (you can tell when statue of liberty only needs 4 turns).

obviously you have to prebuild them into the 1h range first which takes quite some planning, especially if you wanna get a lot of overflow and need to get wonders too. himeji castle (500h) wouldve been the next advisable one in the example, but i was 4 turns short.

hope this helped!

pkf said:

whenever you complete a building with more hammers than actually needed, the next queued item will profit from the overflowing hammers. not only this, production modifiers applicable to the building you completed will also get carried over (for one turn).

max overflow is either hammers required for the building or your own production, i think whichever is greater.

to abuse this mechanic properly, it is advisable to get into very low range of completion, as in almost to 1 hammer. for example, in this game, in the last 7 turns before utopia, i completed mint (100h), colosseum (100h - useless - miscalculated turns so i needed almost done filler), constabulary (165h), national epic (245h, dont ask why i didnt get it earlier..), arsenal (300h), angkor wat (400h) with a 165h city. added up to about 600hammers of overflow (you can tell when statue of liberty only needs 4 turns).

obviously you have to prebuild them into the 1h range first which takes quite some planning, especially if you wanna get a lot of overflow and need to get wonders too. himeji castle (500h) wouldve been the next advisable one in the example, but i was 4 turns short.

hope this helped!

Click to expand...

Do you have to do this with buildings? I mean it would seem like it would be easier using units. Also what happens when you use a great engineer... for example if you got statue of liberty down to 1 turn with an engineer and then built it a turn before starting utopia.

Is there anywhere I can see the actual formula to calculate the amount of hammers you get? because it's still a little ambiguous.

This is good to know. Its like RA timing. Without getting too anal, I think its good to have one or two things queued up all the time.

I hope it works with units. There is a bonus to troop production in the Honor tree.

Wargizmo said:

Do you have to do this with buildings? I mean it would seem like it would be easier using units. Also what happens when you use a great engineer... for example if you got statue of liberty down to 1 turn with an engineer and then built it a turn before starting utopia.

Is there anywhere I can see the actual formula to calculate the amount of hammers you get? because it's still a little ambiguous.

Click to expand...

here is the original thread with the idea behind the formula. it is adjustable based on what your hpt is. this goes to april 2011 so im not sure how much if any has changed since patches and expansions have come out. it's mathematically tedious for me which is why i dont use it but it is quite effective in dropping the turn count to build a project. ive seen some say they built UP in 5-6 turns when i normally build it in 10+ with no intentional overflow.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419352

My finish was kinda late, but I did take world church and was very pleased with it in combination with mosque of jenne and aggressive missionary focus. By the end I had converted every city including holy cities

Moderator Action: Moved to the After Action thread as the post talks about the end game finish, which is far beyond the dates in the Opening Actions thread.

That thread is pretty interesting. I still have a ton of questions though, like does each item in the queue have to be more hammers than the last for it to work?

What happens if you get a stealth bomber down to 1 turn, can you just use the overflow to constantly create 1-turn stealth bombers?

Do the items have to be queued or can you just build them one at a time?

How does using a great engineer affect overflow?

Game: Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted: 2013-01-18
Reference number: 28121
Your name: BWS
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1854AD
Turns played: 297
Base score: 1153
Final score: 1954
Time played: 5:58:00
Submitted save: Boudicca_0297 AD-1854.Civ5Save
Renamed file: BWS_C505301.Civ5Save


My fastest cultural victory yet! I probably could have made it quicker if I were better at the Tradition quad opening. I've been loosely following Tabarnak's opening, but it doesn't fit my play style as well as Sadato's does.

Cities: Founded Edinburgh (turn 1) on the hill between the three forests. Founded Dubin (46) in the western mountain valley for Gold and Copper, and to limit Russian expansion. Founded Cardiff (57) on the river next to Mt. Sinai for faith and Petra. Founded Truro (73) near Antwerp for more Gold and Incense. I think I chose exactly the same four spots as RedRover57.

Tech: Mining from ruins, Animal Husbandry (horse), Pottery, Calendar (incense), Masonry (stone) –> Construction (bowmen) –> Currency (Petra) –> Philosophy (NC, Oracle), Drama & Poetry –> Civil Service (Chichen Itza), Education. Didn't finish Education until turn 136. Lost track after that.

Social: Tradition to finisher, Liberty to Representation, Piety to Religious Tolerance, Freedom to finisher, complete Liberty and Piety, Patronage to finisher. Had too much culture and not enough science in the opening, so it took me forever to open Freedom. I already had 14-15 policies by then. Started my end-game Golden Age around turn 200.

Religion: Founded Goddess of the Festivals on turn 6, Druidism with World Church and Cathedrals on turn 72, enhanced with Monasteries and Itinerant Preachers on turn 118. My religion was finished before most of them were even started. Druidism eventually converted everything but the other holy cities. (For the Celts, I rename Shinto to "Druidism" because the symbol reminds me of a henge.)

Wonders: Terracotta Army (turn 86), the Oracle (106), Petra (114), Chichen Itza (127), Hagia Sophia (143), Machu Pichu (165), Sistine Chapel (170), Great Mosque of Djenne (172), Alhambra (182), Notre Dame (197), Forbidden Palace (211), Leaning Tower of Pisa (215), The Louvre (216), Taj Mahal (216), Eiffel Tower (248), Statue of Liberty (283). I spammed pretty much everything with a major culture, happiness, or great person bonus.

Mistakes: I took way too long to get my science game off the ground. I already struggle with science in Tabarnak's opening, and I added a detour to Currency to get Petra, which slowed it down even more. I carelessly let barbarians kidnap my first worker, and while it was easy to get back, I lost several turns. I simply lost focus later in the game and didn't manage my cities as carefully as I should have.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
I designed Druidism to generate as much faith and culture as I could. With plentiful Incense, Goddess of Festivals and Monasteries were easy picks. With a huge lead start on founding my religion, World Church and Itinerant Preachers made sense. Religion easily accounted for 20-25% of my overall culture production –World Church alone was over 10% of my culture for most of the game.

Espionage was less significant. This game was technologically stunted enough that there simply weren't many spies in the game. I used mine mostly to steal tech from Catherine until I eclipsed her.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
I never really had neighbors! Mountain ranges separated me from Catherine to the west and Gandhi to the east. City states formed a buffer to the north. I eventually shared a mountain pass with Gandhi and some tundra with Catherine, but otherwise my borders never even touched a neighbor.

Alexander hated me from the start, denounced me in turn 26. Catherine was psychotic, offering friendship on turn 42 and denouncing me on 54. Everyone else quite liked me, and I had more than the usual number of research agreements, until I lost focus and stopped maintaining them properly. I did eventually get in a spat with Gandhi over religion, but it never came to blows.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I've been playing on Deity for a while, so this was a cakewalk by comparison. I wouldn't have attempted so many wonders in a harder game, and I would have been more careful about science.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 53
Date submitted: 2013-01-18
Reference number: 28125
Your name: kevin.smith.4
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 2021AD
Turns played: 443
Base score: 974
Final score: 1106
Time played: 5:35:00
Submitted save: TSG53_Turn_443_win.Civ5Save
Renamed file: kevinsmith4_C505301.Civ5Save

Hello all, first try at Game of the Month and 443 Turns seems like a lot but I had a lot of fun along the way and a win is a win is a win.

Founded on the adjacent hill like everyone else, opted for Tradition early on and founded Dublin, my only other city, 6 tiles N NW.

Having some trouble with screenshots but I'm sure I'll figure it out next time.

I had no interest in conquering everyone so I tried to remain neutral. In the end though, this proved impossible and for many years I was involved in this stupid war with India over religious expansion. It wasted quite a bit of time and no significant battles were fought. Catherine also attacked me, but the mountains due west along with a citadel in the pass were enough to deter her and her ICS never really got her anywhere. I really enjoyed this and look forward to next month.

kevin.smith.4 said:

Hello all, first try at Game of the Month and 443 Turns seems like a lot but I had a lot of fun along the way and a win is a win is a win.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM.

A win is a win for sure. Keep reading and comparing with the others and it'll get faster. Best of luck.