TSG60 After Action thread

Welcome to the TSG60 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?
- Were your UA and UU helpful?

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.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-02
Reference number: 28869
Your name: glory7
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 75AD
Turns played: 118
Base score: 697
Final score: 3030
Time played: 3:45:00
Submitted save: glory7_gotm60_t118.Civ5Save
Renamed file: glory7_C506001.Civ5Save

started with liberty 3 cities and got CBs around t58. Spain DoWed me right before I get CBs and I lost 1 archer - I swiped her army and she offered 2nd city. I just took it and razed it - all I needed was a path to west and I really needed it fast.

Attacked England with like 8 CBs and 2 UU. Took cap at t82 and kept going west. going over the mountain was helpful to move troops faster.

France already had 2 cities east of cap, which means I had to kill them before reaching paris. terrain was not good for seize - forest, hills.

Instead, I got open border from france and even bribed him to DoW suleiman. Meanwhile, Mongolia got DoWed by like 4 civs and lost cap to suleiman - lucky one. Saved 5 turns for sure.

I surrounded Paris and attacked - of course france asked me before that whether I am going to attack or not and I received red line for lying, but at this point who cares...

french army was out for other wars and I took Paris in 3 turns. I used liberty finisher GS to bulb machinary faster and could get the tech 8 turns faster. I had lot of money and immediately upgraded all CBs (t102). I bought one happy CS to counter unhappiness.

I decided to hit 4 caps simutaneously - each army was 5-6 XBs and 1-2 horse/UU. Half of army #1, now say army 1-1 (that took paris) went for istanbul, half of army #1, now say army 1-2, went for siam cap. army #2 went for songhai cap (passing through mountains really helped) and army #3 went for madrid. Army 3 was built/bought after t102 from initial 3 cities. rush bought several Xbows. built 4th city on top of salt on the way to west (for supply problem)

While istanbul had GW, most of his army was away from cap (to fight mongolia and france ), I took it with 5 XBs and 2 UUs in 3 turns. Madrid was even easier - 4 XBs, 1 spearman (gift from CS) and 1 UU did the job.

I was about to conquer siam cap and game crashed (guess civ5 God didn't like Dido, or me). Glad that I had every turn autosaves - siam cap fell at t117, songhai cap at t118.

* It was a really fun map: thank you very much staff!

* maybe I was waiting for gotm too much - my reports are both the first ones (opening action report and this after action report)

turn 216 domination victory..
started warring on turn 30 when spain sent out an escorted settler.. had only two archers and a spear at that point.. took it very slow while i was building up cities and units.. finished that lopsided war on turn 89 taking madrid leaving them with barcelona..
moved on to england turn 96.. liberated hanoi.. took nottingham and london then made peace on turn 118.. songhai finished them off taking york turn 119..
i was very slow as i didnt have a ton of units..
turn 126 went back to fight spain to take out barcelona thinking it would fix my trade route but the coast was actually cut off by ice.. so i ended up building a long road thru hanoi to the middle of map..
had a dof with songhai so i skipped over him and dow'd france on turn 146.. finished them off entirely by turn 168.. would have left him a city but his last city would have been an obstacle later on..
split my forces and began fighting songhai and ottomans turn 180.. dawdled a bit wittling them down.. ottomans had great wall and many janissaries.. songai had lots of trebs and good mountain defense.. artillery wore them down..
took gao 198 and istanbul 204 then converged on siam..
artillery, machine guns and cavalry finished them off.. ottomans took karakorum many turns earlier..

wasted too many turns of tech getting biology thinking i'd need bombers when i should have just teched straight to machine guns.. didnt build one bomber..
otherwise just another sloppy game on my part.
good fun tho.

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
built three cities at first and noticed spain sending settlers into the area i would have expanded into.. so i stole a couple of settlers and started my first war.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
i didnt push hard for religion beyond getting pantheon for the work boats.. i still managed to get what i wanted due to cs allies and crippling spain and england early.. ceremonial burial, 15% production, happy shrines, religious texts.. only ended up with 8 cities following compared to siam with 35.. it did its job thru the time i needed the happy.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
england was nasty from the start but i took out all but one city and askia took the last one as soon as i made peace.. conquered spain early so they werent happy most of the game.. mongolia and songhai were my allies most of the game.. two ra's with genghis.. ottomans were good trading partners and didnt hassle me much.. france traded but at a discount.. siam didnt like me once i took out england but still bought for 109..
i was surprised i didnt get the warmonger tag earlier from suli and nap..

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
i expected more ai units so i was a little too methodical in conquering.. preferring to let them suicide into my city siege.. i could have cut more than 50 turns off my time if i was a bit more aggressive with each war..
ai tech was slow.. i ended up way ahead at 66% compared to average of 50%.

- Were your UA and UU helpful?
the ua was helpful for early cash to buy off cs's when happiness was the biggest issue..
the elephants were ok.. not special.. but better than horsemen.. only built one boat.. sent it along north coast then recalled it to sit in borders most of the game.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-05
Reference number: 28893
Your name: marekb
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1660AD
Turns played: 242
Base score: 1821
Final score: 3793
Time played: 8:13:00

Click to expand...

It was funny map. Tank you very much. In particular I liked the location of Akia capital. UA was very helpful to surround it.

I founded 3 cities. Some turns later Isabel dow me. I was a few turns before CB, repel its attack than took Barcelona and Madrid. Then marched on England. I capture Nottingham t101 and London t113. Marched to Paris and than fight with Suleiman. It was quite long war. He built Janissaries and Sipahi - very nasty. Finally I got Istanbul in turn 215 (it was more than 60 turns war) and went to Siam and Askia capitals.

How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?I founded 3 cities, later annexed Paris to have a unit factory closer to the front line.

How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?I founded religion and choose ceremonial burial to increase happiness. However, I was the last one and didn't concentrate on generating faith so I converted only my original cities and Madrid and Barcelona. Later I took Stonehenge from England and other cities with different religion, so I managed to buy GS with faith. I should buy second GS or GE but I forgot.

I used spies to remove fog of war from capitals and to use artillery. I stole two cheap tech.

How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?Till my war with France or Suleiman I could trade luxuries for descent price. In particular, after capturing London I got a lot of money selling wine. Anyway, there wasn't a lot of diplomacy in this game. Except a war diplomacy.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?Not very much. I just researched construction fast and later beeline to Machinery.

Were your UA and UU helpful?UA was very nice. It allows some descent cash at the beginning and I could move units faster. I build some elephants, but I think horsemen would be also good or even better with one more movement point. I used elephant to capture Paris, later upgrade them to knights.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-07
Reference number: 28900
Your name: Arilian
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1070AD
Turns played: 167
Base score: 1347
Final score: 4081
Time played: 3:10:00
Submitted save: Dido_0167 AD-1070.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Arilian_C506001.Civ5Save

Started with liberty 4C when noticed there are ruins again , hoping for a culture ruin, but did not get any. This really slowed down my expansion, so I played agressively, turn 20ish down vs Isabelle and killed its settler, so she could not expand at all.

Religion was useful, got Prophet from CS quests,, had +1 happy, mosque, +1happy for shire to keep up with happyness. Got Xbow pretty fast (around 90-100) but france and ottomans are also succeeded to be very powerful, so I could no split my army. Got Arty 2 turn before end, and used it to capture istambul.

mountain walking was very useful on the map several time.

I know I was not fast, and i suck domination, but T118 was awsome fast. I could not even walk trought the map in 100 turns

I have mixed feelengs for the UU, build a lot actually but it should not be so expensive.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-10
Reference number: 28914
Your name: Gooble
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1570AD
Turns played: 224
Base score: 1707
Final score: 3879
Time played: 9:18:00
Submitted save: TSG60_Gooble.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Gooble_C506001.Civ5Save

I was hoping for a sub-200 turns victory, but Siam proved to be too difficult for me without artillery. Lost a lot of units pointlessly throughout the game. Slowed down by militaristic Spain in beginning, by long distance to other civs and by disadvantageous terrain in several places (main problems around Tombouctou, Orleans and Sukhotai - pics 1, 2, 3).

Didn't use the Carthaginian uniques much, free harbor in first 4 cities only, rest landlocked. Elephant without use (I focused on archers). But (much to my surprise) the ability to cross mountains was extremely useful considering the map.

Overall my fastest game to date (improving each GoTM, still a lot of room for improvement), but could have been better. I liked the difficulty. Very nice game.

Kinda bored of Domination games , but at least they finish faster than the other victory types!

Went 100% aggression, to hopefully stop the Immortal AI's before they can advance too much.

Full Liberty, and in the end I got a stray policy that I threw in Commerce.

Met Spain in the first few turns so I beelined Construction. Then Writing & Sailing (but I forgot to build boats), and then Machinery all the way.

Didn't spend much time on religion. Stone Circles + Initiation Rites + Religious Community. Did not go with God of the Sea b/c I was focusing on bows, not boats (on lower difficulty levels I would definitely have beelined Sailing earlier but not Immortal level). I had enough to buy 2 Missionaries but didn't do much with religion. Didn't bother enhancing.

I started by taking out Spain. Terrain wasn't very nice and I mainly had Archers (and 2 Composites) so it took awhile to whittle away her units and get into position to take Madrid and wipe out Isabella (Barcelona was conveniently settled/puppeted in between Madrid and Carthage). No wonders.

Next up was England, and London fell easily to my army of composites. Got GL and HG. Thanks Liz!

While my main army moved onwards, I did make the mistake of keeping 3 composites and a warrior stationed near Hanoi (captured by England). I had intended to liberate Hanoi but after about 10 turns, realized it wasn't worth the effort and settled for peace. Kind of a waste of time for those units.

Second silly mistake is that even after getting Sailing, I forgot to build/buy work boats! Didn't really matter, but kinda funny, especially for Carthage!

Songhai had a big army of crappy units, but his secondary/tertiary cities were at inconvenient locations, so it took awhile to slog through it. Then I took Gao (no wonders), which eliminated Askia.

At this point I had a north army and a south army. Unfortunately, both Napoleon and Ramkhamhueng had large armies with lots of Pikemen (ugh!) which would make short work of my Composites. Sukhothai was swamped with Siamese units, not to mention all the rough terrain. Paris was hard to reach since it was protected by French cities to the east, west, and north. France and Siam were at war and had close borders. Around this time, I completed Liberty and chose a GE to rush the Great Wall, just to be on the safe side! France or Siam building it would have been a pain!

My northern army bypassed Sukhothai to attack a minor Siamese city to the north (near Kathmandu). I figured attacking from the north would be better than getting caught between a Siamese/French sandwich. I then upgraded to crossbows and gradually worked my way to the final assault.

My southern army had a long march to the west where they easily took Istanbul (with the Pyramids) and upgraded to crossbows. Unfortunately in my game, no one was kind enough to take Karakorum so I had to send 3 crossbows and 1 warrior north to grab Karakorum.

Meanwhile, a third army had formed, traveling along the great road that spanned from Carthage to Monaco/Lisbon. I actually used that free Settler from Liberty, to settle my second city on the Dye Northeast of Paris, which served as my base of operations. Sent a wave of crossbows (and a few units from Istanbul made the long trip back).

Took out Karakorum (no wonders) and Sukhothai (Stonehenge, Great Mosque, and Chichen Itza) on the same turn, and took Paris (no wonders) the turn after.

In this game, it was interesting to see so many of the AI's being aggressive towards city states. England took out Hanoi. Mongolia took out Jerusalem. And the Ottomans took Venice.

Also, I have to say that Napoleon was extremely tolerant of my warmongering (which isn't exactly surprising given his flavor values). He was the second AI I met, and he still gave me full price on trades up until the very end of the game (when I DoW'ed him).

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-10
Reference number: 28920
Your name: Ninakoru
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1854AD
Turns played: 297
Base score: 3516
Final score: 5959
Time played: 20:16:00
Submitted save: TSG60_Ninakoru_Win.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Ninakoru_C506001.Civ5Save




As I said on the opening act, gone wornderwhore. I managed to build the following wonders:

- Stonehenge, The colossus, The Great Lighthouse, The Oracle, The Forbidden Palace, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Big Beng, Brandenburg Gate, Neuschwanstein, Pentagon, Eiffel Tower, Cristo Redentor, Hubble Space Telescope.

Main game checkpoints:

- On policies gone liberty, then commerce left part first for production bonus and great lighthouse + naval tradition sea abuse. Finished commerce and the finished autocracy. Grown a very strong religion with ceremony for happiness.

-At turn 100 took Madrid, and annexed it Over turn 105 Isabella was left with only cordoba.

- I've spent over 60 turns pretty much wonderwhoring and building infranstructure, Took cordoba it much later when I went to England over turn 170. At that point I changed to military mode, only building the wonders with great engineers. Got artillery few turns later. Liberated one CS and conquered a city but I has to stop war at one point because the got air before me (gone railroad IIRC) getting 4 cities in the peace treaty. Returned one junk city at snow land for some gold and reworked the war 15 turns later with a few anti air units and some WW planes.

- On turn 210 or so gone to Askia, I was not able to use the sea powers on this map, I've landed two more cities on the north part mainly for copper and gems.

- Finally gone against Suleiman who was trying to runaway for over 30 turns, had problems to advance on the land push due to problems with a small choke point, and kremlin/himeji bonuses, with were pretty much ignored once I get into total war from autocracy on over turn 270 (should have finished askia to get more land to place artillery). Razed the water army without many problems, but didn't get a small army to land on Suleman's west lands.

- Finally conquered both siam's and Ottoman's capitals on the victory turn.

I have done pretty well on this game, is my best Immortal win. Strong religion, huge cities, a great gold income from capital (170 gold), a great city for science with jungle and near mountain (328 science), and a huge production from the annexed madrid (195 production). Kept a good balance with nice tech/culture along the game. I didn't go full aggression to get a good time because I'm not used to it, and is my fourth Immortal win, maybe on other GOTM.

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
I built 7 cities, razed Barcelona to place another on a better position and the last two ones on the north part only accesible land part to grab a few luxuries I didn't own.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Didn't get much form spying because I was on tech parity most of the game (with a big lead once I got hubble telescope and scientifics from rationalism faith purchase), so used mainly for rigging and getting visibility on enemy cities for artillery unload. Religion was a great asset in this game, My religion were dominant, and game me loads of happiness along with production bonuses.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Pretty well going slowly down specially once I conquered all spain, and gone war to with askia.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Well, I pretty much ignored the difficulty and taken decisions more suited to lower difficulties, wonderwhoring thanks to marble and godly production, and using a long peace period of 60 turns . I keep the pace with the runaway even it is an Immortal game.

- Were your UA and UU helpful?
Free Harbor was very nice tied with god of the sea, and religious bonus to production, and no need for many roads. The mountain movement was specially useful on this map with load of mountains, conquered askia's capital slipping from the other side, and taken the siam capital using the montain. The UU wheren't very useful. The quinqueremes didn't get much action, and one elephant were used mostly to take cities but horseman would do the same job.

Very interesting map, never played with Carthage, was a great experience.

Cap order after Lonon: Paris, Istanbul, Karakorum, Sukhotai and GAO last. I did not have luck with some AI taking Mongols out, had to do it myself. Was hoping to snipe gao with three canons and few knights-lancers, but despite being friends with Askia and paying him to attack various civs, he had his cities completely surrounded with his units and never moved them. Looked like he was trying to prevent my win. Has anyone seen anything like it?

For me this is the normal

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-12
Reference number: 28935
Your name: ense7en
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1705AD
Turns played: 251
Base score: 2170
Final score: 4340
Time played: 10:28:00


I suck at fast domination. You guys have some insane times posted
But i got Giant Death Robots at the end, which was awesome as that never happens

I already did a fairly detailed writeup in the Opening Actions thread.
I continued my warring into France, then Ottomans, then once i got nukes i went after Genghis.

I must say that being able to cross mountains is really handy for a domination game.
I nuked + stealth bombed Songhai at the very end to finish it off.

Was actually really strong with tech in this game with my four main cities (three settled + Barcelona).

t251 screenshots

homeland


final frontier


tech tree


policies


cities overview


final demographics

Arilian said:

I know I was not fast, and i suck domination, but T118 was awsome fast. I could not even walk trought the map in 100 turns

Click to expand...

It's basically walking through the map and spent 2-4 turns to capture each city.

I didn't do tommynt style this time (deal-and-DoW many times) and I am pretty sure that I played by HoF rules this time; not because I thought I had to, but because it's more effective in immortal or deity in my opinion. I maintained good diplo relationships so I could sell lux at good prices and bribed AIs to DoW each other at cheap prices.

I even got an open border from France so that I could pass through his cities (even used his roads!) and surrounded Paris and launced a surprise attack. After I got Paris and upgraded to Xbows there, it's just matter of marching to caps and kill them all.

ense7en said:

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-12
Reference number: 28935
Your name: ense7en
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1705AD
Turns played: 251
Base score: 2170
Final score: 4340
Time played: 10:28:00

t251 screenshots

Click to expand...

Nice screenshots! and GDR with nukes - overkill!

glory7 said:

Nice screenshots! and GDR with nukes - overkill!

Click to expand...

Yeah it was fun.

I definitely was glad to be well ahead in tech (particularly once i bulbed my way thru a number of Atomic/Info Era techs), as Genghis had a MASSIVE army and ******ed production.
Even with my tech advantage he still was a tough fight and took back two cities right after i'd gotten them.
If i hadn't nuked most of his planes and main cities it'd have been a much longer war.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 60
Date submitted: 2013-05-13
Reference number: 28941
Your name: Unresolved
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1460AD
Turns played: 206
Base score: 1631
Final score: 3978
Time played: 4:06:00

I started off the game intending to take 3 capitols with crossbows and the rest with artillery, but I wish I had just went with crossbows and ignored the NC. The way the map was set up made it a real pain to get artillery to Siam. I haven't played much lately, so my domination tactics were kind of rusty, leading to half of my army suiciding against Suleiman. I had to annex one of France's cities to buy my army and keep the momentum going. At the end, I had to wait a few turns to ally Jerusalem before DoWing Siam or else my army would have been ripped to shreds by the melee units there.

Research wise, I went Construction -> Philosophy -> Education -> Machinery -> Dynamite. If I had gone for a true crossbow rush, I wouldn't have gone for NC or Education. But before I started, I felt like that strategy would be too risky since I'm not particularly good at early domination victories.

I did three cities, but when I decided to make army - Isabela came with about 20 units and conquered one my city and destroyed my archers. Next I retired, pretty upset with my game. I cannot be so careless on Immortal.

Next time I tried to remake Glory7 game - and it works! OK, I was not so good - but ten percent is no difference, is it?

So this time no submission, I am looking forward to next game.

Moderator Action: Moved to after action thread. Please do not post in the announcement thread once you have opened the game save. Thanks.

I royally screwed up my first attempt at this one and have already retried 3 or 4 times, so no submission from me this time.

I wanted to see how much difference a proper start would make, so I went with GotS and a quick archer army, then CB rush for London.

It worked out well at the beginning with t82 London, and t105 XB. But by that time my CBs were besieging Paris and I messed it up. I took it in time for upgrade but Nappy took it back and then targeted my melee like a pro human player despite me having some juicy decoys. From that point on it unravelled fast, with all remaining players having big armies or cities in the way. And I was paying them to fight each other. Early my scout saw Sully's army take karakorum down to 0 for few turns and then give Genghis peace Sully had GW, Ramky elephants and Askia as usual big walls of units around his cities.

Took Madrid with second army, then Gao, while first took Istanbul and a task force of 1 knight, XB and two trebs took Karakorum. Then Sukhotia was last, had to conquer Monaco to get to it and it was not easy even with UA.

Very impressive win Glory7, 30 turns faster then my replay

Maxym said:

I wanted to see how much difference a proper start would make, so I went with GotS and a quick archer army, then CB rush for London.

It worked out well at the beginning with t82 London, and t105 XB. But by that time my CBs were besieging Paris and I messed it up. I took it in time for upgrade but Nappy took it back and then targeted my melee like a pro human player despite me having some juicy decoys. From that point on it unravelled fast, with all remaining players having big armies or cities in the way. And I was paying them to fight each other. Early my scout saw Sully's army take karakorum down to 0 for few turns and then give Genghis peace Sully had GW, Ramky elephants and Askia as usual big walls of units around his cities.

Took Madrid with second army, then Gao, while first took Istanbul and a task force of 1 knight, XB and two trebs took Karakorum. Then Sukhotia was last, had to conquer Monaco to get to it and it was not easy even with UA.

Very impressive win Glory7, 30 turns faster then my replay

Click to expand...

First of all, thank you. It seems that we were pretty on the same route (t82 London - same turn, t105 XB - very similar). Slightly late XB might mean that you bought lib at cap later than I did.

I think the main difference after that is Paris. I luckly got an open border from France and bribed him to fight against like 3 other AIs, so I surrounded Paris with CBs/UUs and took it in like 2-3 turns, and upgraded to XBs right after. French army was far from Paris so I did not worry about recapture.

And I bribed AIs a lot so for the rest of AIs I only need to kill basically 5-6 units till I got there caps.