TSG62 After Actions

Welcome to the TSG62 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?
- How did the freedom to choose your victory condition affect your game? Did you enjoy it?

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.

My first time playing in this style. Lots of new combinations used, tech order was total mess as I had changed my plan in like every 5 turns, etc...

tech: pot - sailing - mining - calendar - CB tech - optics - iron - horseback - civil service - philosophy/engineering - education - acoustics - machinary - astronomy - sci theory - chemistry - navigation - dynamite - biology (to check oil) - flight - electronics (yes, battleships!) - rocketry (rocket artils!) - combustion - plastics - atomic thoery - nuclear - satellites - who cares...

SP: liberty left line - liberty finish (rushed NC with liberty GE) - ratinalism left 2 - rati right 1 (humanism) - autocracy - militarism - one more

religion: DF - ascetism - ceremonial burial - motg - cathedrals - 30% further spread.

After taking Persia cap around t100, I tech for education before Xbows, as it seemed that I could only take out Germany with Xbows and if I tech late other civs will fly away.

I think I got education around t115. I only had cash for one univ, so bought one at the cap. I could open rati at the very turn I finished acoustics and entered renaissance. Lucky. However, liberty finish was too late and my NC got delayed as well.

Lack of culture CS was really painful - there was one (Yerevan) but Japan conquered it quick. I even went cathedral (pagoda was taken) to get more culture, but could not buy lots of them. Faith generation was not enough.

After getting Xbows, I attacked Persia again and went for Germany. I also had war with Rome and lost one German city I captured before. I knew that my pace was too late for other VCs, so I decided to go for domination - and to conquer other continent I knew that I have to rely on naval units. My goal was to get battleships fast, so I went sci theory - navigation - dynamite. Very unusal sequence.

I took Berlin after killing more than 20 german UUs (t168). I didn't have cash and happiness was on the borderline. Thus, I sold next 3 German cities I conquered to Egypt and liberated Genoa.

I tried to bribe AIs to DoW to slow them down. I used 2-3 GS to get electronics - not sure about the exact turn, but I guess it was around t190. I tried to capture enemy frigates (with privateers) so that I could upgrade them too. Upgrade cash came from gpts from selling 3 cities.

After taking Rome and several more cities (it was really annoying that I had to conquer more cities to get naval access for admirals who were born at the cap and had to come around the map to join my naval forces), I sold most of the cities to Egypt, due to happiness and lack of gold. I used more GSs to get rocket artils.

10+ battleships went for Japan. land armies took out 2-3 cities that he settled in my continent and joined when naval units came. He had lots of great war bombers so I had to get destroyers/fighters/AA to counter them. After Japan, I attacked Celts and took Dublin and cap. While main land armies were attacking Celt cap (5 rocket artils supported by 2 last hit units and 2 machine guns), army #2 and naval units went up for Egypt.

I made a huge mistake that I forgot to research manhattan (I thought I did, but oh well...) so I could not use nukes in time. This mistake alone at least costed 5 turns. Right before the end, I got nukes but that was not needed... but I just used it anyway.

Considering the easy-to-defend terrain, I believe that tradition 4 cities that aims for sci/diplo would have been a better choice. I guess sub t220 sci victory is very likely.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 62
Date submitted: 2013-06-02
Reference number: 29094
Your name: glory7
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1620AD
Turns played: 234
Base score: 2325
Final score: 5054
Time played: 12:11:00
Submitted save: Gotm62_glory7_0234 AD-1620.Civ5Save
Renamed file: glory7_C506201.Civ5Save

And domination takes a long time too...I got several crashes, but I kept playing - I wanted to get this done during the weekend.

I've submitted a loss so that people can learn from my mistakes, in the spirit of "Don't Do What Donny Don't Does". I've also learnt I need to take better notes for the postmortem.

I made a couple of fundamental mistakes, and think I might play through again with a different path - I went tradition early, and should have gone liberty because I needed more cities to keep up in Science (I was lagging badly all game, although spying caught me up quite a few).

The next error, and it's one I have commonly, is not being aggressive enough early. I didn't get DOW'd until almost at the end of the game (I think Darius got tired of me stealing CS's from him to prevent his victory, and the war was what stopped me from stopping him in the ?third? meaningful vote - I know people are convinced the AI is bad, but I thought this looked like a good play), and I was eyeing all the exciting Wonders Darius had in Persepolis, but couldn't pull the trigger.

The third error, having decided to try a Culture victory (actually, going for Culture was probably the third error) was switching from Piety to Rationalism because I was so far behind in tech. I did start catching up techwise from the switch, but needed the culture bonuses from Piety more.

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?

I built 2. Settled in place, and then a second city to the west, with the silk in the second ring. I wanted another city by Mt Kailash (cf: should've gone Liberty first), and on replay I'll settle the first one with the Marble in the third ring by going 1 NE.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?

Gots -> Tithe -> Choral Music -> Pagodas -> Religious Centre -> Messiah (the last two were because nothing I wanted was left)

Having got my pantheon early from the 2 CS's, I took GoTS because working Tundra would have hurt too much. I built shrine before the granary (!) to try and get a religion early, but almost missed out on religion altogether - I ended up having to "buy" Vatican City and founded the last Religion.

By this stage (t100 when my prophet popped) I already felt like I was out of the game having missed my chance to take Persepolis, but I soldiered on.

I stole many, many techs from pretty much everyone. This meant I could stick to my plan, but still get the things I needed but couldn't afford. Too little, too late in the final analysis.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

I was astonished with how sweet everyone was to me. Sold lots of luxes (although rarely for full value, often for lumps + gpt), was invited to war alliances many times (again, some of these I should have taken up) and I never got attacked until end game, although I was notified of forthcoming attacks by pretty much everyone except Bismarck at some point during the game.

Bismarck was entirely eliminated by Darius, and after Augustus went city spamming all around my borders Darius turned his attention to him.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

It made me nervous early game, because I wasn't building up militarily - and then because I was being cautious, I missed my opportunity for a third city in a decent location, and my opportunity to see if 6 CB's + random melee could take Persepolis.

- How did the freedom to choose your victory condition affect your game? Did you enjoy it?

I like having a choice, because it gives me more opportunity to do stuff wrong early on.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 62
Date submitted: 2013-06-02
Reference number: 29095
Your name: ellgieff
Game status: Diplomacy Loss
Game date: 1848AD
Turns played: 294
Base score: 380
Final score: 380
Time played: 5:37:00
Submitted save: Theodora_0294 AD-1848.Civ5Save
Renamed file: ellgieff_C506201.Civ5Save

Game: Civ5 GOTM 62
Date submitted: 2013-06-05
Your name: Derfel_82
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1826AD
Turns played: 283
Base score: 676
Final score: 1207
Time played: 8:45:00

Not a fantastic win but a win. A hard map for me.

I try to did a 4 Cities Tradition open with one city (2nd) very near Darius in a excelent defensive position and near a Mt. Wherever....

Atacked Darius and killed him with my "best friend" Bismark and go for a SV with a lot of difciulties because Augustus droped a city in a very good spot and i can´t do my 4th city in a decent place.

At the end Bismark Dowed and take or a i have to sold some cities to other AI´s. They nuked me 2 times in my very good defensive city. This was a problem because are the city with Aluminium and i had to buy some recycling centers to finalyze me SS parts.

Thanks for the fun game.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 62
Date submitted: 2013-06-05
Reference number: 29112
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Incomplete Retired
Game date: 1640AD
Turns played: 238
Base score: 495
Final score: 495
Time played: 4:24:00
Submitted save: TSG62_Break4_screw_this_game.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C506201.Civ5Save

Click to expand...

I have less than a snowball's chance in hell of not getting wiped out.

Just finished the game. Well, my first Deity game. Why it's called "Deity"? More like "Masochism", or "Insane". That's my feeling.

- How many cities did you build and how many did you decide to acquire?
Builded 2, acquired 0.
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Founded my religion, but Darius converted my Holy City. Just after i've enhanced it. Spied like a maniac to try and steal stuff. Was kinda sucessfull in the spying department.
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Kinda meh: Bismarck and Augustus. Darius was actually nice to me, only starting to become negative after i've stolen tech from him, even though i said i would stop.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
A lot. Didn't expand because i wanted to have a reasonable army, and to catch up in tech first. BUT, this "#$%&/()= AI settles EVERYTHING. And before i knew it, BAM. No room to settle.
- How did the freedom to choose your victory condition affect your game? Did you enjoy it?
I can't tell if i enjoyed it, because i play at Prince level. I got kicked in the face hard. Only built Apollo like, after the other 6 civs built it. Oh well, at least survived the game and kept my capital.

Overall, and even though i don't play Deity, this set-up has to be classified as hard. Jesus Holy Christ.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 62
Date submitted: 2013-06-06
Reference number: 29115
Your name: AE_
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1535AD
Turns played: 217
Base score: 687
Final score: 1597

I got a diplomacy victory at turn 217. I Struggled with money for the entire game, which made it tough to get a faster time.

My policies were: Full tradition, first 3 rationalism, 1 order (to get GE for UN) and 1 commerce at the very end (to get a GM for trade mission).

I had 5 wars in total. First I DOWed Persia to get a worker, and after that we had 3 more wars. The third war ended with me taking Essen from Persia, and the 4th war at turn ~200 started with me selling Essen to Germany since it had a very weak defensive position against Persia. But other then Essen, I conquered no cities and lost no cities. I also had a war with Rome at the end, but they were not able to do any big damage before the game ended. War was not really a problem in this game, since both Adrianople and Nicea had a very good defensive position.

I got no wonders throughout the entire game (except for UN). I tried to build Petra, The Porcelain Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but I missed them all by a few turns. I believe this is the first non-domination win for me were I don't manage to build any wonders.

With 4 cities only, no Pisa, no PT and no 50% RA boost policy it was too difficult to maintain a tech rate fast enough to launch a spaceship in time. I would have it if both Darius and Augustus didn't DoW me near the end.

In fact i didn't manage to build a single wonder

I got unlucky with quests outside Vatican and Geneva and i couldnt ally early extra cs and think about a diplo victory. But maybe a real try would have worth it...keeping gold for them instead of RAs and hard build every Public schools and Research labs would have let me a lot more gold.

I stopped playing on turn 237.

I normally prefer to not post finishing time details. But since this is the rare Deity game and with no preferred VC, I figured that I'd make an exception!

Fun game but very hard and exhausting. Spent a lot of time on every single turn to maximize micromanagement, which is important on Deity. I *really* got to cut down on the amount of time I spend on Civ V!

I think this game was *much* harder than the previous Deity game:

1. You get the underpowered Byzantium instead of the overpowered Babylon

2. Continents instead of Pangaea. (Nothing you can do to affect half the other players until mid-game).

3. More opponents. (Last Deity was underpopulated with only 5 opponents instead of 7).

4. Last Deity game also had more room to expand (and buffer from other AI's), which is likely connected to #3.



Second city was strategically founded on the river hill near Mt Kailash. This was a very key city.

Third city was settled south of Lisbon, near the mountains and truffle. It had food problems and never contributed much to my economy/science, but it primarily had military value.

Fourth city was near Gibraltar.

Religion was: God of the Sea + Tithe + Initiation Rites (bonus) + Cathedrals + Religious Community + Itinerant Preachers. Second to found and I even bought 1 missionary before buying cathedrals. However, my religion spread very slowly so if I did it again, I would probably replace Initiation Rites with something else. Faith generation was pathetic this game. 4th to Enhance.

Tech was: Beeline Calendar, Sailing, Writing, Philosophy, Currency, then to Education (detour for Masonry/Construction to defend against Persia), Printing Press, Industrialization, Plastics (detour to Military Science & Fertilizer), Globalization.

While Babylon can still get GL in a Deity game, there's no chance for Byzantium, so before starting, I wiped out any hopes for a GL beeline. Instead, I went with the slightly less risky Stonehenge beeline. I succeeded in grabbing Stonehenge, which helped me get an early religion (but my faith output was really bad). The GE point also turned out to be key later on.

The second phase of the game was a mad rush for Petra which I managed to get (beating Persia who was using a production poor city for it).

Persia had been eyeing my second city (which now had Petra) for quite some time, so he DoW'ed me. However, the terrain was favorable to me (due to mountains and rough terrain), so Adrianople became known as the killing fields for Persian troops. Massacred Persian troops left and right for many, many years. Eventually, Germany (who DoF'ed me early) DoW'ed Persia and Persia withdrew after his Golden Age ended (standard Persia tactics). I then sent my army into Persian lands. Persia gave his second city (Pasargarde) to Germany, and gave me his third city (Susa). Susa was in crappy tundra land near Cahokia, but it was a 14 population city with plenty of infrastructure. Persia was left with just his capital, but he was Afraid of me, and offered a DoF (which I naturally accepted).

It was funny watching wonders go left and right (I was happy with just SH & Petra). An unknown player hit the Renaissance and now I had to shoot for LT & PT. I quickly stole several Medieval techs from Persia. During this time I popped a GS (from university) and GE (from SH points). The moment I researched Printing Press, I burned my GE for LT and got another GE. However, someone (Celts) built PT before I was remotely close. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have gotten greedy going for LT first, and should have just shot for PT directly. Oh well.

During this time, I was playing around with the espionage mechanics, so I deliberately left Optics / Compass / Astronomy unresearched to see if it affected my stealing times (it did not seem to). The main result was taking a long time to meet the unknown civs (especially Mayans) and being at a disadvantage when Rome came DoW'ing.

Rome DoW'ed out of the blue (even after I freed their settler!) and so began the 100 turn war. He sent wave after wave against me, which I slaughtered with ranged units and dromons. However, my dromons were obsolete enough that I couldn't take the offense. Eventually, when I got Navigation and upgraded to Frigates, I started mowing him down. I did really well with Frigates (and later Battleships) but could have had them 30+ turns earlier if I had tried. I really think glory's Frigates/Battleships approach is probably the fastest way to victory.

I was actually feeling pretty good in the Renaissance. Due to tech stealing, I was competitive in terms of tech. Several of us hit Industrial at the same time, and I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to manually build Big Ben! Thinking my tech stealing times would still be fast, I then researched Military Science & Fertilizer. However, suddenly it took a long time to steal (maybe because of Constabulary and later Police Station?) so that plan faltered. Uh, at least I got to hard build Brandenburg Gate?

Boudicca had researched Replaceable Parts and built the Statue of Liberty quickly. I managed to go for Radio, and hard built the Eiffel Tower. Then Plastics and Cristo Redentor.

With my Frigates, I had manage to take one Roman city which I promptly sold to Germany (couldn't defend it). However, as soon as I teched to Battleships, I could take cities and kill approaching land units. Took 3 more Roman cities (crappy ones) and a few turns before the end of the game, I allowed for peace (accepting a 19 population Roman city).

The end game relied on matching up science, production, and culture, which worked decently. Built Sydney Opera House and the U.N. and while I was waiting for the vote, I hard built the CN Tower.

At the end of the game, had DoF's with everyone but Rome. There were 15 CS' left (3 had died). Was allied with 14/15 CS (not enough $$$ to afford La Venta), and got 6 votes from major AI's (everyone but Rome), for 20 votes out of a possible 23 (can't vote for myself). Well above the 11 vote threshold.

I really need to stop worrying about the end game. Getting the votes needed is trivially easier - even on Deity! Getting to that point in the game (technology wise) is the major challenge!



Amusing things in the game:


#1. In my war against Rome, Sydney took a small Roman city and puppeted it. It happens every now and then, but is rare (normally CS' raze cities). The city was actually crappy (no resources except Oil which wasn't discovered till the end). At first I thought it was a good thing (fills the spot, Sydney is my ally, and I don't suffer the happiness penalty for puppeting it myself). However, later I found it a little annoying since Sydney had all its units around, so moving civilian units through was a pain. It was especially interesting since the city was near Geneva (which has similar colors). Here is a screenshot. Can you tell which units/borders are which?




#2. People occasionally do "barbarian farming" for culture (with Honor opening), but I got to play around with "barbarian farming" for diplomacy by offering up sacrificial workers to the barbarian gods, who I could later liberate. It was amusing and worked okay, but oftentimes the barbarians wouldn't take the bait. Must be something quirky in the AI. In the early game, barbarians will usually take unprotected civilian units but near the end, they were just ignoring them! I'd be interested to hear how the barbarian AI coding works.



* The encampment was a three CS city quest, which I saved for the very end!

#3. I was lucky to get SH & Petra. I don't count LT as a real win since it was with a GE. But after being soundly beaten in the Medieval/Renaissance wonder race, I was quite surprised that I was able to naturally get Big Ben, Brandenburg, Eiffel Tower, and Cristo Redentor! Especially on Deity.

#4. Once Darius was down to just one city, Germany kept beating him up. He definitely would have taken it in mid-game, if I hadn't ringed Persepolis with my units. It was a very sweet city - with the Pyramids, Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu, and Alhambra, but I needed Persia doing reasonably well since he was my RA partner and as a buffer against Germany. So Germany spent 50+ turns trying futilely to attack a 0 HP city!

#5. General consensus is that Pagodas > Cathedrals, except with Cultural VC. However, the more I play, I appreciate Cathedrals more than Pagodas. In Diplomacy/Science games, that extra Artist slot can pay off with Secularism (+3 science per specialist), as long as you can regulate the GA points. In Diplomacy, that Artist slot let me pop a GA in the end for a Golden Age right before the UN vote. Wouldn't have been able to do it with Pagodas!!!



Mistakes:

#1. I went with 4 cities but my 3rd and 4th cities never amounted to much. Might have been better going with just 2 cities (capital and super Petra city). It's hard to say what my military situation would have been w/o them. Maybe Rome would not have DoW'ed me (less proximity) and we could have been friends (with an extra few RA's). Then again, maybe Rome would have DoW'ed me anyway and I would have been in a far worse defensive position.

#2. Ignoring Optics/Compass/Astronomy was a mistake. As mentioned, I did it to experiment with espionage. However, it significantly prolonged my war with Rome (who wouldn't give me reasonable terms until the very end). Having Frigates early would have changed things drastically, allowing the war to end sooner. Also, it significantly delayed meeting the civs on the other continent.

#3. I probably could have handled culture and faith better. Not being a Deity player, I'm sort of spoiled by having all the wonders to myself. So having pitiful culture and faith (and not being able to compete for city state influence) meant that my output was pathetic. It didn't help there weren't any cultural city states (and the only ones in the game died before I got the chance to meet them). I did eventually get Mt Kailash, but the early game was spent rushing for Petra so I couldn't afford to work it!

#4. *Maybe* I should have shot for Architecture/PT directly instead of Printing Press/LT. Would still have been a gamble though.

#5. Although stealing Medieval/Renaissance techs was fast, it hit a major speed bump in Industrial - even though I wanted to steal Renaissance and easier techs. 30-40 turns for Optics when I can do it myself for 1 turn! Uh, no thanks! In any case, I wasted time on Military Science and Fertilizer - beakers that should have gone towards the tech path to Scientific Theory and Plastics.



Thanks again for the Deity game! It's definitely we shouldn't do too regularly, but having one every now and then (with any VC) is fun!

Halcyan2 said:

I really need to stop worrying about the end game. Getting the votes needed is trivially easier - even on Deity!

Click to expand...

Maybe i should too! A science victory was more risky after all because it takes more time. Darius allied almost every cs on the planet and some of them had 150+ influence to surpass them. I thought that a science victory would have been easier but as i can see i was wrong. Enjoyed reading your post btw

I was afraid of settling near Darius, especially after stealing a worker from them. Stupid Romans put a city near my capital and diplomatic relations felt down at this point.

Tabarnak said:

Maybe i should too! A science victory was more risky after all because it takes more time. Darius allied almost every cs on the planet and some of them had 150+ influence to surpass them. I thought that a science victory would have been easier but as i can see i was wrong. Enjoyed reading your post btw

Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment!

I've found that on high difficulty levels (where the computer has tons of cash) and even more so once you hit the Renaissance, it's often not worth it to spend cash on city state allies. Maybe pick a handful that are important (usually Cultural or Maritime).

But investing too much gold is just asking to be coup'ed. And we all know how much the AI loves couping. Or even then, in addition to the natural degrading of influence, you also lose a big chunk every 15(?) turns due to election rigging.

So this was a Diplomatic game where I spent most of the game without any CS allies. (Midway through the game, I allied with Sydney and Genoa, but spent most of the game with just these two).

Course maybe that was why the game was so rough (especially in terms of culture and faith).

Another very interesting thing I learned this game (in addition to tech stealing rates) is about coups. In the past, many people (including I) have complained about how easily the AI can coup even if you have a lot more influence than they do. I need to do more research but it *does* look like things cut both ways - the key is using an experienced spy.

When I sent spies to city states:

A level 1 spy had a 0-10% rate of couping (when I was at about 10 influence and the ally was about 60-70). But I had a level 3 spy have a 70% couping at the same influence levels (10 vs. 70). In another case I had a level 3 spy where I had about 40-50 influence (vs. 60-70) for an 80% success rate, so that 40-50 influence only gave me an extra 10% chance.

This seems to indicate that a spy's level is *far more dominant* of a factor than influence levels. (There could be unknown variables, including whether or not another spy is there but human players have no way to determine that).

I would love to hear what the actual mechanics (and equations) are used for spying (coup % chance, stealing potential for techs) as well as religion spreading (exactly how the pressure system works). It's too blackbox for me. I like knowing the equations (like with cultural costs and hurry production equations).

In my game, I was fortunate enough that Germany beat the crap out of Persia, so Persia had trouble buying all the CS (though it still managed to have a few allies).

Also, I had the diplomatic benefit of never having declared war (only being the target of wars by Persia and Rome). However, in the end game I was able to get extra diplomacy points by bribing others to DoW Rome - not because I actually needed help but so that I got the "Fought against a common foe" bonus. I'm sure I didn't need it (had buku positive modifiers anyway with all the AI's). Of course you need to be doing damage to that common foe, and it works best if you are the only way fighting the foe. (If the other AI's are also fighting the foe, they will get the diplomatic bonus with each other as well, which may make them like each other more than they like you!).

I think the AI is amusing. It's really good at the science bit (for both Science and Diplomacy VC). But it has trouble understanding how the "build spaceship parts and finish my spaceship" and "get votes for the UN" parts work. Similarly, the Domination VC seems more of a "beat you up completely and take over everything" where taking capitals is just a side project. It lacks the "snipe capitals" mentality that many players end up using.

I was afraid of settling near Darius, especially after stealing a worker from them. Stupid Romans put a city near my capital and diplomatic relations felt down at this point.

Click to expand...

Well if Roman expansion and conflict was inevitable, that makes me feel better about founding my third/fourth cities. Though I think I probably would have been best off with 3 (not 4). Keeping Gibraltar as my border (like AE did) rather than expanding to those tempting truffles!

Very interesting Halcyan2. There is some little things that i don't completely understand and you enlightened me on some. Thanks!

So the idea is to train spies to level 3 and making a good use of them by making coups near the end...well that makes sense! I also forgot how the AIs can also vote for you for a diplo victory, thing that never happen in mp games for obvious reasons!

Tabarnak said:

Very interesting Halcyan2. There is some little things that i don't completely understand and you enlightened me on some. Thanks!

So the idea is to train spies to level 3 and making a good use of them by making coups near the end...well that makes sense!

Click to expand...

That seems to be what the numbers say. It's something new that I just learned (from this game) as well.

Of course, to get promoted, you are going to need to either cycle through "counter-espionage" duty which is random and unreliable. Or you can steal some techs, which is easier to manipulate (leave a few basic techs that you will definitely be able to steal) but may incur a diplomatic penalty if you are caught (which might be okay if he hates you anyway, or if you have any positive modifiers).

It actually also makes the National Intelligence Agency (the national wonder I build least) much more useful. In addition to getting an extra spy, it levels up all your current and future spies, so everyone will at least be level 2. So even if your spy is caught and killed, at least you will have a new level 2 spy as the replacement. (Losing a level 3 spy really sucks!!!)

I also forgot how the AIs can also vote for you for a diplo victory, thing that never happen in mp games for obvious reasons!

Click to expand...

Yes, A LOT of players believe that "all AI's are psycho and will hate and backstab you no matter what" so they don't bother. They also do things that piss off the AI (like heavy warmongering and attacking city states for a free worker), and a very standard tactic (which is sometimes considered "cheesy") is to ally all the city states and then DoW all the AI's, so the AI's are at war with you and all the city states before the vote. In theory, they could still coup the last turn - which can be done even if you are at war with that CS. The chances are slim but it has been done to me before. Maybe I should see what the % chance is to do the same with a level 3 spy?

Another example is most people Pledge to Protect city states and get mad with the AI's when the city states are attacked or bullied (most people side with the city states). I *almost always* take the 20 influence hit rather than gain a negative diplomatic penalty. (Also, as soon as I hit Friend or Ally status, I immediately revoke my pledge to protect to avoid that situation). Course this tactic might be different in BNW with the new Freedom ideology that adds influence when you are pledging!

The overall tactic relying on getting all the diplomacy votes from CS basically gives up a lot of potential votes from AI's (which are achievable if you play a careful diplomatic game).

For example, in the last Deity game, some people had difficulty with a Diplomacy approach because Mongolia, Sweden, and Spain were massacring city states left and right, to such a point where you couldn't win the game with CS votes alone. In my game, it was annoying but I could handle it because I could still get plenty of votes from the AI's.

Having just returned to Civ V I found this to be quite a brutal game.

First of all, I really dislike non-river starts, all the more so when they're on tundra! I mean honestly, we're starting all the way up in friggin' Siberia here... On deity mode!

The ruins were reasonable at least. I got 100 gold, 20 culture, and a spear upgrade. In hindsight I should have purchased a scout with the gold and would likely have found more ruins this way. However, I at least managed to find Vatican City and Geneva before Darius so I got my god of the sea pantheon going quickly.

I used the culture for tradition so I could expand off the crappy tundra and into the ocean as quickly as possible. I saved the gold for a workboat and started selling whales to Persia/Rome/Germany as soon as possible so I could buy more workboats (Repeated ad. nauseum until economy was established).

Darius built the great library on turn 29, the fastest I believe I've ever seen!

Anyway, after getting off to a decent three city start, clearing some barb camps, allying some city-states, pumping out some composite bowmen, and getting my war on with Persia I ran into some miserable terrain, and this...



Ugh, that stupid wonder! Taking Susa seemed unlikely, so I moved my army around to Persepolis.



My luck wasn't a whole lot better. On turn 116, after about 30 turns of this madness I finally managed to take Susa with the help of dromons from my third city.



Meanwhile my religion was shaping up quite nicely. I was planning for an eventual domination win, so I figured the happiness from lots of cities and faith from plundered wonders would come in handy later, which more or less did prove true.



My archers were finally on the verge of range promotions, so I attempted to get a surround on Pasargadae. Darius kept crapping out pikeman after pikeman though and with his damned golden age bonus he managed to kill a few of my dudes.



I knew I was behind at this point, but then I saw this...



Ouch! Clearly I had some catching up to do if I wanted to have a shot at winning.



It felt far too late, but I was finally getting some traction with the war effort. I made peace with Persia immediately after capturing Pasargadae (I don't think I could have held it), and bribed him to turn around and steamroll Germany with me. That went much faster, especially with the growing collection of promoted frigates I'd acquired.

Speaking of growing, can you guess the runaway civilization on the other side of the pond?



Pacal looked to be unstoppable, but I was in no position to worry about him yet. After capturing all of Germany's cities with Darius (he took the last one), I stabbed him in the back (sorry bro, but not really) and used my shiny new artillery to take Persepolis (and that silly great wall) at last.



I felt like I finally had an army with some heft to it. Oh how wrong I was!



Alright, so the rest of the game entailed catching up tech-wise with research agreements and figuring out how to stop Pacal. He had bought up every city-state in the world, was still sitting on 20k gold, and had built the Apollo project while I still had frigates.

My plan was to escort my artillery over to the Celts, help them turn around their losing war, and gain a city or two in the process from which to attack Pacal. I decided to click go as soon as I had battleships and destroyers to hit him from the sea at the same time. Here's how it went:



Yikes! I managed to capture one city on the northwest peninsula which my navy huddled around and clung to for dear life.

After crushing most of my navy, the Mayans sent one of their own over to face me on the homefront. I just about crapped my pants when a reinforcing destroyer ran into this:



In the process of taking that screenshot, I also managed to crash my game client, not once, not twice, but three times!



The following e-mail to gotm_submit@civfanatics.net (listed contact address) was rejected by the server:

"
Hi there,

I crashed 3 times on turn 259. The first time happened when I fumbled for the printscreen (screenshot) key and hit F12 by accident. The second time happened when I reloaded and pressed F12 on purpose to check (yes, it does crash my game client). After a bit of thinking I thought it might be my Steam screenshot capture key. I checked, and it was, so I disabled the screenshot capture shortcut on Steam, reloaded, and pressed F12 againt to see if that solved the problem. Nope! After this I've elected to simply never press F12 while playing Civ V. Yeesh!

Ah durrrrrr,
-nthexwn
"

Anyhow, back in the game things were going much nicer on the eastern front as a city-state I'd bought off before declaring war had distracted the bulk of Pacal's army. With Boudica's help I eventually took one of his cities.



Things were starting to look grim as far as winning. Everyone but I had built the Apollo project, and notifications about parts were rolling in all over. With the extreme difficulty I was facing just to stop Pacal I didn't give myself much chance of rushing around the world and repeating the task several times in the next couple dozen turns.

Fortunately, Pacal also made the mistake of building the U.N. My plan quickly became:

1.) Capture Palenque
2.) Make Pacal sue for peace
3.) Use his vast quantities of cash to buy off all the city-states
4.) Win by diplomacy just in time to avoid a science loss to somebody else

I had 10 turns to do this.

Just for fun, Caesar decided to abandon our friendship and throw his massive pile of units at me after I'd bought a couple of atomic bombs to place on a carrier and bring to Pacal. We decided it'd be nice to have a good old-fashioned nuclear war back home instead!



Since that proved to be so much fun, I decided to annex one of the captured cities next to the Mayans and buy some more nukes over there. This gave me the momentum I needed to capture Palenque.



Unfortunately, all this really accomplished was to make a big damn mess of things and Pacal took his capital back a couple of turns later. Rather than getting my big fat reward he still wanted me to pay him for peace so that I could buy back all the city-states.

I decided to wait until the last turn to do this so I could buy off all the CS at the last minute without giving him a chance to throw his titanic financial reserves at them.

In the turns leading up to this, I slowly began annexing all of my cities, turning their production to pure gold/wealth even to the point of starvation, and selling expensive buildings. I also bought up any and all of the AI gold every turn by paying in GPT (since there were only a handful of turns left anyway). This also prevented them from getting in a bidding war for city-states since Pacal and I were the only ones with any money left. With the nuclear war turning everything to hell anyway breaking down all of my infrastructure for one last monetary push seemed like the logical thing to do.

In the end I had to sell most of my cities back to Pacal to make the voting cut, but I got enough to buy myself a victory. This dismal sight is a meager testimony to the glory that could have been were there more time left to conquer properly:



And on a hilariously merciful note Pacal decided to resurrect Germany at the last minute with one of the cities I sold him.



In the transition after my victory turn Boudica told me that Bismark had become a threat to the stability of the world and wanted to declare war on him... lol

What a game!

nthexwn, LOVED your write-up. It was HILARIOUS!

Also, enjoyed your city names.

Yeah, one of the reasons why I heavily prefer to go with Diplomacy VC (given the choice) on Deity is that it has a failsafe option - even if you are way behind and someone else builds the U.N., you still have a shot at winning if you win the vote.

In contrast, with Science and Cultural VC, if someone else is way ahead, you're screwed.

Domination has a little bit of potential - if someone is clearly winning and has taken all the other capitals, you actually might need to only take a single city (the runaway's capital) but good luck with that!

Darius is a pain on nightmare due to his obscene Golden Ages, and 3 movement Immortal Pikemen. Funny that you took Persepolis with the Great Wall only after you got Artillery (since Dynamite obsoletes the GW).

When waiting for the UN vote, I also like to trade my GPT for other civs' gold. It can be a bit cheesy. *But* there is a risk involved - it's essentially doubling down. It improves your chance of winning this vote. But if you fail to win the vote, you've severely hamstrung your chances for winning the second vote....

And liberating Germany is a very smart vote for the Mayans. The positive modifier for liberation is massive, so Pacal essentially bought himself an automatic vote for cheap. I will usually liberate a dead civilization when given the chance! (Unless I really need that specific city).

So what was the final vote tally?

First I have tried a liberty CB rush, as I seen that the starting position was crap (is not really)
Settled in place as I did not spot the marble at first round.

Did not found culture ruin, so went really slow, but settled neat mt.K for faith generation, and to the left for more whales.

Took God of the sea, have not tried to build any wonder just monument ant archers.
But I planned ahead too mutch, I wanted to build petra with the liberty GE so I did not fully focus to the army as I should have.

researched, potter, sailing, archery.

Still I have able to capture Persepolice, and all other persian city (Bribed Bismarck to attack too)

At this point I was last in science, had 8 cities with -16 happiness, and unlike you all, darius did not built any wonders, so I captured nothing.

All wonders was taken by an 'unknown civ'

I could have raze some cities and attack Bismark, but, it is unlikely that I would have catch up the other continent. They already was in renaissance, I was not even in the medieval.

So I decided to quit and play 'my style' for a second try.

This time I went sailing ->optics->writing, and no army.

I did not even settled near mt.K just a second city to the left and NC.
Settled two more city to the south side of the continent, but had to declare war to Darius, to prevent his settlet got my place. This war lasted around 130 turns

Science was ok in this try (both bottom city was near a mountain for observatory)
I could not really use any of the Byzantium specialty. Did not build dromon or armored horse. The bonus religion was not valuable either. The only useful part was tithe, as money was tight and I helped me through the hard parts.

Culture was terrible, could not even finish Rat even with artist specialist.

Everything went well until I build UN at T 218 (attached, hopefully)



I had a spare GS left, so I could have built it 6 turn sooner...

But I did not have nearly enough money to win. So I started selling all my buildings 4 in each turn, and selling everything. Did not care about happy/science/production anymore. Then I sold all my GPT for Gold and bought the needed CSs. Then I have declared war to everyone (diplomatically! )
Horrible VC, really hoping for an interesting change in BNW.

OFC I did not upload this.

I did not do an end printscreen, as the 'diplomatic victor' empire have around 150 science, no production, hungering cities (sold hospitals too) and war with everyone.

The only good thing about this game was to see, that you can win with a crap civ, no wonders build at all. (tried Petra, Pisa, PT all failed)

But I attach the save if anyone might be interested.

Thanks to nthexwn, Halcyan2, and Arillian for great write-ups. I believe that this is the best part of GotM - read how other people's game went and what other players had thought and decided after playing the same map by myself.

Afterthoughts: I should have aimed for diplo victory for fast finish. I was worried about letting runaway win before I could reach any peaceful VC, but after reading after action reports it seemed that even with runaway AI diplo win is not that hard to achieve. Domination is the safest way to achieve victory (well, you can just kill AI if he is going for any VC) but takes too long time in continents map. If it were Pangea, I think beeline to dynamite could give one t200-215 win.

I should have teched for plastics after getting navigation, as offensive war takes long time and it definitely needs battleships to attack other continents. I should have stayed in the starting continent and clear Persia and Germany with frigates/Xbows/knights and use those units to defend while I tech for labs.

glory7 said:

Afterthoughts: I should have aimed for diplo victory for fast finish. I was worried about letting runaway win before I could reach any peaceful VC, but after reading after action reports it seemed that even with runaway AI diplo win is not that hard to achieve. Domination is the safest way to achieve victory (well, you can just kill AI if he is going for any VC) but takes too long time in continents map. If it were Pangea, I think beeline to dynamite could give one t200-215 win.

I should have teched for plastics after getting navigation, as offensive war takes long time and it definitely needs battleships to attack other continents. I should have stayed in the starting continent and clear Persia and Germany with frigates/Xbows/knights and use those units to defend while I tech for labs.

Click to expand...

I wish I had the time to play it again (going for Domination), but I genuinely believe that you can actually win faster via Domination in this game, with Theodora.

The key thing is those Dromons, which let you rack up the XP to get +1 range Frigates really quick. With +1 range Dromons and Galleasses, you can take out Rome and Germany easily. (Persepolis is a bit harder, but you can harass Persian troops with naval units and then take him with land units).

Then you tech hard for Astronomy. Once you get that you explore and find the other civs while you research Navigation. And once you have that, you upgrade to Frigates and attack immediately with +1 range, logistics, Frigates.

Any other civ would have to build Frigates from scratch or upgrade from Galleasses (but there's not as much time between Compass and Navigation), but Byzantium benefits from the Dromon phase, meaning your Frigates will be a lot more experienced. And if push comes to shove, you can then go for Battleships as a backup plan!

That's my theory at least!