TSG63 After Action thread

Welcome to the TSG63 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 63
Date submitted: 2013-06-15
Reference number: 29171
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1620AD
Turns played: 234
Base score: 1985
Final score: 4315
Time played: 4:21:00
Submitted save: TSG63_Domination_Victory.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C506301.Civ5Save

Click to expand...

I had a few screw-ups that delayed my victory.

The first major mistake was building buildings instead of units. Along with this, building wonders in the capital. If I had just focused on units I probably could have taken Pacal out quicker.

The second major crew-up was not having enough melee units in place to take India's capital. I ended up takign peace just to prevent my CS ally from taking it. I think if I'd let the CS take it I could have shaved a bunch of turns off.

The 3rd and final major mistake was not settling my 3rd and 4th cities sooner.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 63
Date submitted: 2013-06-16
Reference number: 29175
Your name: AE_
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1100AD
Turns played: 170
Base score: 978
Final score: 2876
Time played: 4:17:00
Submitted save: gotm63_Bluetooth_0170 AD-1100.Civ5Save
Renamed file: AE__C506301.Civ5Save

Click to expand...

I usually don't enjoy the domination games too much, but this was a fun and challenging game considering the tricky start location.

I settled in place and not knowing what kind of land I was on, I built a scout. After that I built a worker, since I was isolated on my island. I researched for optics and hoped for an archipelago map where everyone is reachable by shallow water. When I found out that I was alone with the Mayans I started to aim for NC. GL was gone turn 47 (the fastest I seen on king) so I had to research philosophy the hard way.

Cash, happiness and CS-quest was a big problems during the first 100 turns. The Mayans where poor, so I couldn't get much money from them, and the only good
CS quest I got was to connect gold. Since happiness became a big problem with the lack of luxuries in the area, I probably should have taken tradition instead of liberty, and never built a third city.

My policies where tradition starter, and then left side of liberty (settler) followed by the rest of liberty.

I didn't attack the Mayans since they had mostly the same luxuries as me, and I struggled with happiness.

After NC I started to beeline for astronomy. I used my liberty GS to finish education, but the lack of cash meant that I had to hard build my university. I got education turn ~120 and astronomy ~140. While I awaited astronomy I built two armies of composite bowmen and pikemen, and also started building galleasses as soon as I got compass.

When I finished astronomy one army went north west, and one went north east. The one that went west found Ethiopia and manage to take their cap. The other first found the celts, but they had a lot of pikemen, so I traveled on and found India. I saw that India's army consisted of warriors and catapults, so I decided to attack. They also had the great wall, which made me want to take them out as soon as possible. Unfortunately the also had some of their elephant UU, so I couldn't take Delhi with only my composite bows. But I got a great peace deal where they gave my their second largest city, so I took it and went there with my remaining army to upgrade to crossbows.

I researched Iron and then navigation after astronomy. And as soon as I got navigation I upgraded one army to frigates. The first army (3 frigates and 2 caravels) went for Karakorum and Sukothai. My second army got finished a short while after the first (4 frigates and 1 caravel) and went for the Celts, then it split to join two new armies, one heading for India and one attacking the Mayans. Meanwhile, my original India-army had been upgraded to crossbows and attacked Egypt.

As soon as i finished navigation it was easy to conquer the world, but it was tough getting there on this map.

This was my kingdom at the end:



I'm not very good at domination, and there will probably be much faster times, but it was a very fun game where I really got to see the power of frigates.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 63
Date submitted: 2013-06-16
Reference number: 29178
Your name: budweiser
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1630AD
Turns played: 236
Base score: 1417
Final score: 3014

I had a lot of trouble with the Maya because I attacked them late. I practically lost an entire army and had to use gallelas on them. That set me back quite a bit as I could not get a seconf force going until very late. Then in an alcohol impaired state, I attacked the wrong Egyptian city and didnt realize until 2 turns after I captured it.

I did 2 cities until I ran out of iron and then I settled the third city to get 6 more for frigates. I had plenty of money. Full Tradition, Commerce, no religion. I did Oxford > navigation. Once the frigates came it was easy. Although I liked the map, I wish I could have gotten more mileage out of the UU and UA. They really weren't needed it was all about the frigates.
Time played: 3:23:00

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1545AD
Turns played: 219
Base score: 1199
Final score: 2788
Time played: 3:29:00

Settled in place, Gods of the Sea, no religion. Declared war on the nearest two city states as soon as I had optics and was in range with the starting warrior and my scout to steal 2 workers.

1 extra city next to mountain to get gold and more whales. Great lighthouse and Colossus in capital, no other wonders.

Full Tradition then commerce and 2 policies in rationalism. Very similar game to budweiser's by the sound of it; except that I built too many units early on (I wanted to try and take out the maya as soon as I had optics).

Ended up with 4 archers, 4 warriors and 3-4 triremes, sailed towards the maya and started landing troops - then noticed he'd upgraded to CB's and reached the middle ages. Since his Capital was on a hill, with walls I ended up sailing my units home again to upgrade

A dozen units and only enough money to upgrade 4 even after trading with Pacal for some gold, invasion delayed again until I'd built some Galleases. Took out Pacal, loosing a couple of units in the process while teching to astronomy (about turn 120?), Navigation turn after (Oxford).

Had to disband a couple of swordsmen for the iron to upgrade to frigates, and then later settled a third city for the other iron spot. Really regret building any warriors/swordsmen/UU at all on this map... the iron they used could have given me enough newly upgraded frigates to form a second fleet quickly.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 63
Date submitted: 2013-06-16
Reference number: 29183
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1070AD
Turns played: 167
Base score: 1084
Final score: 3284
Time played: 1:52:00

Initially I was thinking that it will be isolated start with all others on the continent so that berserkers will shine, however it ended up being standard archipelago map with frigate rush.

Initial priority were to grab GL and Great Lighthouse, after that beeline Education, Beeline Compass, use scientist for Astronomy, Oxford for Navigation, built 4 galleas to upgrade to Frigates, I only had money for three so my first group went for Maia with three Frigates and a Caravel.

As soon as I got another 180g I updated my fourth Galleas and went scouting east.

My two cities were building frigates after that. I settled the third one after oxford right on 6 iron.

Group two went for Chinghiz khan, then Siam, later joined team 1 for Ghandhi.

Last team of four frigates went for Celts and Ramsses.
Only my initial group got to +range upgrade everybody else was just taking the beating.

Lost 1 initial frigate to a suicidal trireme, lost another one while taking Egypt, there were only two spots to shoot from, I was rotating them after all of them were injured used great admiral and kept going.

Tradition - 2 commerce

Bought settler for the second city a few turns after I met Maya and sold marble and whales.

Bought third settler when building oxford

Education - turn 109
Nav - turn 127

Game: Civ5 GOTM 63
Date submitted: 2013-06-17
Reference number: 29184
Your name: glory7
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 940AD
Turns played: 157
Base score: 966
Final score: 3116
Time played: 4:08:00
Submitted save: glory7_gotm63_0157 AD-0940.Civ5Save
Renamed file: glory7_C506301.Civ5Save

First of all, I thank GotM staff for this wonderful map. This one was the best GotM I've ever played. Denmark UA really shined during the game and ocean between the starting point to 6 civs (all except maya) required lots of strategic decisions for fast domination. Also, policy saving played a big role in my game - I saved one to open naval tradition asap.

Cap BO: monument - worker - granary/trirme/work boat, 1 trireme bought - shrine - GL - scout - NC (G lighthouse gone) (lighthouse bought) - watermill/work boats -stable - barracks - 4 archers - CB - 2 capapults - pikeman - colosseum - CB till compass (university bought) - 2 galleass - Oxford (1 more galleass bought) - frigates

2nd city: work boat - library - granary (should have built granary first) - trireme/units - university - units

SP: tradition full except oligarchy (garrisoned unit one) - used saved policy for commerce open - naval tradition. Oracle was gone pretty early.

tech: pot - sailing - writing - animal - optics/calendar - philo with GL - drama - horseback - bronze - civil service - construction - beeline to eduction and astronomy - iron working - beeline to machinary (oxford navigation) - something (not important at this point)

After moving warrior and saw that left side is ocean - I assumed water map and went for monument first. there were two ruins and both were good - mining and pop2->3.

I bought trireme when I got 220g, but didn't expect to meet only one civ via shallow water. I DoWed Pacal so that I could pass and scout. My scout got all the ruins left side of Maya cap =) I think one of them was pop8->9 one, so totally worth it. Before going to Maya side, I stole a worker from the CS above.

Somebody got G lighthouse around t65, so I bought lighthouse.

I was scared that some AI caps could be non-coastal (well, I was wrong). Also, I wanted to use Denmark UU so I did very late CB rush to Pacal. 5 CBs and one siege was enough to get his cap at t110.

Good thing was that on the way my troops got tributes from 2 CS so I could buy univ at the cap after getting peace deal from Maya. I had like 3 gold left after buying univ.

I did not bother building garden/national epic as I had enough sci point from GL.

Education at t113. I got GS 6 turns later and I bulbed it at t121 (8 turns later!) and popped up astronomy (it said 8 turns to go). 7 CBs and 2 last hitters (warrior and pikeman) went west as much as possible before that time and sailed ocean at t121. I got naval tradition at t119 so movement for embarked units was 5. Great admiral from the policy sailed east of cap to find other civs.

I launced an attack for siam cap at t126. It was so OP that CB uses only one movement from going to land from sea and can use remaining 4 movement points (for example, move one plain tile, move to hill tile, and shoot). Lost one CB and took it at t129.

Meanwhile, I met lots of other civs - I sold lux and bribed wars. In particular, paid lux to mongolia to attack india. Navigation was done around t135.

After siam cap, I moved on to mongolia. Beshbalik fell at t133, Xbows at t135, cap at t137. See the screenshot for OP 5 movement points.

Celt cap (frigates, t144), india cap (Xbows and last hitters, t147), Ethi cap (frigates, t152), and Egypt cap at t157 (land army + rush bought frigates from celt cap). I should have sent 3-4 frigates to egypt - ethi had no navy so it took only two turns to take that cap....

glory7 said:

First of all, I thank GotM staff for this wonderful map. This one was the best GotM I've ever played. Denmark UA really shined during the game and ocean between the starting point to 6 civs (all except maya) required lots of strategic decisions for fast domination. Also, policy saving played a big role in my game - I saved one to open naval tradition asap.

Click to expand...

You're welcome. Really glad you enjoyed it.

In testing, I wasn't sure this would work out too well because the Berserker was not really going to get used very effectively. However, there were a lot of other things that needed attention, so I thought it was a good King challenge.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 63
Your name: golem
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1490AD
Turns played: 209
Base score: 1230
Final score: 3000
Time played: 4:30:00

I was too slow in Science, Education around 140. When I had Astronomy, I send all units to look for other civs - even workers a exchanges embassies.I prepared 10 galleas, so when I bulb Navigation I was ready for war.

Two fleets took all the capitals, the last was Egypt. Here I did stupid mistake - I did not notice that only two frigates can fire at once (other ten was sleeping around) - so it took me 15 turns to get it. Berserks helped here a lot.

I had no religion, but here it was not so important, as I have no problems with happiness - one allied CS was enough for all the game.

The only pronlem were three crashes of the game.

Nice game, I enjoyed it - thank you a lot.

Turn 246 I finally took Thebes with my fleet. It took so long to find the path there then wiggle my Frigates to Egypt's doorstep. With Range I could bombard with 5 and it took three turns of shelling; who knows how long it would have taken without Range.

I didn't start warring until Turn 159 but I finished Navigation during that first war so it really didn't slow me down. I should have scouted out capitals earlier, more than just buying an embassy scouting, and I would have been able to choose a more efficient cap capture order. I also built next to no Army (2 Scouts and 2 Cannons plus a bunch of gifted stuff) and could have used some grunts. My original Warrior, hut promoted to a Spearman, captured 3 capitols though! It's pretty fun to be able to slide right past all your Navy, without having to make a hole for a Caravel or a Privateer, and take a pummeled cap with a Spearman.

Great game. Thanks.

DONINATION VICTORY
Turns = 142
Score = 3003 (HOF)


Bonus game, before the new expansion hits. Didn't notice until later that policy saving was on, after much effort to time things just right...

It took 10 Frigates, 3 Warriors and a couple of Privateers to conquer this world.

Our conquest started on turn 120 when 4 Galleasses and 1 Warrior attacked Palenque. It was captured one turn before Navigation was discovered, so we could upgrade right away. They went for Addis Ababa next, and then three Frigates moved on to Sukhotai while the fourth converged on Delhi with one from Karakorum and some new units from home.

A second fleet of 3 Frigates, 1 Warrior and 1 Privateer sailed for Edinburgh and Thebes, and a similar one but with only 2 Frigates went to Karakorum.

The free Great Admiral (Naval Tradition policy) did a wonderful job exploring so we knew where and in what order to attack.

Cities
0 Copenhagen = 16 (in place)
60 Aarhus = 12 (north, hill on west coast rather than east to cover an extra sheep)

Conquest
124 Palenque
134 Addis Ababa, Edinburgh
138 Karakorum
141 Delhi
142 Thebes, Sukhotai

Allies
92 Ragusa
93 Zanzibar
114-129 Kuala Lumpur

Golden Age
114 Happiness (10)
123 Representation (10)

Religion
53 God of the Sea (God of the Open Sky went on turn 12, this was the consolation prize)

Policies
5 Tradition (20c from ruins, the other gave 55g, an island one a then useless 60 faith...)
10 Liberty
19 Citizenship
34 Republic
56 Collective Rule
82 Commerce
92 Naval Tradition (Oracle)
107 Meritocracy
123 Representation (allied Kuala Lumpur on turn 114 when our 20-turn Golden Age began)
142 Merchant Navy

Technology


Copenhagen


Aarhus

Ribannah said:

DONINATION VICTORY
Turns = 142
Score = 3003 (HOF)


Bonus game, before the new expansion hits. Didn't notice until later that policy saving was on, after much effort to time things just right...

It took 10 Frigates, 3 Warriors and a couple of Privateers to conquer this world.

Our conquest started on turn 120 when 4 Galleasses and 1 Warrior attacked Palenque. It was captured one turn before Navigation was discovered, so we could upgrade right away. They went for Addis Ababa next, and then three Frigates moved on to Sukhotai while the fourth converged on Delhi with one from Karakorum and some new units from home.

A second fleet of 3 Frigates, 1 Warrior and 1 Privateer sailed for Edinburgh and Thebes, and a similar one but with only 2 Frigates went to Karakorum.

The free Great Admiral (Naval Tradition policy) did a wonderful job exploring so we knew where and in what order to attack.

Click to expand...

Very nicely done. I have a question about scouting: you did not get any scout/trireme. Did you just assume that it would be an archipelogo map? When I found out that I am in the island (scouting with initial warrior), my initial priority was to get trireme asap to scout and I rush bought one more asap too.

I got edu earlier than you did but got navigation like 10 turns later than you did... using liberty GE to rush oxford was a brilliant decision. Having G lighthouse and oracle would have saved several turns too, but I think your liberty tree worked out much better than my incomplete tradition one.

By the time the monument was finished, archipelago seemed obvious. Anyways, my priority in this game was to get the production going by improving all the sheep, and to get the Great Library. There was no time to build any boats until then.

The Liberty finish was nice but not essential, since Oxford was only 4 turns by hand. That means, the Oracle wasn't essential either. We could have had the Great Scientist early enough by running two specialists. Nor, I think, was the Great Lighthouse. It gained 1 or 2 turns in the endgame but building an ordinary Lighthouse would have meant a faster midgame. Still, it all nicely streamlined the game.

Everyone knows that Frigates are OP.

So I wanted to try something different and use siege weapons - something that Denmark can do better than any other civ.

As a result, I never built a single Archer!

Went with Liberty and GL to start things off. After Philosophy and Optics, went for Mathematics and started building Catapults. I left some early ruins undiscovered so that I could get an early Trebuchet!

Took Palenque in the 80's, and finished the Mayans off in the 90's. For some reason, I was really slow to Education and Astronomy, even though I used a GS to bulb. Oh well.

As soon as I got Astronomy, sent one Catapult army to Dublin (took it easily) and another to Addis Adaba (took it but lost 2 catapults). The Dublin army then took Thebes (lost 1 catapult) while the Addis Adaba army slowly made its way towards Karakorum (bypassing Sukthothai, which was too well defended).

In the meantime, I had been teching Frigates and sent a fleet of 5 Frigates (with 1 Scout) to easily take Delhi.

On the last turn, the Frigate armada took Sukthothai while the catapult/trebuchet army took Karakorum (with the help of 1 privateer).

So:

Frigates: Delhi & Sukthothai
Catapults: Palenque, Dublin, Addis Adaba, Thebes, & Karakorum

Catapults win!!!

Actually, considering how easily Frigates demolish Medieval cities, if I wanted to optimize my time, I would have gone only for Frigates (as Ribannah so expertly showed us). But hey, I wanted to do something different and have some fun with CATAPULTS!!!

Fun game.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 63
Date submitted: 2013-06-21
Reference number: 29211
Your name: numaru7
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1550AD
Turns played: 220
Base score: 1181
Final score: 2684
Time played: 1:28:00
Submitted save: TSG63_T220_DomWin.Civ5Save
Renamed file: numaru7_C506301.Civ5Save

played sim city at first, got monument, granary, GL, HG, and bought the water mill... not a bright idea i might add. Tech-ed astro at about 140 and attacked the civs with 4 frigates as i met them cause i didn't scout at all. So it was, maya, etiopia, siam, mongolia. in the meantime i built 4 more frigates and attacked celts.
Forgot i had 2 more 2 destroy, cause nowadays i only play quick MP, max 6 players. So i started building happiness units instead of pumping out frigates. So anyway, went over to thebes, with no range upgrades, but 2 admirals which i used for heals. forgot to bring a unit or a privateer, so i had to wait for one. Delhi was easy and then i had to swing back for mongolia cause he retook his cap.
didn't use berserkers at all.

Thanks for the rundown, guys. I am just now getting consistent at Immortal and can now start incorporating the efficiencies that some of you use.

Ribannah, I am curious how you managed to get Great Library in 14 turns. I missed on my game, when I was prepped to slingshot Philosophy also. You said you put a priority on improving the sheep for hammers; did you chop it out too? Did you stall growth and maximize hammers? God of the Sea hadn't really kicked in because you had no workboats. Was this related to how you can sometimes get a production kick when you bench a citizen instead of having them work a tile? Any tips would be appreciated.

The initial production in the capitol was so meh for so long. And with Ethiopia and Egypt both wonder-spamming stuff was flying off the table at remarkably early turns in my game.

I did three additional things to accelarate the Great Library production.

(1) I bought a sheep tile when Copenhagen grew to size 2.
(2) I left only one hammer for the last turn on the Shrine.
(3) I researched Mining and chopped the forest.

GG welcome back Ribannah

Ribannah said:

I did three additional things to accelarate the Great Library production.

(1) I bought a sheep tile when Copenhagen grew to size 2.
(2) I left only one hammer for the last turn on the Shrine.
(3) I researched Mining and chopped the forest.

Click to expand...

Awesome. Thank you. I've got to learn to work the overflow better if I want to improve.

got off to a good start with Great Lib built in Copenhagen, and also got God of the Open Sky pantheon for Cultue on the Pastures.
but kinda misplayed the Gallaleas attack on the Mayans, and then I missed getting the Oracle by a couple of turns.
Fun map though, and the Danish x-bows, and trebuchets are awesome with the Danish special ability on movement. Also got a Berserker into play near the end of the game, just for fun.
Fun game, thanks Leif!