TSG68 After Action thread

Welcome to the TSG68 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.).

- Has anything changed in the Domination VC with BNW?
- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?
- Were any AI runaway's in your game?

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.

Pfew, where to begin...

Game: Civ5 GOTM 68
Date submitted: 2013-09-02
Reference number: 29614
Your name: bjelar
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 2008AD
Turns played: 428
Base score: 2799
Final score: 3292
Time played: 14:33:00
Submitted save: Shaka_0428 AD-2008.Civ5Save
Renamed file: bjelar_C506801.Civ5Save



I rushed too much to begin with, dreaming of a quick impressive win. I lost more units in this game than every other game I have played combined

The Poles defeted my army twice. Their mountain cities four squares apart guarded by their unique units was... tough.

By the time I finished them off, Bismarck was on the verge of getting his unique panzers, so I had to rush up there and take him out quickly. Then Pedro DoWed me, but I didn't mind so much, thinking he would be easy to control. Then he nuked me *in fact he nuked pretty much everyone, and the game became a complete mess.

It was fun, but difficult because I didn't prepare well enough before going to war. The extremely inhospitable terrain didn't make things easier.

But I got there in the end, nuking Pedro and Enrico and taking their capitals. Ashurbanipal and Ahmad were uneventful easy victories. I saved Maria for last, and sent a cloud of nuclear missiles at her. She launched a fierce counter/attack, almost taking Rio from me, but had to succumb finally as my infantry got to her dorstep.

Pfew, that was epic. Now I need a rest. It took me 14 and a half hours

Turns played: 187

Near the end I made a huge mistake, as I signed peace with Brazil after taking their capital but that rendered me unable to embark to Venice as Pedro wouldn't have given me open borders even if I gave him 50 gpt and 7 or so luxuries oO. It didn't matter in the end because Venice was on flat land without any defense so the 3 units I already had past the Brazilian borders were enough to take it.

Germany though delayed me a lot by having two carpets of doom (it's only Emperor... wonder how?); one defending Berlin (which had 40 defense with Alhambra and what not) and the other one threatening to capture Warsaw.

Started Tradition (3 policies) then maxed Honor. Tradition also got finished by the very end of the game. Seems like since BNW annexed cities neither get free Monuments nor Aqueducts while puppet cities at least get the monuments (which is useless though to them as 2 culture - 75% = 0 culture (not 0.5)).

I guess the finish time was okay; if things went perfect it would probably have been done by t150. I do however expect some of our guys to be able to do it before t120 anyway with pure archers/compbows. (I only captured part of Shoshone with Spearmen, then went on with Impi for the rest of the world (and some Xbowmen and Trebuchet for Berlin).

I'm not very good at dom and this was an absolutely horrid map. Stopped around T200 and I won't waste any more time on it. I could win somewhere in the 300's since I've taken Shoshone, Brazil, and Portugal...but it wouldn't be any fun.

If you don't win dom quick <T150 on a map like this, it is incredibly tedious.

Looking forward to the next GOTM in 2 weeks since it won't be another dom game.



cas

FeiLing said:

Turns played: 187

Near the end I made a huge mistake, as I signed peace with Brazil after taking their capital but that rendered me unable to embark to Venice as Pedro wouldn't have given me open borders even if I gave him 50 gpt and 7 or so luxuries oO. It didn't matter in the end because Venice was on flat land without any defense so the 3 units I already had past the Brazilian borders were enough to take it.

Germany though delayed me a lot by having two carpets of doom (it's only Emperor... wonder how?); one defending Berlin (which had 40 defense with Alhambra and what not) and the other one threatening to capture Warsaw.

Started Tradition (3 policies) then maxed Honor. Tradition also got finished by the very end of the game. Seems like since BNW annexed cities neither get free Monuments nor Aqueducts while puppet cities at least get the monuments (which is useless though to them as 2 culture - 75% = 0 culture (not 0.5)).

I guess the finish time was okay; if things went perfect it would probably have been done by t150. I do however expect some of our guys to be able to do it before t120 anyway with pure archers/compbows. (I only captured part of Shoshone with Spearmen, then went on with Impi for the rest of the world (and some Xbowmen and Trebuchet for Berlin).

Click to expand...

Would you mind posting your tech path and build order. I've never really done a rush domination like this so I'm interested to see which techs you focused on.

nevermind..I found your post in the opening actions thread

Game: Civ5 GOTM 68
Date submitted: 2013-09-03
Reference number: 29621
Your name: Snaut
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1505AD
Turns played: 211
Base score: 1676
Final score: 3990
Time played: 9:17:00
Submitted save: Shaka_0211 - 1505 n. Chr..Civ5Save
Renamed file: Snaut_C506801.Civ5Save


- Has anything changed in the Domination VC with BNW?
Usually I don't go for domination. I like to build stuff and moving all those units around is a real pain for me.

This was my second try on the map. On my first try I was broke after 90 turns and my attack on the Shoshones, who were wonder building in their hometown, was poor at best (too far away, no vetran units). So I have to admit, that I cheated.

I read up on what to do (glory7's great guide) and started over. On my second try Pocatello settled right next to me very early, so skilling up my troops was much easier.


- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
Only 1 - didnt annect any other cities for most of the game, puppeted about a dozend. Zulu units were so great I had next to no losses. Grew my army slower than I could as I was fearíng money issues (a mistake, I think).

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less? Didnt get a religion, didnt spy.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
I went liberty, commerce (following glory's suggestions). Money wasnt an issue later on so maybe honor would have been faster.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Other civs were quite friendly while I was busy with the Shoshones. Could sell a lot of cotton for unit upgrades. Well, and later on relations cooled down somewhat.

- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?
UA is great, Imp movement is just amazing, but it was archery that won the battles. Maybe if the ai had build some better units. In my game it was only Marocco (last civ) that had at least a few units on par.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 68
Date submitted: 2013-09-04
Reference number: 29625
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 660AD
Turns played: 143
Base score: 838
Final score: 2992
Time played: 2:35:00
Submitted save: Shaka_0143 AD-0660.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Tabarnak_C506801.Civ5Save

Only 23 turns from last update. Bismark DoWed Assyria, captured a city and is closer from his undefended capital. I gave him 2 luxs and hope that he will not attack me. Got last civs pretty rapidly thanks to double move on hills. Finally, nobody tried to retake his capital.

Thoughest guys were Bismark and Cassimir. Others were pretty lame excepted Shoshones with his GW but he didn't have any units.

Reference number: 29626
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1720AD
Turns played: 254
Base score: 1782
Final score: 3564
Time played: 5:35:00

Well, BNW domination games are still the quickest to play turn-wise. I am still building too much infrastructure to really be competitive. I am just so nervous about running out of and . Really, I had plenty of both with Shaka's UA (by the way, horsemen/knights count as a melee unit, right?).

This map also gave a great lesson in terrain. Lots of fighting occurred in choke points, near mountains and on hills. Tabarnak mentioned using the double movement in hills wonder, which I should have done. I had trouble crossing the map.

I tried to attack in a swoop so as not to backtrack. I went after Shoshone, then Assyria, Germany and Poland. Portugal and Brazil actually DoW'd me, so I split my army up at that point to attack them, then pressed east toward Morocco and Venice. Venice was easy, but Morrocco was heavily fortified with Muskets, Knights and several Galleasses. It did not fall until my army from Venice arrived.

Shaka's UA meant I had a ton of high level units. By the time I got to Germany, I had 4 or 5 crossbowmen with Logistics and Range. They murdered everything. Impis with 5 or 6 promotions were also insanely hard to kill.

I at least did bring a bunch of workers with my army to build roads. The AIs, however, kept settling cities over them though. And a barb camp even popped on one! But I should have split my army into two groups earlier, and should have built a much bigger army. Conquering the capitols filled with wonders kept us happy and full of money. Still, great game and learning experience.

The Civilopedia text on Domination Victory is incorrect and neglects to mention that in Brave New World, you must control all opposing players' original capitals to achieve the domination victory. That is pretty lame.

It would have been nice if the Announcement thread mentioned this rather important change. But I am not going back to play another 30 turns of crap to take back a Cap that I gave away for free (to not have to deal with 2 extra Unhappiness).

A few quick observations:

1) Starting next to the Shoshone is a real pain. It's hard to steal their Workers because of the extra tiles they get and apparently they like to expand a lot and quickly. I took one of their early Settlers and they still grabbed the expo that I wanted before I could get there with my free Liberty Settler.

2) For a Pangea map, this map certainly had a a lot of really annoying terrain to deal with. Lots of choke points and hard to access areas. Slowed things down quite a bit for me.

3) The real All Stars of the victory were the CBs/XBs much more so that the Impis. Don't get me wrong, Impis a great, but they take a little too long to get. Domination, more so than the other VCs, really snowballs in the sense that a small early mistake can end up costing you 30+ turns before all is said and done. That's one of the reasons why Domination Victories tend to have the highest variance in turns of VC dates.

I used glory7's Zulu Domination Guide. I actually replayed the first 90 turns or so going Honor rather than Liberty and well... that didn't go as well. I guess Honor is still pretty bad, even for Warmongering. Oh well.

Muaziz said:

It would have been nice if the Announcement thread mentioned this rather important change.

Click to expand...

Had I known, I would have included it. Sorry.

At the beginning of the game after initial scouting I assumed wrongly that the map is continents so I started to build the economy and science instead of build units.
Emperor is so easy - the last capital (Marrakech) had 17 defence on 155 turn.
A small suggestion for GOTM staff. Can we get sometimes instead of mystery map a defined map. It would facilitate the planning of strategies and reduced the randomness of the initial moves.

The main reason we have used mystery maps is to keep scouting as an important element of the game.

If we tell you it is a continents map, there is no need to scout. You simply plan to tech for Astronomy.

If we tell you it is pangaea, then there is no need to scout, all you need do is tech military techs and go conquering.

Mystery maps simply add more elements that you need consider in your planning.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 68
Date submitted: 2013-09-06
Reference number: 29636
Your name: WxDan
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1860AD
Turns played: 300
Base score: 1617
Final score: 2695
Time played: 6:48:00
Submitted save: Shaka_0300 AD-1860.Civ5Save
Renamed file: WxDan_C506801.Civ5Save

- Has anything changed in the Domination VC with BNW?
Nothing major, at least nothing that bothers me.
- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
Built 4 cities. The only other cities I kept were the capitals of the other civs.
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
Not really. I stole a few techs late and bought some pagodas thanks to someone elses religion spreading to me to help with happiness.
- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
The left side of honor to help with early domination, Tradition for some growth and happiness, and a few in commerce to help with gold.
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Ok at first since no one liked the Shoshone, but eventually everyone hated me because I was killing them all.
- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?
Promoted impis are nice, and they helped until I got around to Brazil. Then the slog through the jungle and their more advanced units caused problems.
- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Brazil was the closest, but he never got to the point of being a runaway.

I took out the Shoshone first, then turned towards Poland, who fell with relative ease. I thought for a time I could win in the early 200's which would have been great for me. I took out Assyria next, and headed for Berlin. It sounds like for most peope the Shoshone had the Great Wall, but in my game Germany had it. I eventually fought through with three extra range, two shot crossbows and took Berlin, but suffered heavy losses.

I had to rebuild my army before I could push towards Portugal. They fell very quickly and I advanced on Morrocco. The terrain slowed me down, but Marrakech was conquered soon enough.

I tried to march towards Brazil. I captured and burned 1 city, but the jungle slowed my advance and his muskets were to much for my army. I made peace for Salvador, which I burned, and waited for artillery. I had neglected science after civil service in hopes of crushing my foes through the military techs, so artillery was later than it should have been.

Once I could upgrade my cannons a two pronged attack on Rio in the west and their other cities in the east was swift and successful. Venice was easy prey to finish the game on turn 300. Still I very solid outcome for me since I'm maybe a 50/50 player on emperor.

usually i dont play dom gauntlets, but gave this one a shot because its shaka after all..

went monument - scout - warri - granny - worker - archers
full liberty, used GE for GW because i knew i would only need CBs, should have picked GM for some extra gold and 2 more CBs probably

my initial plan was to get my hands on the choke point next to poland. stole a total of 3 settlers from pocatello, DoWed him twice. 4th one i missed by one turn, but for peace he offered his newly found city with the extra borders

CS were too far away and there was an encampment above florence which made travelling for the stolen (shoshone) workers quite tedious. should probably go for a hardbuilt worker right after the warrior.

techwise i think skipping calendar might be an option here to get CBs faster.. can always get luxes later and theres no need to grow really..

anyways, ~t70 upgraded into 8 CBs. 5 went to the east for maria, the rest with reinforcements took on poland to get to mt kilimanjaro. maria fell easily and the bunch split up (5 to marrakech, 3 to venice, 5 to rio), seems like i still overestimated emperor AI because 3 each with melee wouldve done the trick too. poland was conquered easily as well and 5 CBs with horseman headed for berlin.

meanwhile cap and secondary cities just produced units, cap units went to assyria with optics (he also had SoZ). last army was for pocatello (he had cut me off eventually but it didnt matter). berlin proved to be tough, he had a few landsknecht and 28 strength cap. also, which was way more annoying, he retook warsaw from me in a suicidal attempt - i had left nothing behind so i was forced to buy 2 more CBs and retake it.

to take berlin i had to wait for my assyrian army, with better care and planning (lost 2 CBs in process) i could have taken it ~10 turns earlier. again i failed to properly calculate how much effort moson kahni would take, the two CBs i had to buy for warsaw would have helped shoving off at least 10 turns, and there was an encampment right next to the road leading to shoshone which hindered my units quite a bit. i later realized bismarck wouldve given me warsaw for peace anyways..

because of the pitiful resistance of most AIs, it was a game where i mainly focused on not getting below 10 unhappiness and staying above broke. at points it was -50 gpt, stayed afloat with CS tributes and pillaging. razed everything that didnt provide fresh luxes.

t120ish should be possible with better unit splitting/early BO, i had all caps but shoshone on t125.

Emperor is a walk in the park, so decided to role play this one.

Zulus are fierce warriors, not book sheeps: research archery 1st, then bronze working for the Ikanda, and build nothing but military units (except for an initial monument to the glory of Shaka). Building cities is for slaves: OCC conquest / raze stupid AI's cities and puppet their capitals for the VC. Zulus are proud = honor policy tree. Economy = ransom all known city states.

Settled on site, might need water access. Discovered the Shoshone sissies fairly fast, enslaved their workers and settlers, and took their only city with 5 archers and 4 Buffalo spears around T70. Upgraded to CB's and went north to conquer Poland T80-T90. Went west for Germany, since they just discovered Landsnecht which needed to be crushed, done by T100. Meanwhile built & bought a second army at the capital, sent it east via water (researched Optics in case, which proved unnecessary but quite useful).
The rest of the game was tedious logistics and slaughter.

UU/UA: got civil service on the last turn, so did not have time to use it. Relied on the old trusty CB's and the neat UA Buffalo spear meatshields.

Nice game guys. I overestimated the emperor AI and concentrated on science early to get Civil Service and Machinery. I probably underestimated the Zulus as well!

Game: Civ5 GOTM 68
Date submitted: 2013-09-07
Reference number: 29649
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Incomplete Retired
Game date: 175BC
Turns played: 108
Base score: 222
Final score: 222
Time played: 1:05:00
Submitted save: TSG68_Break2.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C506801.Civ5Save

A very poor effort on my part. Since I was only to the Shoshone capital by this point and no where near enough military to press on to the next civs, I gave up. Even if I continued this game I'd be lucky to have a sub 300 win. Lately, I've actually been getting worse at Civ 5 instead of better.

Okay, it seems I have a real problem with the saving-spree, so I guess I should not submit the game because I've broken the rules of not saving too much and reloading when you click wrong?
Well I just could not accept mistakes like giving away luxury for free, even if such mistakes are small.. Hopefully I can submit the next TSG :/ Still, the game was very fun, so it was not wasted time hehe

The later part of my game felt quite easy, which was a bit surprising, because I don't consider myself a very good war general Shoshone and Brazil were out after T160, so I headed to Morocco.
Since others ruthlessly voted to ban my crabs, I decided to honor my lost crabs by taking a code name "The Crab" . After Morocco I headed on a pretty straight west line Portugal->Poland->DoW on Assyria - against my plan, but he didn't give me open borders..
Around T240 I started preparing for Germany, the final challenge. When I started with Germany's first cities, I also sent a small attack group to Venice (1 artillery, 1 CB, 2 riflemen, 1 cavalry who was running around pillaging like mad).
After this, sent the attack group over the ocean towards Germany's western/coastal cities and pillaged his coal and made some overall mess.

It seems I played super safe, because there was hardly any serious resistance I encountered. Couple of times my units felt like a serious overkill - Morocco, Portugal, Poland, Assyria took me no more than 80 turns altogether!
Lost first units when I was already near Berlin! Perhaps could have risked more, rushed more?
Also, it's prob. the first time I've had some seriously upgraded units. Gatling gun with range and extra attack - that's just nice!
The final army had - gatling guns upgraded to machine guns in the very last turns of the game, also riflemen, artillery. As Berlin did have a bit higher defense - 90 - I did have 4-5 early bombers, but to be honest this was probably also very overkill.

I really like having allied city states around the civs I'm at war with, because they offer a good distraction for my enemy and often manage to kill several enemy units.
Sometimes, however, you just can't resist laughing out loud at the city states and their own little special wars haha.
At some point Buenos Aires, who was allied with Germany, they went and started attacking one of my Polish cities. It was just super cool watching Buenos Aires preparing an "attack" with a cannon, CB and rifleman haha!!

My next goals - 1) try to follow all the rules so that you can submit the game.... 2) aim for a T250 finish? It could be doable!

Thank you for this TSG!

tibbie said:

Okay, it seems I have a real problem with the saving-spree, so I guess I should not submit the game because I've broken the rules of not saving too much and reloading when you click wrong?

Click to expand...

Just to make this clear, here's the limit of how often you are allowed to do this:

tibbie said:

Okay, it seems I have a real problem with the saving-spree, so I guess I should not submit the game because I've broken the rules of not saving too much and reloading when you click wrong?
Well I just could not accept mistakes like giving away luxury for free, even if such mistakes are small.. Hopefully I can submit the next TSG :/ Still, the game was very fun, so it was not wasted time hehe

Click to expand...

Thanks for not submitting.

If you make a mistake, please try to learn from it and adjust rather than eliminate it through reloading.

You should set your autosave interval to 1-turn, in case your game crashes. This way you will never have to replay more than 1-turn and you should replay it as best as you can to what you originally did.

Best of luck in future.