TSG72 After Action thread

Welcome to the TSG72 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 free techs did you get by taking enemy cities?
- 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?

Please do not post link to videos of your game until the submission date has passed in order to prevent spoilers for other players. Thanks.

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).

Game: Civ5 GOTM 72
Date submitted: 2013-11-02 07:51:20
Reference number: 29990
Your name: budweiser
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1919AD
Turns played: 339
Base score: 1266
Final score: 1889
Time played: 2:45:00


- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities? NONE
- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with? Four, then a fifth on an island.
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less? A minor religion, interfaith dialog. Some spying to catch up then counter spy and election rigging.
- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals? Tradition>Rationalism>Order. I was policy starved almost all game.
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors? I was peaceful all game.
- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals? No.
- Were any AI runaway's in your game? Indonesia and the Dutch were superpowers gobbling up everyone.

My first complete game since the patch. Alcohol was a factor. All I did was sit and build. It came down to the wire, 340 turns. On one hand its nice that you can do that, on the other, I should have been a little more active diplomatically and taken some more land. I lost turns at the end because I ended up with more GS and not enough GE for the Order Space finisher.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 72
Date submitted: 2013-11-02 08:19:56
Reference number: 29991
Your name: shaleghi
Game status: Incomplete Retired
Game date: 1130AD
Turns played: 173
Base score: 364
Final score: 364
Time played: 2:57:00
Submitted save: Ashurbanipal_0173 AD-1130.Civ5Save
Renamed file: shaleghi_C507201.Civ5Save

I took liberty and went all war. Took out the Shoshone. Got one city from Siam and Morocco. Morocco got great wall which slow me down but GG open a path for me. Was just about to take Morocco,s capital when all hell broke loose. Dutch from the east, Siam from the south and Morocco from the west. DoW from Portugal and ??? my only friend as indonesia. I over extend my self and got squashed like a water balloon. I have never been good with war.

Shaleghi said:

I took liberty and went all war. Took out the Shoshone. Got one city from Siam and Morocco. Morocco got great wall which slow me down but GG open a path for me. Was just about to take Morocco,s capital when all hell broke loose. Dutch from the east, Siam from the south and Morocco from the west. DoW from Portugal and ??? my only friend as indonesia. I over extend my self and got squashed like a water balloon. I have never been good with war.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear of your defeat.

The good news is that you can read what others do and try again?
Best of luck and welcome to GOTM.

Finally over . Went to the end after a very bad mid game, resulted in one of my slowest since a long time lol, like I said it went ugly. Was thinking about rage quitting after a pathetic 70 to 100 turns but that's not good sportsmanship.

Added a few other problems to my initial ones (not enough worker, bad gold management, late education):
-There are only 2 cultural CS and they are lost on a little island I discovered only at satellites. Needless to say, my cultural output was desastrous and I ended getting very little policy and had to get the ideology that everyone took: autocracy. Not sure if that was purposeful to have a pangea with a little island with 6CS on it, didn't like that.
-Being too late on edu made me miss Pisa
-Not enough CS ally, couldn't pass science funding.
-I got dowed a second time by Pocatello and later by William. Both were pathetic.

Was fun overall though. Will prepare better for the next one.

As a side note I'm not really sure why science was picked as a VC. I think it's a civ better suited for domination. On immortal it's usually pretty easy to catch up by the end of medieval era which means the only real use of Assyria UA is during the early game in my opinion if you want a science victory, after that the delay due to building units and teching the military tech will put you behind so the UA would just compensate instead of putting you even more ahead.
Also in the same idea, the royal library got no use in my game. It's great once you kill someone and get 1 or 2 GW and add one or two of your own for the experience of future units. But in a science game you probably won't use it.

On the other end, Assyria on domination is a lot more interesting. Getting units and military techs won't really put you at a disadvantage techwise since you'll grab some as you conquer. Warmonger penalty is not an issue since you'll make up for the loss of RA in free techs. The UU is really good early and you can use its bonus for a long time making your army crazy strong. Once you have killed one or two civs and got a couple great writings you can have a crazy XP bonus for late game wars.

- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities? 2
- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with? 3 built captured 1, so 4 (razed 1 too).
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less? I had planned to get a way better religion by settling a fourth city but due to my disastrous midgame, that plan went out of the window. Spying was used for mercantile CS.
- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals? Classic Tradition, Commerce 1, Rationalism Order. Had to switch to Autocracy though since EVERYBODY went Autocracy and I had -30 happiness. Like I said not meeting any cultural CS killed my culture output (defense against tourism)
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors? Fine, William and Pocatello were annoying but everybody else was my friend.
- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals? No. And the map didn't help, AI were far and Pocatello the closest was shielded by mountains. Early wars were not attractive. Ended up playing a generic science game
- Were any AI runaway's in your game? Indonesia but not too badly.



Replayed the map quickly because I really didn't like the original performance, managed to cut the victory down to T259 .
Didn't make much mistakes in the early game resulting in a decent T105 education. Knowing where the cultural CS were changed a lot also. Things to improve: making more gold to rush buy more stuff, make more RA (as a consequence of having more gold, I only made a couple), still couldn't get Science Funding, the whole map is Aesthetics. Play was all standard, nothing fancy using the UA grabed only one early tech in the beginning.

In retrospective, the starting area is really really good. Lots of rivers and enough hills, some jungle, some mountains (wonders) a LOT of space to make as much city as you'd like. Player is protected by CS from invasions. My only grudge with it is the cultural CS placement on their island.

leif erikson said:

Sorry to hear of your defeat.

The good news is that you can read what others do and try again?
Best of luck and welcome to GOTM.

Click to expand...

Thanks.. When i wipe Shoshone of the map i got a big diplo hit. Also have not builded roads. My army was all on the west trying to kill morocco, when the rest of the world attacked. I could not get back in time. Logistics is needed for war ;-)

Surprised no one went for Petra supercity up by Sinai. Missed it by three turns on first playthrough, may try settling cap up there in second go.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 72
Date submitted: 2013-11-03 11:17:12
Reference number: 30001
Your name: flipsix3
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1985AD
Turns played: 405
Base score: 970
Final score: 1197
Time played: 3:52:00
Submitted save: TSG72_InPlay.Civ5Save
Renamed file: flipsix3_C507201.Civ5Save

Click to expand...

Well at least it was a win, only my second at Immortal.

A lesson well learned though, which is not to try and play a game of CiV (especially at the upper end of your range) whilst also trying to do various other Sunday jobs around the house.

My notes are a complete mess, but will flag some of the key points/moments...

Following the 'Opening Actions' update (99 turns) I worked to stabilise my economy and three core cities. All went well early on, and whilst I wasn't actively chasing religion I did get a Pantheon (Earth Mother) - however I never got to religion, and with a bit of a mess of SPs (my culture was poor) I never got to faith buy a single thing - annoying as that would definitely have saved me some time.

Hit Edu at T125, got Unis up and popped Navi with Oxford to open up the top row. Big mistake during this period was accepting a couple of early RAs which prevented me rush-buying Uni in my third city - that cost me maybe 8-10 turns on Oxford.

First spy Tech-steal was spotted by Indonesia, so retreated him elsewhere, and never got to steal another - end up with spies on anti-espionage duties and City States.

Ah, City Stats, yeah. Once I got settled, and pretty much surrounded, I made another schoolboy error of not replacing my lost scout and getting out to meet the rest of the CS world - therefore no doubt missing on lots of relationship boosts from being Tech whore (not to mention other missions). I only saw the rest of the world at Satellites

T145 (the turn I started Oxford) Maria tells me that the Shoshone are plotting against me. My military was OK but not great, so spent some time churning defensive units out - although didn't cost me a lot in build terms I'm sure I could've taken it slower on that front.

The "...is plotting against you" became a common message, by T250 I think I'd been told that everyone was, and was twice told that armies were heading my way. They never materialised though - presumably dissuaded by small numbers of significantly well teched units in my territory. The Shoshone came close, but a bribe to get Maria to hit them from behind drew their attention away (if, in fact, they ever intended to do more than heavily defend their city on my border).

T186: Industrialisation with 7 coal already hooked up. Factories eventually picked up (delayed as I was hard building Public Schools around then).

Ideology T216 - Order, which ended up causing me loads of issues with happiness (at -9 for some time) due to neighbours leaning toward Freedom/Autocracy. Eventually managed to resolve with Universal Healthcare.

Arts Funding got voted through. With only 2 or 3 delegates I never got the chance to block/repeal and that reduction in GS/GE definitely hurt on times.

William took out the Byzantines at some point, and Rakahamahamahamburgler went around T339. There was a lot of war ongoing, but never involved me - other than me setting William on the Shoshone, and Maria on the Indonesians to try and slow down everyone's development.

I built Apollo at T314, and took Spaceflight Pioneers in Order allowing GE to rush parts. That was about the last sensible thing I did!

I had a GE soon after who rushed Hubble, the 2xGS bulbing me through a bunch of stuff to get me half way to Nuc Fusion.

T332: Cockpit built, I didn't assemble - just parked it next to my Capital. I always do this, parking all parts until they're all ready, as I don't know if the AI get the same notification you do when a part has been assembled. Probably it's just superstition on my part

Around T:360 I've done all the techs (so I thought) and have 3x Boosters in progress - with engine queued. That's where I go hugely wrong, turning off all my Science specialists for several turns, and Prod focussing all three cities. It was only after a few turns that I realised I'd messed up and missed the whole path to Stasis Chamber. I reset science focus and pushed the techs through, hoping that my GE would pop to rush it. It did pop.... the turn I finished hard building.

So much noobness, but I have said (and will always say) that I'm far from optimised in my play. I think an extra 10 turns (earlier on) working all my Prod buildings in the Kilimanjaro city would've given me my GE on schedule and not hampered my tech too much (maybe a turn or two - had I not made that other mistake too). If I'd concentrated on Religion a little I could probably have faith-bought him too, with the right SPs, but for whatever reason that never became available - too angry with myself to work out why right now.


- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities?
One, HBR from the Shoshone city I took in the first stage of the game. I never warred again after that.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
Built my Cap, and 2nd city at Kili (which outstripped my cap by a significant amount on Pop). Took one from the Shoshone and never went past those three.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
Stole on Tech, then resorted to anti-espionage (killed a couple, but missed a few) and CS influence. Religion was something I pretty much ignored in this one, although probably shouldn't have.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
Tradition, one from Liberty (faster worker improvement) then a mix of Rationalism and Order. Order looked really nice for Science, and gave me the Kremlin to boost my unit output when needed, but caused me some real mid-game pain to the point where I had to shut off growth for a while. Again I messed up here, as I got SPs during the time when I thought I'd done teching and just threw them into Commerce or some such

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Pretty well all things considered, got denounced based on ideology a couple of times, but otherwise never had any issues. Managed to prompt a war or three to help keep the bigger Civs tied down - for most of my late (delayed) game I watched the Dutch and Shoshone ping-pong a city on my borders for what seemed like forever.

- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?
Aside from the UU being immense on my first city grab, and the UA getting me one tech there, they never came into play. Powered up two of my Royal Libraries but they never came into play in a peaceful game. I should probably have pressed more military action earlier, maybe grabbed another city or two, in the knowledge that I could catch up on tech easily.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Not really, aside from me on Tech. William and Maria were neck and neck on Diplo, always cancelling each other out. Everyone had Culture influence on me by the end, and someone did get down to only needing 2 Civs for a CV but I already had it won by then.


Plus Points: An Immortal win, and learned how devastating Siege Towers are. Also learned not to divide my attention 4 ways.

Minus Points: Did you read my report?

I won a SV on t287, which is my best SV score post-patch. I did it despite only getting Optics from my UA - in other words, with an almost totally generic civ. This makes no sense, except for the fact that I got more RA's than I ever have... and that it was my first game in years playing Pangaea. This game conformed my suspicions that it's much easier to score well on this map type: more contact equals more gold, more quests and more DoF's early on.

- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities?

One - Optics.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?

I built three quick ones, conquered Te-Moak for my fourth, and built a fifth later on near Mt. Sinai, for a total of five.

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

I had a religion, but it basically only helped my capital. I ignored Patronage, planning to use my capital-promoted spy to then stage multiple coups. Never happened: I caught one spy the entire game!

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?

I went Tradition, took Aesthetics for the accelerated GW's and GA's (which proved crucial) and the Rationalism. I never finished it, as I needed every Order tenet possible to reach Spaceflight Pioneers.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

My short war with the Shoshone didn't even cause a ripple. I had 3 DoF's early, and played most of the game with six. This gave me the RA's I needed to win as fast s I did.

- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?

Essentially worthless. If the Shoshone capital had been more accessible... or I hadn't been too lazy to walk all my units over to Mt. Kilimanjaro early on... I would have taken it as well. After that there was no point. I led the game in science and population from at least the Renaissance.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?

No - and I can see how runaways would be less likely on Pangaea as well. Indonesia had the most room to expand, and did, becoming the early leader and staying there. I was #2 in score most of the game. Siam was eventually eliminated.

Noteworthy:

As mentioned, my UA did almost nothing. My counterspy did almost nothing.

I took Order just too late to pass it in the WC, and stayed happy all game despite having almost no tourism, and two civs with different ideologies becoming Familiar with me.

I had nineteen RA's.

My six DoF's lasted until t255 and 259, when two civs denounced me.

I didn't bother going to war again, and had a backward CS army with no navy.

Research went from Philosophy to Mathematics to Education to Acoustics to Architecture to Scientific Theory to Archaeology to Plastics to Railroad to Rocketry, etc.

Mileposts:

t43 Earth Mother pantheon
t44 Nineveh (2)
t53 Nimrud (3)
t86 NC
t110 Te-Moak (4)
t111 Education, Tithe, Plowshares
t133 Kara-Tukulti-Ninurta (5)
t140 Rationalism
t185501 bpt
t200 574 bpt
t204 Order
t206 1st place WF
t278 finish research 1212 bot
t282 spaceflight pioneers
t287 SS launch

Game: Civ5 GOTM 72
Your name: marekb
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1848AD
Turns played: 294
Base score: 1114
Final score: 1920
Time played: 4:55:00

Click to expand...

From Opening Action thread:


With this I was content. Later troubles came. Pocatello wanted my capital. It was easy do defend, but I didn't manage to capture Te-Moak. He had built Castle (I suspect) since city defence jumped and I signed peace. The rest of the game was peaceful. However, I was short of money (used only 2 international trade routes), partially because I signed a lot RAs, and I was short of culture. Due to lack of money I couldn't ally so much CS as I wanted to. Quite late finally allied Riga. The second Maritime CS, Ur, was my friend from time to time but Indonesia eventually conquered it. This slow down my growth and I had only around 450bpt at ~t200. My capital was also low production in mid game so I didn't get CI and loose Taj Mahal by a few turns.

Tech: Pottery - Mining -Writing - (BW) -> Philo - (Masonry) -> Edu -> Astronmy -> Printing Press -> Scientific Theory -> Radio - (Chemistry) -> Plastics -> Railrodas (for Kremlin) -> Atomic Theory -> Satellites -> Advanced Ballistics-> Nanotechnology -> rest

Some milestones:
t1 Assur
t37 Nineveh
t40 faith ruin (+60)
t41 Pantheon Sun God
t52 Nimrud
~t75 NC
t84 Oracle
t105 Education
t120 Renascence (Astronomy)
t127 Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta
t149 War with Pocatello
t154 Pisa
t168 Scientific Theory
t163 War ends
t179 PT
t194 Eiffel Tower
t235 Kremlin
t243 Big Ben
t261 Apollo
t272 Hubble
t294 SS launch


- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities?
0.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
I founded 4 cities and ended with them.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?I founded Sun God pantheon, which help me a lot in growing at the part of the game. Later I didn't even try to get religion and finally bought with faith 1GS, which came too late to be useful. I stole 2 quite cheap tech. This was not very important. I rigged some elections and this helped me more.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?I selected Tradition two policies from Commerce tree, Rationalism and Order for Factories. I was short of culture so I didn't arrive to the Spaceflight Pioneers tenet that would fasten my finish by few turns.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Very well. Except short war with Pocatello I was friendly with every one. At the end Ramkhamhaeng become hostile (as he took Autocracy).

- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?
I didn't use UA nor UU. UB helped a little.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
I think Indonesia was the biggest. The Shoshone conquered Siam and was second one.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 72
Date submitted: 2013-11-03 23:23:26
Reference number: 30005
Your name: Suliz
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1900AD
Turns played: 320
Base score: 1388
Final score: 2168
Time played: 6:48:00


My first immortal win since pre-GnK days (and that was probably taking advantage of the AI's then horrific sea-faring abilities - remember the days when AI's wouldn't settle beyond their original landmass? )

I ignored science early, beelining Hanging Gardens (after grabbing Pottery)

There were some mistakes (beyond the casual nuke-tossing covered below).
1. When building Hanging Gardens, I had set Assur to production emphasis. And then I forgot about it, not noticing for 40 or 50 turns after finishing HG. By the time I did notice, I had 6!! unemployed citizens there.

2. On turn 100 I settled my final city, the next turn I lost my ally Riga and had spent all my gold on something else. It took me 8 or 9 turns to get back into positive happiness.


One amusing thing that happened: Shoshone thanked me for proposing the International Space Station. He did this right after winning it.(I didn't compete, I only proposed it to give the AI something to waste production on.)


- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities?

None, early wars on immortal seemed like a bad idea for someone with my skill level.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?

I built four, never conquered anyone else's, except for Te-Moak right at the end, it was still burning to the ground when the game ended.

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

Religion was standard, tithe plus pagodas for some extra happiness in that early middle game period where happiness can be an issue, plowshares. I had control of about 10 cities, with Morocco being the dominant religion, 38 cities I think)
Spying - I got one or two techs early while I was still catching up, otherwise just for keeping an eye on what the neighbours were up to.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?

Tradition, Patronage opener, right side of Rationalism, after that the order is a little fuzzy, but I think it went, a three Freedom tenets, finished rationalism, back to grab Scholasticism from patronage tree, enough tenets to get Space Procurement, finished patronage.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?

Until the modern era, everyone liked me. Shoshone and William had some issues with coveting my lands, but they both got over it. Ideologies changed that, of course. I went Freedom (naturally), but noone else was inclined that way, except for poor Morocco, who got eliminated. However, since I could see this problem coming from a mile away, I spent some time in the middle spamming archeologists and took the time to hard build the Sistine Chapel. The lack of cultural CS was a problem, but I proposed and made sure I won, the international games. During the afterglow of winning it, my citizenry were content and never had more than -10 happiness from Ideological discontent, so no real problems there.

In the last 20-25 turns however... almost everyone was either guarded or afraid, so when Shoshone came asking me to DoW Indonesia, I said ok, give me 10 turns. I got a nuclear non-proliferation pact through the WC, but not before I built 2 A-Bombs and a nuclear missile. I rarely use nukes, but I decided my contribution to the war effort would be an A-Bomb against one of Indonesia's largest cities. I swear, I thought the range of an A-bomb was one hex. Unfortunately, one of Shoshone's GWI was 2 hexes away, so he declared war on me.

Next turn, I sent a blind nuke to Shoshone's capital. Sadly, there was a Portuguese of unit of some kind in the blast radius, so they DoW as well.

None of this made the slightest difference to the outcome of game.


- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?

Not at all.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?

Shoshone and Indonesia were the strongest, but hardly runaways. (Morocco had the dominant religion in the game.)

At the time I won, no one had completed the Apollo program, no one had achieved a dominant culture versus anyone else, and Morocco was the only civ to lose it's capital.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 72
Date submitted: 2013-11-05 02:42:28
Reference number: 30014
Your name: Smote
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1735AD
Turns played: 257
Base score: 1569
Final score: 3076
Time played: 4:55:00
Submitted save: TSG_72_Finish.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Smote_C507201.Civ5Save

Notable things:
One with Nature pantheon, with the natural wonder to north and south, allowed pagodas in each city and eventual purchase of 1 great engineer and 1 great scientist (couldve had 2 great scientist if I got the religious cs a little earlier)

6 Cities, and Morrocco's cap for some of the game (gave it away later, it was slowing my tech more than it helped).

Got a fast start by: pop ruin 2->3, grow to 4, use 4x hill (purchase 2 of the tiles) to make 5 settlers asap, stole many workers from cs (maybe 6 or 7) to improve luxuries and sell/trade to ai.
City locations:
1st south of capital by the 3food/2culture natural wonder
2nd west of capital by the crabs
3rd way east of capital by the 2 gold+truffles, blocking morocco
4th north of capital in desert area by the 8 faith natural wonder
5th east of capital

Early on i declared war on shoshone and stole one of his settlers.
Later on morrocco declared war on me with a bunch of knights while i only had 2 comp bows... luckily for me, the ai is bad at war and used a knight/archer composition that failed to take my city despite my extreme lack of defenses. Yes, he had knights with normal archers... not even composite bows..

Built 5 or so comp bows and upgraded to xbows soon after, which ended up taking his capital after he wasted his army.

Managed to build oracle, which allowed me to do my strange policy order (managed to get full tradition along with meritocracy before starting rationalism tree). Oracle + 2 culture natural wonder, along with extra culture from pagodas makes this possible. (cultural cs wouldve worked too but i didnt have any...)

Used the 2 early caravans on 4th/5th city to get them up to speed faster, used 3rd to feed capital. I built NC later than most of you (turn 95 or so?) but 6 city builds have a stronger end game. Reached 1700 bpt at the end with the 6 cities.

Also, I did my usual strategy of civil service -> metal casting -> education -> banking, instead of education rush. This strategy allows cities to have something to build (workshops). In an education rush, the cities typically have some extra time and founder a bit, then they have to make universities, and then suddenly a ton of buildings are researched. Metal casting before education lets you get all the other buildings up faster, though the universities are slower. Also, using the early scientists before your city is size 10 or so will slow its growth or production immensely.

Everyone declared war on me later on, luckily i had 7 or 8 CS allies by that time (including 3 or so mercantile), so I was ok. The 3 cs to the south took a lot of damage If they had warred me a little earlier, I would have gotten unhappy and been slowed down greatly, since i had been depending on luxury trades to maintain happiness.

I took freedom ideology, 3 policies: 1st: half food from specialist, +1 happy from mint/bank/stock exchange
2nd: half unhappiness from specialist, +50% golden age

I think the +6-11 food per city (+17? in capital) is better than the extra 25% mod on the factories, especially since you get it a little earlier (first tier instead of second). Also, statue of liberty is far better than the order special building. +6-11 hammers per city and a free social policy... amazing. Once I get the 2nd rationalism policy, I use every engineer and scientist in every city for the rest of the game. Eventually I use the merchants too.

Early on I got colossus and oracle. I missed all of the medieval wonders. Got all the important renn ones though (pisa, porcelain). Used great engineers on statue of liberty and hubble space telescope. Took 7 turns building the SS engine in my capital at the end (everything else was complete. Was 8 turns until I bought the nuke plant )

The most significant areas of improvement wouldve been allying culture CS earlier. 2nd wouldve been allying faith CS earlier. I got the 2 maritimes, but didnt scout the culture CS. Maintaining ally was expensive because of the double dropping rate from cs hating me for early worker steals, but the faster start is worth it.

- How many free techs did you get by taking enemy cities?

0. I did steal Astronomy with espionage though.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
6. conquered one , kept it for somewhere between 50 and 100 turns, then gave it away
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
Religion helped a lot. Pagodas gave me a bunch of extra culture and happiness.
- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goas?
Full trad, some liberty (meritocracy), full rationalism, some freedom
- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
A lot of friendly trading early game, with the exception of shoshone who I attacked. Later they all hated me.
- Were your UA, UU and UB helpful in achieving your goals?
No. Not at all.
- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Indonesia was the biggest one. Two AIs had reached modern era by the end. Both chose order... despite Freedom being the world ideology

Good run overall i think. Stayed with 6 cities all the time. Got Scientific Theory around 165, then got Radio with Oxford. Plastic 190, then it was mega bulbing when reached max beakers(approx. 1650 at that time). Apollo finished turn 220, then started parts. Rushed 2 last parts with 2 ge.

Hard built most science buildings excepted in capital. RAs were real crap...Waste of money! Even with PT... I delayed Astro and got it only after Radio, maybe i would have needed faster...i dunno...cities were pretty busy for other things.

Policies : Tradition(full)-Patronnage(consulates)-Rationalism(secularism)-Order(2nd tenet, 25% factories)-Rationalism(all but 50% RA boost)-Patronnage(scholastism, allied almost all cs near the end)-Order(3rd tenet : gs, ge--->part)

Oracle, Kremlin(ge), World Fair(burned these writers during this phase to get a lot of culture), International games and 2 cultural cs helped me to clear a policy every 5 turns at some point.

Had to wait last tech for 3 turns at the end to complete last part.

start was ok, went 3 city NC and got it up as early as t70. bought another settler meanwhile and built another right after, unfortunately theodora trolled me with a city and took the silk away. pocatello grabbed my preferred spot for 6th city since i was unattentive and didnt check for settlers while NC (he didnt send one earlier for like 20 turns..).

got edu t101, sci theory t150ish, plastics ~t185. RAs are not worth it anymore, at least on immortal - signed two when i got edu which provided me with just one turn of research each.

religion was one with nature/tithe/pagoda/production/RT. theo converted Nineveh, I used my 500 faith GP to retake but right before building parts another prophet sneaked in.. pocatello, ahmad, william and theo were all sending their prophets to me.. I couldnt constantly block them because there was still work to do for my units/workers..losing religious community and my pantheon on my two cities with natural wonders really hurt..

game just got horsehockytier as it progressed. i tried to time oracle with astronomy instead of acoustics and it got stolen the turn i entered ren. without cultural cs my culture was so slow but the one additional pagoda i bought made it impossible to time ratio with acoustics - really sad, instead of secularism t111 i got it t140 (opened patro instead).

built no other wonders but Pisa, PT and hubble (GE). shortly before labs i started conquering pocatellos cities outside his natural mountain borders, annexed them and bought sci buildings for a peak of ~1600 beakers.

worlds fair was really helpful. international games too, i misjudged the AIs production on this though and missed first place by 20 hammers.. so no free social policy and i couldnt take order lvl 3 tenet.. was about to ragequit but finished it anyways, building all parts myself...

Tabarnak said:

Hard built most science buildings excepted in capital. RAs were real crap...Waste of money! Even with PT...

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This was my experience as well. It seemed like I was gaining a turn or two of science per RA.

Suliz said:

This was my experience as well. It seemed like I was gaining a turn or two of science per RA.

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I had the gold (and DoF's) to get 19 RA's. If you say that's 30 turns I saved, I'll take it.

Tabarnak said:

RAs were real crap...Waste of money! Even with PT...

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I had the same impression. I filled left tree of Rationalism to boost RAs, but it didn't help much. It is probably due to the patch balance:

Research Agreements:

• Both Civs will now only get the minimum of the two beaker counts (to balance out Rich getting Richer mechanic weakness).

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Yeah i was awared about the nerf but it's so...drastic. They are really crap maybe excepted for deity and only with huge techers.

@pkf : Wow...i thought that i was pretty good with my finish time and you posted a game where you tell that it was a crappy one

The beginning was looking very promising, hitting Edu very fast and (possibly) a fast secularism. You lost maybe 5-6 turns at the end building these very costly parts. A sub 230 turns was possible.

But you got the biggest score

Played entire game at peace and every was an Ally at one point or another in the game. Got lucky with a late t45 Great Library (usually falls earlier on Immortal). However, I didn't expand nearly fast enough and did take the northern city by the Mountain until late (combination of poor scouting and just not prioritizing expansion).

After GL, built Hanging Gardens then NC. I bought a Settler at some point, but getting to 500g just took forever. t99 Edu. t157 Sci Theory. t215 Rocketry.

Rest of the game went pretty much as expected with a significant tech lead.

World Fair, Games, and ISS all helped. Didn't get first place on any, but second place on all was a nice boost.

Once again, biggest mistake was not expanding enough early. I get caught up in Wonders a little too much at times.