TSG73 After Actions

Welcome to the TSG73 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.).

- Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

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.

First time submitting but long time lurker.

The game was actually fairly enjoyable despite the slowish start. Absolutely hate jungle starts for a domination victory so I headed south right off the bat to the open land. After wandering for way longer than I normally like to I found a fairly nice city site with hills, stone, sheep and a lake for irrigation. Probably missettled as I gave up some early food to settle next to a mountain and given the level and victory type this was completely unnecessary.

Bounced out a quick settler to settle east near some luxs and hunkered down. Tried to use GL to slingshot into NC thinking I'd go for a late CB rush after setting my science so I could hit navigation early. Unfortunately France got it pretty early for King level and I lost a lot of ground early on. As I'd already set up a wonder city w/ the tradition policy and marble just built terracotta and netted a scout, CB, Kris, warrior and bowman.

At this point had a big enough army to conquer London who I'd harrassed into almost non-existence with a scout. Moved south to conquer france who early I'd gotten attilla to DOW. Realized pretty quickly that Attilla hadn't really done anything but still steamrolled through Nappy. Things got tense for a bit as after I took Paris Attila DOWed me and sent a huge army to my second city. Managed to barely hold him off (zero hp on my city but no melee in range to take it for 2 turns in a row) until I got my main army back from the south.

After wiping out his army with no losses moved south and took his capital. He'd built statue of zeus and since this was king the rest was pretty much a mop up exercise of the north (Izzy and Theodora). Probably could have finished 20-30 turns earlier but I misjudged how much I needed to take out the north as I usually play immortal and wasn't quite prepared for how weak those 2 were. As a result I didn't set out for the final civ to the west until long after I had nav. completed.


- Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?
No. Not really much more to say, never even considered settling on another continent so the ability was pretty much a non-factor. I also really don't like Kris. About half my Kris got enemy blade and the others got ambition(ok) and heroism (not that useful). Never built a candi as faith and GP were not a part of my strategy. In the end I feel like I was playing with a vanilla civ with a worse swordsman UU. Might have been my fault but i think the map and victory type weren't really good for Indo.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
completely ignored religion. Probably should have built a shrine to get a pantheon but I literally didn't produce a single faith until around turn 100.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Didn't really fit with Indonesia and the excessive jungle layer to the north slowed my armies down quite a bit. Kind of liked that everyone was pretty much on the same continent as it led to a more interesting game then the evenly split continents that usually happen.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Tried wonder whoring at the beginning because of the low level and got burned on the GL but made out pretty good on the Terracotta. Probably should have taken the level into account when sending out armies but didn't and it slowed me down a bit.

Despite the harsh criticism this game has gotten in the opening actions forum I actually kind of enjoyed the map but kinda wished it had been for a different civ. Not a huge fan of indonesia anyways though so not really that heartbroken.

I'd post an endgame screenshot but can't figure out how to do so.

nrb2 said:

First time submitting but long time lurker.

<snip>

I'd post an endgame screenshot but can't figure out how to do so.

Click to expand...

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Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1695AD
Turns played: 249
Base score: 1696
Final score: 3461
Time played: 11:36:00

Took Spains capital first, then England's (leaving them both one city each) then Attila's (took a while as it was on a hill), I ignored Theodora at start and then she built the Great wall

After killing off Attila - Spain, England and France all declared war. Killed of france first as most of my forces were down in that area anyway. Then moved back up north finishing off england and spain.

Took Morocco with knights and heavily promoted XB's then the tedious sailing across to Arabia to finish.

finished turn 208..
slow science made this take too long ultimately.. this map could be finished ridiculously faster.. i was hoping all the continents were connected but alas...

i got to the moroccan continent after wiping mine and they hadnt even meet the CS that was directly S of them yet.. still a bunch or ruins around too.. same with the arabian continent.. barbs and ruins everywhere..

if i had focused on getting astro a lil faster this could probably be finished in under 150... absolutely no resistance from the AI.. morocco had one unit.. arabia had three.. cant imagine what the AI were doing all game as there were only 5 wonders built between all of the civs.

tried this one again without completely neglecting science..
turn 177 victory.. the 10 turn slog thru the water from morocco slows this down a bit.

longest fight was with france who had GW.. if i hadnt razed lyon so quickly it could've gone a bit smoother but my units spent too much time slow healing in the open..

went liberty and bulbed astro with GS.. then just put it on future tech.. no need for xbows in this game.. besides that i wouldnt have had a place to upgrade if i did research it..

Game: Civ5 GOTM 73
Date submitted: 2013-11-20 08:34:15
Reference number: 30118
Your name: Smote
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1080AD
Turns played: 168
Base score: 1024
Final score: 3103
Time played: 2:55:00
Submitted save: TSG73_Finish.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Smote_C507301.Civ5Save

War order: England, France, Huns, Spain + Byzantine (seperate armies), Arabia + Morrocco (seperate armies)

The hardest part for me was managing the happiness while controlling all those capitals. Also, I took too many workers from CS. Should have just taken 1 and got the other workers from main civs, so I could keep CS influence more easily.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 73
Date submitted: 2013-11-21 02:20:32
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1190AD
Turns played: 179
Base score: 911
Final score: 2602
Time played: 3:31:00

I didn't scout the west coast in the water so i didn't see the strech moving to Morocco's land. Had to made a large detour to the west coast because a city was settled on the east side and he built the GW. I finished France and moved my upgraded units(Xbows). Made another army to go east side joining Arabia. Finished Arabia around 175 i think.

Teching astro too slowly cost me some turn. Balancing captured cities and science penalty to astro race is something interesting to learn. Maybe i captured too much cities early on, i dunno. Also, i teched 4 turns into Navigation until i realized that i couldn't capture other cities with frigates. I finished Navigation after Machinery.

Nice run Smote, you balanced better than i did

Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?
Yes. Produced six Kris swords; five of them got useful promotions. Even the sixth (with Evil Spirits) survived to get cover and medic promotions, so still had a useful role to play. I settled cities on the Moroccan and Arabian continents to use as staging areas for attacks. The extra auto-luxury kept my happiness reasonable, and even gave a little more income.

How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Ignored them completely.

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The jungle start was terrible. My second city, Surabaya, was almost always better than my capital for production or growth.

The final attack on a distant, inland, Great-Wall-protected Arabia was a slog. I had built four galleases and was upgrading them to frigates when I realized they weren't going to help capture Mecca. Eventually decided to settle a city there and use two GG to build citadels and open a corridor to move in for the attack. I was still losing a unit per turn to the garrison and one camel archer in Mecca.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Since I play most of my games at King or Emperor, had no real effect....

Conquering order:
- London (turn 90, from Attila)
- Attila's Court (turn 115)
- Paris (turn 134)
- Constantinople (turn 159)
- Madrid (turn 167)
- Marrakesh (turn 190)
- Mecca (turn 220)

A couple of things that might have slowed me down. First, the decision to take France before Byzantium and Madrid. The rough terrain and lack of roads around Paris meant a lot of turns moving units there and again moving them back north. But I was already in the south, so it seemed reasonable at the time. Second, I probably didn't stress science enough, and so had to wait for Astronomy (turn 186) to get caravels and go find the Arabs.

SP: Went full liberty, followed by (almost) full honor. Still seems best for this map and VC.

Got help from the AI twice. First, Attila taking out England mean I could attack them and not get much of a diplo hit while taking my first two capitals. Second, when I moved my troops back north and was deciding whether to take Madrid or Constantinople, the Spanish DoWed Byzantium. So I went in on their side first....

t167

im not sure if it was just the map or my terrible play.. but i didnt feel comfortable all along.. was unhappy for long periods after i captured my first city..

in the end i wasted 10 turns on attilas court.. guessing t150 is very possible, perhaps even lower (tommy..) ... dont feel like doing a writeup of my misery

Wandered quite a bit lol. Obviously coastal was a must, so I actually ended up right next to Theodora. She donated me two settlers = workers. Lost 1 Scout and 1 Archer though. And what I really hate, she had a Working Boat done which was in no danger/ZoC at all but she just let it sit in the city instead of putting it on her Whales. Waited an extra turn but she still didn't move it. That's just a real bummer.

Constantinople fell on T62.
Stoneworks was bought on T64 (hammers went up from 8 to 13 (and happiness went up to 0 ).

When I found Morocco on the non deep water nearby landmass I thought the last missing civ was on their land mass too, as all other were on my continent. Turned out it wasn't and the last civ apparently was completely isolated from everyone else.
Too bad I decided to go for xbows instead of Astronomy.

But even worse: I totally was unable to capture Madrid with 4 comp bows even though it was on flat land without walls (but with an archer). Well I could have captured it with losses, but that's a bit counterproductive if you are on the way to +range promotions. I find this particularly interesting because Constantinople was no problem with 4 Archers (!) and the same defense.

Since everything was kinda horrible in respect of a quick finishing time I scrapped the game at that point.

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 2029AD
Turns played: 459
Base score: 3028
Final score: 3327
Time played: 11:54:00

Well I see that i am not the fastest kid on the block. Domination is my weakest victory type. Had some serious money problems. Also did not take in to consideration the UU of France /Spain. and could only start taking other civ with dynamite. Looks like i was also the only one that took the honor tree. In the end I had a way to huge army.

But man !!! I did enjoy my game ;-))))

tommy won this t121.

This map been all a huge gamble to do "the right thing".
If there d have been a landbridge to arab aswell my plan d have been pointless ..

I had 3 targets after i found out i was on a continent:
tech astro asap
have 2 armies in water left an d right of my continent
kill all civs on my contint beofre astro or with a 3rd army

Cap position - obviously i didnt plant in jungle but moved towards the only 2 good tiles in sight hoping to find more good tiles there. sheep and deer. In end my cap position was ok - after i discuvered the marble i was bit pissed to not have done 1 more move but oh well

bo: scout scout granny shrine settler caravan gl nc 2x archer stables HG units
2nd city library granny 3x archer caravan units

This worked out quite Ok. After some point I build 5 archers upgraded them and killed kinda very easy england, spain and byz and 2army went to huns while a scout discovered landbridge to maroko where 1. army went. Meanwhile 3rd army build (with rush buying from tribute and conquer gold i got like 1,5 units per turn so 1 army in 5 turns ...
hun and maroko army into water and 3rd army to france ... east army made contact fast - kill kill

gg

I dont understand how others had problems like happynes -like every civ had at least 1 most 2 uniqu lux ...

"Game: Civ5 GOTM 73
Date submitted: 2013-11-23 13:11:53
Reference number: 30138
Your name: Maverick_VII
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1935AD
Turns played: 356
Base score: 2864
Final score: 4033
Time played: 7:14:00
Submitted save: Gajah Mada_0356 AD-1936.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Maverick_VII_C507301.Civ5Save"

I don't know if this really counts, it was my second playthrough, after getting screwed by Atilla first time round (see opening actions thread). Anyways, Tabernak's post gave me the inspiration to try one more time (spending all Saturday...). Went swimmingly this time. Settled just one city, on the spice south. Then built and bought archers and went to London. After that two tries on Atilla (had to sue for peace first time, but got his second city in the deal, making the second try for his capital much easier). After that was planning on Spain as the weakest, but Napoleon wanted war on Byzantium, so who was I to refuse. Byzantium and Spain were easy work for my crossbows. Last opponent on the continent, France, was harder, particularly due to GW, but at this point I got Dynamite which got me over.

After that it was all smooth sailing. Flight and battleships made Morocco and Arabia cake walks. Took a looong time on this though. I'm awed by people getting these victories in sub-200 turns...

- Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?
Definitively not. Don't see how they could've helped.
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Totally ignored religion, so I guess that didn't help me take advantage of the UB. Spying, meh...
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Slow jungle start, of course. But the placement was actually pretty good. Made it easy to pick off enemies one by one. On the other hand, if Byz and Spain had turned on me when I was working on the Hun, I might've had trouble.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I was sloppier than usual. Forgot about National College (!), which, thanks to new annexed capitals I didn't finish till turn 160 or so. But yeah, it didn't really present any challenge. Would've been interesting to see how my early warmongering would've gone down on Immortal or Deity.

I just failed to get this under T200. I am frankly not sure how it's possible to do this by T121...

I went liberty, built a couple of scouts, granary, monument, and then just units until education. Spain picked the first fight, so she was first and the Army of the South went south. France had the GW and I bogged down there for a little bit. The Army of the West went west. They were done first, and unfortunately that meant the long way to Arabia.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. The Kris Swordsman is dumb, and I dare not waste one hammer on it. I didn't even research IW.

I didn't use the UU nor the UB. My free settler with liberty I roamed to Morocco's continent just to use the UA. It's a nice UA.

- Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?
Did settle two cities late game for the extra lux, but I would not say they were very useful cities for the VC. Just something to do while armies traveled across the ocean.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
Got a religion up and running, Pagodas and tithe helped with happy and coin. Spies mostly used for befriending cs and keeping a tech edge(defense spy)

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Start was slow! Movement was really slow, especially to the islands. Though I think I went over aggressive to early for a good time.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Earlier aggression(though in retrospect I should probably have waited a bit longer before going to war)

DV is still the one I have hardest to get a good finish time on. Got Byzantine and Spain and England with composites. Made a push for the Huns but got halted there, had to backtrack and upgrade to xbows(which tech had just popped, so mostly the ten-15 turns shuffle the entire army around to upgrade) Got a peace deal and a few cities for the trouble though so next target was France and then back to finish the Huns. Consolidated, got arty/riflemen/gatlings and sailed east towards Arabia, bit of a slogfest there through all that jungle he had. then continued East towards my final target. Morocco who had built the great wall. Retrospect I should probably have made a second army of xbows/longswords/trebs for Morroco and Arabia. Would probably have saved a lot of turns. Better luck next time.

Got three Kris Swordsmen, hoping for the bad promotion for the achievement. Got two with the general promotion and one with +attack/movement. So 100% good promos.

Wow. 121 is very good Tommy. Did you happen to record it? I'd love to see it!

248 Dom victory

Sort of role played the jungle start; which gave little production but of lot of pantheon culture. bit of a snooze fest until I built an army; the eased up for no particular reason. Spilitting my army after Atilla would have sped it up a lot

Built 3 Kris: for fun; not any help at all - 1 enemy blade; 1 +50 health on kill and a 50% flank person - minor help against Atilla's roaming HAs

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1320AD
Turns played: 192
Base score: 1102
Final score: 2900
Time played: 10:06:00

- Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?

Much like GOTM 72, this was like playing a completely vanilla civ. I didn't use any of Indonesia's abilities. I never even bothered with a Candi, and built only two of the Kris, opting to use pikemen as my main foot soldiers.

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

I took the 10% growth pantheon, then ignored religion the rest of the way. I did end up with a fully enhanced religion, but it never spread out of my capital. The production bonus might have been a help.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

The starting position was horrid, and I am very glad I ignored it. It cost me 5 turns at the start, but saved me dozens of turns (if not 100) by getting a much better production base. I assume there is a land bridge to Arabia's territory, but I never got it out of the fog of war. Poor scouting cost me probably 20 turns as a result.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

I went ahead and went for the GL and HG, despite it being a bit late in both cases, and got them both. It seemed like no one wanted to research writing.

Overall play:

I took one look at the jungle start and almost took a pass on the game. But seeing the open terrain to the south, I decided to see if there was something useful. I settled on the sheep, thinking I might want an Observatory later. The game never got that far though. It did get marble into my 3rd ring of my capital, but I never really needed it. I only built one more city to the SE next to the river, next to the gold.

It didn't take long to realize I was bordering Attila, but he asked for my help against England, so I told him "ten turns" then joined his war, letting him waste his units against London, while I explored and built.

I pretty much used Tommy's starting build order from game 72, getting a bunch of scouts out finding civs. I built archers, then pikemen, then catapults, building units nonstop after I had basic buildings (granary and libraries) up.

Policies I went full tradition, and 2 into exploration. By the time rationalization was up, there was no need for it.

Research hopped around a bit, but basically was GL-Philo-Const-Edu-Machinary-Astro.

Built two armies. My first one took London, then Madrid, then Constantinople. While I was finishing my second Attila attacked, so I wiped out his units with comp bows, while I finished some pikemen and catapults, then took him out. I turned west for Paris, and sent my first army over for Morocco. I got bogged down in France so took a deal where he gave me the city I was attacking, then spent 10 turns recovering and finishing some siege units. Meanwhile I finished off Morocco and finally found Arabia with a swimming scout. It was easiest to just sail my Morocco army west to Arabia, so I sent them on the way, while I restarted my war with France. Paris fell in 4 turns, and I sent that army against his last city, until he finally accepted peace. Meanwhile, Army 1 landed in Arabia, and I set up for an assault with pikemen and crossbows. Army 2, plus a lot of extra units I had built went east into the water, just in case I couldn't take Mecca with the first army (he had the GW, making it a slog getting to him). But finally my xbows and one trebuchet that managed to get there in time took him down.

I should mention, this took me a while to finish because I've had a bunch of other things going on. At one point, I was moving through Byzantium territory thinking "I must have signed open borders with them" only to realize a few turns later that I was at war with them from my last play session. Only lost one unit to the dumb move, fortunately.

t161, bad start, but ended up OK. I could probably do it 30 turns quicker now that I know what the map looks like.
Also I think going liberty for the Great Scientist finisher would be better than my Tradition path.

I settled south on the Spices by the mountain. Only realized later that I didn't really need the mountain, since I wouldn't be building an observatory. settled one other city south east by the gold and river. annoyed both England and Attila with that.

I lost a scout early when stealing a worker from Spain. the worker escaped though and got back to my cap. Then I lost my warrior when stealing a worker from England! I didn't realize he had three warriors near London (two hidden in the fog). I didn't even get to keep the worker on that one.

so after a couple of setbacks early I had some work to catch up, built some spearmen and archers that upgraded to CBs and momentum soon came with Army #1 taking:
t92 London
Attilla was trying to sneak in with a battering ram to take London as I was reducing its defences. I had to move to block him. Then I saw that Attilla had a bigger army than me.
So I bribed Attilla with a lux and 3 gpt to declare on France. This kept those two busy while I marched north.

(got Great Library t55-ish, National College at t94, kinda late, since I was busy building army#1)

t106 Madrid
t119 Constantinople
t135 Marakesh then upgraded to crossbows, before the ...
... swim, swim, swim ... west, west west
t161 Mecca (last capital to fall)

meanwhile Army #2 took
t131 Attila's Court, then took Lyon, and then upgraded to crossbows before ...
t158 Paris

Hammer Rabbi said:

- Did you find Indonesia's Unique traits interesting for a Domination Victory?
- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Would be interested to hear any thoughts on game setup.

Click to expand...

-For a Dom victory on this map playing Indonesia is not interesting at all. I didn't build the UU or UB or settle on any other continent, so I don't feel like I've played Indonesia yet, which is too bad, I was hoping to have an interesting Indonesia game. I guess I'll have to start one of my own

-religion and spying weren't factors for me

-the map type hindered my victory in that I had only one army in the water and it went the long way (west) to the Arabian continent.

-the difficulty level kind of threw me, I was playing kinda relaxed, but was surprised a few times when the AI had more units and better units than I thought they would.