TSG74 After Actions thread

Welcome to the TSG74 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 did you weave your choices from huts into your strategy?
- 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 and UU 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.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-02 17:42:03
Reference number: 30179
Your name: Memoryjar
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1830AD
Turns played: 286
Base score: 1288
Final score: 2259
Time played: 3:38:00

T 286 victory. My sooner non-domination victory.

- How did you weave your choices from huts into your strategy?
Grow Mason Khani faster, and have an archer to do CS quest.
Good start. No really lag.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
4 build. End with 4.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
No religion. Just oral tradition to keep a good start if I miss Oracle.
Spy for conter-intelligence for slowing down AI at start. With second and third, I started to rigged election. At least with Globalization send them as diplomat.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
Full tradition, playing tall for cash. Open patronage and choose Philantropy before rationalism.
I picked secularism, humanism and free thought before invest in Freedom.
I manage going to Treaty organization quickly. Finally I completed Patronage.

The key was Science to speed to Globalization and money to gift to CS.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Playing peaceful. Just sharing intrigues if spies catch them as diplomat.

- Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?
UA give me fast access to luxs. Sold them at start to AI allowed me continues growth.
Pathinder UU helped at start choosing right boosts.
There's an another UU, but I forgot to build it. No need of Cavalry.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
ZzZzZzZzZ. One DoW in the game, when I stole a settler to England. All AI were late in science and culture till I discover public school. Maybe sooner when I ended my third observatory.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-03 12:23:17
Reference number: 30183
Your name: mhtrtc
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1705AD
Turns played: 252
Base score: 1298
Final score: 2596
Time played: 3:40:00

Been lurking here for awhile, figured I'd finally submit one and share.

It was a good game, though I feel like I could have finished quite a bit faster. I waited too long to bulb my scientists. I had to wait 18 turns for the vote. I'm not really sure how the vote schedule works. How much sooner would I have to had created the UN to get a sooner vote?

Anyway, the game went pretty well. I probably could have won sooner with a science victory. My cities all had solid growth and production. Great gold output all game, too. All my trade routes were cargo ships for cash, and I never had a cash shortage. Wonders included oracle, borobudur, forbidden palace, notre dame (didn't ever want to worry about happiness), porcelain tower, eiffel tower (had a great engineer from spaceflight pioneers, which I took for the scientist, to burn).

- How did you weave your choices from huts into your strategy?
First one I took was culture, then pop growth. I think I got seven or eight total, including another pop growth, a faith one, a CB upgrade.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
Built 4, ended with 4.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
I used religion for money. I built shrines and temples in all cities and took tithe and 15% growth. Built Borobudur to really get it well established. England wound up happily adopting my religion as well. Enhancers were 30% further spread and feed the world (only because all the good stuff was strangely already taken). I voted it in as world religion (also got world ideology).

I put my second spy in my capital. All others were rigging elections until globalization, then they were diplomats for the extra delegates.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
Went full tradition. Built the Oracle and went consulates, and even had time to open philanthropy before opening rationalism. Went to secularism and free thought, then scholasticism. I bulbed radio the turn before the I won the world's fair, and immediately took 25% faster great people, skyscrapers (I bought all my research labs a bit later), and worker's faculties. My culture output was quite good all game. Wound up finishing rationalism and sinking four more policies into order.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
England was pissed at me for settling near her and she stayed mad for awhile. At one point she stacked units at my borders. I'm sure I could have handled her easily, but I didn't want the distraction so I payed Ghandi to DOW her. They stayed at war the whole game. England eventually warmed to me (she had my religion after all). The AIs were mostly irrelevant by mid-game. Only got three or four research agreements because they never had money.

- Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?
The extra tiles when settling a city are crazy good, of course. I saved a lot of money buying tiles, and every city had good tiles to work immediately. Even without getting to choose your ruins, this alone makes the Shoshone very strong.

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Nope. The AI was pretty weak.

mhtrtc said:

Been lurking here for awhile, figured I'd finally submit one and share.

Click to expand...

Glad you did.

Welcome to CivFanatics and GoTM.

Congrats on your victory.

mhtrtc said:

It was a good game, though I feel like I could have finished quite a bit faster. I waited too long to bulb my scientists. I had to wait 18 turns for the vote. I'm not really sure how the vote schedule works. How much sooner would I have to had created the UN to get a sooner vote?

Click to expand...

World Leader election is enable 15 turns after you reached Information Era.

35 sooner than me, I'm impressed.

I see, you finished with building Science in all cities. How do you manage to build science ?

I think, I wasted time to build wonders and buildings.
You went order, I went freedom for Treaty organization. I thought science was the heavy key in rapid victory, but I didn't plan how have enough cash to buy CS allies with order. Maybe I lost turns with Caravan instead Cargo ships (3 caravans for 5 cargo).

What was your path tech for Notre Dame ? You reached physics before or after Education ? I think Machu Picchu was not a wonderful deal at all.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-04 04:48:35
Your name: Tabarnak
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1510AD
Turns played: 213
Base score: 1234
Final score: 2938
Time played: 4:24:00

I decided to go straight for Printing Press after Acoustics. I heard that delaying is good too but my tech rate is so huge that i made the opposite and force myself to reach the Info era ASAP. I reached Public Schools on turn 157. 2 turns later i reached Radio.

I got huge gpt trough the game so i could rush buy science buildings pretty fast enough. Got Plastics with Ratonalism finisher and 2 gs on turn 177. 5 Research Labs some turns later for 1000+ gpt. I was wondering how i could reach Telecoms before diplo clock went down at 0 when a new policy arrived and i picked the 3rd tenet from Order to reach an extra gs. This saved my ass, i reached Tele(195) 3 turns before end of clock. At that turn, some AIs barely reached the industrial era.

Then it was click end button time. I forgot to put spies in other capitals so i had to ally all of 16 cs(plus Forbidden Palace earlier) to barely have 40 votes...phew. I sucked most gold as possible to prevent them rebuying cs and let me buy last cs faster at the same time.



Edit : I've just realized that i have beat tommy's 215 turns record game from TSG67!!!

Memoryjar said:

World Leader election is enable 15 turns after you reached Information Era.

35 sooner than me, I'm impressed.

I see, you finished with building Science in all cities. How do you manage to build science ?

I think, I wasted time to build wonders and buildings.
You went order, I went freedom for Treaty organization. I thought science was the heavy key in rapid victory, but I didn't plan how have enough cash to buy CS allies with order. Maybe I lost turns with Caravan instead Cargo ships (3 caravans for 5 cargo).

What was your path tech for Notre Dame ? You reached physics before or after Education ? I think Machu Picchu was not a wonderful deal at all.

Click to expand...

Physics definitely came after education. I didn't prioritize Notre Dame, it just happened to be a good option at the one and only time in the game that I had almost run out of happiness. Luckily it was a time when I didn't really need to be building anything else. I probably didn't even really need it, because I hadn't built most other happiness buildings, but it was nice to just grow grow grow.

Science was all about growth. I took Sun God as my pantheon for the extra food, and Swords into Plowshares for even more growth. Lots of gold from Tithe, cargo ships, and markets, banks, etc helped me buy a lot science buildings immediately so I didn't have to waste turns building them. I did have one observatory as well.

Hey Tabarnak, nice game! It seems you timed things out much better than I. I wonder how much of a difference that fifth city made? I see our other four cities were nearly identically placed (one tile off on one of them).

edit: Is there a way to access a detailed log of the game? Like which turns you hit certain techs, when you took policies, etc?

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-04 14:32:46
Reference number: 30192
Your name: Smote
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1635AD
Turns played: 238
Base score: 1164
Final score: 2476
Time played: 3:17:00
Submitted save: TSG74_Finish.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Smote_C507401.Civ5Save


Had good science, but totally whiffed the timing of councils... didn't scout portugal for a while. Should have either delayed scouting portugal even longer to delay council, or done it a lot earlier to get 2 councils in...

Look at the difference in England's power between tabarnak's game and mhtrtc's... That Te-Moak block kills the AI

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-05 17:05:52
Reference number: 30198
Your name: jshelr
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1949AD
Turns played: 370
Base score: 1224
Final score: 1676
Time played: 7:38:00
Submitted save: Pocatello_0370 AD-1950.Civ5Save
Renamed file: jshelr_C507401.Civ5Save

In the beginning, the map contained a very large area without meeting other divs. Kyzyl was met turn 8 for 30 gold. Wondering if alone on a big island. Two ruins used for archery and culture. Mombassa also 30 gold on turn 18. Calendar will be done turn 21, just after the worker pops. Whoops, didn’t notice all luxuries were on marsh land.

Other divs finally show after 2900BC. The map actually provided a safe-haven from which to seek a dipllo victory. Thanks to the game designers.

Lizzy tried to throw up a city in our face. But we killed the settler with escort and used our scout to steal a worker. This good luck gave us a leg up in this game.

Oracle 625 BC

Patronage 375 BC

Just to note, we made good money by selling iron and horses to divs unlikely to attack us and built units not using these resources, which then last forever

We build just three )very good) cities and were peaceful. That was enough.

Got word that Poland was plotting against us. So, we signed mutual protection pacts and bribed city states to surround him and prayed.

Poland was nice!

Our victory was delayed quite a while because I didn’t know the rules. We could have proposed a world ideology and thet would have lifted us to the required 40 delegates. I stupidly thought that the 40 target would go up when others with the same ideology got the additional two delegates

We ended up with 47 delegates.

The diplo victory is too easy, IMO. One of the things that makes single player problematic is that the AI doesn’t try hard enough to head off obvious strategies by the human player. The modern era is much better in Civ 5, but you can still put yourself to sleep by defending a small homeland and bribing all the city states. The AI should bribe a few city states itself, and get serious about it if the human player competes.

jshelr said:

The diplo victory is too easy, IMO. One of the things that makes single player problematic is that the AI doesn’t try hard enough to head off obvious strategies by the human player. The modern era is much better in Civ 5, but you can still put yourself to sleep by defending a small homeland and bribing all the city states. The AI should bribe a few city states itself, and get serious about it if the human player competes.

Click to expand...

Congrats on your victory.

Next time we play a Diplo victory, I'll be sure to include Genghis, Alexander and Maria Theresa...

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-05 21:23:43
Reference number: 30204
Your name: casualplayer
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1755AD
Turns played: 262
Base score: 1411
Final score: 2713
Time played: 7:49:00
Submitted save: Pocatello_0262 AD-1760.Civ5Save
Renamed file: casualplayer_C507401.Civ5Save

Neat. Finished CN Tower on the last turn.

I couldn't get Poland to attack me no matter how mean I was to him but eventually Iroquois asked for help in a war against Casimir. Sure! Warsaw fell to CS-gifted Camel Archers and Philadelphia came in the peace deal. So I built my 4 and had those 2 cities besides. Casimir spent the rest of the game at war with Iroquois, India and, eventually, Egypt. Most of Poland was captured American cities anyway, thus Philly for peace.

Missed my timing so my game went on for quite awhile after Globalization, darn it. All the city states and World Ideology: Order did the trick, and I won on the first vote. Host throughout.

Emperor is the difficulty where I'm able to consistently win all the Faith, Culture, Science races so I had CSs sewn up most of the game. I really only put effort into keeping the Maritime and Cultural ones but occasionally I would get a sweet domino series of effects and end up with even more allies. I got influence with 6 CSs for building Broadway; 4 CSs wanted the Wonder and 2 wanted a Great Musician. That was worth the hammers.

Full speed ahead into Tradition, 3 into Patronage, full Rationalism and Order all the way to Level 3 for the GS/GE combo.

I wouldn't say my religion experiment was terribly successful. I probably got 1500 beakers out of the whole deal and could have gotten so much more gold, which would have allowed me to buy more necessary buildings. Oh well.

Thanks for the game, GotM guys.

leif erikson said:

Congrats on your victory.

Next time we play a Diplo victory, I'll be sure to include Genghis, Alexander and Maria Theresa...

Click to expand...

Good idea, but then I'll probably complain about that too

Thanks for the game. Just moved over from civ 4 in recent months and seeing the science speed in these results has sent me back to the drawing board to learn the basics better. It's a good challenge.

How did you weave your choices from huts into your strategy?
Used two for pop in capital (growth/science), two for technology (science), one for culture, one for upgrade, one for faith to establish a religion.
How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
Four, and four.
How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
Used spying a lot. Trained spies on defense in the capital, then put them to work rigging elections and using coups to get more CS allies.
Established a religion and tried to spread it (though Poland was particularly aggressive with their brand of Catholicism). Eventually established mine as the World Religion, mainly for the two extra delegates.
What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
Filled tradition first. Then opened patronage and took consulates and philanthropy. Then filled out rationalism completely. This finished along with acquiring radio, which I used to open freedom, in which i eventually took eight tenets. Managed to get Freedom declared the world ideology (for more delegates).
How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Easy. Quickly allied Gandhi and Hiawatha. Eventually also allied Washington and Maria. England stayed neutral for most of the game. Only DoW was against Poland (to stop their religious spread), and this was joined by Washington and Hiawatha. The two of them eliminated Poland while I sat behind the Great Wall killing prophets and missionaries. Signed a total of 10 RA's throughout the game
Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?
UA: probably, since it quickly grabbed tiles with resources that I could trade to keep a steady cash flow.
UU: worthless for this game, since I ignored the bottom half of the tech tree. After education, I went to banking (and got the Forbidden Palace), then the printing press (to get the extra delegate), then beelined to radio, atomic theory, and globalization, so military science was one of the last techs I discovered.
Were any AI runaway's in your game? No

Main reason for a somewhat slow finish was poor city placement. I put Te-Moak on a silver next to a mountain, but the growth potential there was terrible. Should have settled the (iron) riverside hill. And put Agaidika on the gold for a quick resource, but would have been better off putting that city on the coast next to a mountain for another observatory.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 74
Date submitted: 2013-12-07 13:56:52
Reference number: 30211
Your name: Swissy
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1866AD
Turns played: 304
Base score: 1405
Final score: 2341
Time played: 4:37:00

I found eight ruins which gave me two upgraded pathfinders. So, I decided to finish off a number of CS barb camp quest. As I posted before, this was a mistake as I lost most of them to AI scouts after I cleared them. This ultimately delayed my exploration of the west and not finding Egypt before The Iroquois researched Printing Press and got the first WC. Otherwise the ruins fit right into my plan for a tall city strategy.

Built 5 and ended with 5 cities

I used my religion to beef up the production in my cities and to help the happiness. I used my spies exclusively in CS, initially rigging elections in CS that had quests I wasn't going to get. Late game I used them to shore up the CS that I was low in influence in.

For Social Policies I went full Tradition, as I wanted to go tall. I then opened Patronage, Commerce and Rationalism to boost gold and science, eventually finishing Patronage. I went Freedom, planning beeline to Treaty Organization and rotated trade routes among the CS. Unfortunately everyone else , but Egypt(Autocracy) and India(Freedom), went Order. I was getting some serious pressure until I managed to lock up all the CS delegates and forced through World Ideology.

Diplomacy was pretty mild considering the opposition. I think Poland, America and The Iroquois being all center map pretty much kept them all embroiled with each other and not me. I was friends with India all game, with all but England pretty cool with me until I forced World Ideology. England was pretty much pissed at me all game because of second and third city placement pretty much cutting them off from ant decent city spots. Egypt was also grumbling about not getting some wonders, probably Oracle and Hagia Sophia. I did pay off Poland to attack India, as they had been at peace for longer than usual and units were lining up on the other side of Manila, looking ominous.

The Pathfinder was great. Eight ruins gave me a couple population, a couple tech, a couple CB and my pantheon. Only had one Comanche Rider, an upgrade from a CS knight I had received. As for the UA, it saved me loads of gold for not buying land, and enabled me to get a bunch of lux items hooked up early and starting to build up my bankroll.

No AI runaways, though The Iroquois did their usual city spam. Poland took cities from America, England and India, but always stalled out when it came to taking the capitals.


I probably could have cut fifty or so turns off with a more aggressive exploration strategy, without wasting effort on early CS quests. I was definitely first to Printing Press, but never made it to Egyptian land until after the first WC.

As usual I slacked with my post T100 notes. Best BNW win so far I think. Egypt went gung-ho on wonders and managed to grab Forgotten Palace one turn ahead of me. Hit Education T121, Scientific Theory T184, Plastics ~T230/T240. Globalization by bulbing GS T267(didn't quite make it all the way, 7000 beakers left and 4 turns to rationalism finisher). Had nothing to do the last few turns so grabbed NSA. Allied to all CS. Won with 48 votes of the required 40 on T 276. All civs still in game and in control of their capitals. I voted Ghandi's religion to world religion as I had it in my lands. Freedom for World Ideology.

- How did you weave your choices from huts into your strategy?
Culture to help fill SP. Tech because I'd just popped pottery so no wasted beakers.

- How many cities did you build? How many did you end up with?
Built three fast to grab the good spots, got NC then expanded with two more. Was planning on going to war with Egypt, thought he might be running away, but never had too.

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage given BNW? Are these element more of a factor, or less?
Got my spies to late to steal any great amount of tech, stole steel, nothing else. Used the spies for befriending CS and moved them over to diplomats when I triggered the vote. Got a pantheon, fertility rites, late. So I decided upon importing Ghandi's Hinduism into my lands, and into England, was a fast spreading one so it was easy. Got mosques and culture on plantations from that. I really like the spies, AI's missionary spam is a pain, but if your not founding a religion of your own its not a problem.

- What Social Policies and Ideologies did you select and how did they support your goals?
Liberty, trying to get away from my always tradition habit.
Patronage, Consulates is amazing, Philantropy helps too.
Commerce opener(waiting for Rationalism to unlock) and more cash in an already wealthy cap is nice
Rationalism full tree, got last policy a few turns late, so instead of globalism I took internet(as globalism would finish in time anyway)

Went freedom Ideology. Happy, specialist eat less food and new deal and treaty organization.

- How did diplomacy go with your neighbors?
Never had any trouble, friends with India, Iroquoi, Portugal all game. On and off with America and Poland. England hated me all game(for locking her in and buying tiles/settling close) but she never dared come out of her little wedge of a land.

- Were your UA and UU helpful in achieving your goals?
Didn't use the second UU, built one in the endgame to look at it. Pathfinders were great, though only got 4 ruins. The UA is great, Nice to get to work some of the outer tiles at once without buying em, great combo with liberty!

- Were any AI runaway's in your game?
Thought Egypt and at one point Iroquoi were going to, but they just focused on Wonders and kept busy that way.

Picture

Won this turn 184

might do a little screenshot playthrough later.

Timing was pretty though in end - had to rush this thing giving a free great writer with engi to finish rati tree and be able to buy a scientist with faith. Well rushing PT might have been enough aswell.

went 4 city tradition and then a 5th after NC which grow fast with a food ship transport.

settled both faith hills letting me dominate religion and spreading it a real lot - even when i let a great prophet get captured by barbs
went +1 food from banans and wheat, + 15% grow in peace and +1 food from shrines and temples - think u can see a patern there ...

What allowed this pretty fast win was HIGH CULTURE - alies ...

sp till reaching special vote:
Full tradition.
1 in patronage
1 in eco
4 rati
2 more eco (reduced building cost
3 idiologies (order - cheaper buildings and science facotries)
finish rati

Like that I could rush buy all 5 reasearch labs as soon tech was available (like turn 160)

then finish building factories and all out science ... (fill all buidling builds for +2, build science - even starving cities with using production tiles)

Did you go for World Fair ? tommynt and others ?

with only 1 vote before Leader congress world fair does nothing ...

problem with world fair on this low difficulty is that u have to do it pretty much all on your own and 1500 hammers of which u d have proly do like 1350 yourself its pretty "expensive" - even when still very effective

tommynt said:

with only 1 vote before Leader congress world fair does nothing ...

problem with world fair on this low difficulty is that u have to do it pretty much all on your own and 1500 hammers of which u d have proly do like 1350 yourself its pretty "expensive" - even when still very effective

Click to expand...

I obviously took a lot longer to finish than you did. But I built the World's Fair, and had to invest 690 hammers to beat Egypt (who put in over 600). I simply waited for the announcement that it was one-third finished before putting in any hammers at all.