TSG104 After Actions

Welcome to the TSG104 After Action Report. 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 the map type affect your strategy?
- Describe any significant diplomacy efforts. Bribed wars? Purchased votes?
- Was it interesting to play the Huns for Diplomacy? Were neighbors useful as conquer fodder or allies?
- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?

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). Please refrain from posting videos until the deadline for submission is over.

WHOOPS!!!!
I was all happy that I finished, until I got this message after submission...

Game: Civ5 GOTM 104
Date submitted: 2015-02-18 11:41:11
Reference number: 32323
Your name: tribefaninnc
Game status: Diplomacy Loss
Game date: 1937AD
Turns played: 357
Base score: 1801
Final score: 1801
Time played: 4:53:00
Submitted save: Attila_0358 AD-1938.Civ5Save
Renamed file: tribefaninnc_C510401.Civ5Save

I opened up the save and apparently I somehow clicked on Sweden for my World Leader vote!!!!!! I had enough votes and have a screenie below to prove it. The last auto save was at 350 (I know, I should fix that)...I could replay and resubmit if that would be allowed.

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In either event, probably not an earth shattering finish. Really, not much action after taking over the Mongols around T100. Russia took a rush at me in the Med/Ren era. Umea got reconquered a couple times, but I eventually held them off for good with a few extra XBows. Really just schmoozed CSs and played nice most of the game.

Got to United Nations around T310. I thought I had Sweden and Shoshone in my corner, but I couldn't get either to vote for me so I failed the first vote. Bribed to get World Religion passed and bought out all but 1 CS at the end and got exactly the 40 votes needed on T357.

I probably should have conquered some of the other civs. I was trying to buddy up with the two closest and didn't really want to mess with Russia. Oh well, it worked out eventually.

1937 diplomatic victory.

My first submission to the GOTM. Spent some 15 turns of early buildng on GL which I narrowly missed. Then again missed FP by 1 turn and in the end missed the first voting by 1 vote Needed all CSs but Rammy befriended one of them just before the vote. Guess I should've DOWed him the turn before.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 104
Date submitted: 2015-02-21 06:00:35
Reference number: 32334
Your name: Yarin
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1923AD
Turns played: 343
Base score: 1465
Final score: 2154
Time played: 5:55:00
Submitted save: Attila_0344 AD-1924.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Yarin_C510401.Civ5Save

Welcome to CivFanatics and GOTM!

Congrats on your first submission and victory.

Glad you joined us. Best of luck in future.

Won on turn 320. It was my first diplo victory - still not sure about the mechanics behind the ammount of votes needed for diplo victory, that's why i wiped almost everyone (except Shaka) off by the turn of world leader voting. Now i understood that i only needed to take forbidden palace from Siam, but all others civs were on my way anyway - it was fun to defeat them.

Thanks for this TSG!

Congrats on the first Diplo win and welcome to CFC and the Game of the Month! Glad you enjoyed it.

HR

Awesome GOTM. I started by rushing GL and then NC to get my science going. Went liberty to magic a settler which I forwarded settled on Genghis. Afterwards focused my resources into Horse Archers and Battering Rams which I used to capture the Mongols, Swedish, Danish, and Russian cities. Afterwards just ramped up my science to get the United Nations and then won with FP + Ideology + Religion + all CS votes on T350.

The oval map made stomping rivals easy since they lined up one after another. My supply lines did get a bit long, but tried to compensate by building lots of roads. Could have definitely done better maximizing my puppet cities and using Oxford and GS a bit more efficiently for a faster victory.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 104
Date submitted: 2015-02-21 22:24:20
Reference number: 32339
Your name: mmlc
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1930AD
Turns played: 350
Base score: 2391
Final score: 3415
Time played: 3:58:00
Submitted save: MMLCGOTM0215_Attila_0351 AD-1931.Civ5Save
Renamed file: mmlc_C510401.Civ5Save

Welcome to CFC and the Game of the Month, mmlc! I'm glad you enjoyed it. We have new ones twice a month so stick around, more are coming.

HR

Got wiped out somewhere in the 1930's. As a casual player, I've been apparently too heavily challenged with war-mongering Mongols, Swedish, Russians, Shoshones - partially waging war at me simultaneously.

Still it was entertaining, and I look forward to take on future challenges. Good luck to all participants!

Ayanami said:

Got wiped out somewhere in the 1930's. As a casual player, I've been apparently too heavily challenged with war-mongering Mongols, Swedish, Russians, Shoshones - partially waging war at me simultaneously.

Still it was entertaining, and I look forward to take on future challenges. Good luck to all participants!

Click to expand...

Nice, some new faces are posting their results! Welcome to CFC and the Game of the Month, Ayanami. I'm glad you enjoyed the game in spite of the loss. You can use these forums to help improve your game skills. Lots of threads and sub-forums for things like watching Let's Plays or getting advice to help with getting those wins. You can also practice as much as you want with past GotMs even though the deadlines for submission have expired.

Thanks and good luck!

HR

Turn 284 win. Could have been 20 turns earlier, if I didnt mess up with bulbing into information era. I reached it 2 turns late.

Since the defeat of Genghis and Pocatello the game was pretty easy. Focused on science and religion. in fact I delayed rationalism to be able to buy more cheap missionaries. Russia was annoying with their missionaries, so I DoWed them, took Moscow(many wonders to fuel my faith) and razed another city. Stll with my HA and some pikes and trebs I was gifted by city states. I didnt build a military unit since my initial army.

Settled my 3rd city around T140 near the mountain and jungle north from capital to boost science. In total had 6 cities (4 capitals, Uluru city and jungle city).

Got ST a bit late (T183), but since then it was Quite fast. I delayed Industrial to get a prophet to convert Moscow by couple turns. Then beelined plastics and information era. Faith bougth 3 scientist for bulbing.

Policies: Full liberty with scientist with honor opener as 2nd policy, Patronage 4, Full rationalism, Freedom 6 (+15influence for gifting units, +4 influence for trade routes), finished patronage, 2 commerce.

I didnt have much gold the entire game except the very end. I didnt invest into city states, just made the qusts. Barbs helped a lot with that. Wanted to use the patronage policy, papal primacy and pledged protection to keep the resting point at 40 until end game, but I just kept allying more and more city states easily. I forgot to make cash out of the bulying. When I wanted to do that, I had too small military.

Siam wanted to make some friends with city states as well, but some gifted cruise missiles, trade routes, wonders, Great persons, spies and some 5000 gold in the end (completely unnecessary) had me everybody with more than 200 influence in the end.

Completely controled the council from start. Host, FP, +3 culture per wonder, science funding, fair, world religion.

I wonder spammed the whole game.


EDIT: I reloaded the autosave from T240, corrected the science bulbing and won a T264 diplo win with 43 delegates (all city states, plus 3 diplomats), while 40 were required.

First GOTM posting, though not first played.

Fairly fun game. Outcome never really in doubt. After finding genghis, I decided to take him out early. My diplomatic wins often come from early war to expand followed by a long, peaceful economic domination. Plus I wanted to use the Huns UUs.

Catherine also declared war on Genghis, allowing her to take the CS Vilina, which Genghis had previously conquered. I later attacked Russia to liberate Vilina for the free vote. Keeping the Mongols in the game until they took over numerous CSs and then liberating them all could be an interesting strategy in this scenario.

Went full Tradition, then full Patronage, then some of Commerce, Rationalism, and Freedom.

Biggest mistake was not focusing enough on science early on. Could have won much faster if I hadn't neglected that.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 104
Date submitted: 2015-02-25 22:26:09
Reference number: 32347
Your name: Natex
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1940AD
Turns played: 360
Base score: 2297
Final score: 3190
Time played: 5:12:00
Submitted save: TSG104_Win_T361.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Natex_C510401.Civ5Save

Welcome to CFC and the Game of the Month! Congrats on the GotM win. Thanks for posting and good luck in the future GotMs!

Game: Civ5 GOTM 104
Date submitted: 2015-02-26 19:17:01
Reference number: 32350
Your name: Snovvdog
Game status: Domination Wrong VC
Game date: 1929AD
Turns played: 349
Base score: 4397
Final score: 6372
Time played: 5:29:00
Submitted save: Attila_0349 AD-1929.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Snovvdog_C510401.Civ5Save

Click to expand...

What does ''Wrong VC'' mean ? This is the first gotm game I played...
EDIT: Ah, I was supposed to go for diplo .

Could have won it way sooner, but after turn 200, I was lazy and simply just building economy rather than soldiers. At turn 300 I grew impatient and went for domination anyhow. ( I didn't notice there was a ''target'' victory)

Note to self: Exterminate ai's rather than leaving them after the capital, both Pocatello and Cathy were annoying me greatly the whole game, ( sending great prophets in my lands, and embargoing trade and banning luxuries , basically being annoying pests), not to mention the tens of spies I've slain.

Like all games, I need more happiness, before I went war crazy I had 50+ spare happiness... But it's really holding you back in war. I focussed food and hammers the whole game. I always neglect research early on as it's easy to catch up ( when you get spies) and simply by dominating with population/land/growth. Only beeline to Forbidden palace as I always have happiness problems.

A mistake I made early on on was to not puppet but capture Genghis's capital, in hindsight it was completely useless half the game as it had rubbish production.

Finished Genghis first, then Cathy ( she kept beating me to wonders, like 5 or 6 in a row, got annoyed and spent all my hammers at military instead to get Moscow with its rich wonders ), had a few wars with Pocatello as he kept settling in ''my'' lands and got his capital too, then at peace for about 100 turns, then I went for the rest.

Other notes: Battering ram is silly strong, helps a lot to have a strong unit vs. cities melee unit early on. I like the extra prod early on from pastures, and I liked the horse archers too, how good Unique units can completely dominate an era! I did not befriend any civs except the city states ( I was friends with every single city state from about turn 240 or 250), every civ hated me from early on for being a warmonger. I did constantly sell my spare luxuries for gold. Religion wise I was planning to ignore it, but got up to 90 points from city states and goody huts, so thought ''meh might as well go for religion too and settle near Uluru'', +15% production like I always do, gold for every 4 followers, and more religion spread distance!
Oval map is nicer than Pangea imho, I liked the narrow paths between water bodies like near Siam/Zulu...

Finished Tradition> Finished Patronage > Finished Liberty > Started Order > opened exploration for Louvre > 4 policy's left open in order iirc.

Thought about Civ5 in general: I still miss stacking like in civ4, it's tiresome to move 50+ units every turn ( other note, how do some of you guys not get bored for 15+ hrs in 1 game ?, moving all those units around always feels like a burden to me, this is my first domination vic on such a large map, usually on anything larger than small I cba with moving so much military, I just forced myself for this for the gotm training, but god it's tiring, not to mention annoying because I was chucking out 2-3 landships/tanks every turn in the late game, even if it was all ai's vs me on my own I'd simply trample them under my superior production) //rant about not being able to stack, group and rally point
.
And, raging barbarians is making the game MUCH easier for a human player who has good unique units early on.
Really, loads of AI's held back in growth because busy fending of barbs, or sending their entire army at barb camps leaving their capital ripe for picking.


EDIT: I just noticed the point was to go for Diplo, in that case I would have my cities ''build'' science much sooner to get to the diplo/UN vote much sooner.

Screens from turn 199 and the victory turn:

Snovvdog said:

What does ''Wrong VC'' mean ? This is the first gotm game I played...
EDIT: Ah, I was supposed to go for diplo .

Click to expand...

Yes, we designate a VC for each game in order to try to make them more comparable.
From the Announcement thread:

In this game, the designated VC is Diplomacy. All VCs are enabled but players results will be published by fastest Diplomacy victory.

Click to expand...

However, it is not a big deal as you are allowed to go for any VC you wish. The most important thing is to learn and have fun.

I read the designated VC AFTER I submitted my game, Ah well, better luck next time .
Learned that being a warmonger is fun and easy too, I usually win Diplo/Culture victories in my own games and never declare war myself ( unless to good to be true reward if ai leaves something undefended) as I miss unit stacking, rally points, and grouping in civ5 and war is a bit tiresome from midgame .

Next game certainly looks like a challenge .

T269 Diplomatic Victory

@Moderators... Game froze at T112. Had to reload auto save at T110.



Tech path :: Pottery, Mining, AH, Calender,... Philosophy... Education,... ST, .. Plastics and then bulb with GS's into information era through Telecommunications and then to Globalization.

BO :: Scout, Scout, Monument, Worker, 2x Settlers, Granary.... (From the top of my head)

SP :: Tradition, Patronage (till Consulates), Rationalism, Freedom Ideology, followed by Patronage (till Scholasticism)

Wonders :: Went for lot of wonders in the mid game as I was in tech lead. CI, HG, Oracle, Forbidden Place, Pisa, Taj, Sistine, PT, Big Ben, SToL

Religion :: Tithe, Religious Community, Guruship, IP

WC :: World Religion, World Ideology.

Start of the game was slow. No DOF. All the AI's were mad because of my wonders and WC proposals.

vindy said:

T269 Diplomatic Victory

@Moderators... Game froze at T112. Had to reload auto save at T110.

Click to expand...

That's fine. We'd prefer if you could set your autosaves to every turn for our GotMs. It helps minimize the turns replayed upon crashes. Thanks for notifying us of the crash and congrats on the win.

HR

Game: Civ5 GOTM 104
Date submitted: 2015-03-03 16:10:57
Your name: Kendon
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1983AD
Turns played: 403
Base score: 2796
Final score: 3495
Time played: 19:22:00

On my iMac I had Civ5 unexpectedly shut down on turn 227. I used the automatic save from the previous turn. I hope that's okay. Most of my units are garrisoned in cities so Attila only had three units moving that turn.

The odd thing is that Attila had been razing St. Petersburg but now it's annexed.

With the oval map I delayed aquatic techs until I could see which water was inland but by the time I got the trireme moving the Shoshone border blocked me so earlier might have been better.

I bribed Sweden to help me get rid of the Mongols next door. Much later I brought Harald Bluetooth back to life so he supported Attila for World Leader but no other bribes, however reckless, would buy a world leader vote from the other AIs.

Attila has an early advantage but it doesn't last so he immediately attacked anyone strong and allied with anyone weak. From that standpoint diplomacy is an appropriate goal, and the opponents peaked in different eras so there was never a long stretch of button-crunching.

Getting to the Information Era wins the Diplomacy game so technology speed is key. What I would do differently is my policy choices.

I went one Honor for early barb culture, full Liberty/Patronage and then at the end after I had an ideology (Freedom) I added the right side of the Honor ladder for better control over happiness and cheaper upgrades. I wish I'd done that right at the beginning. Next time I'd complete Rationalism before adding the City State policies in the Freedom ideology.

It was a good set of opponents because going all-out for growth meant someone would attack you, and shifting over to war meant you'd have a different opponent doing a tourism or science runaway. From the start Shoshone Pathfinders got to ruins first so it was hard to get an advantage there.

By the time the Mongols were stopped Siam had used its UA with the city states so that crucial relationship was catch-up for a long time. By then Shaka was near full strength and the remaining three were getting their unique units. It meant that the mid-game really mattered.