TSG112 After Actions

Welcome to the TSG112 After Actions 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.).

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.
- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.
- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?
- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.
- 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.

Your name: caeru71
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1902AD
Turns played: 322
Base score: 2199
Final score: 3435

Thanks for the game.

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1818AD
Turns played: 279
Base score: 1329
Final score: 2416
Time played: 3:24:00

Got ToA in the beginning, but missed GL and HG by 3 turns both. I invested too much in those wonders and went 2-city NC (conquered Barcelona from Spain later). Got education around turn 130, but recovered from that quite well. Late game was combination of bulbing to Internet and taking freedom and using Arsenal of Democracy+Treaty Organization combo to get all city-states allied (AoD is very underrated policy BTW).

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.

As I said, used my usual combo to reach alliance with city-states, got to Information Era around turn 265. Started to gather votes around turn 250.

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.
yes

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?
I built five Moai's and that helped culture quite a lot at least in the beginning.

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.
It was hard to place cities with not many luxuries around (and finally only settled one). Hiawatha attacked me twice but was able win him using terrain and couple of units to my benefit.

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?
Maybe should have went GL-ToA-HG and not ToA-GL-HG or just the usual settler-settler-settler strategy. ToA was very helpful though.

Fun game, forgot how one activated the world leader vote. Won it 48/40. Submission says I did a diplo loss though, not sure why.

Had Sweden and Iroquois attack me around t130, just when I was getting my universities up, I had enough archers to upgrade into comps and defend though. After this I started collecting CS allies and spreading my religion. Got first to World Congress and stayed unchallenged there all game, had to buy a few votes to get World Religion and World Ideology. Had I rememberd I needed to just advance into Modern Era for the vote to trigger I would have finished sub 300, probably in the 280s.

Went for Tradition - Start Patrionage - Rationalism - Freedom for the teir3 trade route one and coming back to finish patrionage and grab the commercialism opener.

Challenging start, but pulled a really strong growth game for me, especially considering the lack of rivers. Built my first farm post t100. As usual, all the small mistakes add up, lost a scout to a blunder. Missed that an auto-purchased GE that sat waiting in cap happily for 30+ turns(until I got the next one and couldn't park him in cap). A few poorly timed techs. etc. Or as they say, plenty of room for improvement.

All said, a very enjoyable game! Thanks!



//Edit: Seems my votes ended up on Germany, yet another blunder I guess. xD Attached a corrected save.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 112
Your name: Olodune
Game status: Diplomacy Victory

Turns played: 202**

** My in game VC turn is actually 203. Not sure why the submission utility thinks I won on turn 202.

Once I'd settled on the conservative Printing Press timing this went about as well as I'd hoped.

Hi all. Thanks for the game set up.

We built next to the mountain and eventually had three mountain cities along with one near the wine supply east of Berlin. It didn't help much. Without good sea lanes, gold production languished. So, our ability to control city states was not sufficient for a fast finish. Just passed 1700 and had several more techs to research as well as city states to ally with. Not too pretty

Weather's nice, however. Headed out on my bike.

Hi, thanks for hosting!!

It was my first game of Civ V in about a year. The steam sale reminded me that I still needed the Ancient Wonders DLC to participate in these things. In my save list I noticed I had TSG90 ready to go, so it has been that long I have wanted to do one. Here goes a rambly post, I played the 7 hours over the last 3 days.

I don't think I had ever done diplo in BNW, and it probably showed. It ended up taking 361 turns, but should have been 341. I accidentally bought units instead of buying out the last 2 city states, mostly out of wanting to use jet fighters for one turn. So I prolonged an extra 20 turns because of my noobness, I thought I had enough city states to win and didn't really check. I ended up 3 votes short.

The start was slow, but I was able to build up and not go to any wars. Everyone hated Sweden, so I was on that banwagon. He DOW me once, but only after like 150-200 turns or something (is there a way to look this up afterwards?). All I did was kill a few units around my city states.

I went Tradition, opened Commerce, opened Liberty, finally had enough tech for rationalism, got it half way done, then went Freedom and put some there, then realized Patronage might help a bit with this victory, haha. So I was just kind of doing things, good thing this was king difficulty. The policy that gives you 4 influence per turn per trade route is super overpowered. Once I started getting a hold of the city states I didn't have any competition. It was a nice-fest between everybody (except Sweden). Hiwatha fianlly DOW'd me at turn 340 (causing my brainfart) after I had a huge tech lead, but not many units. I was a little worried because he had like 12 planes, so I bought some jet fighters. The jet fighters didn't really do anything, I think he lost planes attacking and then stopped using them. So I think that was a mistake. I did have several mobile sams from city-state gifts.


- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.
I just bought city states, no thinking involved.
- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.
Yeah, I had a nice tech lead. My city pops were pretty small. I expanded pretty late.
- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?
I did not. I think I built one. I planted too many great scientests.
- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.
When I finally fought Hiwatha, the hills were pretty annoying. I should have built some roads, it took too long for rocket artilleries to make their way into position.
- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?
Not be a noob. Since it was king, I took the liberty to wonder spam for no apparent reason. I also wasted 6 archeologists, at least. I had not done any of the tourism stuff, so as soon as I got the tech I spammed a bunch for fun. I kept hoping something other than "great works of arts" would come, but never did. I eventually figured out I had to build museums. There were a lot of random culture sites, for sure. It is pretty dumb that the game doesn't let you do anything else. Why couldn't I sell the archeologist sitting on an artifact to another culture?

Hammer Rabbi said:

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.

Click to expand...

• Guaranteed protection for all once I met them.
• b. Forbidden Palace
• 1st to tech Printing Press = WC Host
• Selected Patronage, Philanthropy, & Aesthetics policies earlier than I normally would - especially Aesthetics. Eventually completed the Patronage policy tree.
• 1st to select an ideology, chose Freedom - Covert Action! As I worked through the tenets, I focused on happiness & growth.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.

Click to expand...

Yes, but I lost the first election to Arabia. I was't concerned because I had planned to slowly collect allies as the game progressed.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?

Click to expand...

Not really. I built the Maoi statues, but just a few around my original cities.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.

Click to expand...

Not much. I used some choke points to protect Sweden from The Iroquois. Sweden shared Freedom ideology. Needed Sweden's votes in the World Congress.

Hammer Rabbi said:

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish

Click to expand...

I would have focused on allies sooner. I, again, lost the final vote to host the World Congress. So, even when I had more than double the votes than Arabia, Harun al-Rashid remained the host throughout the game.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 112
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 2036AD
Turns played: 472
Base score: 4916
Final score: 5229
Time played: 12:36:00

I've been playing recent Civ5 GOTM's but haven't submitted them, for various reasons (e.g. winning by another option than stipulated in the game details).

I very much enjoyed this one.

I only founded three cities: Honolulu, then Samoa and Tonga. I usually build 4 cities, but the rival cvs' expansion and placement pinched me. In response, I eventually DOW'd Milan and annexed it.

Hiawatha DOW'd me fairly early and was much stronger than me. However, Honolulu and Samoa placements allowed me to control the "isthmus" separating Hiawatha and me. Forced peace. A 2nd Iroquois war ended with me capturing 3 of Hiawatha's cities, including his capital.

I'd eventually with Arabia and Germany, puppet'ing captured cities. Morocco and Spain were eliminated by Arabia and Germany, respectively. It would be Bismarck who would be the biggest thorn in my side. A massive Arabia DoW'd me, but we shared a limited front. Harun al-Rashid recruited Bismarck to DoW me. This went on forever, as it took me a while to build a machine. A few of my allied were captured, so liberating them became a aim. Bismarck would drop 2 atomic bombs on my capital. I was 2 turns away from my 1st nuke when he dropped the first one. Arabia sued for peace first, but I would refuse in order to cripple Harun al-Rashid and liberate Belgrade (?). Eventually, I gave him peace for three of his cities. Bismarck was going to suffer. I nuked Berlin and captured it. I got Vatican City back (liberated) in a peace deal, but he would not give me Bratislava.

As the game progressed, I was maneuvering myself for the WL election. I successfully had Freedom and Shinto voted in as the global standards, but I was a couple votes shy. I then noticed Bismarck was one SS part way from a technology victory. I DoW'd him. Dropped some nukes, recruited Arabia and Sweden into the and slowly took Bismarck's capital as it jumped from German city to German city.

This is where I royally screwed myself. I was in position to win the WL post by 1 vote with 3-4 turns before the election. I nuked Munich and the fallout reached my ally Kathmandu (?). Lost the ally and 2 votes in the WL election. Now, I'm 1 vote shy of the diplomacy victory.

So, I began brainstorming. I made peace with Kathmandu and gifted gold and a unit. That was just enough to get 59 pts. away from allied status again. I sold my police stations, but ended up about 50 shy to reach what I needed. I was confident I would eventually win by diplomacy, but I wanted to win now. Two turns away from the WL vote. I was set to end that turn, when I looked Barcelona again. Barcelona was now Germany's capital, and I was saving it's capture to keep it disconnected from aluminum. I had nuked Barcelona and surrounded it. Here's where the lightbulb appeared. Capture Barcelona and liberate, bringing Spain back into the game and Isabella's everlasting gratitude. Done!

Two turns later, thanks to Isabella's 4 votes, Diplomacy Victory.

Good fun.

thefranklin said:

Hi, thanks for hosting!!

It was my first game of Civ V in about a year. The steam sale reminded me that I still needed the Ancient Wonders DLC to participate in these things.

*snip*

Why couldn't I sell the archeologist sitting on an artifact to another culture?

Click to expand...

Welcome to CFC and GotM! Glad you enjoyed it. If, with your question, you mean why couldnt you sell the artifact, you can only trade them. And in order to claim one it needs a slot from a building. If you mean sell the unit, you can't really sell units to an AI. (And I have deleted them but never really paid attention to what gold you get in return for deleting them. I assume you get something.) Also, since it is considered a civilian and not any kind of Great Person, I don't think you can donate it to a CS for influence either. Archeologists can be tricky if you don't have any slots for the artifacts or the landmark can't be worked in the 4th/5th ring of tiles. You can always make the landmark then have a unit pillage it for some gold but that is about all the value it has if you can't work it or trade the artifact.

I hope that helps and anyone who cares to correct this, feel free to do so. Some of these specifics aren't familiar to me off hand.

Thanks
HR

Glad you enjoyed it, dojoboy! Thanks for submitting and posting about it.

HR

:/ dip vic on 329 but not what i expected

I'm not sure about what to think about changing strategies, it allways felt i was allways late to buildings, i've done horribly wrong regarding money , i had a 40 turns long golden age around atomic era and some turns i was still loosing money, when i got to information i did great though

50 turns after germans attacked it was the irokeses turn, i could repell it very easily too, then the sweedish kept on aproching and backing of for... 90 turns in a row!!! WTH?¿?¿? i didn't understand anything at all

at some point they were all becomming hostile so had to pay the irokeese to fight spain wich they allmost swept and germany,

i partially lost hosting during 2 term since i had lost all my CS alliances, got it back on my next chance

i passed everything i propossed, though, science funding, cultural heritage, world ideology, world religion and world fair

and it was thanks to coups, after a whole year i've been playing this game its been the """"first""" time i've even done them, i did tried them once, one of my spies got killed and decided not to do it ever again, i only take freedom, i allways build routes too late and i do liberty allthough i average 3 cities per game, so i suck at pop, i need the -25% food for specialist as much as i need the +15% from religion, but coups have helped me a lot

so i'm glad i stood dows, that i "discovered" coups... but... earlier settling (compared to what i usually do) hasn't turned into a quicker game, i have finished about 20 turns earlier than my previous dip cv gotm, but i reached information era about 10 turns later (when i got satelites i had 42 out of 40 needed, at the end 48/40), having much worse money problems so its been only thanks to coups

my cities weren't tall enough so...

:/

don't know...

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1965AD
Turns played: 385
Base score: 2235
Final score: 2902
Time played: 4:03:00

I don't do diplomacy much. Somehow I thought that to trigger the UN I'd just need to reach the Atomic Era, so my science goals were short-sighted. I waited around for the counter to turn green and when that kept not happening I finally looked up the help file. Whoops!

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.
I had reached Freedom and gotten the policy that increases the bonus for unit gifts before I researched Astronomy. This allowed me to build triremes in one turn and gift them for 20 influence, which was very helpful.

The bonus from full Patronage, where allied city-states give you great people, sounds pretty nice... but I barely got anything from it even though I was allied with most of the city-states for most of the game. They only gave me 3 or 4, the cheapskates. Two of them were Merchants of Venice though, so that was nice. I used one to purchase Ragusa even though that didn't benefit me at all (and probably made my victory harder; I'm not sure exactly how that works) because I'm foolish.

I had no problem building Forbidden Palace and making my religion and ideology the official ones. In the end I needed 39 votes and I had 40.

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.
I sure was!

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?
I built a few on the desert next to my second city. If I had been able to get Petra I might have even been able to use those tiles.

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.
I would have liked to get a bunch of cities surrounding that big ocean of a lake so that I could send a bunch of cargo ships to my capital. I was not fast enough. Generally I wait a while before popping out my first settler because I want National College ASAP. By the time I was ready to settle, there was only one place left for a city, and in fact there was nowhere nearby for a third city so I had to settle far away, north of Ragusa.

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?
I would push harder on the whole science thing, including that thing I said I wanted to do above.

I would also pay more attention to my religion. My Confusionism... I mean Confucianism was completely overwhelmed by Hiawatha's Protestantism so I couldn't get any Confucian prophets or missionaries or inquisitors. He'd kept declaring war on me even though my military was far superior to his; what a dummy. Late in the game I declared war on him out of curiosity (perhaps the best reason for war) to see if capturing his capital would lessen the influence of his religion. It didn't. Anyway, if I hadn't let it get that far in the first place I would have been able to better please city-states with my religion as well as improve it so I'd get more religion points and then I could get more great people.

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1812AD
Turns played: 276
Base score: 1345
Final score: 2445
Time played: 3:18:00

I decide to go my normal way - after EDU to go directly for Printing Press and next for Telecommunications. I try to avoid any wars. I know it is not so fast as to conquer everything, but I am not good at fighting and do not like it very much.

Settled near mountain, second city on Mt.Sinai - so I was first with religion and soon all the world was Buddhism. A lot of money from Initial rates.
First mistake - I did only 3 cities, not found good place for fourth.
Second mistake - Finished rationalism in bad time and it saved me only 1turn development - it took me about 25 turns back, as all my plans were wrong and I wait for election 20 turns.

Moa were good, I did about 8 and it was a lot of culture.

Thanks for nice game.

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1954AD
Turns played: 374
Base score: 1447
Final score: 1955
Time played: 1:58:00

Decided to challenge myself for my first GotM, especially since it was a lower difficulty than I normally play, so I ran a single city only.

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.

An early tech ruin meant Pottery was out on turn 3, leading to a lightning fast Great Library grab. Shortly after that, I was all but building wonders back to back for the first hundred turns. This meant I was culture rushing for most of the game.

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why. Yes indeedy

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?

A quartet of Moai in the desert and swamp below me fueled much of my early Social Policy grabs.

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.

The mountain to the North and a very heavily reinforced Ragusa were instrumental in fending of an incredibly aggressive Bismark and later Arabia as well.

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?

A faster Scholasticism and earlier caravans would have fueled my science enough that I might have been able to pull a win 30 turns earlier.

LongreachJones said:

Decided to challenge myself for my first GotM

Click to expand...

Welcome to CFC and GotM! Thanks for sharing your experience and good luck in future games.

HR

Minus spoilers, not a fun map at all folks. I should remember that these challenges are more frustratingly masochistic than fun...

Moderator Action: Moved to After Action thread. Comments concerning the map or any aspect of the game are considered spoilers. Once you open the save, please do not post in the Announcement thread. Thanks.

Turn 265 Diplo Victory

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.

Got to info era ASAP (purchased science bulidings, lots of RA's, rationalism). Patronage and built the Forbidden Palace and bought my CS allies. Controled world congress and passed World Religion and Ideologies in my favor.

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.
yes

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?
Extra culture for policies and such

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.
Terrain really didn't come into play much as this was a lakes (i.e. pangea) map. Specifically, the UA was not as advantageous as in a continents map.

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?
After seeing Olodune's crazy fast finish I would have tried to do some warmongering. In my game I Dow'd a single CS early and that was it.

Hey, after a long time planning to join the GOTM, this was my first game and I must say it was easy.

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1955AD
Turns played: 375
Base score: 2265
Final score: 3020
Time played: 4:00:00

Unlike most of you, I did not settle next to the mountain but on the tile where the maori warrior stood at the beginning. By doing so, I gained some fish and luxuries. I did not build the GL, I focused on building my first settler to settle next to Uluru (my pantheon was +4faith from natural wonders, which gave me a good faith boost). Later, I built almost every wonder, the Forbidden Palace was a must.

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.
Banking - to get the Forbidden Palace. Policies: Tradition, Patronage, Rationalism, Freedom. I sent agents to hostile allied city-states to boost influence. Moreover, I tried to fulfill requests of the city states. I maintained good relations with almost every civ (except the Iriquios) througout most of the game.

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.
Sweden was the first for some reason, but later I gained leadership and I secured the World religion and ideology for myself.

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?
I built one, and it was useless. I had better sources of culture (wonders, natural wonders, city states). I later replaced the moai with an academy.

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.
The small lake north of uluru helped me with defence against the Iriquios. Polynesia is suitable for islands type of map, but on this map I used the small lakes to move my scout.

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?
I would focus more on spreading religion to other civ and city state because the Iriquois' religion had much more pressure and it almost overpowered my religion. I solved it by capturing some of their cities and by purchasing great prophet later in the game. If I wanted finish faster, I would focus a little bit more on science (GL).

victoss said:

Hey, after a long time planning to join the GOTM, this was my first game and I must say it was easy.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics and GoTM.

Hope all your games are easy and wins. But please remember, it is not about how easy or hard, it is about how fast and how efficient.

Best of luck in future.

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1970AD
Turns played: 390
Base score: 2233
Final score: 2862
Time played: 6:16:00

- Describe any significant Diplomacy benchmarks: Techs, Policies, etc that shaped your vote-gathering strategies.

Papal Primacy, Piety, and Patronage did more for me than anything else.

- Were you first to the World Congress? If not, explain why.

Nah, Germany was beating me slightly at the tech game with his massive 25 pop city very early on, I went Astronomy before to get observatory so I could catch up to him. I only missed it by a few turns too.

- Did you use culture from Moai to your benefit? If so, how?

Not at all, there just wasn't any good place to use them especially since I managed to pick up God of the Open Sky on such a pasture heavy map, there was just never a need to build them.

- Describe any terrain challenges to shape your strategy.

The only thing that really changed my initial strategy was Iroquois settling Grand River on the North of the NE lake, which caused me to move my city plan down a few tiles and just buy tiles up to his border to stop his expansion.

- In hindsight how would you have played it differently (if at all) for a faster finish?

Remembering that there are more than 14 city states on the map, I totally forgot to explore the rest of the fog which left 2 city states unaccounted for the majority of the game without me realizing. I could have won at the second diplo election. In truth if I was focusing really heavily on the diplo victory I possibly could have gotten it in the first diplo election but I decided to instead see if I could beat the diplo victory with a cultural victory. Turns out diplo was faster.

Not gonna lie, was a pretty easy game, at least for me. I made some good opening moves, played missionary wars, and just waited for the game to end. I kept buddy buddy with Germany, Iroquois, Arabia, and Morocco (who were all buddy buddy with each other) and they ended up rofl stomping Spain, Sweden, and Brazil. All I had to do was declare war with them and I got brownie points and didn't need to do anything.

Hell, I got a city for free from Sweden in a peace deal and I didn't attack them once. I literally just sat all my units in my city and waited for the game to end. It wasn't until Germany picked differing ideology that they started being a prick, but even then I just kept my military up to date and they never bothered declaring against me.

Building half the wonders in the game in a single city also helps too. Great Person Faith spam and Great Writer + Worlds Fair spam is seriously overpowered.