TSG121 After Action

Welcome to the TSG121 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 use your UU?
- Was your UB helpful? - Ooops, no UB.
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
- How did you like Large Islands?

I did a bee-line for the Great Library. It worked. Then I did NC also Oracle, then settled NYC up north. Full tradition. I like to RP America by putting all those old style architectural wonders in Washington DC.

My science was really fast and I tried to do a wipe out/early vote which I don not have much practice with, and I wasnt fast enough to wipe out the civs.

Here is a picture at T250 of my first Battleship



Now I am at T268 and I guess it will take forever.

I had fun playing this.

Moderator Action: Moved to After Action thread because the screen shot is of T250, far outside of turn 100.

Your name: caeru71
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1903AD
Turns played:323
Base score: 1056
Final score: 1650
Time played:5:01:00

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1908AD
Turns played: 328
Base score: 997
Final score: 1533
Time played: 2:42:00

- Did you use your UU?
A - No - I didn't fight wars.
- Was your UB helpful?
A - ? Didn't use the special traits.
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
A - Stole a couple of techs of the leader. But I really did need the votes from diplomats. Greece and Portugal hogged the City states and the World Congress, but I managed a GS/Oxford University push to Globalization, and used the diplomats votes (and a few bought CS) to wrest control of the UN. Didn't quite have enough votes first time round for the win, but used the diplomats to push (buy) world ideology freedom and then win on the second UN vote.
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
A - stopped the AIs dogpiling me or each other (or the CS!)
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
A - Played carefully; I'm usually a king level player. I despaired at falling behind in the world congress (my first wonder was the Forbidden Palace - Portugal nicked everything else). Managed to slingshot past in the Industrial age.
- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
A - nope. I didn't use it at all (too much micro for a <3hr game). Although I lucked out at getting a goody hut pantheon (fishing boats)
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
A - Tradition, Patronagex2, Rationalismx2, Freedom (for CS Trade bonus)
- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
A - Very nice, except in the world congress...
- How did you like Large Islands?
A - I like the peaceful play. No major wars.

Guess this is what happens when you don't play warlike Diplo for a while... Slightly mistimed everything.

One turn too late to kill the 5th AI. Also note the troll city planted by Maria in the south just before I took her last city on the main island.
Several turns too late tech-wise. I still have Rationalism finisher and a scientist next turn from LToP. But I failed to generate 1000 faith somehow for another GS. Should've allied Jerusalem, but I could never find the gold for it. I could've also taken faith from wonders, but I didn't, because I thought I'd ally a religious CS... Mistakes, mistakes. With 2 more GSs and Rati finisher I would've gotten the techs in 3 turns I suppose.
Getting more faith and delaying PP by 2-3 more turns would've meant an almost perfectly timed 1-cycle victory. Oh well, should've played it safer or gone Tradition I suppose. But that's boring.

Another mistake was not listening to my own advice and killing Genghis instead of keeping him alive. Things do slow down without an AI to gift captured cities to. I was just hoping there would be another warmonger, but there wasn't, plus Genghis sent some troops my way when I took Portugal's capital, so he had to be dealt with. Will finish and submit the game anyway, should be a ~t225 victory.

Edit: Yeah, T229 it is. Bah, should've been a T205.

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1770AD
Turns played: 264
Base score: 1525
Final score: 2932
Time played: 7:17:00

I'm still pretty bad at fast peaceful diplo V. Tried delaying PP at 164 and my management of late game science is horrible. And I couldn't make it to information era within 2 WC. I probably shouldn't have delayed it. Maybe because I only have 4 cities and 2 of the cities aren't very good. Also my scouting of CS was extremely bad, missed 2 CS west of Sweden until late (discovered with Satellite), and forced to liberate some of Mongolia's CS to make it in time.

2 city NC T71
Education T112
ST T176
Plastics T215

Won on the first WL vote, as usual. Getting the WL to happen early seems to be bottleneck, as always for me.

Pretty much wonder spammed prior to getting PP, then focused on a science game. Should've went with my gut feeling and went for early domination. I'm just too slow on science late game. Also my culture was bad, until discovering culture CS. I discovered them late, since I missed the one close to Sweden.

AI in this game behaves weird, Genghis built wonders, and was AI tech lead behind me. He also took all but one of Gandhi's, and took a few of Maria's.

Built following wonders in order built and reasons for building:
GL (bulbed Philosophy, but not ready for NC due to no cash for library for expo)
ToA (more growth)
Hagia Sophia for religion (+growth when peaceful, +faith to WW), and pantheon (earth mother), since I never built any shrines.
Oracle (opened patronage)
Chichen Itza (longer golden age is always nice for gold)
Petra (nobody built it at 120+ turns, so might as well grab for another TR)
Colossus (same idea as above, this is a weird game where wonders aren't built by usual people)
Notre Dame (happiness so that I can sell more lux to my friends)
Forbidden Palace (2 votes and happiness)
LToP (more GS)
PT (GS)
Sistine Chapel (helps my culture problem)
Taj Mahal (needed a GA since low on gold)
Machu Picchu (still haven't been built, so might as well for more gold)
Big Ben (helps to save gold when buying labs and late buildings)
SoL (free policy and +hammer)
Eiffel Tower (more happiness)
CN Tower (extra pop and free broadcast towers)
Sydney Opera house (free policy)
Brandenburg gate (xp for my units for liberating CS)
Neuschwanstein (CS quest)

WC:
1st: purposed +culture to WW. not passed, but AI passed WF. Easily won with 1k hammer.
2nd: passed world ideology freedom, AI also passed IG, so have to work on IG with expos to get the influence boost and free SP. Capital never worked on IG, but still easily won IG.
3rd: purposed +culture to WW and passed.



- Did you use your UU?
No, wrong side of tech tree of any use, plus it's water map.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
AI tech way too slow, was able to get 2 level 3 spies due to so many trying to steal mine. Lost one of my spies trying to coup culture CS which was essential.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Too much water, and hard to find CS, that's how I missed them. I needed more caravels.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Easy early wonders such as GL and ToA, and I spammed many more after that.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
Took 2 GE, no need for any GS due to missing science benchmark for 2 vote cycles.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
full tradition, patronage opener, commerce opener, rationalism to humanism, freedom to universal suffrage, rationalism to sovereignty, patronage to consulates, freedom to treaty organization, patronage to philanthropy, finish rationalism.
I have no idea if my SP order is good or not, seems all over the place.

- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
Nice till after the last WC vote, then DoW Genghis to liberate one of his CS.

- How did you like Large Islands?
Hated island maps, too much water for my taste.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 121
Date submitted: 2015-11-04 00:18:24
Reference number: 33429
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1901AD
Turns played: 321
Base score: 1265
Final score: 1976
Time played: 6:32:00
Submitted save: TSG121_Diplomatic_Victory.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C512101.Civ5Save

Settled on the north shore's mountain river to get the marble in the capital. I think I should have settled in place to be able to get a 3rd city on my island.

I ended up with just 2 cities and a failed war attempt against Portugal. So I didn't go for the kill off most of the folks strategy.

Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1901AD
Turns played: 321
Base score: 1320
Final score: 2062
Time played: 5:50:00

- Did you use your UU? Not real useful, Washington was my favorite in civ1-3 but this is the first time I played him in civ 5. He is very uninteresting.

- Was your UB helpful? - Ooops, no UB.
- Did you use spying to your advantage? Didn't get a single tech, CS coupes mainly.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how? Two city start is not ideal.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions? Emperor is easy but got too cocky and lost a late GL push

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How? Hammers 4 Fishes was huge. 4 eight turns I got an additional Hammer and Food each turn once I started cranking out workboats. This happened early and was very impactful.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Tradition, Patronage, grabbed exploration (Mistake- the science push should've been priority)

- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice? You must go Genghis on the civs and raize them to the ground not enough to just take capital. But with my fishes I could've created three fleets of five frigates if I needed to. But two fleets was all I needed because I was science limited.

- How did you like Large Islands? Every AI Civ was hamstrung and the AI has trouble with limited growth. Would be interesting at higher level with such a strong start. Navies play a big part every city was on the coast.

Seems like conquest would be a lot faster than peaceful on this difficulty, I really wish I went with that.

It was! I mistimed it though so I gave up. I will try it again off the record, natch

Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1832AD
Turns played: 286
Base score: 1318
Final score: 2312

Settled in place, 3 city tradition start. One city went west to the coast spot with 5 fish, the other went to the NE coast to grab resources up there. Apart from an early worker steal, it was a peaceful game.

- Did you use your UU?
Not really, never even made airplanes. the muskets ran around clearing barb camps.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
I left one spy in the capital, and all the rest went to city states to rig elections.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
It helped me, I'm normally a peaceful player, and it is harder for the AI to send armies across the water it seems, so it was easier for me to just make a few defense boats and settle in and build.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I decided I could try for a little bit of wonder chasing, and got the GL, HG, Petra, and Oracle from the early eras. If the difficulty had been one higher I probably would have just tried for the Oracle.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
I focused on some early faith, and was able to push out a decent early spread for the extra gold from Tithe. Also took extra growth since I was hoping to be peaceful the whole game.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
Tradition, Started patronage, took Rationalism to Secularism, then finished patronage. Then Freedom to the city state trade routes policy. After that I bounced around grabbing random immediately useful things.

- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
I was nice.

- How did you like Large Islands?
I enjoy the water maps. Large islands is nice because you can often fit 2 or 3 cities on the good islands. It was nice to start mostly by myself without needing to fight for land right off the bat.

Didn't get globalization until 1900 and it will be awhile before i can gift enough units and use trade routes to build up city state alliances. Not a good result, but best I could do. I'm going to stop and read how the good players did it

this is a fun map.. i played this one twice.. the first time i just went on a domination killing spree.. not full out wiping people off the map just taking caps.. finished that on turn 214..

played again today and tried it with more of a diplomatic tactic.. first i started off by killing byblos in place of great library or great lighthouse.. so i had three cities on our island.. after that i made friends with everybody but the mongols..

i accepted an early gang bang offer from someone to war with genghis without any military but 3 archers, 2 triremes.. ignored the war for a long time while i was finishing my infrastructure.. ultimately i timed my arrival over there with the dissolving of my friendship agreement with portugal.. my freedom born foreign legions banged their heads against mongol walls and took the capital..

bribed poland to fight maria.. not for any need of his army.. i was playing it diplomatically.. sweden was sort of the middle man in all the relationships (including poland and india who was already fighting maria) so i wanted to get him to denounce portugal right as his friendship agreement with maria ended.. yada yada yada... i did that kind of thing a couple of times..

after i took out portugal's cap (foreign legion head bangers joined by frigates) the mayan's stabbed me in the back.. i denounced him back which i shouldnt have.. diplomatically speaking... because then sweden began liking HIm more than me.. how? i have no idea.. i supplied him with horses and iron and salt and a religion.. shrug.. he didnt give me much but gold i suppose.. it took him 135+ turns to get his whales hooked up.. ffs dude seriously? maybe if i had waited a turn perhaps sweden might have denounced the mayans... it was irrelevant either way.. i smashed the mayan's for their insolence.

all the while i am building wonder after wonder and making gold hand over fist.. capital finished 55 citizens strong.. ultimately that game finished on turn 268..

pushed thru the culture from wonders bill, freedom, and religion in the WC..
work boat pantheon with faith from wonders.

i might try this again with the scorch the earth strat.. fun map.

I build my magnificent to be capital, start researching mining and producing a worker. Impoving those salt for +1/+1 is priority. Another turn later my warrior finds byblos. They give me 30 gold which allows me to buy the salt tile that i will need for my second citizen.

T8: Ruin gives pop, buy tile for new pop.

T10: Mining -> Pottery. Will build shrine to get god of sea pantheon.

T17 Pottery -> A.Husbandry.

T22. A.Husbandy -> Archery. After long deliberation, decided to capture Byblos before everyone is all over me.

T24. Shrine -> Granary.

T28. Archery -> Calendar

T32. Granary -> 3x archer

T41. Capture worker, get spearman damaged and heal to 91HP.

T44. Archers ready, mount for attack. Produce Settler.

T50. Byblos is mine, took a worker in the process.

T60. Optics -> Writing. Decide its too late for TGL and it aint that important anyways if i will be peacefull. Build small lighthouse instead.

T65. Writing->Philo

T67. Small lighthouse ready with 3 fishing boats out there.

T73. Purchased trireme meets portugal. Trade salt for silver.

T76. Philo->Next research goal: math for courhouse. Start building NC.

T87. NC->Oracle.
T96. Oracle-> Petra. Golden age starts. Tradition complete.

137: After going for the Observatory and everything on the path to it, i start researching the bottom half of the tech tree a bit and find out that noone has yet built the colossus ! As it takes a mere 3 turns to build, i do so with little risk that someone else will finish it. I believe my research speed is now so much faster than all the AI's, i will be able to build anything i wish in any order i wish from here.

I have not yet gotten myself into research agreements yet. At the moment i am saving coins to buy CS alliances. In 8 more turns i will have Philantropy and then it will be time to buy the ones that have 2 luxes and/or 50% extra influence for coin. Ill also be well over 1000 gold in 8 turns. Meanwhile it seems we are all one big happy family here. I have made 3 DOFs and noone else seems to think bad of my friends.

153: I have to come with a proposal. Scientific funding seems the obvious choise to me. 2 guys dont like it, but ill give them a cookie or something. I also get a great prophet and found my religion causing it to give me some gold and faith. (which i merely intent to use to defend my 3 cities against foreign religions a bit)

179: . Next key tech, Plastics. I decide not to sidetrack for fertilizer. I sidetrack for fertilizer ? I am almost an era ahead of the rest. This gives me the time to let New York and Byblos build wonders like forbidden palace and Taj mahal at their slow pace.
I am Buying the CSes 1 by one. Every time i got 1000 i buy one that gives me bonus influence. Cultural ones if possible. If there is none, i wait for it. Unfortunately i have some difficulties finding buyers for the luxuries i get from these CSes. They same to have everything already.

After long deliberation and researching game mechanics i decide to stay in peace. Its going to cost me 35.000 extra beakers to reach information age, but war will cost me lots of upkeep while probably killing both my trade route income and research agreements. Ill probably be too poor to buy the CSes then. I dont think its going to work at this point.

Telecoms will cost 75k beakers from here. It leads trough Plastics for research labs which would increasee my science by about 25% halfway. Other goodies all a little late.
Satelites will cost 67k5 beakers. It leads trough chemistry and fertilizer at the start. Together with the 10% less total cost i think its actually quite close. But ill be conventional and go for telecoms trough plastics.

Turn 220: researching Atomic Theory. AIs are 2 eras behind. The world congres will be in 22 turns. I wont be in Information age then. The next vote it will be. Making 300 gpt, having 3000 in stock and already bought most CSes. I have forbidden palace and the current propsal is world ideology. So i think its a done deal. Just gotto click it trough from here. Getting boring. (kinda stupid in design to let the player know hes going to win in 42 turns but still got to click his way trough them) Not sure if i will finish it, but i guess i should so that i experienced how it goes. So Projected victory dat should be T262 or maybe its 263/264 with the extra turn to elect a new leader ?

I am 2 Ages ahead. War would have been so easy with battle ships and marines vs city defences around 30. But its too late now, no way i can destroy them in 22 turns.
If id replay it, i would have destroyed them, but not full force early. Probably just 1 strike force taking cities 1 by 1 to keep costs and unhappiness managable and alowing me to focus investments on science. scaling up the war efforts near the end if needed. I could have upgraded those 3 archers & spear after taking Byblos and start on Sweden slowly, making sure not to lose any units. Have some militaristic CSes add free units every now and then. I also should have build that third city. After turn 100 i thought it was too late. But it would have helped a lot for sure. Shipping more food to the capital and just containing 15-20 population itself with the science buildings. Of course when conquesting, i would not need to build more cities but just keep the best few that are near enough to ship food to the capital.

I learned a lot again this game. I learned the mechanics of diplomatic victory and the world congress in general. I learned that i cant actually sell the luxes i get from CSes, i can merely sell ALL of my own ones and have the CS luxes make me happy instead. I learned that trade agreements unfortunately suck but that great scientists are totally awesome. And building culture and faith seems kind of silly compared to the amounts you can simply get from buying the CSes. I think the buying of CS allies is too OP.

To answer the questions:
- Did you use your UU?
Nope
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Used only diplomats, was too much ahead to steal techs. Didnt feel any need to stop them from stealing mine. Just used them to see what they were building.
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
I think it helped by making all trade routes naval for magnificent rewards.
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I was too inexperienced to know, else they would have caused me to kill the AIs.
- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
God of sea was very helpfull. Added faith from wonders. End game was just saving faith to buy a great scientist.
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
Start with full Tradition. Then patronage. Then full Rationalism.
- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
I was nice, but i should not have been.
- How did you like Large Islands?
I liked them. If these are large, i never want to see small ones though.

Such a nice start! Moved warrior over the river (2 tiles to east) and saw my opportunity. 6 fishtiles, observatory and petra. Settled one tile to east. Got stonehenge for faith and got 1hammer for fish pantheon (also mosque/1gpt for every 4 citizens.)
Took down Portugal for its faithwonders/culture/Naus and Sweden cause they were a threat.
Pretty much science and wonderspam the whole game. I had voted for 2cult/wonder and 5cult/naturals.
Diplo win 313, if I reached info-era 3 turns earlier I guess I would've won 20 turns earlier.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 121
Date submitted: 2015-11-07 14:56:59
Reference number: 33441
Your name: kevin.smith.4
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1926AD
Turns played: 346
Base score: 1337
Final score: 1937
Time played: 6:25:00
Submitted save: 121-ks4.Civ5Save
Renamed file: kevinsmith4_C512101.Civ5Save

- Did you use your UU?
Nope
- Was your UB helpful? - Ooops, no UB.
NA
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Went Freedom and used the city state coup policy along with the trade organization to keep city states allied
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Beelined optics cause I knew I'd have to get off my island, focused on sea trade routes all game
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Avoided early wonders, allied with militaristic cs first to boost my national defense force
- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
I missed out on founding a religion which left me with tons of faith come industrial era, i ended up being converted to Catholicism by the Portuguese but that made voting on a world religion a bit easier actually...sort of nice having a partner in religion and the computer did most of the work, saved faith for a scientist late game
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
liberty->patronage->freedom>rationalism
- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
only had 1 war with mongolia, portugal's idea. I mainly did it to liberate Vilnius for their votes
- How did you like Large Islands?
Enjoyable game

359 turns to diplomatic victory on the first world leader election, with 2 votes to spare. Not submitted because I probably replayed a misclick somewhere along the way.

I could have shaved about 15 turns off of that, but I stayed in the Modern era as long as I possibly could (without gimping my beakers per turn) trying to get that 4th musician for the Broadway theming bonus. (didn't quite get it in time) Those extra techs were useful, but they delayed me getting to Globalization.
I also could've had a cultural victory before the world leader vote by taking Internet before Globalization, then either wiping-out Portugal or bombing them with musicians.

- Did you use your UU?
I did not use Minutemen at all (which is a shame, because it's one of my favorite UU's) because of the water map. I did build a B17 and used it after "just one more turn" to capture all of Portugal's core cities -- I'd take one, then offer a peace deal and she said there can be no peace, take another, same thing, etc.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
I used spies mainly for killing other spies in Washington, and to help stay at least friends with a few city states. (Portugal had an early monopoly on CS allies and friends was the best I could manage using spies and bribes and quests) And occasionally to check up on one of the AI's to see what they were building. I also used spies as diplomats to win world leader on the first vote because I didn't have the world religion nor Forbidden Palace.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
I saw all those fish tiles and built a shrine quickly to get God of the Sea pantheon. Then rushed out fishing boats and one trireme to protect them from barbs. They were all the production I had in New York. With no other way to generate enough faith to get a religion before they were all gone (because I didn't wanna lose my pantheon) I built Stonehenge. That turned out to be a good choice of early wonders because by the end I faith-bought 3 GE's and 2 GS's, and the GPT from Tithe kept me afloat in the midgame when gold is still scarce. I also got 1 or 2 early GE's from Stonehenge's engineer point.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
Tradition->Exploration->Rationalism(2)->Freedom(9)->finish Rationalism->Commerce
It was odd taking Exploration instead of Commerce, and never opening Honor
Portugal had a monopoly on CS's until I got Treaty Organization; that policy was the turning point in my game.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
It allowed me to almost ignore military until the modern era. OTOH, maybe my military weakness was why AI's would (under a DoF) convert my cities with their GP's, promise to stop, and then do it again. That foolishness stopped when a couple of military CS's gifted me infantries about the same time I was building submarines and suddenly I was the superpower.

- How did you like Large Islands?
I like Large Islands in general, except it seemed to negate a lot of America's strengths. Also I had no coal or oil until very late. I traded horses and iron for 1 coal to build a factory in Washington, and eventually I got coal and oil from CS allies. Philadelphia had coal and oil 5 tiles out, so I build Cristo Redentor there instead of Washington and also moved some great works there so the borders would expand rapidly. Eventually they picked up the oil and coal, but by then I had multiple CS sources.

- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
I was nice, mostly. Towards the end, I declared war on Portugal just because she had it coming. I took Porto first and then Lisbon, and then offered peace. I assumed Forbidden Palace was in Lisbon but it wasn't, it was in Braga. (oops) After I won the game and then "just one more turned" I declared war again and captured Braga with my shiny new B17, and it had Forbidden Palace and the Pyramids. I should have paid more attention during the first war. Gandhi was cheering me on, which I thought was kinda funny. He was also beating-up on Genghis Khan.
Also proposing Freedom as the world ideology as soon as I could force it thru instead of waiting for the last vote wasn't very nice. But by then everyone was either friends with me or afraid of me.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 121
Date submitted: 2015-11-07 18:43:23
Reference number: 33443
Your name: Browd
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1832AD
Turns played: 286
Base score: 2114
Final score: 3708
Time played: 3:21:00
Submitted save: Washington_0287 AD-1834.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Browd_C512101.Civ5Save

Click to expand...

First CiV game in about 4 months, so was rusty on timings, but had fun nonetheless. Started out OCC through NC and then founded just one more city (New York) on the NE coast (for the iron and to run a food cargo ship to the capital). Wonderspammed through to Astronomy, then beelined Navigation for Frigates and took Portugal's and Poland's stuff. Only had about 4 RAs, so science was slower than it should have been.

- Did you use your UU?

Nope

- Was your UB helpful? - Ooops, no UB.

NA

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Leveled up spies in capital and then rigged elections, and after Globalization, put diplomats in other capitals

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

Water maps allow you to use frigates and then battleships to take other civs' stuff. Didn't really speed the victory much, but always fun.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Difficulty was low enough that I knew I could get pretty much any wonder desired. Of course, that arrogance led me to lose Oracle and Pisa, which was irritating.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?

Eh, not much. Late to found, but founded easily enough, and was able to buy a GE for Sydney Opera House to bulb the last Rationalism policy, to bulb Telecommunications, to trigger the WL vote.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?

Tradition, straight into 4 policies in Rationalism, then Commerce opener, Freedom, left side of Patronage, and finish Rationalism.

- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?

Chopped Portugal and Poland down to size, but didn't go for the "eliminate all but one" trick.

- How did you like Large Islands?

Always fun.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 121
Game status: Diplomacy Victory
Game date: 1922AD
Turns played: 342
Base score: 1220
Final score: 1794
Time played: 5:58:00

- Did you use your UU?
No.

- Was your UB helpful? - Ooops, no UB.
I did use my UA a bit, to pick up growth tiles.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Stole one tech from Portugal, and then one from Gandhi.. but I only had one option from him, and I just happen to have been researching that tech. It only had two turns left.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
No, I had good scouting. If i went the war path, the AIs looked exposed.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Emperor does effect my game play decisions.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
No.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
Finish tradition straight up, then patronage until rationalism. Finished rationalism, and the finished patronage after I pick what I wanted from the Freedom ideology.

- Did you conquer your way to Diplomacy or were you nice?
I was nice. I am always nice.

- How did you like Large Islands?
Trying to set up the cities can be tricky sometimes. I settle for, could have settled the tile north of the marble and had all those fish, and if I picked God of the Sea, I really would have, but i settled for the salt iron pantheon.