6otM164 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM164 After Actions 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 attach your victory save to your post.

- What was your plan for achieving the VC? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
- How did the game modes affect or impact your play?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy your game?

Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.

 

[Chrumo]

132 CV

Spoiler t132 :

As usual, I decided against Reliquaries as this is always a cheesy and boring option in my opinion.

Rushed Stonehenge, Apadana and Oracle while getting the Jungle Folklore (forgot the real name) pantheon to go for decently stocked Work Ethic. After the first Golden Age I pretty much settled non stop, all new cities got their Holy Site and Theatre Square. When I was getting close to getting Conservation I stopped settling to save some Faith for Naturalists. Then I won in the next 10 turns.

Fun game, fun civ

 

[Planktonic]

Cul Vic, turn 164/165

Basically the same strategy as Chrumo, just not as efficient.

I feel a little cheated, though. I saw early that Saladin had a relic, so I levied warriors from Ayuthayya to take him out for the benefit of extremely early tourism. But when I captured both of his cities, I ended up in possession of no relic. What gives? This did set me back as I ended up losing open borders for quite a while as a result.

The other wrinkle: at the end of the game Ramses started to be the runaway cultural defender, so I levied troops from Johannesburg and faith-bought a couple of knight corps to eliminate him, reducing the defensive tourists from 55 to 39.

Strong map, pretty powerful civ, might try it out for Science Victory to see how she flies....

Thanks for the game!

 

[Chrumo]

I feel a little cheated, though. I saw early that Saladin had a relic, so I levied warriors from Ayuthayya to take him out for the benefit of extremely early tourism. But when I captured both of his cities, I ended up in possession of no relic. What gives? This did set me back as I ended up losing open borders for quite a while as a result.

Not 100% sure, capturing great works was always a mystery to me as well. But if I was to guess, what happens is that their Relic was kept in their Palace slot, and the said Palace got razed as soon as you killed their Capital. This doesn't happen when you capture an Art Museum or a Temple, I believe.

 

[GeoGeo]

Culture, turn 182

Went for Sacred Path and Holy Sites early with a plan to build Chichen Itza later for a rainforest-focused game with massive capital. Once I had a religion I thought I'd try the Reliquaries strategy...which didn't actually work since the only relics I found were the ones I bought off other civs and I didn't encounter the relic-friendly city states until much later on (oh, and there were no enemy apostles to smash my martyred apostles into). Should've gone for Work Ethic. Oh well.

Got Oracle early, had more Great People than I knew what to do with, built a bunch of other wonders with help from Autocracy, and got all Golden Ages. Briefly skirmished with Nubia but had bigger problems with a series of unattended barb camps that kept attacking my traders. I switched from Monumentality to the trading dedication in the last era so I wouldn't have to deal with that. Also, was surprised how many National Parks I was able to build despite the rainforests I kept around.

Overall, a pretty smooth and enjoyable game. Could've finished sooner if I'd balanced culture and science better and reached Flight. Still, I'm usually more frustrated around the end of culture games. Kongo's a lot of fun, especially under Mbande.

 

[Planktonic]

Not 100% sure, capturing great works was always a mystery to me as well. But if I was to guess, what happens is that their Relic was kept in their Palace slot, and the said Palace got razed as soon as you killed their Capital. This doesn't happen when you capture an Art Museum or a Temple, I believe.

Hmm, this seems like a plausible explanation. It's silly though- a conquering army wouldn't just raze the palace to the ground until after they had finished looting it of all valuables to carry back home. I guess the game mechanic doesn't allow for it.

Need to remember that for next time- better to just wait until the AI will sell the relic or until it they have temples or Wonders. The way it played out I eliminated a civ from which I could have been accruing tourists all the while for no gain- suspect I could've finished 10 - 20 turns sooner if I hadn't done that. Live and learn !

 

[lakeiron]

CV T187 1554 pts

I thought I was doing well doing the same things as Chrumo did, but unluckily Egypt decided to focus on Culture too, so even though I became dominant of every other Civ very early on, Egypt kept raising the bar. They were too far away for warfare, so I settled near them and that gave me trade route and rock band access to them. The last 30-40 turns were really frustirating, I was churning out Great Works and National Parks like no tomorrow, but still it was hard to generate those tourists.

Anyway, good game, thanks!

 

[lakeiron]

132 CV

Spoiler t132 :

View attachment 668830

As usual, I decided against Reliquaries as this is always a cheesy and boring option in my opinion.

Rushed Stonehenge, Apadana and Oracle while getting the Jungle Folklore (forgot the real name) pantheon to go for decently stocked Work Ethic. After the first Golden Age I pretty much settled non stop, all new cities got their Holy Site and Theatre Square. When I was getting close to getting Conservation I stopped settling to save some Faith for Naturalists. Then I won in the next 10 turns.

Fun game, fun civ

How much tourism did you have to generate to win?

 

[Monthar]

Culture Victory Turn 160 Score 1036

Pretty peaceful game. If I had focused purely on the victory I could have finished way earlier, but I have too much fun building.

 

[Soger]

Culture victory turn 51.

3 cities, 3 holy sites, 4 wonders: Stonehenge, apadana, oracle and hanging gardens.

2 wars: Nubia and Ethiopia

I recorded the entire 44 minutes I played. I figured it wouldn’t be a long game.
I might try my hand at editing a gameplay video with it eventually

***IMPORTANT*** The save file attached is the game winning turn. If you finish the turn the game will be recorded as a win in your hall of fame. I know some people like to look at end game graphs and what not. I also know that others take their hall of fame serious.

 

[Planktonic]

Culture victory turn 51.

3 cities, 3 holy sites, 4 wonders: Stonehenge, apadana, oracle and hanging gardens.

2 wars: Nubia and Ethiopia

I recorded the entire 44 minutes I played. I figured it wouldn’t be a long game.
I might try my hand at editing a gameplay video with it eventually

***IMPORTANT*** The save file attached is the game winning turn. If you finish the turn the game will be recorded as a win in your hall of fame. I know some people like to look at end game graphs and what not. I also know that others take their hall of fame serious.

Fantastic result. Haven't looked at the savegame yet but wouldn't have believed it possible!

Really hope you post the video. I guess you probably chopped everything in sight, which I'm always loathe to do....

 

[Soger]

Fantastic result. Haven't looked at the savegame yet but wouldn't have believed it possible!

Really hope you post the video. I guess you probably chopped everything in sight, which I'm always loathe to do....

Well my original plan changed drastically when I found a city state.
At that point it was just explore and wait.

Without the city state my plan was:
Build around 3 holy sites and get a religion asap.
After earning the religion build Stonehenge to “complete” the religion asap. It’s easier to create the wonder and get a apostle then to build a temple and buy one.


At that point my number one priority would be to Chop out theater squares and their buildings in every city.
Spam projects until I win.

Same idea as my 51 turn win but would take longer. Although huge deity maps I have got it pretty close to 100 so I figured at king difficulty with a strong start would be doable.

 

[Michael Lindskou]

turn 119 CV

went religious settlement and rushed stonehenge and took sacred place andall peacefull game just focusing on wonders open border and trade route

didnt have a relic the entire game i chose to focus on writtings and getting to printing fast + upgrade Pingala to Curator worked pretty nice

 

[Monthar]

2nd try I managed a turn 104 culture victory. For a while it was looking like the victory would be turn 80something, but Egypt kept ramping up their culture.

 

[Soger]

2nd try I managed a turn 104 culture victory. For a while it was looking like the victory would be turn 80something, but Egypt kept ramping up their culture.

What was the strategy on the second run?

 

[Monthar]

I just focused on the victory, and once I found Kandy I stopped exploring until I got suzerainty so I could collect as many relics as possible.

 

[DodgeRocket]

CV 8/7/2023 Score 1545, Turn 266 What am I doing wrong???

Rushed a Holy site, got Reliquaries. Found Kandy around turn 61 and made it my mission to Suz them. Built Theatre districts and Holy sites. Went for apostles to martyr themselves for all the relics... It was a fun game but I was frustrated that it took so long. I feel like I have the mechanics down but rather than a focused strategy I end up with a shotgun blast. I win pretty much all of my games at this level or below. It's more of a battle around Immortal to Deity. Am I expecting too much from myself too soon? I've got 308.5 hours on the game and that's all play time. (Don't have the kind of job where I can keep it running in the background, lol).

I'm amazed and impressed at some of the games you all pull off. It's just humbling. This may be a dumb question, but if I want to "look" at your game is there a way to use the posted file and see turn by turn what your decision making is? I think that would be incredibly instructive! I know that I allow myself to get caught up in poor decisions at times, or get off track during the game. E.g., believe I had only settled three cities at turn 61 when the classic age started. By medieval age I was up to 8-9 but I still bet I should have been pushing settling harder in this game. I did build a lot of wonders this game but the vast majority were towards the end of the game. I didn't rush for Stonehenge or others - though I did build Hanging Gardens on turn 50. Ah well, I will keep playing and learning. Still a great game. Appreciate the effort in putting it together!

Oh yeah, did manage a couple of more achievements in this game, Metroplex and Alfred Wegener's Legacy.

 

[Soger]

I'm amazed and impressed at some of the games you all pull off. It's just humbling. This may be a dumb question, but if I want to "look" at your game is there a way to use the posted file and see turn by turn what your decision making is? I think that would be incredibly instructive! I know that I allow myself to get caught up in poor decisions at times, or get off track during the game. E.g., believe I had only settled three cities at turn 61 when the classic age started. By medieval age I was up to 8-9 but I still bet I should have been pushing settling harder in this game. I did build a lot of wonders this game but the vast majority were towards the end of the game. I didn't rush for Stonehenge or others - though I did build Hanging Gardens on turn 50. Ah well, I will keep playing and learning. Still a great game. Appreciate the effort in putting it together!

I recorded my entire game with the 51 turn victory. Although it’s not the most strategy heavy victory. I plan to edit it to a more watchable form and post it eventually.

It’s Just a Kandy relics rush. With secret societies or Kongo it’s the most basic culture “speed win” strategy.

I would say if you looking to just win this game asap settling is mostly irrelevant. You need 2-3 cities and exploration. Kongo has a huge advantage in they can hold a lot of great works early so relic/writer rushes are incredibly strong. They also pay a discounted price for great writers so even with modest faith output you can buy one before the end of the ancient era.

Without relics belief you could still sub 100 this game with 5 or less cities. That would revolve around getting:

1. 3+ Holy sites with shrines and temples with the culture to buildings belief.
2. The culture to population religion belief.
3. Oracle + Stonehenge (after you found your religion to get holy order at the “reduced cost” Of production vs faith)
4. Liang/Magnus single promotions Pingala down to increased tourism (culture promotion for the second tier)
5. Free builder government plaza building.
6. Save production chops in every city, except capital for chopping out theater square and amphitheaters. Any extra chops use finish theater projects.

 

[Monthar]

3rd try was a bust due to some bad luck, but 4th try I managed a turn 60 culture victory. Kandy suz asap, full load of relics in the palace slots. Built 3 wonders, 4 cities, and was working on the 4th wonder.

 

[Soger]

3rd try was a bust due to some bad luck, but 4th try I managed a turn 60 culture victory. Kandy suz asap, full load of relics in the palace slots. Built 3 wonders, 4 cities, and was working on the 4th wonder.

Close.