6otM170 AAR

[Eyswein]

Welcome to the 6otM170 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 map affect your gameplay?
- 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.

 

[Planktonic]

CV, turn 190/191

Made a lot of mistakes, mostly with unnecessary wars. Went with a standard Great Works strategy, since most city states with tourism-granting improvements were missing. Made a few National Parks but game ended long before rock bands. Got a religion as usual- work ethic/tithe as I recall, then took Religious Colonization because I was trying to get cities far across the land mass to try to trade with all the various civs.

On the way I took out Gaul- just out of lingering annoyance with the civ from the game from a month ago. Also conquered Babylon's capital because I saw he had already built a Holy Site and a Theater Square. This led, as usual, to a nuisance Emergency which did nothing but give me Era score for nothing. Also stole a settler from Cree- this was I think helpful as it allowed me to have trade routes with Cree and Gorgo, which I otherwise would not have had the reach for. Tried to make sure I had open borders before warring but I'm sure it did delay a little. Could probably have saved a few more turns but by the end I was just click-turning.

A number of interesting things about the game:
1. Never built a sphinx. Was mostly swimming in faith and culture anyway so didn't have much need. Was going to put one or two to help appeal for national parks but the game ended.
2. Never built a Maryannu archer. Forgot to do it and then had crossbows so lost the opportunity. Had all Golden Ages anyway.
3. I encountered Valetta, and ultimately became suzerain. But curiously, when I encountered it, the info panel said it had envoys from *zero* civs. Meaning that somehow I was not the first civ to come across it (since I also didn't get a first meet envoy), but none of the other civs were first meet either? I guess it makes sense only if Gaul was the first meet, and then got eliminated, but that seems strange given how far it is from Gaul.

4. There has been a bit of talk elsewhere on the forum about gifting of cities to other civs, and whether this is an "exploit". In this game for the first time ever I gifted a city to another civ: Babylon. in the last game Era, near the end, Babyloon went from a Normal age to a Dark age. I had already captured his capital, which was high pop (13 as I recall)- he had 2 much smaller cities very close by. The population pressure threatened "execution by loyalty", which meant i would have lost his tourists. I tried to give him gold- no help. I then started faith-buying Settlers to reduce the population in the cap- I think I did this 4 times. So I had 4 Settlers to do something with. One I settled for my own purposes to get access to high appeal tiles for a national park. One was on its way to do the same thing when it got hijacked by barbs. the third I settled on the coast near his cities, then gifted him the city, trying to boost his population support. It was no good- the fresh 1 pop city also started to rebel instantly. Then, to make matters worse, Harald attacked Babylon with catapults and knights. I had only 1 unit in the area, and couldn't do anything anyway as Harald was the only civ who was my declared friend. I watched anxiously as he ate through city walls and then eliminated first 1 city, and started working on the other (my donated city was a free city already by this point). In the meantime I was racing the 4th settler towards a tile at a far remove from everyone, that had no loyalty pressure at all as far as I could tell. Literally 1 turn before the fall of Babylon proper I settled the city in the way southern snow, and gifted it to him. That city was soon all that remained of Babylon (thumbnail below), but had stable loyalty! So I got to keep my tourists.

It was a ridiculous, pretty comical way to end the game, but I guess you have to do what you have to do. As i said I've never gifted a city before, but in an earlier GOTM (I think Trajan) I was playing for Diplo victory on Prince (I'll never do that again) and was trying to get to Global Warming Mitigation, which meant I had massive culture compared to every other civ, and high tourism despite my trying to limit it as much as I could. I feared that I was swamping out the leading cultural defender, so I deliberately settled a city where I knew it would fall to loyalty pressure, but before it did I faith-bought a Theater Square with Moksha and then gold-bought an amphitheater, to try to prop up the cultural defense. It seems to me that gifting cities to prevent the collapse of a cultural defender (if you're going for science or diplo) or to prevent tourism loss is where I seem to run across this situation, not some stratagem to gain a pillage or whatever.

Thanks as always for the game!

 

[GeoGeo]

CV, Turn 226/227, Score 1107

(It gave me the victory at the end of my turn rather than the beginning even though I'd culturally dominated the last opponent. Don't recall the game doing that before. Anyway, the save is from after that at 227.)

Settled turn 3 on the coastal plains hills so I could make a capital-comm hub-harbor triangle, then beelined irrigation for all that sugar and enhanced it with Goddess of Festivals. I was hoping to do a lot with rivers and was distraught to not find many around me. I was even more distraught to find Gaul on a river to the south...until I noticed he had an uncharacteristically pitiful military. He went down easily with an assist from Brussels (who managed to raze his other city) and some local barbs. Thus, the core of my empire was Thebes, Aduataca, and a city I'd settled in between us.

Exploration turned out to be a slow process. I waffled between going for a classical dark age or golden age ended up with a normal age. At that point, I decided to try for a peaceful tall game just to see how it would work out. Fortunately, my heavy culture growth made for plentiful governor titles. I ended up with Liang in the capital for fisheries (with Halicarnassus), Magnus in Aduataca (kept getting more to chop throughout the whole game!), and Pingala in the middle. I only ever had 6 cities, so just enough for each non-Amani governor after I finished boosting those core three. Invested a lot in industrial city states and industrial zones--very handy once Magnus' vertical integration kicked in. However, I never got a religion, and never got around to a Maryannu archer.

Here are the wonders I built:

Spoiler :

• Hanging Gardens (actually worked well for this game)
• Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
• Kilwa Kisiwani
• Great Zimbabwe
• Taj Mahal
• University of Sankore
• Potala Palace
• Forbidden City
• Hermitage
• Bolshoi Theatre
• A very late Colosseum
• Broadway
• Sydney Opera House
• Was working on Estádio do Maracanã when the game ended
• Also, I tried building Angkor Wat for fun once my Magnus city could do it in 4 turns. That was the one time the computer beat me to it.

Getting an effective wonder game running took time, so keeping up with rival culture growth dragged on for a while in the end. I regret not taking any cities from Babylon since they were by far the most culturally developed opponent.

This is the second time I've played on an inland sea map, and to be honest, I think it's my least favorite of the map scripts. The outer lands are vast enough to render the sea largely irrelevant, and parts of that land are sparse and don't make for interesting city building. Nevertheless, thanks for the game!

 

[Ceydezed]

Culture Victory turn 182

- 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?
I didn't really have any, it was Prince so I felt i could just go with the flow.

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
I built a couple of wonders (great bath, etemenaki), a couple of settlers and a couple of units to rush Gaul and Babylon.

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
I didn't go for a religion right away. I tried to have as much faith as possible quickly for religious settlements, which worked well and helped me conquer Gaul. Then I went for sphinx and wonders.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
I didn't play much of Ramses but I can't say I'm too impressed by the leader ability, it didn't feel particularly meaningful over the course of the game. Maybe I didn't pay too much attention to it but, yeah, I didn't notice too much impact. I didn't use any chariot (although they can be good in some situation) and sphinx are always nice in culture games, but I didn't reach flight. Science was super difficult to increase.

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few cities?
I probably settled around 8-10 cities, captured 2 from Gaul and maybe 4 from Babylon. I settled the first one on the sugar down of spawning spot, then the second one close to Gaul and the third one (religious settlement) north close to this little mountain range.

- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Nothing really worth mentionning. Early horsemen were good for conquering and there were a lot of horses. I lost many units because of barbarians.

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Religious settlement. I took a religion because Babylon had holy sites, but I don't remember what belief I took. Probably faith from wonders / number of cities.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
Usual governments in a culture game, tourism / culture cards, merchant republic, democracy, etc.

- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
Pingala, Amani was quite useful to for being suzerain. Magnus for the chops as always, especially in a map with so little production.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
I was denounced for a big part of the game by most of the AIs, except Gilgamesh, or at war. So it was difficult to have open borders / trading routes. Also trades routes and inland sea are not going that well together.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
Only golden.

- How did the map affect your gameplay?
Weird map (not this one specifically but inland sea in general). So much empty snow / tundra with barbarians everywhere. Impossible to circumnavigate (i really hate this for some reason). Super difficult to reach far away civ with trade routes (I guess that's why I hate not to circumnavigate!). So I guess it affected it for the worst... I dont think I found a good way to adapt.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Not too much.. I always found that in prince / king the biggest annoyment are the barbarians and that was definitely the case here. Apart from this it was relatively easy.

- Did you enjoy your game? I actually did, it's always interesting to use settings that I never would have used on my own!

Victory screen:

Spoiler CV :

 

[Chrumo]

CV 143

Spoiler t144 :

A very relaxed game, the starting location didn't look that strong, until I have discovered Mohenjo-Daro.

A fully peaceful game, focused on:
1. Scouting
2. Spamming settlers to get ~12 cities
3. Chopping everything to get Theathre Squares, Amphitheatres and Art/Archeologic Museums.

Thanks for the save!

 

[Michael Lindskou]

CV T138

I decided to Settle in place and beeline irrirgation to get as many irr lux online so i could sell them

next focus was science and then stonehenge for a fairly early religion so i could start getting tourism going asap (+ going for printing asap to get 2xtourism from writtings paired with curator, and all the early Scientist gave me alot of eurikas, i only missed 1 or 2 the entire game)
I ofc focused on scouting trying to meet every body but it was not untill t 77 i meet every body i had some unlucky scouting patterns do to barbs

i went for a tall game problably not the best decision I ever have made becasue i ended up with 4 unused writters, one thing the tall play did help was keeping Gaul to a minimum of cities which meant lowers tourism defence for gaul who was the AI cultural leader the entire game



otherwise all the ussual in a Cultural game Conservation + walls and a single national park, I only got out 3 traderoutes and + 1 from congress

in the end i had 3 tourist from every civ execpt Lady Six missed the 3. with 65 tourism points and i would have had 3 with her aswell

thx for the game

 

[lakeiron]

CV T214

Again it took forever for my tourist counter to start climbing, but got there in the end.
Thanks for the game!

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 182(1210.) culture victory, score 740.
I finished this game a week ago. I played peacefully. I had more writers than available slots. Bologna helped much with great people.
My scouting units were sometimes killed by barbarians far away from home. Barbarians even crippled one of the civs by razing some cities.

 

[cas]

My first playthrough went sideways trying one city and mostly peaceful. The AI eventually starts producing too much culture with great works and theater squares.

Considering Kumasi (best CS by far for OCC) is in the game, I decided to try a couple more playthroughs. Mid-game war to cut the AI down to 1-2 cities each, pillage, and limit their great works. 5 trade routes and Kumasi suzerain to boost culture and get to rock bands asap.

Second try was T226..started war too late. Third try was T177 with earlier war. I think I could cut a few more turns off the T177, but not much. Earliest I could get to rock bands was ~T165.

Thank you for the map and I enjoyed the game.

cas

 

[GaidinX]

CV T177 - Score 1,156

Fun game. wasted some time getting engineers that didn't speed up things as much as I thought - I snagged a settler from barbs in the lake and settled a city close to Dido to get trade routes to the AI on that side of them map which was a lot of help. All peaceful game. Settled 13 cities, hemming in Gaul and Sumeria. Religious Settlements kicked it off and I tried Jesuit Education to speed up getting buildings in TS as I built them. All writers acquired except one (to AI) and had more than I could use before end. Monumentality and Valetta ate up some precious faith. Happiness was an issue that Colosseum and a couple well placed Entertainment Districts helped with + 2 luxuries with my far settle were nice as well. Mohendo-Daro and Bologna were the best city-states, though ended up with 11 on side. Focusing less on economy and engineers + more chopping instead of buying with gold/faith would have sped up game but I avoided a lot of my usual time wasters. Had to pull back a bit as I almost took out Gaul with loyalty pressure. Felt pretty good about the run and finishing still in Medieval Era.

Thanks for the game!

Spoiler Map :

 

[Soger]

Culture victory turn 116

- 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?
Low difficulty so my plan was go full war. Keep all rivals as weak as possible so my culture finish line would be lower.

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital or other early cities?
Scout x2 monument settler warrior?

- Early order for technology/civics? What did you prioritize for technology/civics?
horsemen low difficulty they are the strongest unit as the ai rarely gets walls.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
Well I built wonders and buildings so I got free culture. otherwise I am not impressed with the abilities

- How many cities did you settle and/or capture?
I ended the game with 13 cities. I settled southeast to gain control of the 3 horse tiles.


- What were key production/purchase focuses? Military units / Civilian units / Districts & city development / Wonders / Civ Unique Unit & Infrastructure? Most critical or interesting?
Wonders in the capital. rest of the cities builders/troops

- Pantheon chosen and why? Religious beliefs chosen, and why?
Free settler. Only got religion because there was a relic in game so i built stonehenge.

- What governments did you select? What key policy cards did you use? Why?
autocracy into theocracy
- Which Governors were most important; when and why?
pingala as he was really the only one that mattered.

- Was diplomacy/trading useful? How? Relations with other civs?
yeah as I was constantly at war i was able to consistently get peace deals and joint wars every few turns for free money.

- When did you have Dark/Golden ages?
all gold

- How did the map affect your gameplay?
I played a lot of inland sea maps before so I am used to how the generate. I believe this really helped my scouting as they are generally the furthest distance your civ to that at the opposite side of the map.

- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Maya having 1 city at turn 100?

- Did you enjoy your game?

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

 

[leif erikson]

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