TSG 129 After Action Report

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG129 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?
- How useful was your UA?
- 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?
- What techs did you prioritize ?

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1440AD
Turns played: 204
Base score: 1428
Final score: 3570
Time played: 3:57:00

Settled in place as I didn't want to limit my options in terms of sea routes. That turned out to be a sound decision given that the southern sea was entirely enclosed and didn't lead to any city states or civilizations.

I sent my warrior south to seek ruins, city states and civilizations and built two more scouts and bought another. I soon the other civilizations and gathered many a ruin. I didn't get to El Dorado first which wasn't surprising given how far away it was.

Once I got religion I opted for God King simply as it would give the most benefit early on.

I took the openers for Tradition and Honor before going into Liberty to get a Merchant of Venice. The first merchant I used to purchase Mogadishu, the second I used for money and culture simply as I was quite poor.

I got the Aztecs to defeat Assyria and then to attack China. I then attacked the Aztecs, liberating some Assyria cities and taking the Assyrian capital for myself. I then proceeded to defeat China and with my newly built crossbows I defeated the Aztecs. I sent boats ahead and took out the Danish and had my Chinese army cross the ocean in a vast pincer movement against Mongolia. My navy moved on from Denmark to defeat England just after the army defeated Mongolia.

I could have been quicker...probably could have just rushed with Chariot Archers and a horseman, but it would have risked problems with happiness and money. As it was, it was a very comfortable win in a decent time, with what I hope will be a good score.

A simple enough game...Venice are pretty damned good. Now...I need another GOTM!!!

 

[bjelar]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-15 13:58:24
Your name: bjelar
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 700AD
Turns played: 145
Base score: 686
Final score: 2365
Time played: 3:15:00


It did indeed go well, As soon as I had enough units, I took Ramkhamhaengs capital, then Ashur. By then I had a second army up to attack Montezuma. My first army pressed forward to capture Beijing and London and ultimately Karakorum, while my second army took care of Montezuma and Harald Bluetooth. Only Montezuma managed to kill a few units (bless that fierce young gentleman).

I did research machinery eventually, but I didn't bother to upgrade my CBs before taking Karakorum.

Did you use your UU?

* Yes, I did indeed buy the nearby city state to the east. It did provide some happiness, but I didn't use it for much so I guess I would have been better off using the merchant to aquire gold to buy units for.

How useful was your UA?

*Uhm It is a drawback, so it wasn't particularly useful. But I didn't feel that I needed settlers anyway.

Did you use spying to your advantage?

* Nope, didn't get that far.

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

*It was an enormous help, it was easy to scout and the pangea continent was rather small. Short distances. All good.

How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

*Counter intuitivly it made me be more careful about not rushing it too much, because I have made that mistake in the past.

Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?

*No, but I did delay the victory for one turn because I saw I was just about to found a religion by chance, and I wanted the boost in score

What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?

*First full tradition, and then opener in economics.

What techs did you prioritize ?

*First pottery and mining for granary and ...well... mines... and then sailing and whatsitsname for workboats and lighthouse. Then CBs and spearmen and off we go to prank our neighbours.

 

[BobTheRabbit]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-16 19:14:07
Reference number: 33954
Your name: BobTheRabbit
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1340AD
Turns played: 194
Base score: 1202
Final score: 3163
Time played: 5:29:00


Overall, a heck of a start for Venice. Kind of a bummer that we had to make the choice between those two starting locations, but I opted to settle in place. Still, if you're only going to have one city, it's hard to find a better location than that. Really annoying that there was no way to establish any kind of sea trade routes because of the "convenient" peninsulas that jutted out along the top part of the continent, but it did force me to find a different way to be successful with Venice. I'm also not much of a Domination victory kind of player, so it made for an interesting game for me.

- Did you use your UU?

Didn't use the Great Galleass at all. Since almost every capital was inland, it seemed like a bit of a waste. I did use the MoV to "acquire" Mogadishu, and had this brilliant plan to use another MoV to get one of the Northwest city states (Belgrade, Ur, Singapore, or Tyre), and then use them to create some Sea Trade Routes, but I carelessly left my second MoV unguarded too close to a barb camp. (Ah, good intentions...)

- How useful was your UA?

Not very. Except for being able to acquire Mogadishu for some extra happiness early on.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Not at all. In fact, I only got my first spy about 10 turns before the end, and since i had such a tech lead at that point, I just put him in my capital for counterintelligence.

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

Well, it helped in the sense that domination victories are always easier on a Pangaea map. But it definitely hurt in that Venice was restricted to land trade routes the entire game. Not optimal, to say the least.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

On Prince, I felt like I had more time to build up my capital to become a lean, mean, unit producing machine without having to worry about being attacked. In the end, I probably did wait too long to begin attacking my neighbors. I suspect I could have shaved off about 20 or 30 turns that way, but as I'm more of a builder than a warmonger, I tend towards a bit of overkill in putting my armies together before launching an invasion. Along the way, though I didn't prioritize them, I was able to pick up a bunch of wonders (nine to be exact), which unknowingly helped my score tremendously and offset a bit of the fact that I took longer than I could have to win the game.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?

Somewhat. I didn't deliberately go for a religion, but I sort of lucked into it since none of the other civs prioritized founding one. In the end, I used religious idols to get extra culture and faith from the gold and silver in Venice and Mogadishu (since there didn't seem to be another pantheon that appeared any better to me), and then I added Tithe for some extra money and Holy Warriors to help me build my army. That did help make the army a bit bigger a bit earlier.

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

I wanted to grow the capital early, so I took the Tradition opener, but I followed that with the Honor opener to help my units get some experience early, as well as to increase culture. Ultimately, I knew that I wanted to complete Tradition and Honor, so I figured the extra culture from killing a bunch of barbs would come in handy.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

Early on, it was Pottery, Mining, and then Optics, not because the navy or embarking was that big of a deal, but rather because I wanted to get the MoV as soon as possible. After that, it was pretty much the bottom half of the tech tree, just trying to build up the army for the inevitable ground war.

 

[budweiser]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-16 22:15:44
Reference number: 33956
Your name: budweiser
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1080AD
Turns played: 168
Base score: 838
Final score: 2539
Time played: 3:27:00



I did all the work with comp bows, but Chariots and Horsemen would have been so much better.

The fall of Karakorum 1080AD:

Spoiler :

Did you use your UU?

Yes, I built two and bought one. One of them actually fired a shot on the Denmark cap. If I had teched harder to Compass, they would have been more useful, but they came in late.


- How useful was your UA?

Again, useful to get 1 close CS, but the second guy came too late to matter and that is because again, I should have teched Currency faster.


- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Nope


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

Mostly helped, the interior jungled slowed me a little bit. I could have planned better.



- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Overall, more aggressive than usual. No fear of enemy reprisals.



- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?

Nope


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

Honor right, then left, then Exploration for faster ships, not needed.


- What techs did you prioritize ?

Construction, Optics, Math, HBR, finally Compass, I was all over the place.

 

[Monthar]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-16 23:00:43
Reference number: 33957
Your name: Monthar
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1170AD
Turns played: 177
Base score: 949
Final score: 2711
Time played: 3:45:00
Submitted save: TSG129_Domination_Victory.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Monthar_C512901.Civ5Save

I waited too long to pull the trigger. Then I waited with the whole army near the Aztec capital to upgrade to x-bows. I should have just taken them right to the Vickings and upgraded there. Then I got delayed by the jungle getting to London and the Mongolian capital.

Policies - Opened Tradition. Full Piety with the goal of getting Heathen Conversion and enhancing quickly. Then I went right side of Commerce.

The heathen conversion got me most of my troops. When my happiness went more than -10 I kept a missionary near Venice to convert the rebels. The missionaries I bought in the other religions' capitals also converted heathens even though they were of that religion instead of mine.

Religion
100 gold when city first converts (funded upgrades)
Happiness from shrines (puppets build them since they're cheap from Piety opener)
I forgot what I took for the 2nd one.
Cheaper missionaries to get those heathens converted.

 

[nufro]

Hmm...

Unable to process your submitted file. Error: Bad loop count or string length at:
file position 68018
pattern line = 1886. Please contact AlanH.

If you selected an incorrect file then please resubmit using the correct file.

 

[AlanH]

@nufro: I have emailed you. Please email a reply and attach a copy of your submitted file so that I can investigate.

 

[Sclb]

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1884AD
Turns played: 312
Base score: 4417
Final score: 7124
Time played: 6:37:00

- Did you use your UU?
Yes, to hunt barbs, and puppet 11 CS in total. Also was total domination where every AI cities were puppets. Left 7 CS alone as I didn't have enough happiness left over.

- How useful was your UA?
Extra trade routes is nice for gpt, but horrible due to no settlers. Have to buy almost everything since capital is too busy building wonders.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
All spies leveled in Venice due to severe tech advantage, and no coup needed.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Easy wonder spam, and decided to turtle for extra score which was also easy due to horrible AI tech rate and no AI even close to modern era.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
Bought pagodas and insane amount of fpt due to high number of WW. Bought 2 GMer at the end for extra CS to boost number of cities and pop since no more GS was required.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
Tradition, Patronage opener, Commerce opener, Rationalism, Freedom, rest into extra happiness policies to get over 120 before conquest spree. Including liberty, exploration, aesthetics.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Beeline science tech until Information era, then tanks and Stealth bombers, didn't get to Xcom before ending game.

Spoiler :

 

[InaneObserver]

Your name: InaneObserver
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 940AD
Turns played: 157
Base score: 844
Final score: 2722
Time played: 3:14:00

- How useful was your UA?
Not very, most of the game trading partners were too far away to establish routes.

Took Ramkhamhaeng with 4 archers and the starting warrior, then Ashur, Beijing, London and Karakorum. 2nd army took Tenochtitlan and joined up with the first for Copenhagen.

 

[Yarin]

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1190AD
Turns played: 179
Base score: 959
Final score: 2740
Time played: 2:25:00

Could've started conquest much earlier, but with early GL and NC I was spitting so much science that I waited for XBows. Then it was just massacre with cities falling in 1 or 2 turns.

- Did you use your UU?
Nope. My MoV was observing the whole action from the camp west of the city No need for galeasses either.

- How useful was your UA?
It was not. Built colossus only to find out my cargo ship will reach noone. But I stationed purchased landsknecht in every puppeted city just because I could.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Nope

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Cities in open were very easy to capture.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Was quite aggressive.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
Not at all.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
Full honor, some in commerce.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Mining

 

[nufro]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-19 01:40:54
Reference number: 33972
Your name: nufro
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1545AD
Turns played: 219
Base score: 895
Final score: 2081
Time played: 5:09:00
Submitted save: Enrico Dandolo_0219 AD-1545.Civ5Save
Renamed file: nufro_C512901.Civ5Save

Thanks for fixing it for my upload, Alan!

I think I started from the wrong side, it may have been faster if I went counter-clockwise. I tried to pull a dual-army trick, but underestimated Monty, who grew too strong with a Great Wall by then...

Build order: Lots of caravans for cash
Policies: Full honor

 

[Acken]

Domination 102 turns.

Straightforward prince Pangea domination.
Lost 10-15 turns with because of poor scouting and having to do a U turn with one army. So I guess good optimization can get 80-90.

Went honor (I think Liberty is better with free worker and more production didnt have time to get logistics anyway) and did Scout x2 Monument Worker Granary Archer x3 Chariot x4 More units Statue of Zeus.

Made a first army of 4 archer 1 chariot 1 warrior that dealt with Assyria China England Mongolia and then a second army of 3 chariot 1 spearman 1 archer that dealt with Siam Aztecs Danemark.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-19 07:16:25
Reference number: 33973
Your name: Acken
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 325BC
Turns played: 102
Base score: 421
Final score: 2105
Time played: 1:39:00
Submitted save: TSG129_Win.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Acken_C512901.Civ5Save

 

[Marc016]

Hello, first contrib.

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-19 19:00:45
Reference number: 33977
Your name: Marc016
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1854AD
Turns played: 297
Base score: 2662
Final score: 4511
Time played: 36:07:00
Submitted save: Enrico Dandolo_vict_0297 AD-1854.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Marc016_C512901.Civ5Save

I take my time to play, and wanted to test Venice, which I never tried before. Not used to difficulties under deity, I took the long run and ended up with 28 wonders.


- Did you use your UU?

Used the great galeass to help take coastal cities and control barbarian ships on my trade routes. Used GMV to get the CS next to me and another one a bit south before attacking.

- How useful was your UA?

It was fun to play only pupetted cities with right to buy. Wish to get that ability in normal games Not choosing tiles for expansion and being unable to buy was a bit worrysome.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Not really. I was leading the tech race. My spy was bad furthermore. Usd the second spy to check target cities. A bit of overkill.

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

Pangea for domination is easy, but with Venice, could have gone a bit naval, no?

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Not used to so low difficulties since... Civ II? I did not expect it to be so easy. Really cities were going down in one or two turns.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?

I used more my opponents faith than my Judaism, but with tithe helped raise even more my golden venitian wallet.

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

Tradition opener, and honor. Finished tradition late, raised honor, then opened patronage to raise my base level. Ended up full tradition, full honor, full commerce, with a bit of patronage.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

I was playing Venice, so I played money. Science and cash. It delayed my attack so I really started to conquer when researching machinery. Researched navigation for the fun of it. Ended up bombing the siamese with artillery: capital down in two shots!

I had a lot of fun playing this game. Nice to play Venice. Not used to play quick tho, and since I could not reload, I maintained the game opened while doing things like working or sleeping... hence the long time.

 

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to civ fanatics, and v the game of the month! You may save the game, and reload that save. There are 2 games a month, on the first and the 15th. The one on the first will be emperor and higher difficulty. The one on the 15th is prince to emperor.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

 

[RincewindOtti]

Your name: RincewindOtti
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 640AD
Turns played: 142
Base score: 931
Final score: 3325
Time played: 4:58:00

ah the charriot archers are just so much quicker than the Xbows
Finished the game two days ago and back then t142 was still the fastest...and I felt like "yeah " and then Acken posted his results and it wasn't even close.
Besides the fact that I should have just tried charriot archers, Acken definitely plays at another level than me anyhow - congrats btw

- Did you use your UU?
The one from Optics to ally Mogadishu and get some cash.
Galleases did not make an appearance.

- How useful was your UA?
Not particularly, I never built any trade routes so being allowed to have twice the amount did not really matter.
I bought some units in puppeted cities, but then again I could just have annexed these if not being Venice.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Nope game didn't last long enough.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Definitely helped. Pangea is great for dom, distances were small
Starting position was ridiculous
Capital reached size 14 at t82

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I decided to rush machinery and go X-Bows, that plan did go well.
I suck at efficient very early warfare and feared that charriot archers would not do it, kind of overestimated Prince. Also at the same time I feared that CAs could be much faster and looking at Acken's result...well yes, I should have been less scared about trying.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?
Did not do this religion thing...
I did get a pantheon eventually, from CS or conquered wonders...dunno - took goddess of love first time ever I think, but it did provide +1Happyness.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order?
It was traditiond and then kind of random, "uh dominiation, I must somehow use Honor"
..but didn't really matter either way
- tradition (oracle finished t69)
- honor right t125 warrior caste (is it called like that?)
- t133 open patronage

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Machinery via GB and NC was the plan, though I got distracted here and there (uh oh need lighthouse!!! uh oh need stables!!! ).
After that Chivalry, felt like the natural next steps for my horsemen, but that had little impact.
- pottery
- mining
- writing
- archery
- calendar
- Philo (GB t40)
- Optics t49
- bronze
- trapping
- horse riding (stables!!!)
- construction
- beeline machinery (t98)
- iron working
- chivalry (t119)

Settled in place, build order:
- scout
- monument
- granary
- worker
- GB (finished t40)
- NC (finished t48)
- archer
- lighthouse
- Oracle (finished t69 - actually useless for quick dom but I could not resist)
- bought barracks+archer
- stables
- trireme
- scout
- 2 x composites
- horsemen
- composite
- great wall (to keep from fighting against it
- composite
- t92-95 Statue of Zeus (because still available and only 3 freaking turns!!)
- t100-105 Terrakota for scout, swordsmen, horseride, xbow, cbow
- xbow
- horsemen
- writers guild
- marketplace
- coin thingy? +2 gold on gold
- circus
- colosseum
- CI T130
- ...???

ruins
- barb camp
- map (revaling other ruins - meet Assurbunipal on the way, he takes it (
- scout => archer (lost at t57 due to greedy solo assur harrasing and barb in the back)
- +1 pop (going 1->3 in 1 turn)
- map (revealing other ruins => yet again Assur snacks it away... arrrh)
- 60 gold (t95)
- culture (t120)

"politics"
- ~t10 met Assur
- t19 met Wu
- t19 met Monti
- t25 DoW Assur (worker steal) peace at t58 for 1gpt but mainly because no one was there after I lost my archer there
- t42 met RamkhangXYZ , DoW a few turns later
- t73 bribe Assur to attack China (without actual warfare)
- t84 Monti DoW me!!!
- t90 peace deal Si Satchanalai from Siam (nice to upgrade two xb faster)
- t90 met Genghis
- t90 met Elisabeth
- t92 met Monti&Genghis DoW Elisabeth
- t94 met Harald (met everyone)
- t95 got Ninive in peace deal (forgot to note when I DoW Assur again)
- t97 got Teotihuacan in peace deal - nice with El Dorado
- t98 DoW Siam (now for real) DoW Denmark, England & Huns for potential easy cities via peace deals to rush buy Xbows there
- t105 killed Siam
- t114 conq. Tenochtitlan
- t119 killed Assyria
- t120 split eastern army for London and China
- t120 "peace" with Attila for Nottingham (actually did buy 3 "teleported" xbows there, slightly speeding up the action down there)
- t121 war China
- t130 conq. Peking - peace China
- t132 conq. London/kill England
- t136 conq. Kopenhagen
- t137 peace Denmark (didn't want to move the units there anymore)
- t140 conq. Beshabilik
- t142 conq. Karakorum

 

[vadalaz]

Your name: vadalaz
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 550BC
Turns played: 93
Base score: 309
Final score: 1716
Time played: 1:52:00


Been a while since I played this kind of game so I made a lot of mistakes. I forgot how annoying barbs can be on Prince. The war against Aztecs was a slow grind because I forgot to take a worker with the army. I think this map is doable in under 80 turns with a good playthrough.

I think Liberty's the best SP choice for Venice low-level domination. Collective rule + Optics = 1600 gold. Rush-buy armies in puppets and kill everything fast.

 

[Suliz]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-21 05:13:14
Reference number: 33982
Your name: Suliz
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1840AD
Turns played: 290
Base score: 1842
Final score: 3175
Time played: 7:37:00
Submitted save: 129 -Enrico Dandolo_0290 AD-1840.Civ5Save
Renamed file: Suliz_C512901.Civ5Save

On King difficulty and below, winning is not really in question from the beginning. On the other hand, I am not remotely competitive for fastest win at the best of times.

So, I have started trying out different variations to keep things interesting. This game, I experimented with the following tech strategy:

Turn 1: Open research window, click Future Tech, close research window. End of strategy.

Probably won't be doing that again. Acquired my first worker around turn 30,other than improving the wheat and building one other farm, he had nothing to until turn 71, when my scientists finally discovered Animal Husbandry. By this point, if it were possible to abduct scientists for other CIV, I would have put mine in front of a firing squad. Oh, it gets worse.

I discovered mining on the same turn I stole sailing from China. On turn 144! By this point, I was glad I hadn't shot them, since this would have been a far more painless death than they deserved.

At game end, I was researching Electronics, but had not yet researched Chemistry or Compass.

Even with the sad tech path, I did get Machinery fair quickly after mining, and small force of Crossbowmen, Knights and Pikemen and one Scout swept through the west part of the map. As I closed in on the Mongol capital (circled around past Denmark to avoid having to take out any other Mongol cities), I rush bought 4 riflemen and 2 crossbowmen, and started simultaneously taking out the eastern half of the planet.

 

[sebtanic]

Spent the first 100 turns building my little empire, then started to build an army. After reading other people's results I realize this is not the fastest way to dom victory, so I'll probably focus on producing units right from the start next time.

Events along the way:
t68 ToA
~90 Oracle
98 Religion: Pagodas, Tithe
122 conquered Assur (had Statue of Zeus)
128 Great Wall
141 Hanging Gardens
141 conquered Beijing
169 conquered Tenochtitlan
180 conquered Copenhagen
186 conquered Sukhothai
195 conquered Karakorum
198 conquered London

I'm realizing now it doesn't make sense to build most wonders (except maybe Oracle and GW) if you can let the AI build them for you.

 

[aafritz17]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 129
Date submitted: 2016-02-21 13:59:34
Your name: aafritz17
Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1755AD
Turns played: 261
Base score: 1397
Final score: 2686
Time played: 39:06:00 (Left it on overnight)

Took Monty and Liz with Composites, then Ghengis and Ashurbanipal with Xbows. About then Harald became curious about my 5 or 6 Frigates off his coast, so I dealt with him while I was marching on Wu. I had nearly a dozen enslaved workers/meat-shields/bait, so while fighting China I sent four of them off to build a road from China to Siam. After conquering China it was a quick march to Siam for the finale.

- Did you use your UU?

Used one MoV to acquire Mogadishu, 2 or 3 others for trade missions (early game was pretty poor)
Used a few Great Galleass’ for Barb control until Navigation/Frigates

- How useful was your UA?

Useful UA? Not so much! I'm sure you meant "How limiting..." Saw too many good expo sites, and available! And, between Barbs and making enemies, I rarely had a full fleet of trade routes.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Spying was not much use. The first one stayed at home for counter-int, second came too late to swing any C/S elections.

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

For me, the most disadvantageous map feature was that many C/S were remote. I discovered only 4 before T-90, 6 more by T130, and 7 after T-189. (And there’s still one out there, somewhere, in the fog!)

But there were several advantages to the map:
• There must be an “abundant” setting for ruins! (I know, it’s IGE…)
• Lot of wide, flat plains around cities made troop movement easier while attacking.
• Middle of the map wasn’t TOO bad for marching. And, of course, at the end - all those slaves - the road to Siam - OH! Can you hear them whistling! (But that was a bridge, wasn't it.)

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

I win more often than not on Emporer (working on Diety…), so Prince is light; I was therefore more aggressive (but think I should have been even more so). Also, I took the time to build a few wonders. Didn’t realize how much they could affect the score, or I would have built more.

- Was Faith helpful to achieve victory? How?

Faith was not used. I actually founded a religion, and quite purposely took Tithe. But I focused very little on promoting my religion, so it didn’t yield much gold. I did snatch two Great Prophets, both virgins, so I took 'em to Venice and stuck ‘em in the ground.

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

Full Liberty, opened Tradition (should’a done that first!), full Commerce, then 1 or 2 in Rat.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

Construction (Composites), Optics (to embark and for MoV), Machinery (Xbows) and Navigation (Frigates).