TSG 168 AAR

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG168 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 attach 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.) In your post.
- 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?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- What techs did you prioritize ?
- What VC did you choose?

 

[jrwh]

Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1930AD
Turns played: 235
Base score: 1304
Final score: 1836
Time played: 7:50:00

235 turns, mediocre even by standard speed standards. On quick speed this feels like an eternity.

Spoiler Things That Maybe Contributed to That :

• Slow land: rough terrain, lack of growth tiles, lack of space, short on luxes, slow to meet other civs, no nearby CS for worker steal, etc
• Only founded 3 cities: had ~1150 bpt at the end, feel like that's closer to ~1500 bpt when I do 4 city tradition - crabs to north and dyes to south looked like unappealing city spots, leaving me 3 luxes to work with
• Desert Folklore went early: like turn 15ish, otherwise could have had much a much faster and more potent religion, and probably enough faith for 1 or 2 extra GS purchases down the stretch
• Barbs everywhere: I had 6 archers and 2 warriors out early dealing with all the barbs, stretching my gold thin due to upkeep - to make matters worse, barbs had a habit slipping in the cracks to pillage my copper/marble tiles, slowing me down in 4 areas: production, faith, gpt, and due to the latter, tech - I barely squeezed out a late HG, Petra, and last religion
• Rushed HG + Petra: once it got going, Vienna was a monster in both growth and production, but my NC and Unis came at standard speed timings (very late for quick) - not sure if it was worth it or not, maybe can compare to other games where people played more standard, beelining to NC and Unis
• Finished Rati too early: I had 4+ Babylonian Prophets lurking my lands, so I figured I'd finish up Rati and faith-buy GS' to barricade my cities from conversion while I waited for bulb time - I forgot about the free tech though, which I wasted on some 2-turn in-between tech, instead of timing it for a more significant tech later
• Screwed up GP management: was working every specialist for beakers, but let a GM and GE spawn down the stretch which should have been 2 GS

Plan going in was to simcity SV. The frontier map seems too spread out with too much rough terrain for quick domination, which is usually the fastest option.

Spoiler Settling the Capital :

• Turn 0: warrior 2 tiles NE to copper, from there I see 1 desert hill tile to the north - decide to move settler 1 tile NE to forest, from there can move across river towards desert if I scout a good Petra spot, or settle for either copper if not

• Turn 1: warrior spots a dope Petra location, the decision is made - rush HG Petra into simcity SV
• Turn 2: settle grassland hill next to desert

I really gritted my teeth through the first 70 turns or so. Early progress was slow due to the rough terrain and isolated position. HG, Petra, and religion all felt super late, and I worried about losing them.

I made a ton of units, but raging barbs still felt hard to deal with; they constantly appeared in the gaps between my units to stand on/pillage my marble and copper. This slowed me down to what felt like the very last second on tech/production for wonders and faith for religion. After I got Petra up, I pushed the barbs away, and had breathing room to comfortably simcity the rest of the game.

I ended up bulbing 9 GS' around turn 231, then a 10th on turn 234, purchasing my final 4 spaceship parts with gold. They cost 1350 each with all the purchasing bonuses I had.

Spoiler Build Order :

• Scout, Scout : standard Tradition opener
• Shrine: trying to rush Desert Folklore, but it goes early
• Scout: frontier maps take a long time to explore, and raging barbs usually kill a scout or two
• Granary: lack of early growth tiles, I want to be working as many hills as possible come HG + Petra
• Worker, Worker: improving tiles, increasing growth and production for wonder spam
• Archer: bring 1 scout-upgraded Archer back to base, need another to protect workers and tiles
• Water Mill: growth and production for wonder spam
• third Worker, Archers, Warrior: waiting on Math tech, barbs are everywhere, 1-turning units
• Hanging Gardens: finished turn 50ish, I've seen it go early 40s on Emperor before - used 3 chops on it, but got delayed by barbs standing on tiles
• Mausoleum: I fluctuate between 0 and -8 gpt due to barbs and the copper/marble tiles, slowing down Currency tech considerably - I have marble and stone in the cap so Mausoleum actually helps a ton with this
• Archers, Workers: still waiting on Currency
• First Settler: 2-turn settler just as Currency finishes, I send it north and settle on the river/coastal/copper - I need a coastal city for boats to meet other civs - builds Granary > Shrine > Library
• Petra: 6 turn build, get it down to 5 with my last chop - finishes turn 70ish, I feel lucky that I got it since Desert Folklore went so early - use the Caravan to feed northern expand
• Second Settler: another 2-turn settler immediately after Petra, I send it south and settle on the jungle/hill/river near the truffles - builds Library immediately
• Caravan: feed southern expand
• Library: late, around turn 75
• Market: running short on buildings to build, could use help with gpt anyway
• Caravan: send to northern expand to feed cap
• Barracks: 1 turn build, waiting on libraries to finish
• Comp Bows: since I lack gold for upgrades, and I have nothing else to do in the cap, 1-turn Comp Bows and sell off Archers
• National College: late, around turn 85 - it was only a three-turn build, but this seems average or even late for standard speed - I feel like you could have NC up by turn 60ish on quick
• Colosseums: happiness is becoming an issue
• Circus Maximus: more happiness
• Stables: multiple sheep in every city
• Filler: Ampitheaters, Shrines, Temples, random stuff while I tech Education
• Universities: late, around turn 105-110 - this is doable on standard speed so really late for quick
• Guilds: 1-turn builds and I have 25ish pop, so I get my culture rolling quick for Rati

Spoiler Tech Path :

• Pottery: shrine ASAP
• Animal Husbandry: hoping for grassland horses
• Archery: raging barbs
• Masonry: lux techs
• Currency: rushing for wonder techs
• Writing: libraries
• Construction: need CBs to keep up with barbs, also need happiness
• Sailing: trade route
• Philosophy: NC
• Civil Service: lots of fresh water farms
• Education: Universities
• Printing Press: Pisa
• Acoustics: Sistine with Pisa GE
• Astronomy: need Caravels to meet other civs for lux trades, happiness starved
• Scientific Theory: Public Schools
• Radio: use Oxford to secure Freedom
• Industrialization: Factories
• Plastics: Labs
• Satellites: Hubble
• Advanced Ballistics: SS Booster
• Particle Physics: SS Engine
• Nanotech: SS Stasis Chamber

Spoiler Social Policies :

• Tradition: 5
• Aesthetics: 1
• Rationalism: 5
• Freedom: 6
• Commerce: 2
• Honor: 2

• Tradition: I skip Honor opener in spite of raging barbs - want growth and wonder bonuses ASAP
• Oligarchy: what else?
• Legalism: free monument
• Landed Elite: growth first due to slow land
• Monarchy: alleviates gpt issues in combination with Mausoleum
• Aristocracy: wonder bonus and free aqueducts
• Aesthetics: I like extra culture as a filler policy before Rati, especially with the dearth of nearby CS'
• Cultural Centers: I don't have a lot of excess happiness, so I take the hammers
• Rationalism: 10% science increase as soon as I hit Renaissance
• Secularism: science from specialists
• Avant Garde, Civil Society: bonus policies, first to Freedom - GP generation and specialist food
• Humanism: GS generation
• Free Thought: science from Unis and trading posts
• Universal Suffrage: specialist happiness
• Creative Expression: culture from great works - none of the tier 1 freedom tenets jump out at me
• New Deal: more science from academies
• Sovereignity: finishing Rati so I can faith purchase GS'
• Scientific Revolution: finishing Rati - a mistake to do it this early in retrospect
• Commerce: I have extra culture to spread around so I take some gold
• Mercenary Army: on the way to Mercantilism
• Mercantilism: purchasing discount which I believe helps with spaceship parts?
• Space Procurements: in plenty of time to purchase spaceship parts
• Honor: Shaka settles on my southern border, have leftover culture while waiting on tech
• Discipline: in case I have to fight, never happens
• Military Caste: last bit of culture

Spoiler Religion :

• Stone Circles: late pantheon, turn 38ish - thought about wonder pantheon, decided to grab the best faith pantheon remaining and gamble on religion
• Tithe: eek out last religion barely, just after Petra finishes - the best founder belief is still available
• Divine Inspiration: all faith buildings, happiness, and follower production are gone - I choose between this and growth - faith from wonders actually synergizes pretty well with the low faith gen of Stone Circles and my wonder-whoring
• Swords into Plowshares: growth is still there when I enhance and synergizes fairly well with a peaceful SV strategy
• Religious Texts: barely any choices left for enhancer belief but this is always a good one

Spoiler Wonders :

• Hanging Gardens: big growth boost for my production-heavy capital
• Mausoleum of Halicarnassus: gold boost for high-upkeep army, fills time waiting for Currency
• Petra: based our settlement and entire strategy around this wonder
• Angkor Wat: nothing else to build for awhile after Unis, helps expands grow to useful tiles faster
• Leaning Tower of Pisa: 25% GP generation, free GE for next wonder
• Sistine Chapel: 25% culture, helps get through Rati/Freedom/other SPs quickly
• Porcelain Tower: free GS
• Taj Mahal: nothing else to build in northern expand, happiness + golden age helps a bit
• Broadway: nothing else to build, GM slots for extra culture
• Eiffel Tower: nothing else to build, some happiness and tourism pressure on other civs
• Brandenburg Gate: nothing else to build, it's just there, no real reason
• Statue of Liberty: free SP and specialist hammers, one of the best wonders
• Cristo Redentor: accidentally spawned a GE from working specialists, nothing else to use it on
• Big Ben: reduced purchasing cost for spaceship parts
• Hubble Space Telescope: 2 free GS'

 

[zxcvbob]

I quit after about 200 turns; it took me 100 turns just to get the barbs under control, then I was behind in tech and locked in a quagmire fighting with Shaka. I usually play at emperor level, so it was kinda embarrassing. I should probably upload my game file where I resigned...

I played it again, and started out more like jrwh this time. It was still a slow game, mainly because there was no source of gold so I had negative GPT and no money in the treasury for a long time; cutting my science output in half.

I settled 4 cities; by all those desert sheep hills, farther northeast at the mouth of the river for a coastal city with good production, far northwest by the pearls or crabs or whatever that was, and south on top of the truffles for a jungle science city and to cut off Shaka's access to my part of the continent. Because of the large map and quick pace I went for a mostly-peaceful science victory, which took 275 turns. I didn't rush any spaceship parts with gold because Vienna was such a powerhouse it could build them in 3 turns each. Then I "just one more turned" and declared war on Babylon just for fun -- I'm building stealth bombers, jet fighters, and XCOMs in 1 turn.

UA and UU were totally useless. My social policies were right side of Honor, full Tradition (I think I opened Tradition before Honor), full Rationalism, left side of Patronage, Commerce opener, Exploration opener, and Freedom.

 

[jrwh]

It was still a slow game, mainly because there was no source of gold so I had negative GPT and no money in the treasury for a long time; cutting my science output in half.

Ya this drove me nuts, with my settle location I had 2 coppers and a marble as both production and gold tiles. With barbs constantly moving on top of them, I lost turns of production on wonders and turns on getting the tech to start them. I had Currency at 22 turns to research at one point. Getting mausoleum added gold to my marble and stone tiles, and I picked up Monarchy around the same time (9 pop cap), which evened out my gold issues as I started to push the barbs away.

 

[Nablahat]

Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1920AD
Turns played: 230
Base score: 1451
Final score: 2102
Time played: ?


Early game - Greed, Luck and Barbs

Spoiler Early game :

- Scouted with warrior, saw desert hill and moved my settler there (also wanted to move with no growth tiles)
- Was rewarded with very nice land except no growth
- Did an early shrine (after scount), and was lucky to pick up desert faith
- Stuck with slow growth did a settler build on 3 pop (that went north and settled on desert river)
- Then the barbarian horde came from everywhere and locked me down
- Ended up rushing College and Petra in capital
- My scout made it south beyond the "neck" and found I was alone with Zulu... Not good.

Midgame - Clean barbs, Catch up and wonder whoring

Spoiler Mid game :

- Picked up a few more wonders with cap. (most importantly Hanging garden and Mausoleum)
- Spammed spearmen and some archers to clean up (very bad for gold, went negative for a short while before Mausoleum saved me)
- Religion came into its own (Tithe, Pagodas, Divine Inspiration (from the wonder whoring + Messiah for a few extra profets)
- Picked up a bit of liberty + pyramids to catch up in in infrastructure
- Settled 3 costals (1 North (Crab) in reach of hills, 1 Mid (truffles) and 1 Down (slik) + blocker/canal to prevent getting overrun by Zulu, horsehocky fleet to east coast).
- Zulu declare war at me but except for some trimes getting shot by crossbows nothing happens. (His huge land army never attacks the city states)
- Capital continues to grab key wonders e.g. Porcelain tower + Leaning tower)

Lategame - Simcity, Seafaring and Space pioneers

Spoiler Late game :

- Late coastal citys grow with internal shipping trade routes (barbs spawn and plunder them ++ Paranoid scouts EVERYWHERE from then on)
- Gets Frigates + Privateers to explore and defend againt Zulu. (Frigates and later battleships decimate the zulu army from sea)
- I find everybody but nothing interesting happens in congress (Here I rule out sneaky domination, since only few have costal capitals)
- Coal comes around and some quick factories plunge me into Order and worker college
- Finish up rationalism and go for Spaceflight pioneers in Order.
- Cities go on science focus, and scientist are saved up for big bulbing
- Zulu finally gives up and offers peace
- America becomes new best friends, and drag us into a war with Greece (Nothing happens there)

Finish - Bulb, Engineers and Keep you profets away from the railroad Songhai!

Spoiler Finish :

- Try to time bulbing with engineering (faith buys a bunch of engineers+scientists)
- Finish Liberty for extra engineer
- Scramble to make citys build space parts and hurry production.
- A Songhai profet thinks it is a good time to wander around the railroads and have to declare war on Songhai just to move engineers and spaceparts around
- As a last turn effort a city is founded with the extra settler from liberty
- And I finally get to use the UA, marries Melbourne and take them with me to space

Final note:
The land + barbs were a quite rough combo. Without the desert high roll it would be pretty boring with the isolation. The coffee houses were nice. Looking back it felt like cultural victory would be nicer e.g. buy some city states far away for trade route bonus + extra great people points.

 

[Rogerio_AA]

Game status: Time Victory
Game date: 2050AD
Turns played: 330
Final score: 3049
Time played: 25:14:00

- How useful was your UA?
It was useful to prevent other Civs from being allied with the CityStates, doing war against my Civ.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Yeah, with state coup in CityStates.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
I do not know to define it... With the Zulus in the same continent declaring war, at the beginning of game, the priority was to survive, and then smash them!

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I had more difficulties than usual, at this game level.
With Babylon advancing scientifically (the war against Zulu delayed me in research), it was urgent to conquer it, and then advance in the Americans, to avoid its Scientific Victory.
Also, at the ending of the game, using the high-leveled Battleships, attacked the Greeks, just for fun...

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Opened Tradition, then Honor - to get CulturePoints from the Barbarians; then completed Liberty, and finally Exploration and Rationalism as needed.
The Ideology Order was basically used to improve happiness.

- What techs did you prioritize?
Were chosen first techs that improved the growth of the cities, then techs for get some war advantage, following for Navigation, and ended directed by Wonders.

- What VC did you choose?
As the game progresses, plus +700 Religion Points and the ideology that allow to use Great Engineer to accelerate SpaceShips Parts, the game followed to ScientificVictory, but the game finished with TimeVictory (my first TimeVictory), at one turn before build the last Spaceship part...

This was the most long-time game ever played!
(but I was playing alternately with the GMB Pbem Turns ...)

 

[raider980]

Science Victory Turn 300, 2020AD.

Slow due to the factors others have stated. A little way into the game I was like, 'what map is this?'. So I looked and it was Frontier and thought to myself what does that mean? Terrible land? I looked it up and yep, that's what it means hahaha. But I drove on. The barbs were crazy. I guess because there were no other civs or CS near us to help kill them.

I founded Vienna and Salzburg. Salzburg was an amazing DF and Petra location; the best I've ever had. I got DF and went for Petra; missed it by 2 turns! I almost rage quit at that moment. But instead, I chilled. Got NC before building any more cities. (I should have built one more before NC, that would've helped my speed).

After NC I went on a city founding spree; founded 4 more pretty quickly. There were some good spots with luxuries and more desert for my DF. Then I founded a 7th city way late because I discovered an awesome spot on the island to the east so I couldn't resist.

Never had any wars except when Shaka asked me to go to war against someone far away. But there were never even any shots fired because we were too far away from each other. That saved me from Shaka attacking me though.

Didn't use the UA at all. I was allies with Prague and Melbourne all game but I'd rather be allies than puppet them. Especially since they were blocking Shaka. The Coffee House is awesome though.

Overall a very fun game. It was almost like being on my own continent so I was able to wait and build some good cities later. That's the most fun part of civ to me, exploring and founding cities.

 

[socralynnek]

This was very interesting although I didn't play it until the end.

I retired in my submitted game (had wasted too much time handling barbs (didn't use Honor which was a mistake); had problems with money and happiness, but got Petra)
I was meeting the other continents too late; maybe I could have turned around the standings, but was more interested in trying out other options.

But when replaying (with using honor), either I had even more problems with money or missed Petra.

The question whether to go for an early religion is worth it, is still open for me, even after 4 attempts...