TSG 169 AAR

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG169 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 did you think of the map?​

 

[zxcvbob]

I will be impressed if anybody wins this one; science victory, or any other victory type. (and it looked so promising with all that salt) Jokes on us, I guess -- April Fools! You'll see what I'm talking about a hundred turns in.

I know I shouldn't be posting this in the announcement thread, but there is no AAR yet for me to post my resignation. And I just wanted to state my displeasure with this one.

Moderator Action: Moved to AAR thread. Please do NOT post spoilers in the Announcement thread in future. Thanks. leif

 

[zxcvbob]

Quit on turn 106 when I realized I was totally isolated by mountains... Did not bother to submit. Not amused.

 

[raider980]

Lost when Atilla DoW me with about 10000 troops. I was defending with Pikemen, he had GW Infantry hahaha. I did find some sweet land to the NW but by the time I could settle it was just too late. It just takes so long to get to the mainland.

Probably the only way to win is to go 3-city tradition until you can catch up in science and then use modern weapons with Stealth bombers on carriers and Xcoms. Or nuke everyone. I might try that.

 

[Nablahat]

Science win: turn 235

TL;DR: Sloppy start, WTF moment with mountains . No military + simcity, space commies with Statue of liberty.

Early game
- Start: Saw all the salt and went for mining + scout in hope of capturing a city state worker and quickly get the salt online. No city state , so no payoff.
- Cleaned the island for barbs, but sloppy with scouting caused problems when they spawned on my desired settle location. Got my warrior killed and settler captured trying to claim my spot, but my scout managed to recapture with only slight delay.
- Massive happiness problem. Postponed settling my 3rd city for some time due to that. (did not help that I forgot the crabs initially as a lux. (Only fitted 3 cities on the island)
- Missed all early wonders - close at hanging gardens but got beaten by 1 turn.
- Got salt faith religion late. (later tithe + x% production)
- Lots of shipping trade routes and focus on happiness buildings to catchup in growth.

Mid game
- Had ships + scout investigating the nice rock circle .
- Met a couple of civs with boarders out salt trading finally increase happiness
- Disbanded most military
- slight punish mid game when, barbs plundered my trade routes, but a privateer + couple of ships got it under control
- Got first wonders in leaning tower + porcelain tower to get some extra academies down.
- Oxforded into radio and ideologies as the first picking up freedom.
- Bad choice, Byzantium in particular and everybody else in general went for order. and with sacred sites and pagodas and moskes they had a handy tourism to sent me to negative happiness again (despite my Eiffel tower and Broadway)
- an religious engineer rushed statue and liberty, before I joining my comerades in the red revolution.
- Traded some coal from Egypt to get workers college bonus + production with factories.
- United Nations got founded but I had no chance to influence, but got trade with rest of nations (except Portugal which Ottomans had eaten in the early game).
- Ottoman and Attila also warred me for some time, but no effect due to mountain fortress.

Late game
- Picked up a couple of culture wonders to make up for lost culture with revolutions.
- Spend gold on science buildings / research agreements.
- In UN, always just threw 1 plus vote on each proposal to get + opinion bonus.
- Finished Space pioneers and rationalism, put some points into liberty which I had sunk two policies in early to get some happiness but never got to that.
- Tried to time the bulb production etc. but ended up over sciencing and under producing (only had two engineers to hurry, and had to hard build the rest - tried to finish liberty for bonus great engineer but timing was a bit off.



Final thoughts
- Really tough being isolated in the beginning (water not the mountains)
- Quite a surprise with the mountains - Had definitely not paid enough attention to "donut" map type.
- Really a challenge in true simcity (minimum interaction + no military needed)
- A bit of a shame the island does not have shallow water connection to the mountains circle . I think it could be a fun challenge to dip 2 into military to get an general and settle the mainland, but even after knowing the map I think it would be way to slow to go for that.

An interesting map - A bit disconnecting due to the total isolation.

 

[Billick]

Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1928AD
Turns played: 234
Base score: 1152
Final score: 1645
Time played: 6:29:00

- How useful was your UA?
The free harbors were nice. Didn't use the mountain ability because I never got a great general
- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Got a CS ally. I was caught up on tech by the time the spy was able to steal anything
- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Yes
- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I didn't affect it very much
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Tradition, a couple points in exploration, rationalism, Freedom
- What techs did you prioritize ?
Went for astronomy quicker than usual. When I figured out what the map was, I beelined science techs
- What did you think of the map?
KnowTalent, you magnificent troll you.

I only built 2 cities on the main island, and went really tall with both. They both had 40+ pop. I used the open borders teleport trick to get a settler and scout into the outer loop, and put up a late third city to grab some much needed aluminum. The map wasn't actually that bad, because there was no worry about being attacked, so I could just totally focus on science.

 

[raider980]

I used the open borders teleport trick to get a settler and scout into the outer loop, and put up a late third city to grab some much needed aluminum.

What is the open borders teleport trick?

 

[Rogerio_AA]

Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1994AD
Turns played: 274
Final score: 1387

- How useful was your UA?
Nothing useful, was not necessary climb mountains - but the UB was very important, for get some extra happiness in the beginning of the game, with Meritocracy.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Yes, was very useful for steal some Techs and, at the end of the game, for prevent Diplomatic Victory of the Greeks, rigging elections in CityStates.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The map was a great surprise! Helped a lot, preventing invasion from other Civs.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Was a hard game, all the time in the two last positions of the score, administrating the growth of the cities for not exceed the unhappiness, and using the Specialists for make Great Scientists, since the beginning.
Only with the Ideologial Tenets was possible liberate the growing of the cities...

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Started with Tradition, completed Liberty, followed by Piety - to get Reformation: Jesuit Education, and finally completed Rationalism for buy Great Scientist with Faith; two Order Tenets for some happiness and, at last, Patronage and Consulates for fight against Greek influence.

- What techs did you prioritize?
Focused in Religion, for boost the Great Scientists at the ending of the game, the first techs was running for Theology, Architecture (for Porcelain Tower) and Scientific Theory, for build the Public Schools with faith.
After, some tech from the down part of the techtree, for reach Plastics, for build the Research Labs. Finally, Satellites, to build the Hubble Space Telescope and get two scientists, and at last, the techs of the SpaceShips parts.

- What did you think of the map?
When I finally got Astronomy and started to explore the ocean... The map was revealed a great surprise!
Congratulations for the idea!
Just like a nation inside a volcano!

 

[Billick]

What is the open borders teleport trick?

When you lose an open borders treaty, your units get moved to the nearest land tile that you can occupy. You can sometimes use this to get to hard to reach spots on the map.

 

[Trikster]

My first post here, and the first game of CIV 5 after a small break, it was quite awesome indeed.

Science win, turn 238.

- How useful was your UA?
Harbors from the get-go were quite handy, since my cities (save for my cap) were heavily production-starved (at least until workshops allowed to move production by trade routes), and saving a few turns on building harbors was nice. Also, gold played some part in remedying my production problem, so automatic city connections were useful as well. However, since I crossed no mountains (staying solely on my island) and got no GG, the other component of the UA found no use in my game.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Not really, I managed to steal only 3 techs, as far as I recall. However, spies did some good work providing intel on my opponents, and converting Belgrade to my side (for much needed aluminum).
Didn't bother to place a spy in my cap for most of the game though.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The biggest problem, at least for me, was happiness since there were no trading partners and no CS in the vicinity, so most of my tech and religion choices were made with happiness bonuses in mind. No known tech discount made the game longer (and made me stay even more behind) and no sight on opponents' caps made it impossible to spot wonders so I skipped them entirely until the Porcelain Tower (when I had sight on at least some capitals, if I remember correctly).

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Playing mostly immortal/deity so it didn't really.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Standard fare, so Tradition into Rationalism (with filler Exploration for some happiness). When it was ideology time, I went Freedom and finished it in order to buy spaceship parts (ended up buying just one though).

- What techs did you prioritize ?
In order of importance: happiness -> science -> production -> culture.

- What did you think of the map?
Awesome!

 

[socralynnek]

I will be impressed if anybody wins this one;

Well, if I win this, then I guess you can as well...

Besides the points that other mentioned, I guess I got a little lucky with some aspects:

Founded a city on the mainland to the SE, close to Byzantium there was one spot left open, then I got a unit from a city state on the other side of the mountain, so I could at least meet most of the city states earlier than satellites.
This was especially good because it took some more turns after seeing that it is all mountains, that there is a chance to cross. But then I thought that it helps me mroe investing the culture into Rationalism and try to have an all peaceful game

I only bribed the tech leaders twice for war, the rest of the time they were at war without me having to pay something.
And still: Despite all the wars, there was no one so big that they'd win the diplo vote, while I was getting ahead in tech.

And it helped of course that I didn't have to invest money for upgrades or hammers into units...

Got some early wonders (have to look up which ones, it's been a few days since submitting)

Won on turn 250.

 

[golem]

Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1928AD
Turns played: 234
Base score: 1045
Final score: 1492
Time played: 4:55:00

I settled on the place, did two cities and run for Astronomy, as I saw there is no way out of island. After sending a first caravel I found out that GG is a must and did it thourough policies.
The rest was peaceful game with a lot of money, just two city state allied - one for Happinness, one for Aluminium. I bought most SS parts in the end.

I liked this game, a bit unusual, but I could be sure that no one DOW me - so I had no troops at all. Good advantage.

Thanks.

 

[beetle]

Game status: Diplomacy Loss
Game date: 1956AD
Turns played: 248
Base score: 1452
Final score: 1452

I did not figure out the gimmick in time, so Rationalism was delayed by a couple policies while I worked late to get the GG from Honor.

Nice, I have just been rolling Carthage maps. I am going to play Liberty for a change and try Messengers of the Gods for early science.

Liberty and MotG went poorly for me.

What did you think of the map?

I was very amused, clearly @Knowtalent is an Evil Genius! I very much enjoyed replaying the map, opening Honor after closing out Tradition. Attached is my T247 SV screen shot from that 2nd try.

 

[zxcvbob]

I may try it again; a hundred turns in, it looked impossible and I got really pissed. I thought we'd been pranked. All those mountains meant no possibility of ever getting a trade route with anybody, not ever the CS's.

Can you settle on top of a mountain? If so, does a garrison lose 50% health every turn?

 

[beetle]

I may try it again; a hundred turns in, it looked impossible and I got really pissed. I thought we'd been pranked.

We were definitely pranked! But all in good fun. It would have been mean spirited for any civ other than Carthage.

All those mountains meant no possibility of ever getting a trade route with anybody, not ever the CS's.

I experimented a bit, planting a city on one of those few spots just outside the ring. Even after building a road through the mountain, Trade Routes will not pass.

But running internal Trade Routes is strong play. With my successful game, my three cities got pretty big. Two trades from/to each city.

Can you settle on top of a mountain?

Nope, I have tried that!

 

[Beto_Java]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 169
Date submitted: 2018-05-01 14:02:40
Reference number: 35959
Your name: beto_java
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1956AD
Turns played: 248
Base score: 1124
Final score: 1498
Time played: 7:13:00
Submitted save: FINAL_Dido_0248 AD-1956.Civ5Save
Renamed file: beto_java_C516901.Civ5Save