TSG 224 After Actions Thread

[Nizef]

In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state your victory/loss date (preferably in the post title) and describe your path to glory in this post! Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game.

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
- What technologies did you prioritize?
- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

 

[Tiberiu]

I finished this game with turn 215 Cultural Victory. Culture to beat was Carthage with 356 culture. My tourism peaked at 74 and my culture at 760.

Spoiler :

Montezuma killed Carthage early so I just wiped out all the map with Frigates and Cannons and some riff raff, and recalled Carthage to life 1 turn before conquering the last one, performed a concert for 160 tourism.
France was tougher but I took him out with the 6 Foreign Legions and a great general. He had Composite bowmen and Musketeers at the time.

Tech path: Optics > Masonry ( for rushing Great Lighthouse and Mausoleum of Helicarnassus which give merchant point) > Philosophy > Guilds > Compass
Social Policies: Tradition 6 Exploration 4 Patronage 3 Freedom 6
Religion: Food religion, took Fertility rites pantheon, tithe and Feed the World. Later enhanced with Religious Community and Itinerant Preachers. 37 citizen at the end. All CS as allies.
Wonders: Built around 9-10: Great Lighthouse, Mausoleum, Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Borobudur, Forbidden Palace, Pisa, Louvre, Brandenburg Gate,


Turn 50

Turn 100

Victory t 215:

 

[Axolaan]

I won a cultural victory on turn 321. There are a couple of ways to win a cultural victory on immortal. Sacred Sites is probably the fastest, but this strategy relies on settling lots of cities, and we are stuck with one Venice. Eliminating all civs except the least cultural one for a pseudo domination victory is possible, but domination is already my second most common win condition after science. So I chose to go for a peaceful cultural victory. This traditional way is often considered a pseudo science victory, but I made some decisions that I definitely would not have made if that were the case I also thought that having only one non-puppeted city for tourism bonuses would be interesting. My first 100 turns were as follows:

T0: Settling in place was a no brainer, considering the starting location was on a hill, on the cost, and adjacent to 3 good growth tiles.
T43: Since I obviously didn't settle, I'm going through these pretty quickly. I had stolen a worker from Ife and built one of my own. This turn I lost Temple of Artemis to Pedro by 2 turns. Pain.
T64: Hanging Gardens.
T79: National College, 31 science per turn.
T87: Great Lighthouse.
T83: Took Antwerp using a Merchant of Venice, so I could send food to the capital.
T94: Dido built the Parthenon 1 turn before me. Severe pain.
T98: Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Great wonder for a game like this.

From this start, I eventually got Ife and Ormus, for a food trade route and a trade route with Pedro respectively. Dido attacked Ormus once, but I was able to beat her by building a bomber and sending it over. She was still using Industrial units, so that wasn't much of a problem. My final list of wonders was Broadway, Eiffel Tower, Great Firewall, Great Lighthouse, Hanging Gardens, Louvre, Mausoleum, Oracle, Porcelain Tower, Prora, Sistine chapel, Sydney Opera House, and Uffizi. Pedro had been the cultural leader for the whole game, and it didn't help that they won the worlds fair as well. I needed the Internet to eventually outpace his culture. My final tourism was 464 per turn, and 1067 per turn with Pedro due to Cult of Personality (I declared war on Monty and Dido for this bonus).

 

[Nizef]

One question: Did you send food cargos to Ife and Antwerp?

 

[merchantofmenace]

Long time civ player, but my first GOTM, loved it! Cultural victory turn 240 (culture +472, tourism +153), no war all game, friendly with Carthage and Brazil - bribed them to fight Napoleon around T100. Puppeted Antwerp early to feed the cap, also built Hanging Gardens and took Sun God (+1 food for wheat) pantheon as my strategy was to go hard on pop to ensure science good enough to grab wonders. Was able to secure religion through Ife alliance. Went Tradition > Aesthetics > Rationalism > Freedom.
Endgame Brazil was the trickiest to convert, bribed all to war them but they held on. Since no coastal cities didn't think an invasion would be easy/worth the hammers. Still a bit rusty with my late game culture, but buying a few Great Musicians with faith proved to be the push I needed. Definitely could have shaved some turns off this attempt - but happy with this first effort!

 

[Axolaan]

One question: Did you send food cargos to Ife and Antwerp?

I tried to get their population to a reasonable level by sending them some food, but only for a little bit. Once my capital got into the thirties, I switched to sending production to it and sent all other trade routes to other civs for the tourism bonus etc.

 

[armcie]

Victory on turn 286, the turn after I discovered t'Internet. The game was almost entirely peaceful (although I was getting reports Brazil were about to attack near the end). My one war was when England suggested we both attack Indonesia, and as I had a swordsman nearby, I thought why not? My lone swordsman ran a guerrilla campaign, capturing missionaries and plundering luxuries near Jakarta. They quickly sued for peace and offered me a city which I used to send out trade routes to the nearby civs.

Brazil were the biggest holdout. I got most of the wonders I wanted, but Brazil did manage to get Alhambra, which boosted their cultural defence. Once I realised they didn't have any costal cities, I sent a merchant to a land based city state, so I could at least have some boost to my influence with a caravan. They were the sole holdout for many years. Perhaps I should have bought some musicians.

By the end of the game I'd filled out Tradition, Aesthetics, Patronage, had about 4 each in Rationalism and Exploration and about 6 or 7 in Freedom

 

[leif erikson]

Long time civ player, but my first GOTM, loved it! Cultural victory turn 240 (culture +472, tourism +153), no war all game, friendly with Carthage and Brazil - bribed them to fight Napoleon around T100. Puppeted Antwerp early to feed the cap, also built Hanging Gardens and took Sun God (+1 food for wheat) pantheon as my strategy was to go hard on pop to ensure science good enough to grab wonders. Was able to secure religion through Ife alliance. Went Tradition > Aesthetics > Rationalism > Freedom.
Endgame Brazil was the trickiest to convert, bribed all to war them but they held on. Since no coastal cities didn't think an invasion would be easy/worth the hammers. Still a bit rusty with my late game culture, but buying a few Great Musicians with faith proved to be the push I needed. Definitely could have shaved some turns off this attempt - but happy with this first effort!

Welcome to CivFanatics and Game of the Month!!

Thank you for your participation.

 

[zxcvbob]

I lost this one on turn 358 to Brazil. Pedro snowballed right from the start and never slowed down. I did pass him in science, and (at least when he wasn't having a carnival) my tourism was higher, but I didn't quite get to 30% influence over Brazil when he hit 100% on me. (he was at 200+ with everybody else at that point) BTW, we were friends most of the game even with different ideologies; lots of research agreements, but only after I built Porcelain Tower.

I went Autocracy for Futurism, Third Alternative, Cult of Personality, and Prora. I got a lot of mileage out of CoP; Pedro and I stayed at war with France for a long time, neither of us wanting to take Napoleon's last crappy city but not wanting peace either. I took Statue of Liberty from Morocco. At the end, you can see that I'm at war with England. It's not so obvious that I'm also at war with Indonesia. That's why I have no trade routes going in the screenshot; they plundered them all. I'm doing just fine in the war but it's distracting me from doing anything about Pedro. (I wouldn't be surprised if he bribed them to attack me)

It was a fun game even tho' it didn't turn out like I wanted.

Edit: Social policies were Tradition, Aesthetics, Rationalism, Exploration, and the Commerce opener to unlock Big Ben. (I already mentioned Autocracy) Tradition, Exploration, and Aesthetics were the only trees I finished.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Cultural victory on turn 210:

I went tradition, earth mother pantheon, early war with Ife for a worker and retrieved another worker from France via a barb camp. Researched to masonry early to start building wonders. Then to optics for the first Merchant of Venice (Antwerp). MoH and Colossus helped produce the next Merchant of Venice (Sofia). I gifted most of my military to Sofia and then used it to take Rio, eliminating Brazil, an early culture leader. I bribed Monty to help with that.

After Education I quickly gained a tech lead and got all the important wonders: Globe, LToP (Artist), Sistine, Uffuzi, Eiffel and Broadway (Engineered). Porcelain Tower's GS helped finish Refrigeration after which I bought a hotel in Venice.

I went Aesthetics after Tradition then finished Rationalism (Radio). Then Freedom, but the game finished before benefiting from the Broadcast Tower tenet. I had secured world religion about turn 200.

I faith bought an Artist to fill out the Hermitage (I had taken the +5 culture/tourism religion). The game ended with a faith bought Musician traveling from Sofia to Marrakech (a few turns earlier I had bought open borders for an exorbitant 300+ gpt).

 

[sebtanic]

CV turn 269.

I decided to prioritize growth and science, to achieve a tech lead as soon as possible. First objective was Optics, then NC, and pick up some wonders on the way.

Got 2 ruins, not very productive: A spearman upgrade and a map :/

Tech path: Writing for Library, then Mining for Salt, then Optics, AH, Philo

Stole an early worker from Paris, and got another one from a barb camp. 2 workers were quite enough for my capital.

t52 bought Ragusa
t56 Great Lighthouse
t67 Mausoleum of Halligalli
t73 NC

Religion: Interfaith Dialogue (for some science), Swords into Plowshares (extra food at peace time)

t82 Oracle
t84 lost Hanging Gardens to Brazil
t103 bought Ife
t108 Hagia Sophia

Enhanced Religion: Religious Community (+15% Production), Messiah (stronger Prophets - I don't think this made any difference)

t146 Notre Dame - stopped keeping track of wonders afterwards, but got most of the important ones

France DOWed me at some point but I repelled them and took Orleans on the west coast, and Paris which had the Colossus

Brazil was culture leader, so I bought Antanananaraivo (or whatever it's called) as a base to attack Brazil from. This proved to be quite difficult until I got Artillery.Afterwardsm, it was a piece of cake.

t220 captured Rio de Janeiro. Went on to wipe Brazil from the map around t240.

From there on it was smooth sailing to victory. Sent one Faith bought GM to England, who were second in culture. Also Carthage conveniently helped me to kill Morocco, who were third and might have needed another GM, except we killed them before I won in t269.

I had Hotels at that point, but no Airports, NVC, or Internet. International Games came too late to make a difference, but I did accidentally win World Fair.

 

[raider980]

CV T359. Whew, finally got the victory. Better late than never. I almost retired earlier, after a concert tour that I thought would end it, resulted in 99.3% influence and then started falling! And I really didn't want to try and attack Rio; it was well fortified and rough terrain to get there. But I decided to do it anyway. In the end, I didn't even need to attack Rio because it took so long that my musician went on his final concert tour the turn after I took Rio lol.

• Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
  • I played peacefully for a long time; there were lots of wars but I stayed out of them. Dido was destroying everyone; she took out Monty early and almost eliminated Napoleon. England almost took out Indonesia. Liz attacked me on T270 and took my puppet Budapest that I established to get trade routes on the other side of the world. Then around T330 or something, Dido and Pedro joint DoW me. I'm just lucky Dido was far away from me or I might have been toast.
  • With the UU, I puppeted Antwerp, Ife and Budapest. Could have done more but I wanted to keep Ragusa as a buffer between France and myself; and Prague I wanted to keep as an ally for the culture boost.
• What technologies did you prioritize?
  • Prioritized top row ocean techs all the way to The Internet to boost tourism.
• What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
  • Went full Tradition into Aesthetics and the right side of Exploration. Freedom for the ideology for the +34% for Broadcast tower. Also finished Rationalism with a couple in Patronage and Honor at the end.

It was a great game that I wasn't sure I could win until the very end. Brazil was the cultural leader and was also influential over everyone but me. I knew he wasn't going to catch me culturally but wasn't sure if he'd get a SV before I could get the CV. Some higlighted turns:

T57. Puppet Antwerp with GMoV from Optics.

T193. Vote for Napoleon for World Congress Host because I don't want him attacking me. (Turns out he was pretty weak and would be almost taken out by Dido soon anyway).

T270. Liz DoW me. Lost 5 trade routes instantly. And this is right after the turn where I voted for her Proposal of IG becasue I didn't want to tick her off! I didn't really want IG because I thought Pedro would win it. This is the first time I actually have seen Liz use her OP Ships of the Line well. She easily took Budapest and I was glad she was on the other continent away from my main cities.

T282. Wow, I actually won International Games, that helps!

T330ish. Dido and Pedro joint DoW me. I had been getting on Pedro's nerves with my units near his border and protecting Morrocco. And Dido was a warmonger all game. Dido was no threat becasue she was so far away; she tried bringing a navy w/some ground troops around the west coast of Venice but I easily held her off with a small contingent of ships. I also liberated Tours and Chartres from Dido so France would be a buffer once again.
I had some units in place near Brazil and easily took Belo Horizonte to get a foothold for attacking Rio. But the rough terrain between there and Rio proved problematic. Pedro also had a lot of troops and was on par with me technologically. And I was still trying to protect Morrocco so Pedro wouldn't get a coastal city near me and within potential bomber/Abomb range of Venice. It was a fun war actually; good and challenging.

T356. A GMusician is born unexpectedly (I hadn't been paying attention to it), this should end it.

T357. Capture Rio with a million wonders; if only I could have done this earlier.

T358. GMusician does the final concert tour.
In the ineterim, Pedro nukes Rio but doesn't capture it back.

T359. A hard won Victory!

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

T250 tourism victory. To futurism or not to futurism, that was the question for me in this game. In the end I decided not to. I had not met the two players on the other land mass, so I figured I had to go astronomy before Industrialization, and my tempo was decent, but not amazing. Not going futurism (but freedom instead) turned out to be the correct choice, because it took forever to obtain coal. Ife (which I had not puppeted) did have coal, but it already had a mine on it (and then you cannot gift 200 gold to improve it), so I had to wait almost until I hit refrigeration before I finally got some coal.

I puppeted Ragusa and Antwerp, and grew them both to decent sizes, so my end-game science was ok (a little over 900). Tourism output was 428 with hotel and airport, but no national visitor center or Internet yet. For religion, I went tithe, religious community, and swords to plowshares. I did consider the hermitage belief, but even for a game like this it looked kind of weak. Overall my game felt pretty decent, though I generated way too many merchants: I had three customs houses in the end. I also proposed arts funding, which everyone loved of course, though I wonder if even for a game like this sciences funding is actually better.

The victory screen could have been one turn sooner, if I had immediately asked Elizabeth to make peace with Pedro so she would move her ships of the line out of the way for the city I wanted to bulb in .