TSG 230 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?

 

[fiddlesticks]

Culture victory turn 209 (1490 AD)

Peaceful for most of the game followed by a war of retribution and liberation against the tyrant Napoleon. Early war with Theodora netted 3 workers. No city-state wars at all this game.

Tech path: Pottery, Mining, AH, Masonry, Calendar, BW, Writing. Opened Renaissance through Astronomy (3/4 Observatory Cities), then to Printing Press (turn 123 via bulb). Sci. Theory (141), Oxford into Plastics (169), Finish Rationalism to Internet (194)

Social policies: Tradition -> Aesthetics (open +2) -> Rationalism (open t121) + secularism t134) -> Freedom (specialist food + great people) -> flourishing of the arts (147) -> free GA (159) -> humanism (167 - world fair bonus) -> free thought (168) -> volunteer army (173) -> finish aesthetics (179), ->broadcast tower bonus and GE CN Tower ~190. Won International Games turn 197.

Napoleon killed off William turn 148, and after a bunch of denunciations I joined that band wagon turn 158. I declared war right around Plastics (170) and liberated Utrecht, kept Amsterdam, Constantinople, and one French city before taking Paris and two more French cities in a peace deal, followed by a huge payment to France for open borders, and a trade route. My faith was low all game so I had to wait 6-7 turns to buy a Great Musician. Using the second GE for the CN Tower was a mistake that could have saved those turns. The GM bulbed over 5700 tourism and swamped everyone on turn 209, so a smaller bulb 5 or so turns earlier, even without the CN tower would have done the trick. I only really needed a Broadcast Tower in the capital and I could have just bought that.

 

[sebtanic]

Won CV turn 297.

Unlike some others, I wasn't the first to find El Dorado When I stumbled upon it, a Chinese scout was already standing next to it. Tough luck!

I turtled peacefully in our little corner of the continent with 4 cities until I had researched Plastics and Refrigeration. At that point it became clear that Theodora's culture was too high to become influential in a decent time frame. I think I was still "unknown" to her at that time, or maybe Exotic but rising very slowly. So I researched Dynamite and prepared an army for invasion.

However, Theodora DOWed me first. I easily repelled her attack and then went to capture the closest of her cities, Nicaea. She came back at me with a very strong army though, so instead of losing Nicaea again, I made peace.

I did consider finishing the game peacefully, but decided it would probably take longer than eliminating Byzantium entirely.

I tried to get France or China to attack Byzantium, but they wouldn't have it. Fortunately, just before our peace deal expired, Theodora declared war on France of her own accord.

With Napoleon helping out from the eastern flank, I took the rest of her cities with an army consisting of Rocket Artillery, Tanks, Mech Infantry, and a squadron of Bombers. 2 Carriers, 2 Battleships and 2 Nuclear Submarines helped to take out her last 3 cities that were on islands.

List of wonders I built (captured many of the remaining ones, along with loads of great Works, from Byzantium):
t88 Oracle
t155 Sistine Chapel
t... lost Uffizi to Byzantium
t205 Eiffel Tower
t225 lost Statue of Liberty to China by 2 turns
t... Sydney Opera House (with the help of a Faith bought GE)
t248 CN Tower (natural GE)
t295 Louvre. Theodora has 3 island cities south of Antioch remaining at this point
t297 Neuschwanstein (GE'd)
t297 eliminated Byzantium and won

I was curious whether a peaceful strategy would have been faster (i.e. without eliminating Byzantium), so I reloaded a saved game from turn 277. With open borders, a diplomat, and a trade route to Byzantium, I was scheduled to become influential in turn 298... IF Theoora had stayed peaceful But 3 turns before that date, turn 295, Theodora DOWed me. This cancelled all the Tourism bonuses so I could at the earliest have won 20 turns later, when the next Great Musician was due.

 

[raider980]

Lost to Ram with a Diplo Victory T301 because I'm an idiot. Well, not really because I was going to lose anyway. But Ram won because I'm an idiot. It was clear I was going to lose because Theodora was relentless in her hatred of the Korean Empire and would not make peace except in return for all of my non-capital cities. Ever since learning of the white peace bug, I don't make peace without clicking "What deal will end this conflict?", and Theodora just wouldn't budge. Before learning of the white peace bug I would always wonder why the AI would accept white peace when they were clearly stronger and even when they were about to take your city. But it is much more fun this way; the AI is still bad at combat but at least they can overwhelm you with units.

Spoiler Military Strength :

So how did Ram win? Because I voted for him as WL with my 4 measly votes to try and curry his favor so maybe he would give me some better trade deals. I failed to look at the votes he had vs. the votes needed. He had all the CS, World Ideology and my 4 votes put him over the top. Ram may have won anyway. It was between him and Theodora. I was actually just continuing to play to see who would win.

Continuing from T104 in the Opening Actions thread, I was simply growing my cities and trying to get as much science as possible. Then Napoleon even warned me that Theodora was marching towards Seoul; and it soon became clear he was correct.

Spoiler T157 :

I didn't want to fight her yet so I bribed Napoleon to attack her. It worked and she did turn her army around.

I was doing well, or so I thought. At some point I was surprised to see that I had taken the science lead; a lot earlier than I would have thought. I figured this would keep me safe from more attacks. Happiness was an issue because I was the only one who had gone Freedom - oh, yes! on T216 China joined me in Freedom. But then on T234 a joint DoW came from Theodora and Genghis.

Spoiler T234 :

Spoiler Six turns later I knew I was in trouble. :

Even though I was the tech leader, by quite a bit - I had Infantry and Bombers way earlier than anyone else, which kept me from totally being destroyed, my four cities couldn't produce enough units to keep up with the 30 or so cities that Theodora and Genghis had between them. Plus, Theodora had allied the two CS nearest me and they kept helping her in her attack. I had also stupidly failed to upgrade my units as I discovered new technology. And I had no money and because I couldn't get any trade routes out and was unhappy to boot.

T294 I thought maybe I would have a second chance; Genghis offered my 11 gpt for peace. Not sure why, but I checked for the white peace bug and he legit wanted to give me gold for peace. I said sure! But it was too little too late. Theodora was just too powerful. And she was getting bombers and Rocket Artillery online. She had reduced China to one city a while back so she could now concentrate all her military might on me. I only hoped to survive long enough to see who would win the game. That's when I made my stupid mistake. I think I'll go back and do that turn over just to see what would have happened; I think Ram would still have won, he also was the AI tech leader and could have won a Diplo or Science Victory. A very fun game despite the loss!

Spoiler Ram is Victorious :

 

[sebtanic]

Lost to Ram with a Diplo Victory T301

Wow, I forgot Ram was even in the game. In my game he got completely wiped out by Japan

Fortunately I was DoF with Genghis for most of the late game. He also kept Japan in check who were plotting against me, reportedly.

 

[raider980]

Wow, I forgot Ram was even in the game. In my game he got completely wiped out by Japa

It always amazes me how the same initial conditions can lead to vastly different results. It was the exact opposite in my game; Ram nearly wiped out Japan; Oda only has one city left on a tiny island. And all this happened on the other continent so it’s not like the player did something to cause the difference.

 

[Rhodro]

Culture victory turn 241

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? Did you use your UU?
France dow-ed me early midgame, my military was small and super outdated. Quickly I made 2 hwacha and they helped defending, together with some warrior-line defenders. We had a white peace pretty quickly, but in the later parts of the game I decided he had to go, because he was starting to swallow the continent and I didn't want him to runaway. In the end I wiped him off the map because he also had tons of culture, together with rammy and china. I couldn't send my musician bombs to all 3 of them so France had to go.
I made 1 turtle ship, because I wanted to explore the sea. It was very annoying they can't go in ocean. I actually used an embarked scout to find and explore the other continents, so I was quite lucky to find them quickly with that scout.. Could have wandered around the sea for ages..

- What technologies did you prioritize?
Internet, after that military techs to wipe France. I did prio nukes a bit and bought 2 but didn't need them in the end.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
3/5 Rationalism like normal, then freedom till tourism bonus from broadcast towers. Then aesthetics till finish. Then back to freedom for 6 free military units. I opened exploration for louvre. Finished rationalism to pop nanotech.

- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?
6 korean cities including capital. I got amsterdam from france, lyon and paris because they had wonders. I sold the other cities to other AI. Sold one to rammy for easy access with great musicians.

Have to say that rammy was pretty annoying, anytime I couped a CS, he bought it back. He was definitely trying to get doplimatic win and he got decently close.
China had surprisingly strong culture, she was the last to overcome.
My economy midgame was not good, I had only money to buy 2 labs for example, 1 factory, even while taking loans from AI. Had to hard build a lot. I'm not sure if liberty was the best play. At the start it looked strong because there was enough luxes around, but in midgame it became a gold problem ( I guess building upkeep) I also did not have enough early culture for the tradition opener, that would have saved me a lot in border growth.
I had a religion with pagoda's and mosques. This was a mistake, I did not have the faith engine to buy 2 buildings. Korea goes so fast in science that every era goes by very fast, and all of a sudden the buildings cost 500. I coudn't buy them anymore, cause I had to save up for musicians. In the end my 6 cities had a pagoda but 0 mosques i think.

Spoiler final screenshot :

 

[Megalou]

Science loss to France. I'm a culture noob and couldn't really sort out what to do, so there was some war, some culture, some science, and a lot more faith than I've ever had before. "Rammy" became an absolute cultural giant and France was eventually too powerful for me to mess with and so sent off their rocket on turn 320. Interestingly, though, they didn't declare war on me once.

So in the next culture game I will have to focus better on what to do and what not to do. For example, I seem to have waged war more than everyone of you who has posted - very impressed by the way! - capturing virtually all of Byzantium and China. This did put me in control of around 15 wonders except the ones I built myself, but they probably came into play too late in the game.

 

[zxcvbob]

I also lost science to France on turn 316. I honestly don't know why he didn't launch sooner; he had all but one part assembled and then putzed around building beakers in Paris for a while even though he was at 80 techs. Maybe he was building the last part in a low-production city.

My plan was to play it like a science game and beeline Internet, then come back and research Radar (airports) and Computers (Great Firewall) I did 5-city Tradition, Aesthetics, Rationalism, and Freedom. I almost never play at deity level, so didn't really know what to expect other than war. But my only war was when I stole a worker from Theodora in the ancient era and plundered 2 of her caravans. She guarded her workers after that so I couldn't steal another one so I made peace. I was friends with everyone for almost the whole game. (I'm sure that would have changed real fast if I proposed repealing Order as the world ideology)

In the very early game, I did somehow find El Dorado first, and I used the 500 gold to buy a settler to plant my 2nd city on the west coast next to the natural wonder. I got the first or second religion from that. (God-King, Tithe, Pagodas, Religious Texts, and the hermitage one) Next I settled on the gems to the south, then the coastal river tile to the west, and finally next to the ivory in the north west. Perhaps I should have settled *on* the ivory and gotten one more fish tile in range, but I would have lost a wheat tile that way so it's probably a wash. Everything rocked along just fine, it just took me forever to catch the AIs in science, which means they got all the Renaissance wonders. I pulled ahead (barely) in the atomic era, but then Napoleon zoomed ahead of me and built the Great Firewall and started building spaceship parts every 2 or 3 turns. I had to take Treaty Organization to prevent China from getting a diplo victory; for a while she was allied to all the CSs and had the world ideology, so about 2 votes shy of winning. I eventually managed to ally about half the CSs, which also kept my happiness afloat.

IIRC, the wonders I got were Hanging Gardens, Oracle, Statue of Liberty, Neuschwanstein, and Hubble. China beat me to Sidney Opera House by 2 turns. I don't remember who beat me to Petra, but that one was close too. (I didn't expect to get Petra but I had to try it, and the gold was handy)

 

[Megalou]

Thanks for an interestong story, @zxcvbob !
I was wondering why you mentioned Great Firewall. This has always been one of the least interesting wonders to me regardless of victory type. I mean, tech thefts gets rarer in the last two eras anyway, so how can the Great Firewall affect the result?

 

[zxcvbob]

Thanks for an interestong story, @zxcvbob !
I was wondering why you mentioned Great Firewall. This has always been one of the least interesting wonders to me regardless of victory type. I mean, tech thefts gets rarer in the last two eras anyway, so how can the Great Firewall affect the result?

I didn't care about late-game tech thefts. Great Firewall also counteracts the tourism bonus from Internet, and I didn't want one of the AIs to get that.

 

[Megalou]

I didn't care about late-game tech thefts. Great Firewall also counteracts the tourism bonus from Internet, and I didn't want one of the AIs to get that.

Thanks. it make perfect sense if you are an autocratic regime .

 

[letsgobucs]

Turn 292 victory.
I decided to try liberty and went too wide 7 cities. I took mosques over pagodas. Theodora snuck settler and stole some cotton I was counting on. Battled unhappiness for too many turns.
France beat me to uffuzi so I went to plan B unlocking exploration. I was late to the archeoology sites over half the AI b lined archheology. Plan C fully unlocking exploration.
Theodora ended up pissing off all her neighbors and I claimed nicacia for the cotton near the end.
In the end had too much science I could have xcommed the ais

Had an interesting event happen where I flipped a city from the lonely Mongols and pillaged its works and sold it back for gpt.

In the end dowed france for a musician bomb.

 

[raider980]

Just for fun, I went back and played from my stupid mistake of voting for Ram (see above). And Ram still won a diplo victory, this time on T345. At least I was able to fight back and retake my city of Jeonju and one Byzantine city in that time.