TSG 232 After Actions Thread

[vadalaz]

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.

Quick links: Upload submission | Announcement thread | Opening Actions

- Did you play peacefully or warlike?
- Was the UU useful to you? Did you upgrade any Pictish Warriors into Pikemen?
- Did you build any Ceilidh Halls?
- Which Ideology did you choose?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

 

[fiddlesticks]

I decided to follow a Liberty/Piety mix path before a Rationalism/Freedom finish. I bullied the Iroquois and then Portugal a lot, with only 2 Pictish Warriors and 2 archers being enough to raise an annoying Portuguese city and take Onondaga.
I built only 1 Ceilidh Hall, and settled 6 and captured 1 city.

Here are the highlights/milestones:

1:settle gold on hill, pop ruin
5: 55gold
6: barb camps, pantheon (religious idols)
7: pop ruin
10: 20 culture, warrior -> Pictish warrior
11: liberty opener
15: citizenship -> free worker
16: meet Portugal 4gpt <-> gold
20: 60 faith
29: republic
35: DoW Iroquois -> steal settler
38: religion (tithe, pagodas)
40: DoW Vancouver
41: buy archer
43: collective rule
48: clear camp for Kabul
53: buy pagoda
56: steal Iroquois settler

62: G. Library in cap
67: open piety
72: enhance (divine insp./rel. texts)
79: steal Ir. settler, raze Porto (I had been heading to the marble to settle on T56 above and had to delay settling until I could destroy the city)
83: organized religion
84: SH in dublin
85: ToA in cap
98: finish liberty and GE NC in cap

111: reformation (jesuit education)
122: note: had to restart after a crash
127: open rationalism
145: secularism
149: propose science funding

165: scientific theory
176: free thought
178: freedom (food and gp bonus)
183: science funding passed
199: plastics

hard built hubble and used some tributes and building sales on turn 233 to just scrape out enough cash for the last part.

 

[zxcvbob]

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.

Quick links: Upload submission | Announcement thread | Opening Actions

- Did you play peacefully or warlike?
- Was the UU useful to you? Did you upgrade any Pictish Warriors into Pikemen?
- Did you build any Ceilidh Halls?
- Which Ideology did you choose?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

Science victory on turn 346. Mostly I played peacefully. My plan was to play basically a patronage game for the extra food, happiness, and culture, and to control the world congress. I thought I would get more science than I did from Scholasticism but it was insignificant.
At some point late in the game, Maria denounced me even though we were friends. Nobody else liked her and she was at war with Carthage and the Ottomans at the time. I jumped into their war (literally, with a paratrooper) and captured Lisbon. I don't think I ever annexed it, but it made a good puppet city with several nice wonders. Even though it was her last city, nobody cared that I took her out That was my only war and it was over in 2 turns.
Pictish warriors were not particularly useful. It's a great unit, I just didn't need them in this game. I built one or two, and eventually upgraded them to pikes. One got upgraded again to a lancer from an ancient ruin while it was out hunting barbarians.
I built Ceilidh halls in all my cities. I was hurting for happiness about that time because my cities were so large, and that allowed them to keep growing.
I picked Freedom; I did not have enough cities for Order to be worthwhile. I think someone picked Order, and nobody else had an ideology yet.
At the end I had 5 cities. I could have settled one more on the island to the east (it had ivory) but it didn't look like it had enough food, and I wanted to keep all my cities on the mainland. I received a couple of Merchants of Venice and I used one of them to buy Kuala Lumpur to give me a 4th city; it has incense, and Maria kept allying it away from me. Both she and Hiawatha were angry at me for that; they said I destroyed a CS under their protection. That might be what triggered the backstab, but I was looking for an excuse to take her out anyway. I guess MoVs work a little differently when you are not Enrico Dandalo.

 

[Megalou]

I played a peaceful game too, but it was for the last time in a game like this. What you get for being nice to the pitiful prince AI is just a drawn out game that isn't all that amusing for the last 50 turns or so. Oh well, at least I had some fun punishing the Ottoman's for wiping out my research partner Carthage and restoring that gutsy nation to the earth's surface. And I learned (or maybe relearned) how incredibly powerful the radar artillery is, taking down the defense of 40-50 hp towns to zero in one fell swoop.

 

[zxcvbob]

I decided to follow a Liberty/Piety mix path before a Rationalism/Freedom finish. I bullied the Iroquois and then Portugal a lot, with only 2 Pictish Warriors and 2 archers being enough to raise an annoying Portuguese city and take Onondaga.
I built only 1 Ceilidh Hall, and settled 6 and captured 1 city.

Here are the highlights/milestones:

1:settle gold on hill, pop ruin
5: 55gold
6: barb camps, pantheon (religious idols)
7: pop ruin
10: 20 culture, warrior -> Pictish warrior
11: liberty opener
15: citizenship -> free worker
16: meet Portugal 4gpt <-> gold
20: 60 faith
29: republic
35: DoW Iroquois -> steal settler
38: religion (tithe, pagodas)
40: DoW Vancouver
41: buy archer
43: collective rule
48: clear camp for Kabul
53: buy pagoda
56: steal Iroquois settler

[snip]

View attachment 676713

Amazing. I have no idea how you do that. From Plastics to Particle Physics plus Nanotechnology is about 25 techs, maybe 30 depending what early techs you skipped (some of those will only take 1 turn to research but you can't rush those) They got rid of the science overflow snowball a few years ago. Are you doing something like deleting and rebuilding shrines to get a production overflow while producing beakers (or gold)? That doesn't seem like it would be worth the effort, but maybe I should try it. Whatever you're doing, good job!

I've played this several times and my best has been turn 315 with Tradition/Piety/Rationalism/Freedom (5 real cities plus a newly-acquired puppet) and Jesuit Education. I built my first settler immediately after my first scout; starting around turn 5, then built the next settler in my first expo and bought all the rest with gold so my capital could keep growing.

 

[Rhodro]

258 turns liberty/piety/rationalism/freedom/3commerce win.
Had fun with religion. 1st natural profet and hagia sophia got me pagoda's and mosques in every single city. I did make the mistake sometimes that only unimproved forest gives faith. I made a lumber mill on forest and was confused sometime the faith was gone. I wanted to get jesuit education but korea got it before me. So I went glory of god and bought 3 scientist and 2 engineers.
I went freedom and worked all great people slot endgame in every of my 8 city. This creates a huge economy.
I also liked the island to the east, it had soo much fish, creating 2 good cities with great economy. When I got ship factory they had amazing tiles.

Hiawatha was no problem, I bullied him the whole game with 3 pictish warrior and 1 archer. He gave me his cities multiple times in peace deal and in the 3rd war i took his capital. It was hilarious, the dude didn't improve a single tile in his whole empire.

Ceilidl hall was really nice, came at the right time when my 8 cities started to get hapiness starved.

 

[sebtanic]

Oops, I forgot to do the writeup after finishing this game. I took very few notes, so here is what I do have:

Science victory t277.

t0 - moved warrior NW, saw a ruin
t1 - settled on Gold before popping the ruin in case its a pop ruin
t1 - it IS a pop ruin
t6 - ruin: Pottery
t6 - pantheon: Sun God

t45 GL / Philo
t92 HG

Won turn 277 with enough Faith for another Great Scientist left over, which I didn't need. I think I bought all the spaceship parts with gold.

 

[fiddlesticks]

Amazing. I have no idea how you do that. From Plastics to Particle Physics plus Nanotechnology is about 25 techs, maybe 30 depending what early techs you skipped (some of those will only take 1 turn to research but you can't rush those) They got rid of the science overflow snowball a few years ago. Are you doing something like deleting and rebuilding shrines to get a production overflow while producing beakers (or gold)? That doesn't seem like it would be worth the effort, but maybe I should try it. Whatever you're doing, good job!

@zxcvbob My end-game science strategies center on maximizing the GS bulb values, timing natural GS, and using Oxford strategically.

Once I hit Plastics, I want to make sure I can gold or faith buy labs in all cities. In this case, with jesuit ed., I faith bought them, saving the gold for buying parts (without mercantilism).

I'll also try to max specialist slots, work trading posts and switch non-essential production to research for the 7 turns after buying Labs. I'll try to knock off the 1 and 2 turn techs during this waiting period. Then I'll start bulbing the bottom of the tree techs on the way to robotics. I'll time the completion of robotics with Oxford and then take nanotech. Usually I'll use all my faith to buy hopefully 3 GS during this phase.

Then satellites and the top half of the tree. I'll time the completion of LToP, PT, and Hubble to after the 1,000 or 1,100 GS, depending on the science needs.

Before Plastics, I'll usually use 1-2 GS - one to speed up entry into the renaissance if necessary, and one to speed up sci. theory.

 

[helmett]

Won move 352

was late with national college due to brbarian trouble.

Peaceful game, just did the usual turtle with 4 cities, bit of a lazy effort, not much micro managing and just spamming the nest turn button

 

[raider980]

T337 Science Victory. A nice smooth game.

- Did you play peacefully or warlike? -- After killing off Hiawatha, totally peaceful .

- Was the UU useful to you? Did you upgrade any Pictish Warriors into Pikemen? -- Yep, it was useful, got some good faith from them. I eventually upgraded them to Pikes but not right away - I kept them as PW so I could go off and hunt barbs.

- Did you build any Ceilidh Halls? - Lots of them. Tried to get one in every city, easy happiness.

- Which Ideology did you choose? -- Order. With so many cities, Order is best.

- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them? -- 17 total cities, 16 settled and 1 captured (the Iroquois capital).

Continuing from Opening Actions, after NC I founded the rest of my own continent plus the islands off the coast nearby to the east. Then later when I saw no one had settled the large island to the NE and the peninsula to the south of Dido, I sent settlers there too.

A couple of funny things happened:

- I didn't discover Babylon until T189, with a Caravel! I thought they must be on another continent but they were just up in the NW corner of ours!​

- T265 Dido DoW Maria but I didn't want Dido to capture Braga. So I gifted Maria two Gats and they saved the day. Both Maria and Dido were no where near Gats.​

- T275 Maria denounced me! Say what?? After I saved your butt with some advanced troops you turn your back on me. You're lucky I don't feel like warring this game.​

​

I made a lumber mill on forest and was confused sometime the faith was gone.

I didn't even realize this until I read your post. I build lumber mills on all the adjacent forest figuring I'd still get the faith as long as I didn't chop down the forest. Lol, I didn't even realize the missing faith though.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Fun start with Celts and all those forests. I considered God King, but went Sun God on a 5-city tradition empire, which became 6 cities late game when my foreign legions accidentally captured Onondaga. My early game timings were not amazing after going workshops firsts (and getting my first settler captured by barbarians ), but the middle game was decent, with plastics turn 205 having expended a single scientist, and I could buy all labs immediately.

I often don't have the patience to try to play the endgame accurately, and this game was worse than normal. I was getting a bit bored playing against the prince AI, and I'm also used to quick speed so the game felt long. I ended up overshooting both in terms of science and culture (I had the whole Patronage tree finished, and only had Globalization to research), and did not get around to using Oxford. So, there was certainly some fat to be trimmed from my T253 science victory, but not the 20 turns faster that fiddlesticks above managed.

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome to CivFanatics and Game of the Month!!

Thank you for playing and sharing your game with us. Best of luck in future games.

 

[billybgame]

Obviously I have something to learn when it comes to faster Science victories, even though been playing since Civ 1. Turn 400, and some are 150+ turns faster than us, which just boggles my mind. I mean we were doing 1700 science a turn towards end.......we had a very large civ, though played almost totally peacefully. Hiawatha became annoying with Great Prophets so had to declare on him. And he gave me his 2nd city to sue for peace.

But once we got Astronomy, and discovered that nifty nearby island, we were all over that with three more cities. Then another in a prety premo site on the City State isle to the N part of the map. So had probably 15 or so cities.

Maybe I should use earlier great scientists on academies? But highly doubt that's worth 150 turns.

I'd love to know how we are so far behind though. For Prince/King games, this is about how I end up, so nothing out of the ordinary for me. I mean, no matter what difficulty, it takes time to research.

 

[sebtanic]

Obviously I have something to learn when it comes to faster Science victories, even though been playing since Civ 1. Turn 400, and some are 150+ turns faster than us, which just boggles my mind. I mean we were doing 1700 science a turn towards end.......we had a very large civ, though played almost totally peacefully. Hiawatha became annoying with Great Prophets so had to declare on him. And he gave me his 2nd city to sue for peace.

But once we got Astronomy, and discovered that nifty nearby island, we were all over that with three more cities. Then another in a prety premo site on the City State isle to the N part of the map. So had probably 15 or so cities.

Maybe I should use earlier great scientists on academies? But highly doubt that's worth 150 turns.

I'd love to know how we are so far behind though. For Prince/King games, this is about how I end up, so nothing out of the ordinary for me. I mean, no matter what difficulty, it takes time to research.

I don't have time to look it up right now, but I believe having more cities actually slows down your science and culture. Which is a bit counterintuitive but that seems to be the way Civ 5 works.

 

[billybgame]

I was always of the belief that bigger/wider civs had more beakers of science.

However upon Googling, it seems 4 city Tradition builds are what is advocated for faster science wins.

Not sure I understand how/why though.

Tried to quote you sebtanic, but did not seem to work.

 

[zxcvbob]

I was always of the belief that bigger/wider civs had more beakers of science.

However upon Googling, it seems 4 city Tradition builds are what is advocated for faster science wins.

Not sure I understand how/why though.

Tried to quote you sebtanic, but did not seem to work.

Five or 6 cities and Tradition is probably the fastest*, but they all have to be big cities (not necessarily huge) because each city makes the number of beakers per tech go up a little. I'm not sure if it the tech cost goes up if the city is a puppet (I think it does, and puppets don't produce as much science). Four cities is good; 5 is better if you immediately buy an aqueduct in that last city and send it food and production trade routes so it can catch up. If I'm playing as Montezuma and all my cities have floating gardens, sometimes 3-city Tradition is all I have the happiness for because those cities will be monsters.

*there are a few player that can get ridiculously fast science victories using Liberty. I'm not sure how they do it.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Each extra city you own increases the science cost of technologies and of social policies (except if you directly choose raze when you conquer a city). For science cost, it adds 5% per extra city, so a fifth and sixth city would typically be worth it in terms of beakers produced. However, it takes more effort to get those extra cities going: your capital will spend more time building settlers and not growing, so it will be behind in infrastructure, and you might miss out on wonders. In addition, those extra cities will also need workers (and in case of tradition, monuments and aqueducts), and you need to find extra happiness to keep all your cities growing. On top of it all, the AI will hate it when you settle many cities, so going wide is a sure way to get yourself warred on the higher difficulty levels.

So by going wide, you sacrifice early game tempo for late-game beakers. In my (extensive though not quite expert) opinion, the optimal number of cities for tradition would be 5 (maybe 6 in rare occasions), and for Liberty 7 or 8 (though I'm not much of a Liberty player).

 

[billybgame]

Interesting...seems I've always done science wrong then. Well, I'm always a wide player so it's probably more my style that makes my science slow down.

I just can't stand seeing undeveloped land sitting waiting to be settled on. That's what happened in this one. That close by island had at least 3 city sites. Plus our own area had room for 8 or more I think.

I knew that policies was slowed by each city....but was not even aware of science slowing. No wonder I never do well in science wins. I will have to give it another try sometime soon.

I still would go wide with culture wins, I think...even though it costs more for policies. If using Sacred Sites method....the more Pagodas/Mosques/Cathedrals you can build, the better, right?