TSG164 AAR Thread

[Knowtalent]

Welcome to the TSG164 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 ?
- How did you deal with not having Rationalism?

 

[beetle]

I won by SV on T353, score was 1279 raw, 1825 adjusted.

Please attach your final, first play through, .Civ5Save file

Are we no longer using the Civ5 GOTM Submission Form?

Thanks for the very enjoyable game! It was quite tense at the end, as Pacal was sitting at five SS parts for many turns. I purchased four of the parts.

I liked that our starting spot was fairly isolated. I thought I had a small continent to myself for the longest time because my warrior only went a little far north and I thought I saw water.

SIP, then since there were no ruins, I did monument first and skipped scouts. So, shrine, worker, 3x settlers, and 3x workers. Archers after that I think.

Immortal is tough enough that I pretty much took no chances. I kept the psycho neighbor and the far-away-runaway at war (but not with each other) most of the game.

Tech path was for the usual rush to NC (which was kind of late) then workshops to Universities and then Physics for the good UU.

Tradition, Patronage (did not get Forbidden Palace) then Freedom when it finally unlocked. I should have at least opened Piety though, as non of the AI bothered with it. I also closed out Commerce.

I had good relations the whole game, until the end when I forced my religion through.

I easily won WF and IG but I was messing around with Pentagon when ISS came up, and won that only by two (!) hammers. I ended up missing Pentagon by just one turn, but that was okay.

I figured Patronage at least had some science, but it did not come close to making up for Rationalism! I signed as many RA as could, but not with Pacal (since he built PT), and my economy was going well enough that I bought one Public School and all four Labs.

 

[zxcvbob]

Science loss for me on turn 364. I settled in place and started work on a monument (I didn't build any scouts because on ancient ruins, and I figured they would just get killed by barbs) I stole a worker from Yerevan. Didn't build a library right away because I wanted to get my population (science) up a little first, and maybe meet some AI neighbors -- so I would get a bigger boost from the UA. I think I built the library right after Temple of Artemis. ToA was the only early wonder I built; I tried to get to Oracle fast enough to build that one but one of the AI's beat me to it. My other wonders were Big Ben, Prora, and Louvre.

I think I built the NC while my first settler was travelling north to the choke point between the north and south parts of the continent. Then I built a couple of more settlers and settled south by the incense and sheep, and on the east coast.

Social policies were Tradition, Exploration, and Commerce. I took the Autocracy ideology because it was the only one left that wasn't picked, the Statue of Liberty had been built already, and by that point I was still far enough behind the science leaders I thought I might have to kill them. Order was already the world ideology, but I had no coal for factories (and no iron, and eventually no oil, aluminum, nor uranium even tho' I had quite a bit of land, gee thanks Knowtalent) I really didn't struggle that much with happiness until France declared war on me and I started capturing cities. I "just one more turn"d and kept playing and captured Paris and my happiness is something like -12, so I probably ought to switch to Order if I'm going to keep going.

 

[gervond]

Hi All,

Couldn't find the submission form so thought I would comment here for the first time.

Science victory on turn 338. Score 1225. Not sure how to calculate the adjusted score? anybody?

Must have missed no ruins as I did build a scout. Was fighting a war at the end and thought I was screwed but managed to hold pretty OK, didn't loose a city.
I went for honor opener -> full liberty -> full piety so I could buy science buildings with faith which worked out great. Then Liberty and some Commerce ones to build cash to by SS parts.

Nice game !

thanks

 

[Knowtalent]

my primary pc was down so I couldn't load it in to the server It was all I could do to remember my login here

 

[urbis]

Science loss on turn 331. Settled in place, went for Tradition first, ran a very lean empire (2 workers, few military units for most of the game, 2 cities for a long time, then 3).

Late in the game Pacal was way ahead (nearly triple my score at the bottom of the pack, and about 6 techs ahead), so I launched a long-shot attack, despite my military adviser saying Pacal would wipe me off the planet. Sent a decent fleet of subs+destroyers+a battleship+3 carriers, 7 bombers+2 fighters, and about 10 ground units. Attacked, was starting to lose, but hurried an atomic bomb to the front and nuked his capital (feel bad about that), and then just barely managed to take it.

Then had a period of spaceship race with several civs, but realised several were going to beat me to the spaceship. While I tried to get the last 2 techs I needed, I send another assault force towards the Assyrian capital to try to stop them, but they completed the spaceship while the force was in transit.

I usually play a militaristic game, and rarely play through to the end, so this was an enlightening game and I really enjoyed it. In hindsight I think I needed a few more cities early on to get a bit more scale, so perhaps I should have attached a neighbour earlier.

 

[letsgobucs]

Lost to run away Assyrian turn 314.

settled in place went liberty. plan was lib to commerce to freedom. statue of liberty a must have. my thoughts are 6-8 cities running full specialist by turn 250.

Was definitely winnable. some huge blunders on my part
Should maybe have gone great Admiral with liberty finisher to get trading partners earlier and stave off a bad spell of unhappiness at the ren/indo era went great scientist planted.
Not having easy coal was a bad hit. Industrialization around turn 180 but didn't get ideology til too late.
Given that I should have bulbed Radio. I had a SP go off 6 turns before Radio and Paca took freedom given me only one free tangent. order was already off the table. if id have bulged a GS I could have got universal suff about 50 turns before I did. the down hill snowballs for my plan from there.

Pascal gets Statue of liberty. and I lost intl games by 250 hammers to Assyria. around turn 240.
Now after these two blows I lose my mind and totally forget to go plastics. and beeline satellites. and spend 30-50 turns wondering why is my science so low.

Turn 290 Assyrian has 4/6 and I can't get anyone to DOW him. I however pay him to DOW everyone else but it doesn't slow him down.

Anyway, long time lurker first time player had a lot of fun with this. thanks to the folks who put it together.

On a side note I did about 10 playthroughs on random maps with the same rules I could usually get victory on turn 320 with liberty opener. if tradition games bore you, I recommend it. I'm sure there are better players than me that could rock this map with my plan.

 

[golem]

Science victory turn 341.

Peacefull game till turn 300. I did four cities, tradition. All the game I tried to be first in science, but never did. France was the best and when they build SS copcit I decide to conquer Paris with my XCOMs. It took me some time - maybe if I did not do it I would be much faster - but there was risk of science lost.

 

[beetle]

I would love to trim my SV back 20 turns on a replay. Anyone have any clever ideas for that? I was not impressed with Patronage CS science, but maybe did not watch it as closely as I could have. I signed all the RAs I could -- but not with the civ that built Porcelain Tower. And I did a better job than usual with buying the science buildings. Still, without Rationalism, the end game techs took forever. Anyone try Order?

my primary pc was down so I couldn't load it in to the server It was all I could do to remember my login here

So really, you want us to attach a file to this thread?

 

[daheat43]

Science Loss
1941 AD
Turn 361
Base Score 1025
Final Score 1025
Time Played 6:00:01

SO CLOSE. Was five turns from finishing my last part. That was a great game, though. I can't believe I survived til the end -- I was super weak through most of the game. People finally DOWed me around Industrial era, and I thought I was a goner. Blazed forward for a nuclear weapon before non-proliferation passed, which thankfully it then did. Not sure if that had a deterrant effect. A better deterrant was bringing Assyria and others into the war against the Celts, so before I knew it the whole Celtic homeland was irradiated. They stayed at war with me til the end, sending units nearly every turn for my bazookas to kill. I got a few subs out to pillage trade routes, but they always got killed.

That was such a fun race at the end. I've played only a few science games. I really underestimated how well Korea does in science at the end, WOW. I overshot the mark by quite a bit. Could have conceivably won if I hadn't run out of aluminum when Gandhi stopped trading it to me -- had to pause about 6 turns (oh, coincidences) to build recycling centers.

Assyria could've stomped me at any time, but instead they protected me. Man, that was a nail biter at the end. Thanks for the great game.

Just saw these questions:
- How useful was your UA?
Would've been hopeless without it. Didn't help a lot until it REALLY did. I should've turned on specialists earlier... I kind of forgot. Lame.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Yes. I spied a LOT to catch up, getting one of the spaceship techs in the last 20-30 turns.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
It probably helped that I didn't get killed since I was isolated and started slowly. But I wanted someone to conquer early since that's my MO. Prob worked out tho for trading with friends. Definitely helped me survive the war when that began. If I couldn't have killed things in the water, I would've been toast.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Always expected to get stomped but just kept driving at science since that was the goal. I was pretty single minded about that, though didn't play perfectly.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Totally screwed around here. Mixed tradition and Piety for some idea of using a Piety/Patronage combo for science. Realized I didn't have enough culture for that so gave up and went back to finish Tradition. Then went Freedom of course.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Science, straight up, except detour for atomic weapon.

- How did you deal with not having Rationalism?
OMG. That was a challenge. I dealt with it... poorly. ;-)

Further edit: I did make extensive use of Jesuit Whatever to buy buildings, which probably helped a lot. I used one GE to build Hubble, another to build a very late manufactory, and sent one GM to Kyzl for a late friendship and gold (to help get to Spaceship Procurement).

FWIW I reloaded from autosaves twice, once on turn 58 after a crash (something about Alt G for a screenshot, it said), and once on Turn 94 when I stupidly blanked and founded a city on the very turn I was set to start the NC. (Figured I'd rather forgo potential glory by reloading than accept that boneheaded "B" keystroke.)

 

[Kroman]

Science win turn 331. I was quite unhappy with the outcome, but looking at the other posts, it actually does not seem so bad.

I seriously hated the starting position, so decided to move the settler NE and settled on the hill, which gave me access to two wheats...it turned out ok.
In the end only three cities (not much space and luxes for more), Daegu south in the desert for the incense, Kaesong north on the narrow passage, hooking citrus. Resources were crazy - only a little horse, no iron, coal, aluminium, oil - like worst resource availability ever.

I lucked out on Petra - when around T90 I noticed it was still available, I built it in Daegu in the southern desert, barely beating Assyria to it (I think the long early war with France was the reason Assyria lost to Petra). This made a huge difference, as suddenly all the desert and hills around became prime territory, making Daegu a really strong city.

Full tradition into patronage left side for science, more resources and happines. In never take consulates, and I don't really get the idea - if I ever take patronage, I invest enough mony into city states that moving the resting point feels not relevant at all... the science and increased happiness/resources on the other hand help tremendously.

After that I also completed commerce, so happines was totally crazy, help in trade.

For ideology freedom of course - with only 3 cities and Korea, the choice was obvious.

All other leaderes, except the other Korea, took rationalizm - was very surprised at that, until I noticed that other VC are disabled. Made for a tough race.

I played manly peaceful, and it took ages to even meet anyone (somehow I only met France around T100!). The biggest aggresors turned out to be Assyria and Celts. Assyria demolished France a little in the early game. Later they became good order buddies and even double-DOWed me. But it was to late for them, I alread had a science edge with GWBs. Some french cities burned, I kept Avignon with the plan to invade Assyria, but he just made it to flight, so I settled for peace and concentrated on the space race.
In the other continents war was pretty constant, so eventually I won the space race quite safely.

 

[raider980]

Science Loss to the Maya. Turn 345. 1925AD.

I went full Tradition then a little Aestecis and Commerce and then Freedom. I was close but the Maya had the lead the whole game and I just couldn't catch up. I had two spaceship parts when the Maya won.

I had 4 cities and the isolated continent helped. I don't think I've played a game where it took so long to meet someone. Wish I'd have built a couple more cities. There were still good spots left and the other civs later came over and took them. Was friendly with everyone except the Assyrians, who I kept fearing would attack me; especially when the built a city on my continent.

 

[beetle]

I've repeated my TSG163 upload system fix for this game, as Knowtalent didn't upload the file again. As the deadline above was tomorrow, I've extended it on the database to 5 December to allow people to get around to uploading their saves.

I've uploaded TSG 164 with a closing date of 5 December

Thanks very much @AlanH, especially for extending the submission date through the weekend.

 

[socralynnek]

Science win on turn 370 (base 1177, final score 1590)

Wow, that was a surprising and close finish, as my diplomat showed me Pacal would finish the final SS part one turn later...
What helped was, that the ISS was just finished two turns earlier, quite late.
And of course that Assyria was the first there instead of the Maya; I guess that shifted away some hammers from the final space ship part
(I invested 0 into ISS as I was trying to shave off one turn by building "Research" in all my cities)

Had 4 cities, two to the north close to the natural wonders, one to the east. (had to build Harbors at some point for city connections though as Napoleon settled on the choke point close to my capital)

I took 'Order' as all the big civs had it when I was about to chose and at that time I was behind and weak, so I wanted them to be friendly.
And having Great Engineers for finishing SS parts sitting around did help in the end.

Assyria was taking cities from France quite early and they both settled cities on my continent, but that didn't hurt because there my religion was able to spread (quite late though, because I only got one missionary and 1 GP for spreading), I had tithe

I felt so far behind in techs for quite some time that I already was seeing no chance, but gambling by not building more units and keeping the others happy with me and at war surely did help
Although in the end Maya was so large that they were stopping the trend (of me taking over in tech) and Assyria was quite large as well, that worked out.

Thanks for the game, it was very very intense (only my 2nd win on Immortal and didn't think I would do it under such conditions)

 

[beetle]

I would love to trim my SV back 20 turns on a replay. Anyone have any clever ideas for that? I was not impressed with Patronage CS science, but maybe did not watch it as closely as I could have. I signed all the RAs I could -- but not with the civ that built Porcelain Tower. And I did a better job than usual with buying the science buildings. Still, without Rationalism, the end game techs took forever. Anyone try Order?

I did play again, filling out Piety while waiting on an Ideology. Jesuit Education worked better for me than rush-buying the science buildings and I shaved all of nine turns. But those nine turns eliminated all the nail-biting from my first run. By the end game, I consistently ahead in tech and felt no pressure from the AIs. I bought all six SS parts, and was two parts ahead of my nearest competitor.

 

[Elon1106]

Lost all my cities by Ashurbanipal in turn 284. He came with a lot of ships and i had a very weak defence.