TSG179 AAR

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the TSG179 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 and settings?

 

[Nizef]

Original game plan out the door on t3...

 

[Suliz]

Well, that didn't go well. I gave up around turn 262.

Highlights along the way:
1. Turn 61 - Finally cleared out that barb camp that spawned three hexes from the capital.
2. Did actually manage to catch France in Science late in the game.

Lowlights:
1. I had city states that met me, rather than the other way around.
2. I was the first civ that France become influential over. Not surprising, given that they had built every wonder possible (almost literally)
3. About 6 turns before finishing all the universities, I decide to build a fifth city (SW corner of the continent, NW of the oysters). I planted the new city literally the turn before I could start building Oxford.

How useful was your UA?

A little, my fourth city was planted to make some use of it.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Since I behind most of the game, I was able to steal a bunch of techs (4 or 5 I would think), and no one complained!

Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

One city state!!!

Which Ideology did you choose?

Autocracy - I had no choice. France had picked it, so if I had gone Freedom I would have been crippled.

What did you think of the map and settings?

I like raging barbs (at least once in a while anyway)
It was frustrating when I could see from the score that one country was pulling away and there was nothing I could even try to do to catch them.

I admit to not playing above emperor very often, but I will be interested to see how people managed to win.[/QUOTE]

 

[zxcvbob]

I'm coming to this thread a little early; It's turn 396 and I am pretty sure I will achieve a science victory in just a few turns. I usually play at emperor level, and immortal is a stretch for me. I opened Honor first because of the barbs and then did 4-city Tradition. I actually managed to get a religion, which let me buy a couple of scientists. I skipped the shrine for the longest time but settled my second city up near that holy mountain; bought the mountain tile and locked it.

My first wonder was Statue of Liberty.

I overshot the tech tree just a little, and I'm building the last two spaceship parts while researching Lasers on my way to Stealth. I was originally going for a diplomatic victory, but Harald seems to be doing the same thing, and I have a slight lead but we are mostly deadlocked. I had a tech lead (finally!!) and nobody else was seriously pursuing science victory so I switched gears and I think it's going to work. My other 2 cities are building missile cruisers, atomic bombs, and X-COM as fast as they can. Napoleon is pushing both culture and domination, of course. I bribed him to attack my buddy Gandhi and I thought that would be a quagmire but he's somehow taking down 175-strength cities without much trouble. But it should keep him distracted long enough for me to win. I'll post a write-up tonight or tomorrow when it's over.

 

[zxcvbob]

I'm coming to this thread a little early; It's turn 396 and I am pretty sure I will achieve a science victory in just a few turns. I usually play at emperor level, and immortal is a stretch for me. I opened Honor first because of the barbs and then did 4-city Tradition. I actually managed to get a religion, which let me buy a couple of scientists. I skipped the shrine for the longest time but settled my second city up near that holy mountain; bought the mountain tile and locked it.

My first wonder was Statue of Liberty.

I overshot the tech tree just a little, and I'm building the last two spaceship parts while researching Lasers on my way to Stealth. I was originally going for a diplomatic victory, but Harald seems to be doing the same thing, and I have a slight lead but we are mostly deadlocked. I had a tech lead (finally!!) and nobody else was seriously pursuing science victory so I switched gears and I think it's going to work. My other 2 cities are building missile cruisers, atomic bombs, and X-COM as fast as they can. Napoleon is pushing both culture and domination, of course. I bribed him to attack my buddy Gandhi and I thought that would be a quagmire but he's somehow taking down 175-strength cities without much trouble. But it should keep him distracted long enough for me to win. I'll post a write-up tonight or tomorrow when it's over.

I just finished the game; science victory on turn 402.

- How useful was your UA?
Terrace farms were very helpful in my #2 city. The rest of the UA and UU, not so much. But the terrace farms in that one city might have been a game-changer, I don't know. The lower roads costs helped a lot during the classical era when I was running negative GPT for a while, but once I got my economy going was not a bit deal.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
I put my first spy in Buenos Aries and left him there almost the whole game. I think I stole one tech with my second spy, then used all my spies for CS influence.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
Gandhi being the only AI on my continent meant I didn't have to expand quite so quickly. That fits with my playstyle.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I don't know. I don't play Immortal very often.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Honor opener, then full Tradition, Exploration opener and the extra hammers one, Rationalism, and Freedom(9). I also opened Commerce really late just to unlock Big Ben when I noticed nobody had built it.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Astronomy (I had 2 good cities that needed observatories), Replaceable Parts, Plastics, Refrigeration, Robotics, Advanced Ballistics.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
I enjoyed it.

 

[choraltrickster]

Game:Civ5 GOTM 179
Game status:Science Loss
Game date:1977AD
Turns played:397
Base score:1052
Final score:1052
Time played:2:43:00
Submitted save: Pachacuti_0397 AD-1977.Civ5SaveRenamed file:choraltrickster_C517901.Civ5Save

Very enjoyable, yet frustrating game. I had never played with Raging Barbs before, and have learned how crippling it is to a decent start. It seemed I was killing barbs around my capital forever before I could start expanding--not ideal for Liberty. Trying to set up maritime trade really set me back also. Eventually things got going ok. I had 6 cities on the starting continent. I built Oracle, Machu Picchu, Porcelain Tower, Big Ben, and Neuchwanstein. Unfortunately, France snowballed on their own continent and was doubling all other players in score by turn 220 (and won with a score of 4300+). Eventually they took most of the third continent from the other five Civs, with only Carthage having any relevance. I went Liberty/Commerce/Patronage with hopes of a strong economy and a peaceful and prosperous relationship with India that would help fuel a Diplomatic Victory. I, along with near everyone else, were forced to join France taking Autocracy (I initially adopted Freedom, but it didn't last). India went Order, and managed to hold off France's culture victory after they swept the other Civs with their culture with ease. Had I decided to conquer India my game would have ended 100+ turns earlier with a French Cultural Victory. In the late game I raced to try and win over all of the city states. I maxed gold production and GMs and sucked up my allies gold with loans. I came to within three City States of a diplomatic victory but couldn't get it done. France launched in 397 to end it. I never went to war once and ended the game with my initial warrior, never upgraded.

- How useful was your UA?
Built four terrace farms. Not game changing, but helped build a solid city in the interior near Uluru.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Yes. I spied almost exclusively on France as they were well ahead in tech all game. Once I was making my push with patronage, I had all my spies in City States.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
SIP capital was a pretty weak start, and the regional terrain was not great either. Having only India on the start continent slowed progress as other Civs benefitted from being on a continent together. France used its isolation to its full advantage.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
I usually pay Immortal/Deity, so it was in line with my usual play. I would have liked to have settled one or two more cities but was too slow to find anywhere worthwhile.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Filled Liberty, Commerce, and Patronage. Opened Rationalism as soon as it was available. Opened Tradition after filling Liberty, with Commerce still not open. Tried to run Freedom but had to switch to Autocracy, and only took two policies.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Focused on economy for the most part, with an early game focus on Oracle to finish Liberty and saving the Great Engineer for Machu Picchu.

- What did you think of the map and settings?[/QUOTE]
Loved them. I prefer to play Standard/Standard on Immortal, on Continents/Pangaea/Terra, so this was right up my alley. Would love to see every GoTM in line with these settings.

 

[raider980]

T375 Science Victory.

I initially moved the settler to the hill next to the mountain. But that didn't look very good so I moved it back to the original location and settled there (lost 2 turns, lol). Here's a rundown of highlights.

• My scout found the sweet mountain range so I built my second city near Uluru on T66.
• Built the NC next.
• T128 Third city, Machu, up north to get two more luxes. For some reason the beginning of this game sped by and I didn't realize how late it was getting.
• T190 I settled the fourth, Ollantaytambo, east of the capital. I wasn't even going to settle another city but decided to do it only to prevent some AI from taking the lux there.
• T235 Carthage started going on a rampage. I had bribed Dido to attack a couple other civs because I didn't want her attacking me, she had Frigates and Privateers off my coast and all I had was Galleas so I was getting worried. She ended up taking almost her whole continent, only 3 other cities were left at the end.
• T245 France builds 3 cities on my continent that I didn't notice until this point. But they were way up north so I didn't care that much.
• T325 Everything was friendly until T325 when out of the blue Napoleon DoW's me. Big mistake I made was letting him ally Buenos Aires before he DoW, it was right in the middle of my empire and caused even more problems. I had almost no army and couldn't move troops north because of Buenos Aires so Napoleon almost got Machu. But I ramped up my military quickly and was able to take all 3 of his cities on my continent by T348. Razed 2 and only kept Brest.

- How useful was your UA?

• There was one nice mountain range but I only got one city by it because of lack of luxes. That was a sweet city though.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

• I was behind a lot of the game so I did steal a few techs. But it was annoying - and hilarious - because three different times my spy had to flee a city because Carthage took it out shortly before I was going to get the steal, once I only had one more turn left.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

• It probably ended up helping because there was only India on my continent. If Carthage or France had been on the same continent it would have been much more difficult. Carthage was very aggressive and France would have had more units to attack me with when he DoW'd.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

• Immortal is my normal level so I played a little loose knowing I could win.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?

• I took Full Tradition then put a few in Patronage (I've recently realized the power of the first few policies in Patronage so I take it almost all the time now). Then went into Rationalism until Ideologies where I took Freedom. I went back and finished Rationalism after a few Freedom tenets.

Spoiler Social Policies and Ideological Tenets :

- What techs did you prioritize ?

• I was going for a science victory from the beginning so I mostly beelined the science techs. And I built NC with only two cities (normally I wait for 3 or 4).

- What did you think of the map and settings?

• I liked the map but wished there were more mountains for Inca's UA. And I would have liked Ruins, we've played with no ruins for a while, not sure why - is it to normalize the game? Its not really a competition anymore though and I'm hoping for ruins in the Deity game because I'll need them.

Spoiler Final map and demographics :

 

[RHA_GTM]

Science victory
Turn 402
Final score 1290

I settled one tile to the left on the plains. That gave me enough early production to build Stonehenge, Hanging gardens and The Great mosque of Djenne. My original plan for my religion was to boost my economy to support a large early army and go for a domination victory. But after a while I've only met Ghandi and he was going all out on piety. So I decided to go for a science orientaded religion instead. I took desert folklore, interfaith dialogue, pagodas, +1 food from shrines and temples and 30% cheaper missionaries. Missionaries gained me over 10 techs with Interfaith dialogue (I actually calculated that by compairing the science gain from a conversion with the amount of science I needed for the current tech). And they helped me shave off one turn for the final tech I needed for my spaceship. Also I was able to buy with faith: 2 scientists, an engineer, a great general (to gain acces to aluminium) and a great writer (to reach the 3rd Order policy which allowed me to build spaceship parts with engineers) It was a really fun road to victory. It might not have been the most efficient way, but really fun.

- How useful was your UA?

Not so much. My 2nd city next to Uluru benefitted from the terrace farms and I was able to connect it to my capital with maintanance free roads,despite my very poor economy. However, it was absolutely not a game changer for me. I feel I benefitted more from slingers, as I was able to clear almost all barb camps on the continent with just 2 slingers and gained an early alliance with Buenos Aires along the way..

- Did you use spying to your advantage?

Spies let me steal about 4-5 techs. Missionaries gained me over 10 techs with Interfaith dialogue.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?

There were no early trade routes available with other Civs for science, so that was a bummer. Being on an island with peacefull Ghandi did have its advantages though, as I totally neglected my army and didn't get punished for it.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?

Interfaith dialogue is way stronger at this difficulty level than on lower difficulties. AI cities will be huge VERY fast. Which means more science from conversions (followers of other religion * missionary strength / 100).
I was involved with diplomacy quite a lot, because I know I needed some powerfull friends to survive.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?

First I unlocked Liberty to reach the free fast-working worker, which I needed for Stonehenge.
Then I unlocked Honor to fight off the barbarian invasion.
Right after that I unlocked Tradition to build Hanging gardens. Next I chose the golden age at liberty for extra production during wonder building and before settling my 2nd and 3rd city.
Then I unlocked piety and almost finished it to boost buying missionaries.
Later I unlocked rationalism, off course. I chose the first 3 useful policies to boost my science output.
I was almost the last one to pick an ideology. I picked order as France picked it and so did almost the rest of the world. Dido picked autocracy and got wiped out, Ghandi picked Liberty and lost all cities except his capital. Only Assyria picked order too and got wiped out anyway.

- What techs did you prioritize ?

The ones that got me the wonders and the scientific buildings.

- What did you think of the map and settings?

I likes the difficulty very much as it makes the game very challeging to me.

It did feel like a stolen victory. At turn 375 France was going to win a cultural victory nu turn 395. Somehow The Shoshone were able to hold France off till turn 404 (I won at 402). And France also needed only 2 more spaceship parts by turn 375. Somehow I won, while being in 4th place scientifically. Though France did go bankrupt every turn for about 20 turns as I turned Denmark and The Shoshone against him and I diverted my trade routes. Might just have been enough...

 

[leif erikson]

Welcome to CivFanatics and Game of the Month.

Thanks for posting about your game. Best of luck in future games.

 

[fizyk111]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 179
Date submitted: 2019-03-12 22:22:59
Reference number: 36394
Your name: fizyk111
Game status: Culture Loss
Game date: 2026AD
Turns played: 453
Base score: 1467
Final score: 1467
Time played: 16:15:00
Submitted save: TSG179_end.Civ5Save
Renamed file: fizyk111_C517901.Civ5Save

Not the bed score for looser.
I was behind from the very begining. Gaining momentum somtime in 20th century.
I have survived war with two biggest powers, probably for the reason of their priorities.
I have enjoied the game very much, hoping for survival to the very end.

 

[so_what]

I gave up about 230t.

Progresses:
3 city NC about 120t
4th city about 130t
Education about 150t
Industrialization about 220t

I gave up because at the speed of development is too slow. France looked really unstoppable. (Edit: looking at the earlier posts it seems that SV would still be possible if another civ managed to slow down French's cultural dominance). Anyway, it didn't really help that i was stuck in a pretty bad relationship with India (having stole workers from the City State it was protecting). I got backstabbed by India and had to bribe France to attack it.

- How useful was your UA?
It was still okay, but the lack of lux means that you cant really use it to full potential

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Yes.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The Map is really bad. Raging barbs, lack of lux, lack of city states, lack of civs on the same contienent, and lack of ruins is something that I'm not used to.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
It is more of map setting than difficulty, I don't remember immortal being this hard if played on standard pangea.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Tradition,Patronage and Rationalism, have yet to unlock idelogy but would probably follow the French

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Science techs

- What did you think of the map and settings?
It is interesting

 

[socralynnek]

Gave up on turn 239 (due to lack of time and also not convinced I can turn this to a win)

Survived the raging barbs, made a lot of culture points via honor, but took some time until I had 4 cities up and running.

Had the same surprising thing, a city state that was a little away that found me.
Made contact with most of the other civs when World congress was founded.

Wasn't last in score when I retired (India was)
France had twice the score of number 2.

It looked like I would slowly catch up, but I doubt that this would be fast enough to turn this into a win.

Thanks for the map, quite a challenge, but maybe with some different focus setting (e.g. trying to find the rest earlier), the position could have been much better...

 

[flairin]

I stopped playing at turn 170 after defeating India. I just didn't find the time to keep playing. I had many of my own cities up and a continent to myself!

 

[so_what]

Replayed this game over the weekend for 321t SV.

I handled the early game much better by making friend with India early. The trades of iron and horses managed to keep my economy floating till I connected the cities, wiped the barbarians and meet the other Civs. India also had an early religion from Stonehenge and spread Pagoda to me which was pretty cool too.

Social policies -
Tradition opener, full liberty, patronage opener, exploration (first row), then rationalism and order.

Tech -
Beelined to Astronomy, then Industrialization, then Plastic.

Early game was pretty bad since you can't use most of the water lux due to the raging barbs. I've only managed to get Astronomy at 170t+. By mid game though, once the barbs get cleared and you meet the other civs things get significantly better. The hammers and happiness from exploration also helped significantly for my later cities to catch up.

Ideology (order) about 240t, plastic at 282t. Finished building research labs at about 295t. The remaining of the game is just the standard GS bulbing routine. Won SV at 321turn