TSG202 After Action

[leif erikson]

Welcome to the TSG 202 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?

 

[Travizuma]

It's worse than I suggested. I won't say too much because I don't want to break the rules, but basically, I sent a worker to escort a settler...instead of a warrior....and it ended disastrously. I admit that in addition to my mistake, I may have initiated a stupid rage war with another civ........

Moderator Action: Moved to After Action thread, sorry it wasn't up earlier. leif

 

[Travizuma]

@leif erikson Thanks for moving me here where I belong. I'm going to faithfully continue this game, but I'm realizing more and more how many mistakes I have made...learning a lot!

 

[leif erikson]

You're welcome. Learning is the name of the game!

 

[Jovan Kukic]

Turn 259 Cultural victory.
This was my first Civ5 Cultural victory ever, because I never tried tourism game before I usually go for space or diplomacy, because I can achieve these earlier. I learned some new things, like factors which influence tourism.
I tried to play peacefully, until I realized Austria has too many wonders and too strong culture. During peaceful phase, I was attacked by Indonesia, and repelled their attacks. Our last war started just before my discovering of Infantry, which helped me to crush their invasion force. I could take one of their cities for peace, but took high ca$h per turn instead, because I had low happiness. That Indonesian defeat sealed their fate, because Portugal attacked and conquered them soon after that. I attacked Austria and took their capital and one more city, taking almost all of their World wonders. That caused others to hate me. Portugal and Korea attacked me. Actually, timing of their attack was good for me, because that assured my success in preventing Korea to maybe achieve Science victory. Portugal not only had weaker units than me, but also used them badly, so they suffered heavy losses at the beginning, including swimmers killed by my southern fleet. I made peace with Austria and airlifted land units to help my southern fleet to conquer Korea, which included most of former Zulu lands. Russia also declared war on me, but with marginal clashes. I took SPB from Russia for peace. Portugal had only 1 city after war. Austria and Shoshone also attacked me, but I ignored Shoshone because I guessed they lack art because they had lost their capital for long time before they recaptured it. I only repelled Shoshone attacks, but mostly focused on Austria, destroying 3 Spaceship parts during land conquests. Austria had some success during first turn of war which was similar to Pearl Harbour, but on open sea. They damaged and even sunk some of my ships using airplanes and fleet, but the rest of my fleet retaliated and sunk many of their ships, and even conquering some cities. My toursim grew over their culture, and I won
UA was only partially useful, that increased GP birth rate.
I used spies mostly in CS, and later also as diplomats to increase tourism.
Map type was OK for combined land-sea invasions. Austria is the opponent which can be strong if isolated with CS only, as in this game, and that made me problems forcing me to attack them in order to win.
Game difficulty caused me to fail many World wonder races. My need for conquest was increased by this.
This was the first time I opened whole Culture and Explore branches in social politics tree. I took Freedom, Indonesia Autocracy, and others Order, unfortunately.
I prioritized techs for cultural and scientific buildings and wonders.
Map and settings were nice, but I'm not used to quick. Cultural game is new to me, so quick only affected my military feeling.

 

[fiddlesticks]

I had never tried a non-gimmicky (i.e. Spain sacred sites) culture victory before and I ended up spending a TON of time on this one, trying the original save file multiple times. On my second time through I ended up with a turn 233 victory. I tried to go wide with a sacred sites religion, founding 9 and eventually capturing Surabaya (Gajah forward settled me) Vienna and Graz. In the end, I think going wide sacrifices science for too long and that the better strategy would be to go tall with maybe 5 cities and get to Telecommunications for the National Visitor's Center and Internet faster. Once you reach those the game is over in just a handful of turns if you've got a few good cultural wonders.

 

[Rhodro]

Won at turn 189. Never gifted a great person to CS and didn't use a single unique unit. Didn't need it.
Only settled 3 cities on the coast. Got most of the culture wonders, got like 10 artifacts from digging them up. In the end tourism with the international games was above 700 and only korea was gonna take like 8 more turns. Didnt wanna wait so I bombed his only city with battleships and captured it. I used 1 concert tour on austria.
Didn't make a military at all basically, didn't have a single war except the short one with korea at the end.
Leading almost all demographics almost all the time. Enemies were so far behind in tech that i could pretty much build any culture / tourism wonder i wanted.
I was amazed this game was such smooth sailing to victory with only 3 cities. I did get the internet tech at the end with the free tech from rationalism. Didn't even have radar yet for the tourism from airport.
Oh and also, didn't even do the culture festival from the united nations. Only passed votes was faster cultural people, my religion as world religion and international games.
My religion follower beliefs was mosques and hammer percentage increase.

I might have gotten lucky with getting a religion though. I saw religion after religion get founded and we were down to the last one. Then i got 40 faith from a ruin on the island south east of the starting location. That might have been everything i needed to get the last religion.

Social policies were: full tradition, patronism opener for forbidden palace, full arts, rationalism start, and science from specialists, then a ton of freedom + rationalism mixed.

 

[JeffreyLXV]

I made things very difficult.

I chose autocracy for the autocracy/culture victory achievement. Everyone else was Order (after working with Catherine to eliminate Sejong's science charge). Looking back, I wasted policy choices completing the autocracy track, thinking it would work out.

Miss-clicked "Yes" instead of "No" about going to war against Catherine. (Miss-clicks are my consistent bane and I shouldn't play GOTM tired.)

So with all that, everyone really, really hated me. I was at war with most others, most of the time (See attached pic).

The large fleet I sent to capture Vienna turned out to be a little too small, so Maria Theresa launched in 1982 before I was able to try again (I had too many fronts). A time loss was also possible without reigning in Maria Theresa.

I vary rarely play on quick speed. I think I wasted a lot of time and resources that never returned any value. Gifting several GP to city-states also wasn't worth it.

I leaned a lot and will forget most of it. Ready for #203.

 

[FritsF1]

Turn 254 CV

- How useful was your UA?
More GP is nice. I don’t like to give away GPs but did so in the end. Indonesia was a bit annoying, he attacked me several times and I had to finance some wars to keep him busy. 10 turns before the end Indonesia had enough votes to win a DiploV, to prevent this I got some CS allies with GP and then declared war on Indonesia to prevent my CS’s from flipping back.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Mainly as diplomats

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
The map was nice, trade routes are easier with lots of water.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Winning was no guaranty on Immortal level, but I could get away with some mistakes (like a very late NC, no internal trade routes etc.)

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full Tradition, full Aesthetics, a bit of Rationalism and Freedom. I was 3th to choose an ideology and 1st with Freedom.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
The upper side of the tech tree, with priority for science and culture. I made a detour to get Neuschwanstein. It was not necessary but I like to get some extra use out the castles.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
No barbs was nice, I never did this before. The problem is that the barbs don’t only harass me, but also the AI. I should have played more aggressive and behave like a barbarian to keep the AI from getting such a good start

 

[Ozmandius]

Turn 216 CV (but I cheated see below)

I thought I would try something different. I mean, how tough could it be to win a culture victory if you killed off everyone else (but 1 weak opponent).

First tech I discovered was archery, then built 6 archers which got me Indonesia. Upgrade to comp bows which got me portugal. Upgrade to Xbow which got me Russia, by now all 6 were double shot. Korea slowed me a bit and I lost one of my missile guys there but once I got extended range that was it for Korea and then the Zulu. Zulu had been attacking Shoshone and Korea for at least some time which helped out. Took the Shoshone capital but then peaced out with their one garbage city left.

Started floating all my units over to AH when I had my cheating incident. Shoshone and AH DOWed me together. Shoshone had almost no troops so I wasn't worried. Left a new gatling to watch them and kept heading on to AH. Hardly watched them at all BUT THEN STUPID ALMATY CAPTURED THE LAST SHOSHONE CITY! And this meant I couldn't finish off AH as I would have a domination victory. I would still win a CV but it would take me a really long time against AH. Note the different CV values.





Anyway, I didn't want to face that so I reloaded to an earlier game and watched a bit more carefully this time and made sure my units got in the way of Almaty and kept it from taking over that city. After that it was mostly a matter of marching. Took over AH (had Battleships by now so not difficult) and just before I took Vienna I gave the Shoshone their capital back (I had already given them a couple of garbage cities to keep my happiness up) and that was the game.



So yes, counts for nothing as I reloaded but the strategy of killing off everyone but one seems to be workable and worth considering.


- How useful was your UA?
never had any friends so never used it.

- Did you use spying to your advantage?
Nope, Korea was the only one who had a tech edge on me and it was taking forever to steal anything. I killed them off before I got anything.

- Did the map type help or hinder victory and how?
I was expecting that there would be more islands and that naval power would be more important. As it was, the only place it mattered was AH. As it turned out the map was 'lucky' in that I could roll over one opponent at a time without too much trouble (Indo, Port, Russia, Korea, Zulu, Shoshone (who had been hammered by Zulu already) and finally AH.

- How did the difficulty level affect your game decisions?
Killing opponents isn't that difficult on this level which is why I decided to give this strategy a try. What I didn't know was how spread out people would be which could really slow things down.

- What Social Policies did you choose and in what order? Which Ideology did you choose?
Full Tradition, left side Patronage (wanted them as allies, or at least not as enemies), Order (for happiness mostly and tech), a bit of culture at the end.

- What techs did you prioritize ?
Archer, XBow, Factory/Gatling then Battleship/Oil.

- What did you think of the map and settings?
Mostly mentioned above. Bit surprised that ISLANDS only had two starting islands on it, and all but AH on mine. Made it easy.

 

[raider980]

Resigned T228 No way I would be able to overtake Austria's culture and she had a million cities so taking her out isn't an option either.

There was so much land I had to go Liberty and that seemed to slow down my science a lot. I got dusted in science. It was fun building all those cities though.

One war did break out with Indonesia because he didn't like me forward settling him but he couldn't break through my lines.

For those of you who won, @Jovan Kukic , @fiddlesticks , @Rhodro , @FritsF1 , @Ozmandius , what was Austria's culture that you had to overcome? My game it was 42,895 and I don't see how I could have reached that with Tourism.

Spoiler Map T228 :

 

[beetle]

Once again, I neglected to submit earlier in the cycle. T267 CV, my first without a Tourism-oriented civ, so I really appreciated the challenge! Thanks @Knowtalent

After playing this, I tried a French Immortal game. No where close to CV! I still feel like I am learning, but even when things go well, I can’t really figure out what I was doing which is much different than with other games!

 

[FritsF1]

For those of you who won, @Jovan Kukic , @fiddlesticks , @Rhodro , @FritsF1 , @Ozmandius , what was Austria's culture that you had to overcome? My game it was 42,895 and I don't see how I could have reached that with Tourism.

At the end of the game Austria had just below 40000 culture. We shared the Freedom ideology and had open borders and a trade route. I think I have sent one or two Gmus for a music tour to end the game.

Some pictures from turn 231 to compare:

Spoiler :

You have a bigger challenge but also a bit more tourism than I had at that point, so maybe its still possible to win.

 

[Rhodro]

For those of you who won, @Jovan Kukic , @fiddlesticks , @Rhodro , @FritsF1 , @Ozmandius , what was Austria's culture that you had to overcome? My game it was 42,895 and I don't see how I could have reached that with Tourism.

When i won at turn 189 Austria had 13,581 culture. I remember korea had more but I conquered him.
Austria had 13 cities and 7 wonders: alhambra, brandenburg, chichen itza, great library, great wall, machu picchu, stonehenge.
Her religion was pagodas, guruship, dance of the aurora, initiation rights and jesuit education.
She had piety (finished), aesthetics(finished) and commerce(almost finished).

I guess i won fast enough before she could become a runaway?

 

[beetle]

@raider980 – everything I have read about CV says that it is really a tech race as much as anything else.

 

[Knowtalent]

@raider980 – everything I have read about CV says that it is really a tech race as much as anything else.

Everything in Civ 5 and 6 is a tech race

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Turn 185 cultural victory.

Having recently tried a culture GotM game (#228, Netherlands, Emperor), in which I constantly harassed the AI, this time I played more peacefully. Sweden has two unique abilities, one of which is suited to war, and one which isn't. Getting 90 influence per great person is amazing if you have lots of generals and admirals lying around, but 10% increased great person generation for a friendship deal is pretty amazing too. I managed to stay friends with all AI except Indonesia, who didn't like me (that was ok - I didn't like him either), and Korea. After an initially friendly period, I decided I wanted Seoul, and engineered his exit from the game: to my surprise I could bribe him to attack 4 other civs, and then I took the capital and Jeonju (not being able to raze was not a problem, I could gift the city to Austria before taking Seoul), and Shaka finished the job on Busan. Sejong being hated by everyone because of the war declarations meant I could keep my friendships despite mild warmongering.

I started the game with a questionable decision. I saw the game was on small continents, so I suspected I might be alone, and went worker first, researching mining. That worked out well enough in the sense that the early chops helped speed up my game, but all the other six civs snapped up all the ruins (I did find some late ruins on the uninhabited silver island). I went three-city tradition, and took production from fishing boats, because each of my cities had four sea resources (eventually five in Sigtuna if you count the oil). I really wanted a religion, so I went Theology, a decision made easier by the fact that Sejong built Colossus before I could consider trying it. Hagia was contested by Portugal, so I had Indonesia declare war on her to increase my chances of getting it, and I did, on turn 74.

In the middle game my decision to go navigation before industrialization and public schools was a bit dubious, and I had also completely forgotten about the possibility of entering Radio early to propose International Games. Then, when finally International Games could be proposed, I could no longer propose anything. To prevent Indonesia from becoming host, I voted Shaka for host, but that meant I could not enter any proposal myself. Lucky for me, Indonesia proposed International Games anyway.

My end-game was not timed optimally, as can seen from the screenshot: I had gone airports rather than straight internet, but I still had three scientists and Oxford unused, and my final musician no longer needed to be bulbed.

In addition to mis-timing the ending, I also have the habit of making buildings that are not really needed for my victory condition. In this case, the game could probably have been won without building a sea port, a stock exchange, or a hydro plant. However, part of the joy I get from playing civ is making huge, 'complete' cities, and Stockholm was just a lovely city.