TSG22 After Action Report

[Ballcrusher]

Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1780AD
Turns played: 266
Base score: 1600
Final score: 3018

Settled 3 cities (starting location, south by gems and east by wine and iron).

I was waiting to upgrade my Jaguars until a was Dow'ed. Unfortunately both England (the AI leader) and Russia DoW'ed me almost the same turn, but I managed to kill enough of Englands units that she offered peace. Russia then also offered peace, but I refused, upgraded my army to 4 LSM and 2 catapults and puppeted Moscow and another city, and made peace with Russias last city.

After that (around turn 140) I was leading the game in every aspect, and it was a question of time before I would win. I was considering attacking other Civs for the combat culture and puppets, but I ended up choosing the peaceful way and was milking the friendly Civs instead. Don't know if that was a lazy or a good choice.

Ended up with 13 GA's around my capitol.

I guess I should have focused a bit more on tech, as I never got to finish Cristo Redentor before I could build Utopia. I didn't sign any RA's at all, but used money for cultural CS and buildings.

But otherwise I am pretty glad about the game (except that the last 100 turns of just clicking end turn was a bit boring...)

 

[Allirion]

"The Freedom Finisher doesn't double cultural tiles (i had 7 of them)"

It does.

it didn't for me.
Or it is a ui-bug, but the great engineer-tiles showed 9 and 10 Production after i finished freedom, while the great artist-tiles still only had a large culture-icon that didn't have a number (as if it would give 5 culture)

 

[YYZ]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-28
Reference number: 25074
Your name: yyz
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1878AD
Turns played: 309
Base score: 3226
Final score: 5288
Submitted save: Montezuma_0309 AD-1878 win.Civ5Save

My second upload
I enjoyed the game.
I would like to replay it some day and see if I can get a faster result by creating less cities.

 

[GreyWithAnE]

Finally got this one done, in 279 turns. Buuut I think it'll get kicked back if I submit it, because I reloaded autosaves a couple times (but only a couple!). I swear, next month I won't cheat so horribly. I was riding too high on my first decent GOTM run to let it get ruined by one stupid move in my war against China.

4 cities in the usual spots (settled east, south, then west). Went minimal military buildup at the beginning to save resources for buildings and such, and I think it paid off.


My clever bits:

--Had all 4 cities as early as possible (4th by turn 80 or so), to allow time for their maturation.
--Exactly the right amount of RAs (the last one got me halfway through plastics, which is the last tech I go for before Utopia)
--Forget Cristo! He is too little, too late.
--Left some Wines undeveloped near cities 3 and 4 so I could get Opera Houses up earlier


My mistakes:

--I wooed a couple city-states right after education because I was low on happiness...then I decided to rush Notre Dame instead of Porcelain Tower, and was easily at 7-8+ happiness for the rest of the game. The extra 500 gold that I spent (*ahem*, wasted) on the CS would have been nice at that point of the game.
--From the reports of those finishing before me, it looks like I'm not puppeting enough to really get my time to an elite level. My only puppet was Stockholm, and I took it post-turn 200. In general, is it worth it to tech to Ironworking before Education to overrun some AIs early?


My thoughts:

--Thank you Leif for putting our start-location at one of the only oceans on the map (for Sydney)
--Monty is fun
--It would be nice if there were some quick culture-win strategy that wasn't Tradition-Liberty-Piety-Patronage-Freedom. Just for variety.
--You know you let your military techs are dragging behind when your Longswordsmen run into Riflemen in Nanking. Whoops...

 

[juicegecko]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-29
Reference number: 25076
Your name: juicegecko
Your email:
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1952AD
Turns played: 372
Base score: 1741
Final score: 2352
Time played: 7:00:00
Submitted save: Montezuma_0372 AD-1952.Civ5Save
Renamed file: juicegecko_C502201.Civ5Save

Yay, I was finally able to finish and submit one of these games. This was also my first cultural victory after struggling with similar settings on Emperor a few weeks ago.

It was a fun game, I managed to gather quite a bunch of culture points early on thanks to El Cid morphing into a citadel near the russian border and defending from Oda and Wu's cycle of stabs.

China ended up with the highest score, being the scientific and military leader for most of the game and I was beaten to some key wonders like Cristo Redentor and the Opera House.

Looking forward for next GotM.

 

[subber]

straight forward win

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-29
Reference number: 25078
Your name: subber
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1910AD
Turns played: 330
Base score: 1400
Final score: 2121
Time played: 5:46:00
Submitted save: Montezuma_0330 - 1910 n. Chr..Civ5Save
Renamed file: subber_C502201.Civ5Save

had a good start, basically boosting capital, tried to build GL-NC. GL went to far away country however before I could finish it.

built one more city to the south with good production. In midgame I built almost every wonder, but lacked a little behind in cuilture per turn - it takes me around 13 turns in midgame to get to the next policy. a little better then my previous games but not good enough when wanting to go for a sub 300 game.
Which turn do you guys settle your fist GA? I believe that I am lacking behind with this... in total I only settled 3 GAs or so.

towards the end I was dominating with 7-8 techs ahead of other civs. took artilleries and took a russian and a chinese city before settling for nice peace deals (like 40-50 gpt plus luxes).

Due to policies I boosted happines in endgame to 70+.

 

[NotSure]

--You know you let your military techs are dragging behind when your Longswordsmen run into Riflemen in Nanking. Whoops...

I was wondering about this. I put about 210 turns in so far and only have 22 policies. I'm wondering how the sub-270 finishes are done. Are people skipping Metallurgy, Fertilizer and Rifling and heading straight to Mass Media? I realized too late that I could have avoided those techs and used the RAs to get me closer to those last two wonders.

Also, did anyone do Rationalism first? It seems like too much of a sacrifice for two free techs, but I seem to remember someone claiming it was a decent tactic for Deity culture wins?

 

[tommynt]

Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyWithAnE View Post
--You know you let your military techs are dragging behind when your Longswordsmen run into Riflemen in Nanking. Whoops...
I was wondering about this. I put about 210 turns in so far and only have 22 policies. I'm wondering how the sub-270 finishes are done. Are people skipping Metallurgy, Fertilizer and Rifling and heading straight to Mass Media? I realized too late that I could have avoided those techs and used the RAs to get me closer to those last two wonders.

Also, did anyone do Rationalism first? It seems like too much of a sacrifice for two free techs, but I seem to remember someone claiming it was a decent tactic for Deity culture wins?

Good question!
You DEFINATLY can skip lower tree after muskets and just try to get to Mass media ASAP (and possible 1-2 more RAs for plastics)
But be careful with RAs, about 7sp before last sp (which d be sp23?) I allways get massdowed making RAs brokken.
And yes I was theorycrafting about takking Rati or at least its starter instead of peity, but I think after last game I came to conclusion that its not needed if u go instead for 4-5 BIG cities which generate enough gold to run 5-7 RAs all time (or maybe play deity were gold inst that scare)
And well then there is imo pretty big difference between a t270 win (which can be done without sydney totaly) and a sub t250 win.

And well regaridng military, I dont think its a bit secret that taking ai cities is best done early on with some swords and a bit later with Longswords again.

With this 2 "waves" of conquering u should be able to take 2-3 civs down to 1 city whats enough of conquering for a cult game. To defend yourself against craiplled ais 4 lvled Longswords should DEFINATLY be enough

Oh and dont forget to generate a engi for Sydney ...
Best d be to have 1 available for Christo aswell.
But as there are only 2 free ones and 1 goes into Louvre allready the other d have to be saved but is usually just needed for Notre or PT or sistine n my games. Capital just cant get all them wonders and other cities are usually still growing and lack prod to get a 500hammer wonder inreasonable time.

 

[subber]

My clever bits:

--Left some Wines undeveloped near cities 3 and 4 so I could get Opera Houses up earlier

I dont get this one...

 

[NotSure]

Good question!
You DEFINATLY can skip lower tree after muskets and just try to get to Mass media ASAP (and possible 1-2 more RAs for plastics)
But be careful with RAs, about 7sp before last sp (which d be sp23?) I allways get massdowed making RAs brokken.
And yes I was theorycrafting about takking Rati or at least its starter instead of peity, but I think after last game I came to conclusion that its not needed if u go instead for 4-5 BIG cities which generate enough gold to run 5-7 RAs all time (or maybe play deity were gold inst that scare)
And well then there is imo pretty big difference between a t270 win (which can be done without sydney totaly) and a sub t250 win.

And well regaridng military, I dont think its a bit secret that taking ai cities is best done early on with some swords and a bit later with Longswords again.

With this 2 "waves" of conquering u should be able to take 2-3 civs down to 1 city whats enough of conquering for a cult game. To defend yourself against craiplled ais 4 lvled Longswords should DEFINATLY be enough

Oh and dont forget to generate a engi for Sydney ...
Best d be to have 1 available for Christo aswell.
But as there are only 2 free ones and 1 goes into Louvre allready the other d have to be saved but is usually just needed for Notre or PT or sistine n my games. Capital just cant get all them wonders and other cities are usually still growing and lack prod to get a 500hammer wonder inreasonable time.

Well, my goal was 270 (not gonna make it). I can't really wrap my mind around how you could get it done at under 240. I appreciate your advice - you confirmed a few things for me. My errors were:

(1) only 3 cities (4 is clearly optimal)
(2) hard-build of the Louvre (amounts to about 30+ CPT & >42 CPT after Freedom - clearly delays your game to build instead of rush)
(3) didn't create enough GE
(4) probably should have rushed more than one neighbor (I still might, but it's too late now to have the right effect)
(5) inefficient research path.

I agree that under 240 is about as perfect as you can get a culture win, by the way. Congrats, and thanks again!

I dont get this one...

He got Opera Houses with Legalism for the Hermitage.

 

[tommynt]

Quote:
Originally Posted by subber View Post
I dont get this one...
He got Opera Houses with Legalism for the Hermitage.

I dont gt at all why this is "good play" in some general opionion.
Isnt is obviously WAY more efficient to get Museums instead of Opera houses?

Some turn more early Hermitage definatly dont make a game breaking difference ... (whats adds to the effect that cap migh be busy building sistine anyway which comes with same tech)

 

[NotSure]

I didn't really think it out before I played. My first instinct was to get the opera houses, thinking the +5 & +50% from Hermitage was going to be huge. When I started building museums it dawned on me that Legalism might be better used here. You are right that production is a huge limiting factor in this game. The builds I started at Archeology (Louvre & museums) did take a long time to complete.

 

[Trystero]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-30
Reference number: 25084
Your name: Trystero
Your email:
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1920AD
Turns played: 340
Base score: 1210
Final score: 1779
Time played: 7:26:00

This was my first Civ5 GOTM, and second cultural game in a row after returning to Civ5 after a prolonged layoff (and only my second game with the latest patch). I wasn't really intending on submitting this game, but what the heck. My previous game was an attempt to try Wainy's cultural approach with Darius. In that game I beelined to Archeology before backfilling the lower half of the tech tree. I wanted to try a more balanced approach this time, so I focused on research early and managed to grab both the GL and Porcelain Tower. As a result, I was the tech leader for most of the game. I also tried delaying running specialits early to focus on growth. In retrospect, I should have run more specialists and taken advantage of the Aztec's UA to boost my culture output (I played a mostly peaceful game, except for the frequent defensive wars).

My empire at 1 AD for city placement:

Spoiler :

I will probably try another culture game with Monty. I'd forgotten how poor the AI was at fighting wars at King.

 

[killerloop]

Simular game as Ballcrusher, w/o any RA's

Spoiler :

I guess SP development is most interesting, hence:

Lib - Settler - Worker
Trad
Piety Full
Patr
Lib4: Repr for the future SP reduction
Patr: Phil + Scol for the extra science from CS
Fill Lib for the GE for Louvre
Freedom
Trad2: Legalism for the operas
fill Freedom
fill Patr for the GP's form CS's
fill Trad

By turn 156 I had my 3 cities filled up with 4 GA specialists in temple, opera and museum.

After that it was cruising to the end.
Managed most of game to be no1 in Military, although that doesn't help. After SP17 (build in??) all friends started denouncing. Wars started and after SP23 I was at war with almost everyone. That's ok, because it gave me something to do...

I erased Russia in one of the wars taking all her cities as puppets, finally I took a city from Wu and Stockholm in the end of the game. At game end, all were guarded but we had our peace

The end was a s following
t233 I finished Electricity. Bulbed to SydOpera with a GS and Oxford,
started a 5 turn SydOpera with a GE and a GoldAge from my GG's and a GA/GS pair that I got at 241
t235 I finish SP28
t244 I finshed last SP, starting a 17 turn Utopia. The GS was used to bulb to Hydro, getting me to a 15 turn Utopia with bought Hydro plant.

Mistakes:
-forgot Representation
-Used GLib (t48) for Theo, maybe CS would have been better for initial Growth. I build HS pretty late (t100 or so)
-3rd city had Mt Fuji, but was food scarce, so I never worked it at all, maybe location was not optimal. (same issue with Mt Fuji as decribed by others, BTW)
-as Tommynt showed: use your early military power to get some extra cities + Cult

Tx Staff for a fun game again !

 

[NotSure]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-10-31
Reference number: 25096
Your name: NotSure
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1818AD
Turns played: 280
Base score: 1830
Final score: 3327
Time played: 17:49:00
Submitted save: TSG22_0280 AD-1820.Civ5Save
Renamed file: NotSure_C502201.Civ5Save

I actually won on t279, but I thought you were supposed to submit the turn after? Anyway, I came close to my goal and learned a few things about culture games. I can see that this is definitely doable in 250 turns.

What I learned:
- Broadcast towers and CR have surprisingly low impact.

- 4 quick cities are probably optimal with Representation (at King, at least). I only got down 3.

- A beeline to Mass Media would have cut at least 20-30 turns off the finish - maybe more.

- Legalism at Archeology looks best.

Thanks for the game!

 

[Tabarnak]

From your screenshot NotSure, you have won at turn 279. After you voted, just press one...more...turn button and save the game from there.

 

[tincando]

Game: Civ5 GOTM 22
Date submitted: 2011-11-01
Reference number: 25098
Your name: tincando
Game status: Culture Victory
Game date: 1725AD
Turns played: 255
Base score: 1299
Final score: 2547
Time played: 12:11:00
Submitted save: Montezuma_0255 AD-1725.Civ5Save
Renamed file: tincando_C502201.Civ5Save

This game turned out to be a peaceful wonder whoring feast for me. Both France and England hated me fom day one, without resulting to violence. All others were more or less friendly towards me. A mentally instable China declared war on me a few times, but always wanted peace after less than 10 turns with little to none actual military confrontation. No one else bothered me until Japan finally panicked and much too late launched a suicide attack while I was working on utopia.

Without ancient ruins, I decided to build a monument first. My initial plan was to follow up with a scout looking for cultural city states. But within a few turns, my jaguar had already stumbled upon both Monaco and Brussels. I managed to ally both of them and beeline to the medival era before turn 50, giving me +24 culture per turn from them (almost two thirds of my total influx at that point). I continued expanding on this and allied with four additional cultural city states during the following 30 turns.

I founded a second city to the east near wine and furs, and a third city south near wine and gems. I refraind from settling a fourth city near mt Fuji because at this point all of my nearest neighbours (Russia, America and China) had declared friendship with one another. I was kind of stuck in the middle of this three way alliance, wary of upsetting any one of them. By denouncing Japan (the arch enemy of Russia), I was able to get a foothold in the alliance, and eventually joining them as a full member. Later on we denounced China and kicked her out from our little club and promptly replaced her with a much more mentally stable Germany.

My military were mostly for show and saw almost no action at all (only 143/200 great general progress at the end of the game). My core army consisted of 6 jaguars that I later upgraded to swordsmen - longswordsmen - riflemen. Budapest provided me with an additional 8 mixed units throughout the game. I ended up with 3 workers, 1 per city. The first one was hard build, the second one was from the liberty policy tree, and the third one was stolen from Stockholm.

France was the only serious threat to my wonder monopoly. He managed to beat me in that race a few times, most annoingly, he snagged big ben when I was only 1 turn away from completing it.


long term research goals:
theology, iron working, mathematics, metal casting, education, acoustics, steel, archaeology, biology, mass media, plastics, rifling

social policy order:
liberty, free settler, tradition, aristocracy, rest of liberty, all of piety, patronage, freedom, constitution, legalism (museums), philantropy, scholasticism, aesthetics, rest of freedom, rest of patronage, rest of tradition

capital build order:
monument, worker, settler, great library, granary, stonehenge, great wall, national college, hanging gardens, oracle, workshop, university, tempel, monastary, floating gardens, sistine chapel, notre dame, himeji castle, opera house, hermitage, museum, kremlin, aqueduct, ironworks, louvre, windmill, garden, national epic, public school, oxford university, broadcast tower, sydney opera house, factory, hospital, market, national treasury, bank, hydro plant, brandenburg gate, utopia project

2nd city build order:
monument, library, jaguar, jaguar, jaguar, monastary, temple, workshop, floating gardens, porcelain tower, opera house, granary, museum, university, market, aqueduct, stable, garden, circus, windmill, bank, public shool, hospital, broadcast tower, stock exchange, cannon, cannon

3rd city build order:
monument, library, jaguar, jaguar, monastary, temple, workshop, hagia sophia, floating gardens, granary, opera house, university, garden, museum, market, aqueduct, circus, barracks, bank, windmill, public school, hospital, broadcast tower, taj mahal, cannon, cannon

great people:
* 8 great artists + 2 from louvre + 1 from educated elite
* 2 great scientists + 1 from porcelain tower
* 2 great engineers + 1 from liberty tree + 1 from hagia sophia
* 0 great merchants
* 0 great generals + 1 from brandenburg gate
* 2 golden ages + 1 from representation + 1 from reformation + 1 from taj mahal + 1 from great general

 

[killerloop]

Hi Tincando, I see it's your 1st post, welcome.

Good game, congrats!

BTW, how many RA's were you able to get in place?
Did you see any change in AI attitude after SP17 & 23?

 

[tommynt]

I refraind from settling a fourth city near mt Fuji because at this point all of my nearest neighbours (Russia, America and China) had declared friendship with one another. I was kind of stuck in the middle of this three way alliance, wary of upsetting any one of them. By denouncing Japan (the arch enemy of Russia), I was able to get a foothold in the alliance, and eventually joining them as a full member. Later on we denounced China and kicked her out from our little club and promptly replaced her with a much more mentally stable Germany.

Do such stuff REALLY work???
Denounce some1 enemy and u get his friend?
Can you/some1 confirm this?
My diplo knowledge isnt too great ...

255 is very good btw, think with getting your granny up more early u d have shaved 5 turns - with a 2wheat starts its really powerful - that would make 250 whats really good for a peaceful 3 city setup

 

[Tabarnak]

Can you elaborate about the granary tommy?

If : a scout can be built in 5 turns, a monument in 7 and a granary in 10 approx, it's 22 turns total. Have you rush buyed it before turn 20? How can this shave 5 turns to a victory?

Buying a worker isn't better at this point?