6otM 01 - After Actions

[XaW]

Science win on turn 349 with score 832. Far later than most here.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Quite a lot. Wiped France, Russia and, eventually, Arabia of the map. Took a city from Egypt at the end, when they declared a war against me with only a few turns left to the victory.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Early boost to writing and a lot of focus on science. Found out later that I had a lacking industry, so that slowed me down quite a lot with the projects.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Nope. Arabia and Egypt turned a couple of cities here and there, but nothing that did anything for me.

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
Quite a lot at the start to get rid of France and Russia. The most of the game from there was city building. The I wiped Arabia to make the turns eventful while waiting for my lack of industry. It helped since St. Petersburg was one of the cities I launched something from.

- Were City-States helpful?
Had suzerain of Stockholm the entire game and Hattusa for the most part. Didn't meet the ones at the other continent until far too late to make much difference.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Except the last DOW from Egypt right before the end I had control.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes! Finally a GotM I could finish without much problem. I learned quite a bit, so that's also nice.

Some pictures from the end of the game:

Spoiler :

Oh, to win in the attached game just harvest the woods with the builder that have movement left.

 

[trojan13]

I see 9 Campus districts. Which boosts did you forgo, if any?

Wow, 5 captured settlers is huge. Did you delay the wars to get them or did they just happen to walk by?

If they don't patch the unescorted settlers or make them turn into builders, I'll base my strategy around it next time. A free settler is even better than taking an undeveloped city. Huge swing.

There is forest on some tiles around Rome where there was jungle. And some forest-related pop-up information. Reforestation mod?

Do you mean Eureka moments in techs by boosts? I couldn't have many GS-related industrial or later boosts because my GS farming can't catch up the tech speed. By the time I was getting Rocketry techs, my cities were all finishing power plants, then I built research labs, CHs before project farmings.

I don't delay any war, I rather dow'd without better positioned units in order to capture settlers. IIRC, they were not unescorted, France and Egypt had slinger escorts. I dow'd on France, and keep blocking settler's movement with my scout until my legion arrives. For Egyptian settler, I sent archer first to reveal terrain while warriors and legions healing, found the settler with slinger, dow'd and captured on the turn warrior arrived. Russian settler was in St peterburg, Arabian one was red-tagged - the only settler without escorts I've found. Yes, it's huge in terms of saving productions.

Yes, I chopped almost all forests/jungles on my contients, even those on Southern tundra. Only old forests are those near low-production city and on the river. I reforested Lugdunum-SE of Rome after civic unlocked, because it's the spaceport city so I want to increase production with lumbermils.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Do you mean Eureka moments in techs by boosts? I couldn't have many GS-related industrial or later boosts because my GS farming can't catch up the tech speed. By the time I was getting Rocketry techs, my cities were all finishing power plants, then I built research labs, CHs before project farmings.

OK, interesting to know. I never finished a Science Victory and when I saw the Space Project costs, I thought the main bottleneck would be production (also, capturing Hong Kong hurt in the long run). But with all the GEs speeding up space projects, St. Petersburgs 240 cogs were not really needed. Next time I'll build many more campus districts.

The Reserch Lab seems just barely worth it, considering how late it comes - 5 bulbs per turn for 525 cogs. If my calculations are correct, it takes around 16 turns to break even with Campus Research Grants (15% of production converted to bulbs, right?) for the same amount of cogs. The Research Lab costs maintenance (3gpt, but usually no big deal at this stage) and does not give GS points.

I don't delay any war, I rather dow'd without better positioned units in order to capture settlers. IIRC, they were not unescorted, France and Egypt had slinger escorts. I dow'd on France, and keep blocking settler's movement with my scout until my legion arrives. For Egyptian settler, I sent archer first to reveal terrain while warriors and legions healing, found the settler with slinger, dow'd and captured on the turn warrior arrived. Russian settler was in St peterburg, Arabian one was red-tagged - the only settler without escorts I've found. Yes, it's huge in terms of saving productions.

Nice ambushes then In my games so far I see mainly unescorted settlers. I hate it.

Yes, capturing a settler is just nuts: 1) save production of the settler 2) avoid the increased cost on all the future settlers 3) usually save X turns walking to the desired spot 4) get your settler and thus the city with all its benefits X turns earlier.

IMO it is not exaggerated to say that each settler captured in the early game is comparable to lowering the difficulty by one notch. I think the Civ5 mechanic of turning them into builders (workers) was more balanced. Also Civ5 had no escalating settler costs, if I remember correctly.

Yes, I chopped almost all forests/jungles on my contients, even those on Southern tundra. Only old forests are those near low-production city and on the river. I reforested Lugdunum-SE of Rome after civic unlocked, because it's the spaceport city so I want to increase production with lumbermils.

Yeah, riverside lumber mills are nice, especially for cities which don't have hills. I went for Chichen Itza in Rome, which looked very nice, but maybe wasn't worth it. This wonder costs an arm and a leg

 

[trojan13]

OK, interesting to know. I never finished a Science Victory and when I saw the Space Project costs, I thought the main bottleneck would be production (also, capturing Hong Kong hurt in the long run). But with all the GEs speeding up space projects, St. Petersburgs 240 cogs were not really needed. Next time I'll build many more campus districts.

This is my second Science vic, I knew I needed to balance science and production but had no idea on ideal balance neither. I had to sit down and roughly calculated turns to tech, estmated prod on cities, and tech order. The followings are rough timeline of techs and space projects in my play.

T149 Rocketry / Science per turn 344 / Started to build 3 spaceports.
T156 Robotics / spt 380
T161 1st Spaceport up in Kumasi - the city with Ruhr valley of 197 production per turn / Earth Satellite project starts
T164 Satellites / spt 577
T167 Earth Satellite proj done / Moon landing started in Kumasi of 200 ppt
T175 Moon landing done - Mars habitation proj starts in Kumasi of 230 ppt
T176 Nano Tech / spt783 / Mars hydroponic proj starts in Lugdunum of 200 ppt
T181 Nuclear fusion / spt890 / Mars reactor proj starts in Arretium
T183 Mars hydroponic done with help of forest chop around Hong Kong
T184 Mars habitation proj done
T187 Mars reactor done with GE saved 2 turns

In my opinion, fast unlocking Rocketry is important, Science plays role up here. Spaceport, first and second projects costs 6000 productions. It took me 26 turns from building Spaceport(rocketry) to Moon Landing. Kumasi was the best for me because there were alot of jungle/forests leftover on East, saved me few turns here. Meanwhile, it took me 32 turns from Rocketry to Nano Tech, even with help of GS and Oxford. So I would say, I needed more science in my play to save turns. After the last tech unlocked, production comes into play. I should've place few more campus after power plant spamming, so that I have techs for three Mars proj on the turn Moon landing finished.

The Reserch Lab seems just barely worth it, considering how late it comes - 5 bulbs per turn for 525 cogs. If my calculations are correct, it takes around 16 turns to break even with Campus Research Grants (15% of production converted to bulbs, right?) for the same amount of cogs. The Research Lab costs maintenance (3gpt, but usually no big deal at this stage) and does not give GS points.

As long as I remember, science from campus projects is around 18-20. I don't know exact equation for it but it doesn't scale with production costs. I've seen only Rome have 30ish science from project, maybe because of high population in my guess. I also want to note a 'Rationalism' policy - 100% science from campus district buildings, which makes research labs increase science per turn by 10 or 12 if I count 1 more citizen slot. So it's definitely worth to build.

 

[Thrallia]

Turn 307 Victory, score was in the 700s.

I settled 8 cities in the first 100 turns, and conquered Egypt(when they tried to kill my science city-state ally), and France(because they kept declaring war on me and getting wiped out), with legions before turn 100 as well. That gave me a base of 11 cities, which I expanded with about 6 more cities over time. After reaching the Modern age, Russia decided to declare war on me, for some unknown reason(surprise war, at that). They had 2 cities and their best unit was a knight. My artillery and infantry destroyed him in a matter of turns. I did a great job of focusing on my science to push through the tech tree at what seemed like a great speed, but, having never done a science victory before, I vastly underestimated the amount of production necessary. It took me 35-40 turns to build each spaceport, then about 65 turns from starting my first Space project until I finished my last project and won. Even then, I started buying up builders and chopping the entire continent around my two slower spaceport cities to cut it by about 10 turns. I never got a city past 115 hammers per turn, even though I did well at overlapping district effects and building out my infrastructure. I'm not sure what steps I need to follow to improve that, but I'm sure they exist, especially as this was my first time playing in the late-game.


So far, in Civ VI, it seems that the key path to victory is to build many cities close enough to get district bonuses, yet I've never seen any AI civs build more than 2 or 3 cities in the first 150 turns, and some never expand even after that. I'm confused by why the AI seems to bad at balancing this, especially since it's not like they are building out districts instead.

 

[Stormi]

Won on turn 234 with a score in the mid 1300s.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
33 total cities, probably half were captured, and 6-8 were pretty crappy cities founded on the fringe to keep the barbarians away.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Early game priority was on military techs and policies, once the starting continent was clear I tried to focus on production, then finally on the techs that lead to the victory condition.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Not too much, I founded a religion after capturing some cities with holy districts, but didn't focus on it much. Spain did send a lot of missionaries to my shores over the course of the game.

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
Lots of constant warring at the beginning of the game until the home continent was cleared. Started in the south with France, then worked east across the lower continent, and finished by clearing out Egypt.

- Were City-States helpful?
Toronto was, others mostly just for the bonus luxury resources.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Just that the AI is bad, and still lets you conquer and entire continent with a handful of archers, and a warrior or two. Also the stacking bonuses of power plants can be amazing with the Toronto range increase.

- Did you enjoy the game?
The first 150 or so turns were more enjoyable taking over the continent. The end of the game was a little tedious just clicking through build queues that didn't really matter.

 

[GiovDenti]

Victory on turn 322

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
8 founded - 5 captured

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Mainly what was eureked before with priority to production

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Nope.

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
I was attacked by France at the beggining and by Egypt during renaissance. Completly conquered both with a few updated units. AI is quite dumb.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes. Mainly Hong-Kong and Stocholm but I completely overlooked Toronto.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Declaration of war by AI were unexpected.

- Did you enjoy the game?
After turn 100 was a little bit boring...

 

[Turf1228]

Victory on turn 296 with a score of 745

How many cities did you settle or capture?

I ended up with 12 total cities. Three of them were captured, as captured Paris right away (mid-30s), and then Moscow and St Petersberg (mid-70s). From there it was just building as tight as possible between, as well as expanding south to try to eliminate barbarian camps from showing up. My district order was mainly commercial, industrial, then campus. I've attached a screen shot of the empire. You can see that I have 17 trade routes, and pulling in over 650 gold per turn. All cities have power plants built, with my main production cities having between 120-170 cogs per turn. By mid game, I was cranking out wonders in multiple cities (12 wonders total).

What did you prioritize for research and policies?

For research, i try to get factories to up production as quick as possible. From there, I try to get Oxford University. After that, I just research whatever I have akready unlocked the Eureka, or know that I'll probably never unlock the Eureka during the game. For Social, its just about getting to the next government (Classic Republic, Mercantile Republic, Democracy). Outside of the Monument, I don't really generate much culture, so its a pretty slow slog through the deck.

Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.

Only because I am paranoid about not being able to defend myself against a religious victory from another civ. Luckily, when i capture st pete, they had already built a religious site, so I was able to get a prophet like pretty quick. From there, I made sure my empire was converted, and always had a couple missionaries in reserve. No one ever tried to convert my cities.

How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?

Like I said, i knocked of France and Russia right away. After that, no more wars.

Were City-States helpful?

I focused on keeping Stockholm, Hong Kong and Amsterdam as Suzerain due to their bonuses.

Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?

The only real surprise was dealing with barbarians. This was my third full game, and it was the most active I have seen them. I had to constantly deploy and redeploy units from my southern cities, and at some points had to spend money on more units after random defeats. I kept extending south trying to stop them from building camps, but it the end they still build right up against the ice cap.

Other small surprises was the fact that the other civs left me alone. They barely even talk to me. In the other games i've played they usually a lot more chatty.

Did you enjoy the game?

It was OK, but thats mainly because I had just done a Science victory on King difficulty, so this was almost like a replay. Excited to see the next GoTM.

Bonus: Lessons learned

- Tight city packing prioritizing commercial and industrial zones seems to be the go to approach. After that, its victory condition specific districts (or harbors if available).
- I started trying to take my first city with slingers. I may be better to start with warriors until archers are available.
- I focused everything on securing the continent before expanding. I probably could have taken a few turns to churn out a settler earlier.
- I need to remember to generate scouts during the mid game to find other civs and city states. If I had properly scouted, I probably would have built cities east of the mountains.
- Entertainment districts should not be over looked. Since every city doesn't need a Campus (or Theater or Holy Site depending on victory condition), having a couple centrally located can help with lack of amenities.
- I need to remember to chop forests (except those on hills next to a river).

 

[teqofc]

Science Victory turn 245. Score of 828.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
8 founded - 7 captured

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Oh geeze I've already forgot Basically it was archers->legions then commerce, industry and science.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
No

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
Took control of my continent to remove the competition. Takes no effort at all with OP Legions.

- Were City-States helpful?
Toronto... nuff said

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Mostly surprised by my stupidity of not founding more cities. There was some prime real estate up in the NW corner that I totally missed.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Gets to be a big click fest near the end. It's ironic that in Civ 5 I hated Dom and loved Science but with Civ 6 it is the complete opposite. Been mostly been playing deity dom games so this is my first science victory in Civ 6 and made a lot of mistakes. Learned a lot though! Still prefer Dom

A picture of my my lonely veterans who found their way to the other continent and took a CS only to sit on their butts for the rest of the game. I just wasn't interested at that point for more war and more clicking.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Turn 302 (Science). Scored a "Neville" (700 or so).

Should have been faster but learned a lot from my first science game.

How many cities did you settle or capture?

Captured Paris, 2 Russian, 2 Egyptian and Cairo (cleared my continent).
Settled 4 - first between Rome and Paris, second near the Cliffs of Dover, third between St Petersburg and Cairo and fourth north-west of Stockholm.

What did you prioritize for research and policies?

War then switched to Religion then switched to Gold then switched to Production and finally to Science.

Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.

I took Fertility Rites as Pantheon to boost growth then religion to boost Great People (Divine Spark). Paris had built Stonehenge which was nice so I accumulated a lot of faith which came in handy later on to buy great people.

How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?

Cleared my continent then switched to peaceful. When I met the other continent I saw it was ripe for plunder but left them at peace. Would have been quicker to go domination but I wanted to avoid war weariness and try and secure amenities to support growth.

Were City-States helpful?

Very!

Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?

Barbarians were the most annoying as my city placement was a bit wide and left some fog at the coasts and in the tundra to the south. My army was still in the north of the continent so had to build more units just to deal with barbs which was annoying but necessary to stop losing trade routes. That really slowed me down. I was at 2/11 at one point which is a lot of hammers and gold to lose.

I passed on a Great Scientist as the boost was a nothing boost. Unfortunately the AIs were so slow to earn it when they finally did I had enough GS points to earn the next three GS on the same turn (I was at 2129/469). The boosts from them were minimal (I'd already researched the techs the Eurekas would have boosted).

Space is hammer heavy. I only built one space port but then ended up building a second and probably should have built a third to shave 30 or so turns. I rush bought some builders to clear woods/rainforest to get about a turn per chop. (Egypt had built pyramids before I captured it). I should have built my spaceports in cities with encampments/harbours to use the +15% policy.

Did you enjoy the game?

The surprises (above) annoyed me as they slowed me down. Otherwise a good game. Was tempted to flip over to domination victory which would have been much much faster but this was my first science game so played it out.

 

[jopegk]

Science Victory, turn 338, score 595.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

Settled 4. Captured 6.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

After turn 100 I focused hard on science in both research and policies and ended up being able to build a spaceport around 1100 AD, both with a production time of about 100 turns. I realised that I needed to work a bit on my infrastructure and started focusing on industry and economy instead.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.

Got a pantheon (oral tradition) and used faith to buy great engineers and scientists for the space race.

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?

Conquered France and Russia before turn 100. After that I had a smaller war with Egypt. I don't know if it was effective. It gave me more cities ad I used one of them (Kamusa) as my spaceport city.

- Were City-States helpful?

I guess the science and production from envoys were helpful. I was the suzerain of Stockholm for most of the game.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?

Some game concepts, such as districts, were new to me. But the map didn't offer that many surprises.

- Did you enjoy the game?

This was my first full game of Civ VI, so afterwards I see I played like crap, which was frustrating. However, I learned a lot!

 

[Cacaivs]

Victory in turn 282 , points 958

100 - civics
494 - empire
120 - people
6 - religion
168 - technologies
70 - wonders

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
15 (including 8 captured)
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
it was my test game, so basically I was trying to switch them between each other waiting for things that will trigger my eurekas.
- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
YES ! Spain send to my land a group of 19 apostols with all boosts (from teocracy and + 4 and +5 for other bonuses)
It was hard time for me because I was afraid that he will win through Religion.
I figured out that I can attack them with a unit sitting in a city and so I am safe for a counterattack.
Slowly I killed one by one and defend my religion.

- Were City-States helpful?
Very helpfull in having coins and other bonuses .. I didnt conquer any of them.
At the end of the game I had a bonus + 10 % science from a CS that I am its Suzeren.
Since I was a Suzeren to all of them. So I was receiving + 100 % to my since having it on a lvl of 1700 per round.
That was a big boost

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I did not start any war during this game.
BUt I conquered all other civs on my land
They were attacking me one by one even we had good relations.
First was France quite early, Whle I was taking their last city I was attacked by surprise by Russia and Arabia together with Kumasi which had a lot of early army units.
That was hard time.
Later in the game Cleo from Egypt attacked me by surprise even we had very good relations.

- Did you enjoy the game?
YES

Spoiler Map :

Gotm01-01

• Cacaivs
• Nov 11, 2016

 

[Sempronius]

I don't think I've seen so many submissions for a GOTM in a long while. This was my 2nd game and first as Rome, so it wasn't spectacular, but a victory is a victory.

How many cities did you settle or capture? - didn't count, probably 30 or so
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? - military tech to start, I wiped out France and Egypt to clear the terrain and took Moscow when Russia forward settled on me. I mostly played peaceful after that with some very short wars with Arabia and Spain.
- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain. - Not really, I had a pantheon but I didn't try for a religion and just took which ever came.
- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective? - Only in the first 100 turns really, I bee-lined military techs and ended up using artillery against chariots. In hind sight I should have just kept going and cleared the continent, but I didn't.
- Were City-States helpful? - yes, they tended to have more gold and production than other civs so I traded mostly with city states.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? - not really, still just getting used to the new version
- Did you enjoy the game? - yes, very much

 

[rockytop00]

569 points, turn 358. Not the best but fun none the less!

- How many cities did you settle or capture? -- captured 2 (france), settled a bunch, 9 or 10
- What did you prioritize for research and policies? -- went straight for science techs, then back filled in the rest of the tech tree.
- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain. -- NOPE
- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective? -- Just with France in the beginning 100 turns
- Were City-States helpful? -- Yes I think so... used them for extra production
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? -- not really, barbarians were a pain in my butt, surprised at espionage against my industrial zones.
- Did you enjoy the game? -- OMG yes more please. I want to replay this one but somehow playing it over seems kinda boring... maybe I will play it over later in the month.

 

[AndrewN]

Victory by space race in 1887 with a score of about 861. I didn't note down the scores before I left the victory screen.

For cities, I settles Rome in place and built 2 more close in, and the France declared war on me and took one of my cities. I had just teched legions so I let them roll, recaptured my city and both of France's. I then turned round and captured all three of Egypt's as well as 2 settlers she had hanging round.
Much later I built another city to capture some nice looking land. So that's 6 settled (2 with captured settlers) and 5 captures.

After that I sim-citied to space. This was my first game of Civ 6 so I had little idea what I was doing so most of my decisions were fairly random biased on what felt right.

The only effect religion had was for Spain's missionaries to get in the way when he was spamming them. I was worried for a while that Spain would win a religious victory, but converting cities seems tricky and I was in no danger.

I did a little bit or warring as described above. For most of the game I wanted to take Russia (see below) but I restrained myself. Russia attacked a city state early on, but took ages to take it and ended up with only 2 cities.

I felt the city states were very helpful, the extra they give for virtually no input from me was nice and the Suzerian bonuses I got (especially from Stockholm) I felt helped a lot. Towards the end I was getting so many Great People I was just parking them.

The main surprise was towards the end. I was building military units while waiting for the space ship to complete and Russia declared war with 2 turns until I won. A few turns earlier he was friendly and so I'm not sure what happened. He did ask me about my units and I said I wasn't going to do anything with them, then I got a message saying I hadn't moved them from the border, although they weren't on the border (unlike Russia's units which were) and the Russia went neutral, unhappy and declared a surprise war in what felt like consecutive turns.

Unfortunately for him, his knights were a little out matched by my modern armour and my units were knocking on his cities just as I won.

I did enjoy the game, the start was nice although no horses and no iron was a bit of a pain. I was slow to cut the jungle down, next time I will probably be quicker. It took a long time to understand the luxury system and I could have been more efficient there.I should have taken Russia sooner, the cities were nice and may have helped for a quicker victory.

I also really messed up the end bit and I was very slow at building the space pieces and so I was researching Future tech 5 or 6 by the end.

I did like playing and I will probably play the next one as well. I learnt a lot about the game and space was the right victory path as it requires going deep into the tech tree so I got experience of (just about) everything.

Looking forward to the next game in the new year

 

[VirginiaRounder]

Victory on Turn 353, score was 874 (Louis XVI). Not that great, I guess! Was fun though. Look forward to trying other leaders and victory types!

 

[Estoqua]

Victory after 334 Turns, 1913, Score 742

How many cities did you settle or capture?
Cities settled: 8
Cities captured: 7, 3 from France (eliminated), 3 from Russia (eliminated) 1 Kumasi (City State)
Cities liberated: 1 Hong Kong City State, from Cleopatra

What did you prioritize for research and policies?
First focus was
Pottery - writing - mining - irrigation - bronze working - masonry - wheel - animal husbandry - archery. I soon was one or two eras ahead, mostly focusing on the prerequisites of Science victory with the one or other Eureka.
The starting order wasn't ideal though.

In Civics it was
Foreign Trade - Craftmanship - state workforce - Early Empire - Political Philosophy, later towards exploration, suffrage and space race of course.
I focused on policies boosting science and gold output mostly.

Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
I attempted to get a prophet, but with Arabia around I lost the last one. (I met Arabia rather late, before Spain and China) And in the late game I had to deal a lot with missionary/apostle spam, more in the next paragraph.

How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
I had to deal with France declaring war twice when she still had only slingers and warriors, the second time I finished her off, because her spies could be dangerous lategame.
Pretty late into the game Russia declared war, similarly I took him out (and Kumasi), especially since by then religious victory from Germany was imminent.
To avoid being spammed with missionaries/apostles and being defeated that way I also declared war on Germany and Spain to get rid of their religious units and made peace some time later. I used the time in between to convert my cities to the original religion Cleopatra was spreading using the only Holy site I built.
The last war was initiated by Cleopatra who earlier has taken over Hong Kong. Liberating Hong Kong helped boost the production output again, before I made peace with her. For the rest of the game (<30 turns) I was mostly denounced for warmongering.

Were City-States helpful?
I put my envoys both into the production, science and gold city states and was suzerain of some for quite some time. Taking over Kumasi (culture) was more of an accident during the war with Russia.

Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Except for the loss of the last prophet and immense amount of GP I got because of the Divine Spark Pantheon there were no real surprizes. Maybe the fact that I had 3 cities faster than any AI and that my neighbors (especially Russia and Arabia) stayed pretty small till late in the game (3 Cities each).

Did you enjoy the game?
It was a really nice map, even though I didn't get to move to the other continent or trade with China/Spain. Maybe a bit too easy AI settings and starting in the jungle is a pain.
At least by now I know what to focus on, especially for Science Victory: Campus (obviously), Commercial District (Traderoutes/extra gold), Industrial Zone (production and tradeable production)
If you want to boost your projects, just make a lot of cities with Industrial districts and trade from your project City.
The only annoyance would be spies.
Also this was my first time on a Game of the Month.

 

[Hardcorey]

Finished on turn 319 with a score of 679. Science victory.

Settled 6 cities, captured 5.

I really tried to work with the rainforest and boosted their effectiveness by:

1. Getting the pantheon that boosts holy site adjacency bonuses next to rainforests
2. Building a holy site early on right in the middle of a big patch of rainforests
3. Using the civic that doubles faith adjacency bonuses (now getting an adjacency bonus of 12 from that 1 site)
4. Getting the Great Scientist that matches faith adjacency bonuses for a holy site and provides the same amount of science
5. Rushing Chichen Itza

That provided a huge boost in science and faith early on. I then picked the religious belief that lets you buy campus and theatre district buildings with faith and that's how I built almost all my campus buildings.

Thanks to this forum and the people who played the game better than I did, I realized I should have been more aggressive every step of the way. Specifically, I now see that I should have:

- Expanded earlier and faster, so I didn't hit population caps as often
- Attacked Egypt earlier, because I just steamrolled them
- Attacked France and Russia in hopes that I'd find cities with more production and/or get boosts from more industrial zones
- Rushed a Spaceport in a city, so I could get those first 2 projects rolling faster
- Built my Ruhr Valley in a city with more mines
- Not picked the belief that makes missionaries and apostles cheaper.

This was my first time playing a Civ Fanatics GOTM and I had a great time. It's so much better playing with you folks than just playing alone. Looking forward to many more games to come.

Spoiler :

 

[bbbearbbb]

Been a while since last posted, just started playing games again after long layoff.

Finished around turn 246 with a bit over 1000 points.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Had around 30 cities on the continent in total, captured 9.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Slinger,Builder,Slinger,Slinger,Slinger,Slinger, then can't remember but maybe Settler.
Firstly set up Commercial Districts and trade routes to get economy going, had a couple Campus, and Industrial Zones in every city. Went mostly for Great People points.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Ignored religion.

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
Took out France in the first 40 turns or so, then Russia a dozen turns later, Arabia went around turn 110, then Egypt maybe 30 turns later.

- Were City-States helpful?
Was Suzerain of all CS on my continent, and most on the other continent including Toronto, Lisbon, Zanzibar and one other.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Building huge amounts of cities with Industrial Zones is OP. Many cities had 100-150 production by end of game, so built a lot of wonders.
Made a mistake and build the Spaceports in my 2nd, 3rd, and 6th highest production cities, rather than top 3.
Managed to deplete the Great Merchants, Great Scientists, and got most of the Great Engineers, including all the Space Race bonus ones.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Having to manage so many cities gets tedious. The game crashes every now and then which is annoying.

 

[amh52]

Science Victory Turn 307 - 1870 AD

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled 5, captured 5 (plus one right at the end).

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Tried to Eureka as much as possible
Science: Writing, Legions, Education, Factories, Rocketry
Culture: Did not prioritize much, went for what seemed useful at the time. Pushed for Democracy towards the end.

- Ignored religion

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
France, Russia and Arabia all declared on me early. I took out Catherine and Peter, but gave peace to Saladin (might have been a mistake)
Also captured Kumasi
At the end Egypt attacked. I took a city off her but did not bother to finish her off.

- Were City-States helpful?
Yes for science and production. Didn't meet the ones on the other continent

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
It took forever to finish all the parts for science victory. It looks like I need to learn a few things about boosting production outputs

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, the beginning was a lot of fun. The end was a bit tedious though waiting for all the parts to be finished.