6otM 01 - After Actions

[Kulko]

I am an old Veteran from the heydays of CIV III and IV who got the Game in the recent steam sale. Tried it out a bit and it seemed still enjoyable so I decided to give the old tradition of GOTM a try. The first one sounded like just my cup of tea so I went for it.

The game went surprisingly smoothly considering that I had no more than a couple fo game starts and some youtube videos under my belt and I cruised to a late victory in Turn 334 with a score of 804. which would have put me in place 60 out of 114.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
I initially settled 6 cities in the land between the west cost, Stockholm and Hongkong/Kumasi. I somehow mismanaged the Iron, so I was already rushing out of the middle ages until I could build legions.
By then I also realized that I might have problems with the strategic ressources so when France and Arabia declared a surprise war I decided to expand a bit and conquer first France and then Egypt for another 10 cities. Since neither of them had any army to speak of it was just a matter of build 6 Infantry/Artillery and then walk over them.
By then problems with the amenities started to kick in and I decided to return to a peaceful game until the end.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Nothing really, I tried to use as much eurekas in the start as possible, but fell behind in building things fast enough to keep up with my science pace.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Notz sure how important it was I also grabbed one of the religions and then did nothign with it all game long. should have probably ignored that and put the effort somewhere else.

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
See above.
I felt like my midgame warring provided me with quite a boost on my Culture and my science output, so it was probably helpful even if it meant spending 20 turns churning out units instead of other things.

- Were City-States helpful?
I used them a lot and it feld quite helpful. If I would have had a more streamlined approach to districting It might have been even better.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
I was a bit surprised by how weak my neighbiours were, buit I believe France was extremely hussled by southern barbarians.
I also missed how strong germany was on the other continent, costing me GS Newton, and actually reaching Rocketry before me. That wasquite a shock when I opened trhat victory display for the first time. But then they stalled out and didn't even finish the sattelite mission before I won.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Well Science is always a bit lengthy in the end, but overall it was a great experience and I decided to go all in on the upgrade packs to be able to join the current games as soon as the next ones come out.
Although I realized R&F and GS introduce quite a lot of new mechanics I should orbabaly read up on before I start.

 

[cia08mjs]

Ill over the Easter weekend, thought I'd try the GotM challenges - the best place to start seems like the beginning:

SV turn 237 (recorded as 236 in the hall of fame?) Score 760

Spoiler :

- How many cities did you settle or capture?
21 all told, 16 of my own, from memory 4 with stolen settlers. 1 Russian, 1 (their only) French and 3 Egyptian captured. Just about achieved the de rigeuer 10 cities by turn 100. Left all the city states alone and didn't interfere with the western continent barring a very late settler nicked from barbarians and used to create a picturesque resort next to the barrier reef.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
No extreme beelining but obviously tried for rocketry as soon as feasible, by which point science per turn wasn't a problem and the critical path became production for space projects.

- Did religion come into play in your game, please explain.
Not at all!

- How much warring did you do? Was it effective in supporting your Science objective?
Moderate amount. Russia surprise attacked early on and lost a city for their troubles, used the same legion/archer defence force to snipe a French settler then capture Paris. Nicked a settler off Arabia somehwere in there as well. Mid game Egypt forward settled me then attacked, that cost them 3 cities including their capital and a 4th that those maniacs from Hong Kong burned down before I could get to it, plus a roaming settler. At that point I'd lost a few units and decided against investing in reinforcements to focus on science. Turn 180 or so I nicked another settler off the Russians and pillaged and load of faith and gold off them.

Paris ended up my most productive city so that was a big gain, as was capturing the Pyramids in Ra-Kedet for extra builder charges. The late game faith/gold pillaging of Russia was handy in the push for space race great scientists/engineers. The free settlers came in very handy - haven't seen so many unguarded playing the DLC, wonder if that's just coincidence?

One thing I should probably have done is taken the Russian capital - surrounded by productive terrain which seems to matter much more in the base game without the mad industrial adjacencies provided by aqueducts, dams etc.

- Were City-States helpful?
Got Stockholm early, helped with great scientists. Reading the posts in this thread Toronto was incredible before the stacking factory/power plant bonus was removed - 2016, a simpler time. Otherwise the way the base game bonuses work imo makes getting the 3 and 6 envoy thresholds more important than suzerainty. I should probably have invaded Kumasi though, for their lovely mines.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Being used to the DLCs, the surprises were in adapting to the base game. Chopping woods without first installing Magnus made me itch. The importance of productive tiles over industrial zone adjacencies and power plants threw me. I forgot that multiple Mars mission projects could be worked at once, but fortunately I'd built a few space ports anyway.

- Did you enjoy the game?
Yep. Like a lot of people I often lose interest in the late game optimisation once ahead of the AI, so the push to finish up and post in here was nice.

 

[arthur486]

@cia08mjs When I started playing older games of the month I've noticed a lot of bugs due to them being created with way older versions of the game (building and bonus production not calculated/applied correctly etc.). In case you notice anything funny it could be worth it to start with the latest 6otM and go backward from there .